Alive and Kicking: The Problematics of Political Psychobiography

Abstract The subjects studied by political psychobiographers are in many ways similar to other psychobiographical subjects. Political figures move through a lifetime of psychological development, engage in social interactions, reach and carry out decisions, make public statements, leave private records. In all those regards, the study of their lives presents the same challenges and offers the same opportunities for psychological analysis as the study of philosophers, creative artists, and scientific theorists. But a major subset of subjects within political psychobiography is distinctive in one important way: They are alive and kicking. They are not only not dead (in dramatic contrast to the subjects of most psychobiographies); they are also busily pursuing their political careers. They are current candidates for office, or occupants of elective or appointive office, or self-appointed leaders of nations and mass movements. However they got to where they are, their active political involvement presents their would-be psychobiographers with problems seldom encountered in other parts of the field.