Locating leadership success in political time : analysing presidents and prime ministers in historical context

Abstract

This thesis makes a theoretical contribution to the analysis of successful political leadership. It argues that we should judge leaders operating in different historical contexts by different criteria. Historical context shapes the opportunities leaders have to achieve their goals, enabling some leaders to achieve more than others. Furthermore, in different historical contexts society demands different types of leadership. Therefore, taking account of historical context allows us to make a fair comparison of leaders when assessing their success and it allows us to encourage leaders to behave in ways that provide better results for their nations. The thesis derives its understanding of the relationship between historical context and political leadership from Stephen Skowronek's conceptualisation of the US Presidency and his four leadership types. It demonstrates that Skowronek's theory operates in Australia and other so-called Westminster countries. In particular, political time operates where the executive leader is the most creative agent of change within the political system, and where competing conservative and progressive political actors contest to control the direction of political change. Regardless of their political system, leaders are always in a contest with opponents and the interaction between these leaders and their oppositions is vital to their eventual success or failure. The thesis shows that oppositions can encourage the success of political leaders, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes in a positive and deliberate manner through engaging with leaders' ideas. The relationship between political leaders and oppositions can be complex but it must be examined closely in order to understand leaders' success or failure. The second half of the thesis focuses heavily on how political leaders can succeed and it creates four separate frameworks for analysing presidents and prime ministers. These frameworks take account of both material and interpretive realms of success. Naturally, leaders' concrete achievements are important but so is their interpretive success, in which they convince publics and political elites that their actions are successes and that they are successes as a result of leaders' actions. Political leaders' success comes in three forms: personal success, partisan regime success and normative success and these form the basis of the four frameworks of political success. The three forms of success are available to Skowronek's four leadership types to differing degrees and so the four leadership types are examined according to different criteria. The most important form of success is partisan regime success, as success of this form allows leaders' achievements to endure. Partisan regime success is the form that alters most among the different leadership types. The conclusion also examines the thesis' implications for how we understand political leadership and how we understand the broader operation of democratic politics. It argues that once we examine them in context, more leaders have been successful than is commonly supposed. Political leadership studies must pay more attention to historical context and come to understand leadership in relationship to the full range of social and political forces that act upon it. Show more