Political Leadership

1. Political Leadership Alistair Cole

2. Political leadership • A key distinguishing feature within the academic literature has been between those advocating universal propositions about political leadership; and those concerned with a more limited, usually national, framework • Jean Blondel’s attempt to construct a universal model of political leadership proves the weaknesses of over-ambitious definitions of leadership. • Blondel proposes a general model of political leadership claimed to be valid for all polities. Little account of different systemic contexts within which leadership is exercised; for instance between liberal democratic, authoritarian, traditional or military leaderships. Extensive coverage… but what really is being said?

3. Definitions • Blondel: leadership is ‘ability to make others do what they would not otherwise do’. Classic face of power (Lukes). Leadership is exercise of coercive power. • Elgie, 'political leadership is best understood as the control over the public policy-making process by a particular institution'. This adds something, but limits the study of political leadership to one of interaction between formal institutions, and overlooks or underplays the mobilising aspect of individual political action. • Charismatic leadership (Weber). Leadership as innate quality • Leader-follower relations ( Burns) Leadership relational • Symbolic leadership (Edelman) • Psycho-biographies and socio-psychological studies define leadership in terms of personal attributes of leaders, typically ‘authoritarian personality’ (Little). • Leadership can be all of these…a transversal concept which requires framework of analyses to allow operationalisation.

4. Framework of analysis 1. • Leadership is multidisciplinary. It has attracted work in the fields of psychology, management studies, organisational theory, and history, as well as from political scientists. • Most involve some combination of the personal qualities of leaders, their positional strengths and weaknesses, and the wider environmental and cultural constraints and opportunities that help shape their political leadership. • Individual level analysis. The personality traits associated with leadership (what distinguishes leaders from routine office-holders, for instance) . Do particular psychological character traits (such as an authoritarian personality) predispose certain individuals for political leadership? Does individual skill and choice play a role? • Middle level analysis. The institutional offices or positions occupied by leaders. Leadership as part of broader core executive studies. Can we make generalisations about parliamentary, presidential, semi-presidential systems of government and the leadership styles they produce? Leadership styles, roles, positions and institutions. • Macro-levels of analysis The political environment or settings within which political leaders operate. Are certain types of leader (for example the caretaker, the authoritarian, the visionary, or the coalition broker) suited to certain types of environmental setting? How are constraints framed as opportunities • These levels of analysis involve broader questions of structure and agency. Are political leaders bound by structural and political constraints; how far are they free agents, able to determine leadership goals and policy outcomes?

5. Individual level analysis • Personal character traits are an important facet of an ability to exercise political leadership. • The leadership qualities of decisiveness, strength, resolution, risk-taking, vision and imagination are differentially distributed, irrespective of wider structural circumstances. • Different personal skills are appropriate to varying leadership styles and circumstances. Certain leaders appear to possess personal characteristics enabling them to leave their permanent imprint upon their offices. the examples of Charles de Gaulle in France and Konrad Adenuaer in Germany were exemplary in this respect. • As with the French presidency and de Gaulle, the character of the German Chancellorship owes a great deal to the legacy of the first Chancellor, Adenauer. Adenauer crafted the chancellorship into a powerful weapon of executive leadership. • ‘Great Men’ in history approach – and its critics • Leadership vision and ability to articulate the spirit of the times.

6. Middle level analysis: institutions, roles, styles, positions • What leadership roles are performed? Successful political leadership in complex liberal democracies depends upon the ability to perform different roles appropriate to variable contexts. • The qualities required of a party manager are not necessarily the same as those for a governmental coordinator; the skills required for domestic economic management are distinct from those of the foreign policy suzerain. • The extent to which individual political leaders are able to carry out particular roles is predicated in part upon the nature of the office they occupy; Mitterrand and Thatcher performed foreign policy roles that were, arguably, not available to Chancellor Kohl in the 1980s, on account of the constrained leadership setting within which German chancellors then operated. The structure of the domestic political system is one very important dimension of political leadership. • But roles are not, literally, pre-given. To a degree, individuals can determine the roles they perform, or even invent new ones. Sarkozy is arguably crafting the French presidency into a new type of political office

7. Environmental settings • Environment: broad set of external constraints within which an office has to operate; setting, referring mainly to domestic political rules of the game • In all European Union countries, the ability of national governments to control policy-making has diminished, as a result of the growing influence of the EU over economic and financial policy, and – especially, as a result of globalisation of international economic and financial exchanges. • The countries of continental Europe each have their own political cultures/state traditions, which mediate the impact of globalised exchanges and norms. The country unit of analysis retains pertinence. Debates about convergence and national policy styles remain vitally important… at least in the domain of leadership styles

8. Environmental settings… • The case of Germany illustrates well the interplay between domestic and EU/international politics .The domestic political setting within which a German chancellor functions is far more restricted than that of his French or British counterparts. Post-war German political leadership has been built upon a political structure which embodies the diffusion of power across several interlocking institutions. • While the German chancellor is domestically constrained by interlocking institutions, the importance of Germany within the EU and world affairs provides a set of opportunities for a German chancellor to impose domestic political leadership

9. Environmentalsettings and the French presidency • Environmental settings refer to the broad backdrop against which leadership operates, both externally and domestically. • France in the 1960s is not the same as France in the 2000s. De Gaulle’s leadership was crafted in the context of regime change, decolonization, social and economic take-off, the formative stages of European integration and the stabilization of the cold war that allowed the General to develop original nuclear and foreign policy doctrines. • By the time of Sarkozy’s arrival in office in 2007, the political institutions, though contested by much of political and public opinion, had proved their flexibility. Decolonisation still provoked occasional controversies but only as part of France’s historical heritage. The European Union had expanded from 6 to 27 members and the cold war was a distant memory. • The specific circumstances of the 1960s that encouraged de Gaulle to craft a distinctive leadership role no longer prevailed in the 1990s and 2000s. Domestically, the constitutional-legal settings have been affected by changes in the external environment. • Legal Europeanisation impacts upon even the most activist of French Presidents, as Sarkozy is discovering.

10. Institutions and Positions: can we generalisations about Presidential Leadership The key principle of the (limited) presidential system of the US is that one individual - the President - symbolises the political executive, and is ultimately responsible for the activities of the government. The US President combines the functions of Head of State and Head of Government. • In limited presidential systems, governments are responsible to the President alone, and can not be overturned by elected Parliaments. They will, however, change with a change of presidential incumbent. • In the US system, there is a separation of powers, with legislative, executive and judicial branches of government separate from each other and providing checks and balances on each other’s operation. • In most countries with powerful Presidents, however, there is no such pattern of divided government – and the presidential form equates with a powerful form of unchecked – and often corrupt – executive power (the model in much of Africa, for example). • All such analyses are contingent upon 1). constraints and opportunities 2), personal dimension invested in the office

11. Institutions and Position: generalisations about Parliamentary leadership? • In parliamentary systems government is held to be a collective enterprise: responsibility for government decisions is invested in a collective body known as a cabinet, or a Council of ministers. • The Prime minister is the foremost personality within Cabinet, but decision-making is collective. The PM is not directly elected, and can be overturned by a negative vote in an elected Parliament. In parliamentary systems, governments are held to be responsible to elected Assemblies, themselves representative of the people. • In a pure presidential system, such as the US, the executive is separate from the legislature: members of the US government can not be members of Congress as well. In a parliamentary system, such as the UK, the executive is drawn from the legislature: members of the government are first elected as members of Parliament. In nearly all European states, there is a fusion of powers, rather than a strict separation. • But parliamentary regimes can assume widely diverging forms – as the examples of Britain, Italy, Germany…they can encompass Majoritarian but also Consensual democracies in Lijphart’s terminology

12. Britain and the majoritarian leadership style • UK The British Premier, by any standards, occupies a key leadership position within the family of west European nations. • British prime ministers have often appeared in a stronger leadership position than their European counterparts. There is a close linkage between the leadership of an electorally majoritarian political party and the exercise of the office of Prime minister. • Election campaigns are centred around the personalities of rival party leaders, as much as the policies espoused by their parties; the success of Tony Blair in 1997 was testament to this. • There is also a close relationship between electoral success and government formation. Strengthened by the majoritarian effects of the first-past-the post electoral system, elections tend to produce single party majorities. • Unlike their German, Italian and French counterparts, they have not been tightly constrained by a written constitution outlining their powers and responsibilities; indeed, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty removes most checks and balances on a British premier’s use of executive authority, on condition that a parliamentary majority is retained.

13. The fragility of British majoritarian leadership • British premiers have powerful sources of patronage at their disposal; each recent incumbent has made regular use of their freedom to hire and fire ministerial colleagues. At the height of her activism in July 1989, for instance, Mrs Thatcher replaced or reshuffled 12 out of 21 Cabinet ministers. • Successful Prime ministers have usually been able to rely on disciplined party support. But Thatcher, Major, Blair all constrained by their parties. • The departure of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 or Blair in 2007 also revealed the limits to prime ministerial power in Britain, however; a disillusioned party will not tolerate a leader with whom it has lost faith, even when this is an incumbent prime minister. • While ministerial autonomy is less manifest than in the German case, any British Prime minister must be careful not to ride roughshod over powerful ministers. An embattled premier such as Blair could not afford to lose senior ministerial colleagues; hence the effectiveness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown

14. Germany and the consensual leadership style. • In the context of the constrained setting discussed before, German Chancellors have generally proved strong leaders. • In Germany the post-war period has seen the emergence of a strong political office in the form of the Chancellor. The pre‑eminence of the Chancellor was recognised in the Basic Law (Guidelines principle) strengthened by the following provisions • He can not be dismissed by the President of the Republic (unlike in France) • He can only be dismissed by the Bundestag in the event of a vote of ‘constructive no confidence’ being passed against him. This involves an absolute majority against the incumbent chancellor in the Bundestag ‑ an unlikely occurrence except for a shift in policy alliances. • The CVNC has been a German constitutional export: Spain and Poland have followed suit. • This position reinforced by the Convention that he should be appointed for the duration of a legislature. The only exceptions to this rule have been Adenauer's retirement in 1963, and the resignations of Brandt, Schmidt in mid‑office and Schroder’s 2005 dissolution.

15. German Chancellor 2 • Strong incentives for the leadership style to be consensual. The forces militating against a ‘majoritarian’ leadership style : • the compromises inherent in coalition management, • the impact of factional politics within the governing coalition, • the federal system, which vests important veto powers in the hands of state governments and the second chamber; • veto players and sectoral corporatism as a model of state-group relations, and • the impact of a particular institutional/constitutional framework designed to dissipate decision-making authority across separate, but interdependent institutions. • According to the principle of Ressortprinzip, enshrined in the Basic law, each Minister is responsible for running his own department, and the Chancellor can not order a Minister to run department in a different way (unlike in the UK, eg). • And fixed-term parliaments effectively make it extremely difficult for Chancellors to dissolve the Bundedstag, in order to seek general elections at favourable moments: this is one of the reasons which makes the British leaders so powerful. • Between 1949 and 2007, Germany had shown more stability of personnel than in any other of the countries considered: it had only 8 Chancellors during this period (Adenauer, Erhard, Kiesinger, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl, Schroder and Merkel).

16. Can we generalise about the Semi-presidential model? • The semi-presidential system combines features of the presidential and the parliamentary.A semi-presidential system combines a directly elected President and a government responsible to parliament. • The President is directly elected for a five year period: direct election confers a status on the French President which his colleagues find difficult to match. • French Presidents dispose of powerful sources of political patronage, and most Presidents have been backed by solid parliamentary majorities. Whatever the French constitution says, French Presidents have ‘hired and fired’ prime ministers and ministers; and had control over core policy choices. • Francois (2008): France’s semi-presidential system equates with the lack of political responsibility of the core executive leader, the President, who is de facto unaccountable. • Executive drawn in part only from elected Assembly. Rule of incompatibility. Nomination by President of personalities who have not been elected • Have the Quinquennat reforms of 2000 relegated cohabitation (1986-88, 1993-95; 1997-) to history? • A model that is not really for export?

17. Poland and Czech Republic • Czech Republic and Poland. In both cases, early transition saw the development of strong Presidents.. but , faced with the accession process and problems of political majroty building, Prime ministers, at the head of shifting party coalitions, have emerged as much stronger figures, with the corresponding decline of the Presidency.

18. Comparing (French) Political Leaders • Heading the Republic is not simply a structural given. The fortunes of the presidency have varied throughout the Fifth Republic, according to a mix of constitutional provisions, political opportunity structures (including the party system) and the individual style that successive presidents have brought to the office. From the above analysis, three core criteria are identified for comparing our French Presidents: these are the ‘spirit of the times’; role versus style; and the capacity for personal leadership.

19. The spirit of the times • The office of the French presidency was shaped in the 1960s under specific historical circumstances and as a by- product of the strong personal leadership of de Gaulle. Though times and circumstances have changed, the office remains strongly influenced by the nature of its creation and the personality of its creator. • Until Sarkozy, all subsequent presidents refrained from defining individual styles that broke too radically with the Gaullist legacy. This legacy is especially pertinent in foreign affairs and in the construction of the presidential office as involving a dialogue between a leader and his people. • Even Sarkozy has taken to comparing himself to General de Gaulle and, like de Gaulle, Sarkozy claims to stand for restoring strong political leadership at the centre of the state. But Sarkozy has pushed furthest the break with the inherited roles of the office, dispensing almost entirely with the fiction of a supra-partisan, non-interventionist President that was the principal legacy of de Gaulle. More than any of his predecessors, Sarkozy has sought to adapt the presidential office to the ‘spirit of the times’ which is manifestly no longer that of the 1960s

20. Role versus Style • The office of the presidency might be considered in its own terms as an institution in two core senses of this term. It is defined in precise ways by constitutional rules and legal norms. It also represents a set of expectations about the personal and political roles that a French President ought to perform. • Though any President seeks to develop an individual style, this must take account of the existing roles that are associated with the office, especially in terms of symbols and rituals and to a lesser degree those of substantive political choice and policy content.

21. Role versus Style… • Each President subsequent to de Gaulle has attempted to impose his style on the office, but with varying success according to the individual and the policy domain concerned. • Making a difference has been most difficult in foreign policy, where hard choices have tied-in future generations and where accepted discursive registers are the most deeply ingrained. • But differentiation from the legacy of de Gaulle has increased with each presidential incumbent, at first timidly, with Pompidou, then more systematically with succeeding Presidents. Giscard d’Estaing attempted, with some success, a dual modernisation of the presidency and French society. Mitterrand incarnated both the success of the left and (in the early stages) the advent of a more directly interventionist presidency. Chirac conferred a provincial ‘Radical socialist’ image on the Elysée which marked a break with the aloofness and formality of de Gaulle, Giscard d’Estaing or Mitterrand. • Sarkozy has transformed the presidency into the hyper-presidency, the nerve centre of all operations and interventions. By the time of the Sarkozy presidency, a number of previously established roles (such as cold war leader or suprapartisan monarch) had fallen into abeyance or their substantive content had changed.

22. Personal leadership capacity • Each presidential incumbent has left his distinctive mark upon the presidency. Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand, Chirac and Sarkozy all derived their authority principally from their occupancy of the French presidency, one of the key political institutions in western liberal democracies. A convincing case might be made that de Gaulle possessed a stature which transcended the limitations of the presidency, on account of the precise historical circumstances surrounding his extraordinary political career. • Leadership also involves followership. Each of the six Presidents had dedicated bands of followers, mobilized partisans and courtesans ready to do the will of their leader. None, however, was able to put their name to a political movement that comfortably outlived his own presidency, not even de Gaulle (whose UDR was badly defeated in 1974 and transformed by Chirac into the RPR in 1976). French Presidents have been subjected to a tendency for diminishing political returns as their presidencies have progressed; this suggests a natural threshold (variable for each incumbent, but not surpassing 10 years) beyond which the effectiveness of presidential political leadership is seriously impaired and wherein the cycle of leadership resumes its course.

23. Political Leadership in comparative context (1) formal constitutional resources • Proposition 1: formal constitutional powers are a necessary, but not sufficient component of leadership • the powers vested by the constitution on the core executive leader • Power of nomination • Powers of selection and dismissal of ministers • Limits on terms in office? • Specific constitutional responsibilities, e.g. in defence • Limitations to exercise of core executive authority? EG the guarantee of individual ministerial autonomy in the FRG. • But reading a constitution might tell us little about leadership

24. Political Leadership in comparative context (2) role of party system • Proposition 2 .Role of party system the core variable • The nature of the relationship between government and governing party/coalition is vital. The colonisation of important ministries by a coalition partner (e.g. Welfare by Social democrats in Germany) can frustrate the claim by the premier to exercise political leadership. Party political and organisational variables can conflict • Style of leadership likely to be strongly influenced by the party system. Are brokerage skills rewarded, for example, or are is the relationship framed in terms of providential leader and subordination? There are no absolute rules, but behavuoural observations. • The strong prime minister at the head of a disciplined party majority is likely to exercise tighter control over government than the broker-style leader of a coalition of five or so parties….but this might be temporally bound

25. Political Leadership in comparative context (3) Nature of elective mandate • Proposition 3. Direct election and elective legitimacy. The core executive leader who has been directly elected (such as the French President) enjoys an additional elective legitimacy by comparison to parliamentary prime ministers. French President remains in office for the duration of a mandate and can not be overturned by a party or parliamentary revolt, unlike in Germany, UK or Italy. • On the other hand, direct presidential elections do not automatically invest officeholders with increased power, as the Portuguese or Finnish examples demonstrate. • New democracies in central and eastern Europe tempted by institutional design of the semi-presidential system, but in practice have evolved into parliamentary regimes.

26. Political Leadership in comparative context (4):Elections and government formation • Proposition 4 Elections and government formation. • The closer the link between electoral victory and government formation, the stronger the position of the office holder. • The strength of the British PM (and, for that matter, the German Chancellor) usually relates to the fact that s/he has led the ruling party to a victorious general election. • There is- usually - a strong relationship between general elections and government formation, even in case of the Grand coalition. • In Italy, or France, this relationship is less apparent ‑ which limits the political prestige of the Prime minister • Thus, Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair all led their parties to successive electoral victories, thereby strengthening their leadership positions. Although Thatcher and Blair was eventually overturned by a party revolt, and Kohl’s leadership threatened to go the same way, there is no doubt that Kohl and Thatcher had more authority and power than a string of Italian premiers whose occupancy of the premiership was decided by party committee in between election periods. • After all, who can remember Spaldolini in Italy?

27. Political Leadership in comparative context (5) longevity of office and diminishing returns • longevity in office. This is a precondition to exercising effective political leadership.. • Learning leadership, exploiting opportunities • Time and the temporal dimension • But experience also demonstrates that it is extremely rare for any one leader to stay in office more than 10 years or so…The nature of obstacles in the democratic process

28. Political Leadership in comparative context (6): Relationships within and beyond the core executive • Political leadership is behavioural; in part a function of the relations of political leaders with other decision-making actors, both within and outside of the core executive. • Relations between Prime ministers, Finance ministers, spending ministries often tense crystallises tensions at a macro level… duplicated by rivalries between bureaucratic divisions • Government = competition for scarce resources. Nature of bureaucratic resources, rules and regulation. Who has the best expertise? What rules govern access to these resources? How are promotions managed in the civil service? What is role of political appointments – or spoils systems • Leadership is positional + relational… Powerful external relations can strengthen a PMs internal standing.

29. Political Leadership in comparative context (7) constraints and resources • the existence or otherwise of institutional and political counter-weights to strong leadership (such as constitutional courts, a written constitution, or a constraining party system). • Trading constraints and resources: how are new constraints constructed in terms of the opportunities they present? Does leadership only become a behavioural reality in times of adversity? Is the key to leadership the translation of constraints into opportunities?

30. Conclusion • Understanding presidential leadership requires appreciating that political leaders are hemmed in by structural and political constraints, but also that they are capable of acting strategically, of demonstrating political leadership skills and of portraying vision. • Environmental, or meta- variables are of primary importance in framing the context of the French presidency, but they are not static, and they do not literally preshape presidential leadership. • Political, or meso-level variables (such as the party system or public opinion ) are more likely to shape the contours of a specific period of presidential leadership, with the underlying balance of political forces the key criterion. • Personal leadership qualities provide an obvious means of distinguishing between Presidents in office. Individuals differ in their leadership goals, in their ability to construct a personal political style, or to develop vision. However, even Great Men do not operate independently of context, opportunity, resources or constraints.