HOW MUCH DOES POLITICAL LEADERSHIP MATTER?
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What is statecraft and how relevant are statesmen in its pursuit? And why
doesn’t political science study leadership (“agency”) much? Example: realism
vs. comparative politics (structuralism, and social forces, and institutionalism)
vs. political psychology
Most important political thinkers (except for Marx) have thought strong,
morally-driven, visionary leaders are really important (i.e., “transformational
rather than transactional”) are important, so why do leaders matter so much
less in the advanced democracies than elsewhere?
Why do leaders in general seem to matter a whole bunch less than they used
to?: Democratization, technology, institutional learning, cultural change
Some leadership terms you should know: Dictators vs. tyrants vs. totalitarians,
demagogues/populists, modernizing tyrants, citizen-leaders, figureheads,
“heads of government” vs “heads of state,” PMs vs. presidents…
What’s the difference between a “delegate” and a “trustee”? What kind of
leaders are best? Technocrats and politicos: Which is better?
WHEN DO POLITICAL LEADERS MATTER?
• James McGregor Burns/Nye: Transformational (necessary & mostly
sufficient for outcomes) vs. transactional (outcome benders) leaders
• As Nye points out, some politicians have inspirational (it looks like
transformational) “style” but pursue incremental or SQ objectives,
while other pols may show a transactional “style” while pursuing
transformational objectives (Deng Xioaping vs. Mao Zedong)
• The factors that matter in how much autonomous power leaders
will have:
– Institutional place and actual powers (foreign vs. domestic
presidencies)
– Crises allow for openings as do where a system is in its historical
cycle (“wave” elections)
– The selectorate: Who, its openness to change, what it requires
with respect to leader initiative, its acceptance for and frequency
with which it evaluates failure (two terms pushes presidents to
be ambitious, but perhaps too attentive to historical legacy)
WHEN DO POLITICAL LEADERS MATTER?
What’s going on in leader’s head matters a lot, too.
– The way s/he thinks: cognitive style (openness, complexity),
primary motivation (achievement, affiliation, or power) , world
view (operational code), and traits (e.g. risk, extraversion,
agreeableness, openness to new experiences, conscientiousness,
emotional stability)
– Personality (Problematic types: Narcissism, paranoia, obsessive
compulsive)
– Mukunda: At least in the US and Britain: How much previous
experience a politician has will strongly impact their willingness
to be transformational… The more experience, the less likely to
think and do radical things.
– If you want to read more on political psychology, review Davide
Winter’s article
WHAT MAKES SOME US PRESIDENTS
BETTER THAN OTHERS?
What makes a “great” president?
Context and setting
• The constitutional presidency, party politics, and changes over time
• Stephen Skowronek’s notion of “political time”
• Presidential staffs: Gatekeepers, groupthink
• Institutional cultures/autonomy, SOPs, and leadership choices
• Bureaucratic politics
Does the individual president matter?
• What kind of leader does our electoral system produce?
• James David Barber’s work on presidential character: active/passive;
pos./negative
• Richard Neudstadt’s ideas about “political capital”
• Jeff Tullis’s “rhetorical president”
• But again, remember Nye’s caution that transactional leaders can be
better.