The language of leadership: prime ministers as political institutions

Abstract

This paper reviews leadership roles of the prime ministership, particularly the prominent public role as leader of a national government and advances three contentions. First, prime ministers see the institutional development of the prime ministership as a core part of the ‘constitution-building’ of the Australian system of democratic governance. Secondly, prime ministers see their most fundamental public role in terms of specific form of institutionbuilding that can be called ‘citizen-building’. Thirdly, the Australian governance system can cope with absences of prime ministerial leadership. This is due to the constitutional system of dispersed sources of leadership, originally intended to free the new nation from dependence on concentrated greatness. Show more