| Abstract [eng] |
Relationship Between State and Leader: The Changing Reputation of the US in the Eyes of Europeans Since the end of the Cold War, relations between the US and other NATO countries (Germany, France, United Kingdom) have been mixed. The transatlantic partnership between the US and other NATO countries has become less united. There is now a perception in the media that the US has damaged its relations with European countries the most during Trump's presidency. The volatility of US-EU relations is the problem within this paper: it is not clearly known why, despite the divergent attitudes of Europeans towards US presidents and the change in the reputation of the US in relation to the personality of the US president, US-EU relations and problem-solving have not changed significantly. Therefore, when analyzing the trust ratings of the US Presidents in relation to each other and the media's portrayal of Trump's decisions and activities, we can compare which events or presidential decisions have the biggest impact on the US reputation. The aim of this Master's thesis is to determine how the personality traits and decisions of specific Presidents lead to changes in the US reputation. The thesis pursues this aim by means of the following objectives: to explain, on the basis of rationalist and constructivist theories of state reputation, what reputation is and how it is formed; to analyze how the reputation of the USA and its presidents in the eyes of European societies changes over time; to analyze whether and how a country's reputation is influenced by the personal qualities, behavior and decisions made by its presidents. The comparison and correlation between the 2003-2021 favorability ratings for the US and the presidential trust ratings confirmed the first hypothesis that the reputation of a country is influenced by a change of leader. The study shows that presidential reputation tends to fluctuate more intensively than national reputation, which explains why national reputation is affected by the reputation of the leader. Combining the findings of the first and second study, it can be argued that the reputation of the leader is influenced by the opinions expressed in the media. In 2019-2020, the polls were unfavorable to D. Trump. An analysis of articles on news websites shows that there was an increase in the number of articles negatively assessing the US President's policy decisions during that year, which contributed to an overall lower rating in the polls. The hypothesis that the reputation of a head of state is influenced by the way the media presents information can be confirmed, as the second study showed a clear increase in articles criticizing D. Trump's political decisions, and the results for both countries showed the same trend in both the first and the second study. The third hypothesis, that a leader's reputation is more influenced by decisions than personal characteristics, is supported by the results of the second study in both countries. The fairly similar results in both countries are the strongest support for this hypothesis. It can be predicted that the importance of a leader's reputation for the state's reputation will continue. Scandalous presidential speeches, discouraging character traits of the leader, important political decisions will influence the reputation of presidents and thus the reputation of the state. The decisions or character traits of a single President will not change the reputation of the US in the long term, as the US is a constitutional republic with a stable political, economic and military system, and Presidents usually serve only two terms and do not seek to dominate the political system for longer than the term of office allows. |
