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Political Leadership Specialist Group

The systematic study of political leadership in the political sciences is relatively new but, although it is a newcomer as a mainstream preoccupation, there is no doubt as to the pertinence of the topic. Indeed, McGregor Burns once remarked that leadership is ‘one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth’; with this in mind it is the intention of our specialist group to contribute to the level of knowledge and understanding of political leadership in Western liberal democracies. We aim to promote the study of political leadership, both in its moral and operational aspects.

It has been generally agreed that leadership as a political institution has had effects on the wider systems even if those are uncertain and their mechanisms disputed. If political institutions are to approach optimality then the essential link is political leadership. It thus remains a key area of study and a test bed for assumptions about political behaviour and models and approaches in contemporary political science. Leadership has been investigated by the psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists as well as by philosophers and historians. Leadership, in a wider sense, has also been a burgeoning feature of management and business studies for whom it is a practical matter (and has consequently spawned a vast range of handbooks of variable quality). Mention must also be made of the anthropological study of leadership and the insights that discipline has brought to western political management and of sociology where the concepts developed by Weber, ‘charisma’ in particular, have been widely deployed. There is also the ethical angle developed particularly during wartimes (and awaiting further development) and the view that political leaders are not absolved from the ordinary canons of moral conduct is widely held.

Thus, we hope to explore western political leadership from the viewpoint of the discipline in its many aspects, practical and moral, and to disseminate this material. We are interested in comparable western systems because these have an approximate equivalence and they face similar problems of governance (not dictatorship or military governments which are specialist areas in themselves). We should emphasise that we are interested in political leadership both in theoretical terms and in a wide range of political contexts – political parties, national governments, supranational bodies, sub-national and regional bodies, comparative studies etc. We will include administrative/bureaucratic leadership and we include members who have written on leadership in Whitehall. Also we are interested in contemporary studies and historical angles and studies. We would like to bridge the gap between the popular views of politics (very leadership oriented) and academic studies (which emphasise the long-term and impersonal). Moreover, what there is on political leadership is mainly American where it is a specialist sub-field of its own in the main revolving around the US presidency. There are distinguished studies of political leadership from different angles and approaches in the UK (these include the works of Atkinson, Blondel, Ionescu, and of Iremonger and others) but these need to be supported by further work in this field.

All this means that we have a broad-ranging academic agenda and that we are open to and would welcome members from a wide range of backgrounds and specialisms.

In sum, the group intends to hold conferences and would organise panels at the PSA, and disseminate findings through the web site as well as encouraging publication of findings and further research. As this is a first publication of the details of the group we are actively recruiting and new members are invited to contact us via the website (there is no subscription).

Further Aims and Objectives:

The Political Leadership Specialist Group aims to:

1. To provide a constructive critique and application of current theories of political leadership.
2. Develop concepts and models of political leadership.
3. Bring to bear interdisciplinary insights into political leadership.
4. Evaluate the recent theories of leadership as developed by researchers (mainly United States) and test these in European circumstances.
5. Use case studies to explore the nature of political leadership in circumstances of opposition and government as well as in coalition building and party leadership. (In such areas of study we would hope to apply for panel(s) at the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) specialist group conferences).
6. Seek to build a more solid understanding of political leadership in Western liberal democracies through hypothesis testing and model building.
7. To bring the ideas of about political leadership and its evaluation into the mainstream of the political and social sciences in Britain and Europe.
8. To apply the lessons of political leadership studies to individual cases and to promote the understanding of the techniques involved in political leadership in different European contexts.
9. To contribute to the academic, political and public debate about political leadership.

Convenor:
Professor David Bell
School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS)
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: 0113 343 4397
email: d.s.bell@leeds.ac.uk

Treasurer:
Dr David Seawright
POLIS
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: 0113 343 4397
email: d.seawright@leeds.ac.uk