Self-effacing and self-defeating leadership: Adlai E. Stevenson

Using neo-Freudian analysis, this essay argues that as a child Adlai Steven son experienced shame, anxiety, and ambivalence about the value and consequ ences of his initiative and autonomy. He responded with an imaginative copi ng mechanism, creating an idealized image in which ambition and autonomy we re subordinated to duty and service. After a sequence of sealing events dur ing the Eriksonian period of identity versus role confusion, he resolved hi s identity crisis by becoming, in his mind, his idealized image. This conce ption of Stevenson's character provides a rich explanation of his behavior in the presidential nomination contests of 1952 and 1960.