Introduction
Party leaders are crucial actors for political decision-making, their parties and voters. Contemporary politics sees a decline in the centrality of political parties as groups intended to aggregate, articulate and represent different societal interests. This centrality of parties is being replaced by politicians whoâthrough the general process of personalizationâhave become the main anchors of interpretation and evaluation in the political arena (Bennett, 2012; W. P. Cross, Katz, & Pruysers, 2018; Garzia, 2013; Karvonen, 2010; Langer, 2007; Passarelli, 2019; Poguntke & Webb, 2005; Rahat & Kenig, 2018). However, the general relevance of political leaders is not limited to âmatter because politics mattersâ (Hartley & Benington, 2011, p. 204). Party leaders have become central drivers of electoral competitions in an unprecedented manner. Political parties grow less reliant on their organizational basis and more on the leadership figures. Whether it is the case of new parties, fringe parties, or large and well-established parties, leaders continue to rise to prominence (Blondel & Thiebault, 2009; Bolleyer & Bytzek, 2017; W. P. Cross et al., 2018; Poguntke & Webb, 2005; Rahat & Sheafer, 2007).
The role of leadership expands beyond electoral politics where leaders occupy the center stage and increase the appeal of their parties through various means (Aarts, Blais, & Schmitt, 2011; Bittner, 2011; Helms, 2012). Within a context of decreasing electoral turnout, the party supporters represent the essential precondition of winning elections and surviving multiple electoral cycles. That is why the approach of leaders in managing their parties has much wider relevance for their organizational survival (Blondel & Thiebault, 2009; Chiru & Gherghina, 2012; W. Cross & Pilet, 2016; Langer, 2011). The leadership style matters both in relation to the voters, who get mobilized and this is reflected in the share of votes, and in relationship to the party organization by organizing the internal structures, boosting membership or bringing organizations to life in a more general sense. In this context, the leadership style allows us to better understand the life of parties and to clearly identify their goals, such as the mobilization of voters, boosting party membership, developing the party organization etc.
The consequences of party leaders for state and society can be best understood through the study of their characteristics and behaviors in office. They do not operate in a vacuum but in an environment in which their values and personality traits as well as the perception of others and their expectations toward their actions are highly influential. The ways in which leaders act are driven by a series of factors ranging from character traits to institutional pressure. In spite of extensive research devoted separately to personality and leadership styles, leadersâ actions and the consequences they produce, little attention had been paid to the relationship between these three variables. To date, the few studies addressing this relationship were focused on influential political leaders and investigated their relationships with followers and analyzed their time in office as prime ministers or country presidents (Bass, 1990; Greenstein, 2009; Kavanagh, 1974; Post, 2004; Steinberg, 2008). Although many of these political leaders were also heads of parties, their characteristics and behaviors as party leaders were often overlooked. Moreover, since many analyses used a single-case study approach, with emphasis on one leader and several contextual explanations, there are only isolated comparisons between political leaders. Finally, most research of leadership styles focused either on established democracies or on authoritarian countries. They did not consider newly emerged democracies or transition countries although these two categories form an important share of the global states.
Goals of the Book, Theory and Hypotheses
This book seeks to fill these gaps in the literature and analyzes the relationship between party leadersâ personality traits, behaviors and general consequences for their parties. The volume has a three-fold goal:
- 1.To describe and compare the personality traits and associated behavior of party leaders.
- 2.To assess the changes in leadersâ personality traits during their time in office.
- 3.To identify the impact of leadersâ traits on their partiesâ electoral performance and organization.
When compared to other studies on leadership, this book has a few unique features: the explicit focus on the position of party leader rather than high political office at national level, the existence of a common theoretical and methodological framework applied systematically across leaders and countries, the emphasis on potential change during the term in office and the attempt to explain that change, and the focus on the less-investigated region of Eastern Europe characterized by a mix of new democracies and transition countries. To begin with, let us consider the basic theoretical elements and dimensions for analysis that lie at the core of this book.
Theoretical Foundations
From management and leadership studies to research into organizational structures and functions, research into styles of leadership has been at the forefront of a wide range of disciplines for decades. Specific investigation into political leadership is a relative latecomer to this field even though some of the most prominent analytical approaches (Blondel, 1987) have started off by looking at political leaders. This book relies on three different strands of literature to come up with several analytical dimensions and formulate testable hypotheses regarding the effect of leadership traits on party electoral performance and organization.
To begin with, the trait theories and research are a useful starting point. The study of leadership traits is not new and its origins go back to the 1930s and 1940s when several works sought to identify individual characteristics that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. While most studies in that period were descriptive and lacked theory, Stogdill (1948) made a first step in the direction of theoretical notions by looking at the interaction between traits and the situations leaders faced. The trait paradigm gradually developed and several decades later research analyzed how specific traits were associated with or could predict their behaviors (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989; House, Shane, & Herold, 1996). In line with these specific traits, the Leaders Motive Profile (LMP) theory was developed and argued that leader effectiveness is associated with high desire to acquire status and have an impact on others (power motivation), high concern for the moral exercise of power and power motivation greater than affiliative motivation (House et al., 1996; McClelland, 1975, 1985; Winter, 1978). In more recent studies, the principles of the LMP theory are articulated in the form of the leadersâ need for power (Cottam, Mastors, Preston, & Dietz, 2015).
In parallel, the Charismatic Leadership Theory emphasized the existence of several traits such as self-confidence, strong motivation for influence, and strong conviction for the moral correctness of beliefs to be conducive to charisma and effectiveness (House, 1991). Leaders with such traits are likely to produce change in the organization and research showed that this is effectively achieved (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994) also when these traits are combined with the power motivation from the LMP theory (House, 1991). In addition, leader flexibility and social sensitivity are traits tha...