Comparative Political Leadership

by Helms, Ludger

• ISBN13: 9780230296497
• ISBN10: 0230296491
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-09-04
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

What do we expect from our leaders, and how do we judge their performance? There can be no substantive assessment of leaders and leadership without comparing the fundamentally different contexts and settings in which leaders operate. At a time when international political research is rediscovering the importance of leadership, this volume marks the first major study specifically devoted to exploring all the fields of political leadership from a genuinely comparative perspective. The chapters in this volume cast a new light on the changing features and trends in the classic areas of political leadership, such as executive and legislative leadership, and leadership in political parties. In addition, they explore many younger subfields of political leadership research, such as crisis leadership and leadership in social movements. These area-related analyses are complemented by more expansive assessments of leadership in old and new democracies, in non-democratic regimes, and in international organizations. The distinguished team of contributors is composed of leadership scholars from three continents and nine countries.

Author Biography

Ludger Helms is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. His research and publications focus on issues of political leadership and democratic governance.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Notes on Contributors	p. xi
Introduction: The Importance of Studying Political Leadership Comparatively	p. 1
Executive Leadership in Comparative Perspective: Politicians, Bureaucrats and Public Governance	p. 25
Comparing Leadership Patterns and Dynamics in the Legislative Arena	p. 56
The Presidentialization of Party Leadership? Evaluating Party Leadership and Party Government in the Democratic World	p. 77
Leadership in Social and Political Movements: A Comparative Exploration	p. 99
Political Leadership in Times of Crisis: Comparing Leader Responses to Financial Turbulence	p. 119
Comparative Keyword Analysis and Leadership Communication: Tony Blair - A Study of Rhetorical Style	p. 142
Political Marketing and Opinion Leadership: Comparative Perspectives and Findings	p. 165
The Contributions of Political Psychology to Comparative Political Leadership Analysis	p. 186
Comparing and Assessing Gender Effects in Political Leadership	p. 207
'Army of One or Join the Club?' Comparing Local Political Leadership in Europe	p. 227
Confronting the Challenges of Political Leadership in International Organizations	p. 249
Political Leadership in Old and New Democracies	p. 272
Comparative Leadership in Non-democracies	p. 292
Index	p. 315
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