Against the Führerprinzip: For Collective Leadership

Archie Brown

Abstract: The Führerprinzip has not been confined to Nazi Germany. The cult of the strong leader thrives in many authoritarian regimes and has its echoes even in contemporary democracies. The belief that the more power a president or prime minister wields the more we should be impressed by that politician is a dangerous fallacy. In authoritarian regimes, a more collective leadership is a lesser evil than personal dic- tatorship. In countries moving from authoritarian rule to democracy, collegial, inclusive, and collective leadership is more conducive to successful transition than great concentration of power in the hands of one individual at the top of the hierarchy. Democracies also benefit from a government led by a team in which there is no obsequiousness or hesitation in contradicting the top leader. Wise decisions are less likely to be forthcoming when one person can predetermine the outcome of a meeting or foreclose the discussion by pulling rank.

ARCHIE BROWN (Archibald Ha­ he cult of the strong individual leader remains worth Brown), a Foreign Honor­ T ary Member of the American Acad­ alive and well, even in democracies. Less surprising- emy since 2003, is Emeritus Profes­ ly, but with more dire consequences, it flourishes in sor of Politics at the University of authoritarian regimes. Within dictatorships, vast re- Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow sources are devoted to portraying the top leader as of St Antony’s College, Oxford. He the embodiment of strength and wisdom, setting was elected a Fellow of the British him (political dictatorship being overwhelmingly a Academy in 1991. He is the author, masculine preserve) far above any colleagues or po- most recently, of The Myth of the tential rivals. For the autocrat, as distinct from the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (2014), The Rise and Fall of people, both the accumulation of personal power Communism (2009), and Seven Years and the creation of a personality cult make sense, at that Changed the World: Perestroika in least in the short term. It is altogether more puzzling Perspective (2007). He has been a Vis­- when citizens who have some choice in the matter– iting Professor of Polit­ical Science those who live in a democracy–look to, and even at Yale University, the University of yearn for, a strong leader to take the big decisions Connecticut, Columbia University, on their behalf. Yet effective leadership is seldom and the University of Texas at Aus­ tin, as well as Distinguished Visit- one-person leadership, and strength–as defined by ing Fellow at the Kellogg Institute the maximization of power vis-à-vis colleagues, po- for International Studies at the Uni- litical party, and governmental institutions–is not versity of Notre Dame. synonymous with effectiveness.

© 2016 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_ a_00401

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the There is reason also to be wary of “char- because of the readiness with which peo- Führerprinzip: ismatic” leaders, especially if we follow ple respond to their suggestions and com- For Collective Leadership Max Weber–who first elaborated the mands. Yet the responsiveness of “fol- concept and extended its application from lowers” owes a great deal to the influence religious to political leaders–in holding over their career prospects that the head that “genuine charismatic domination . . . of government or party leader possesses. knows of no abstract legal codes and stat- How many leaders of major political par- utes and of no ‘formal’ way of adjudica- ties had more than a handful of followers tion.”1 Charisma is very much in the eye of before it looked as if they might become the beholder and, as Weber noted, howev- the top leader, at which point calculations er god-given a charismatic leader’s claims, of benefit from future patronage come into this sheen rubs off if the leader fails to de- play? The answer is: not many. Once a par- liver. Charisma is not a lifetime endow- ty leader is ensconced as head of govern- ment but rather a personality respond- ment, colleagues’ receptiveness to his or ing to qualities and attributes that fol- her wishes tends to depend heavily on the lowers project upon the leader at a given inequality of the power relationship. time. Our approval of a charismatic lead- Leadership in its purest form is most er depends very much on whether we ap- clearly evident when all members of the prove of the goals toward which that per- group are “on an equal footing” but there son’s leadership is directed. Such a lead- is, as Adam Smith observed, “generally er may be a Hitler or Mussolini or, on the some person whose counsel is more fol- contrary, a Gandhi or Martin Luther King, lowed than that of others.”2 We need to Jr. Following a charismatic leader involves draw a clear distinction between a lead- suspending, to a large extent, one’s criti- er other people wish to be guided by, and cal faculties and independent judgment. who attracts a spontaneous following, and a This has adverse consequences in the long power-wielding leader who has the prerog- term even for the leader, and is debilitating ative of promoting or demoting and who for the follower. It is seldom, even when has an armory of other favors to bestow or the values of the charismatic leader are be- withhold. Examples of outstanding politi- nign, conducive to wise and accountable cal leadership divorced from positions of government. No one person is likely to em- political power are not hard to find. body all of the qualities desirable in a par- In the Soviet Union of the post-Stalin but agon of a leader. Since, indeed, leadership pre-perestroika era, the moral leadership is highly contextual, the attributes most of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and of Andrei valuable in one situation are liable to be of Sakharov, who were united by their civic very limited use in another. We would do courage and in their rejection of Marxism- well to replace our obsession with the lead- Leninism but divided by political orienta- er by an appreciation of the advantages of tion, had a significant impact on, and fol- power shared within a leadership team. lowing among, different parts of the Rus- Much the greater part of the literature on sian intelligentsia. The Soviet authorities political leadership focuses on the holders were sufficiently worried by this writer of political power, and this essay will be and this physicist to deport Solzhenitsyn only a partial exception to that general rule. from the country and to send Sakharov Nevertheless, it is worth distinguishing at into internal exile in Nizhny Novgorod the outset political leadership from politi- (or Gorky, as it was called at that time). cal power. Power-holders can quite quick- For celebrated examples of more overt- ly come to believe they are gifted leaders ly political leadership disconnected from

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 governmental power, we need look no fur- rorist group Boko Haram in April 2014. Archie ther than Mahatma Gandhi and his pro- More recently, she has campaigned against Brown motion of nonviolent struggle for Indian the practice of female genital mutilation independence from British imperial rule; practiced by some of her co-religionists. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose inspiration- Writers on leadership who focus as much al leadership of the civil rights movement on followers as on leaders, and who study in the United States helped pave the way the interaction between the two, provide a for the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 more realistic account of the political pro- (although that legislation owed a huge cess than those who are almost exclusive- debt also to the presidential leadership of ly obsessed with the top person. To pay due Lyndon B. Johnson); and Aung San Suu attention to followership is not, however, Kyi, the 1991 winner of the Nobel Peace enough. When we observe the top team Prize, whose long campaign for democra- within a government or political party, we cy in Burma (Myanmar) condemned her shall almost invariably find people who to many years of house arrest that ended cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, only in 2010. It brought her electoral suc- be regarded as “followers” of the top lead- cess in 2015 and, at long last, something re- er. To take the example of the George W. sembling political power in 2016. Bush administration, does it make sense An outstanding contemporary example to describe Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and of political leadership is that of the young- Donald Rumsfeld as followers of Bush? est-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Hardly. The president, by virtue of his of- Malala Yousafzai, from the Swat Valley fice, had a higher authority, but that is far of Pakistan. She was seventeen years old from the same as these Cabinet members when she became a Nobel laureate. Her seeing him as the possessor of superior wis- campaign for girls’ education, in the face dom or judgment. Similarly, successive sec- of the obscurantist hostility of the Tali- retaries of state in the Barack Obama ad- ban, led to the assassination attempt that ministration, Hillary Clinton and John almost killed her in 2012, when she was fif- Kerry, who have been important players teen. After numerous medical operations in their own right, cannot meaningful- in both Pakistan and Great Britain, Malala ly be described as followers of Obama. In resumed her campaigning, although now a democracy there usually are within the doing so as a schoolgirl in Birmingham, En- top leadership team people of high polit- gland. She has said that “I don’t want to be ical standing who are relatively indepen- thought of as ‘the girl who was shot by the dent of the top leader–and so there should Taliban’ but ‘the girl who fought for edu- be. They may or may not constitute “a team cation.’” In her speech to the United Na- of rivals,” but it is essential that they should tions on her sixteenth birthday, she de- feel free to question the judgment of the scribed “our books and our pens” as “our top leader in any particular instance and most powerful weapons” and proclaimed: be ready to advance contrary arguments. “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”3 Herself a Mus- Although this essay focuses mainly on lim, Malala Yousafzai carried her activism political leadership during processes of to Nigeria in the attempt to galvanize the democratization and in democracies, it is government of that country to do more to worth paying attention to the Führerprinzip rescue the girls who had been kidnapped in the country where the term was first em- from their predominantly Christian sec- ployed, and to authoritarian or totalitari- ondary school by the radical Muslim ter- an regimes more generally. When in 1930

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the Otto Strasser, a would-be ideologist of however, they suppressed not only to pro- Führerprinzip: German National Socialism, suggested to tect their careers, but also because they For Collective Leadership Adolf Hitler that “A Leader must serve the did not think that they were wiser than Idea”–since the idea was eternal and the the Führer.6 And after the speedy fall of leader (for obvious biological reasons) was France following the German invasion, not–Hitler told him that this was “outra- Hitler informed his principal military ad- geous nonsense” and an example of “re- visers that “a campaign against Russia volting democracy,” for “the Leader is the would be child’s play.”7 Idea, and each party member has to obey Iosif Stalin, especially during the last only the Leader.”4 The “leader principle” twenty years of his life, had acquired a per- was fundamental to Nazi doctrine, and sonal power and cult of personality that while it “worked” for a time inasmuch were scarcely less exalted than Hitler’s. as Hitler went on to consolidate his pow- This extended even to a life-or-death pow- er, gain a vast following, and achieve mil- er over senior figures in the ruling party: itary successes, it was the inability of in- namely, members of the Central Commit- formed subordinates to question his judg- tee of the Communist Party of the Soviet ment that fostered the miscalculation that, Union and of its inner circle, the Politbu- more than any other, led to his downfall ro. Nevertheless, Stalin was not quite so and that of the Nazi regime. free of ideological constraints as was Hit- Although it is not a particularly salient­ ler. He could not explicitly reject Leninist component of popular perceptions of concepts. As Alan Bullock aptly observed, World War II either in Great Britain or for Nazi Germany, “ideology was what the (still less) in the United States, there is Führer said it was,” whereas “in the case no doubt that the most substantial con- of Stalin it was what the General Secretary tribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in said Marx and Lenin said it was.”8 With- the ground war in Europe was made by the in Soviet society and even inside Stalin’s Soviet army. The Soviet war dead, includ- inner circle there was a reluctance similar ing civilians, were vastly greater in num- to that which prevailed in Nazi Germany ber than those of any other allied coun- to contradict the vozhd’ (leader).9 Again, try; indeed, some five times more Soviet this was not only because to do so would be than German citizens perished.5 Of the life-threateningly dangerous, but because, German soldiers who lost their lives in to a greater or lesser extent, members of the war, more than three-quarters of them the political elite, as well as ordinary Rus- did so at the hands of their Soviet adver- sians, subscribed to the sedulously pro- sary. Thus, when Hitler launched the Ger- moted notion of Stalin’s genius. man invasion of the ussr in June 1941, Adam Smith, whose insights on soci­ety unilaterally abrogating the Nazi-Soviet and government (as distinct from his eco- Pact of nonaggression, he made a fate- nomic analysis and moral philosophy) ful error. Although the invasion was de- were until recent times largely overlooked, layed for logistical reasons until the fol- noted that “gross abuse” of power and lowing year, it was Hitler alone who in “perverseness, absurdity, and unreason- 1940 took the decision to break the pact. ableness” were more liable to be found un- His generals shared his detestation of So- der the rule of “single persons” than of viet communism and likewise underesti- larger assemblies.10 Both Hitler and Sta- mated the potential of the Red Army, yet lin exemplified such perversity and un- they had misgivings about the desirabili- reasonableness not only in the murder- ty of war on another front. Such qualms, ous policies they pursued but also through

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 their profound failures of judgment. Thus, ty years preceding Stalin’s death in 1953; Archie in June 1941 the Soviet leader made a cat- in China, from the late 1950s until Mao’s Brown astrophic error that was almost on par death in 1976). with that of the German dictator. Where- The worst of the Soviet purges took as Hitler had made the huge mistake of place during the time of Stalin’s dictator- invading the Soviet Union, Stalin’s error ship over the Communist Party as well as was to convince himself, in the face of over the rest of Soviet society. The show much evidence to the contrary from a trials reached their peak in 1937–1938, variety of sources, that Germany would when almost 1.6 million people were ar- not attack Russia at any time in that year. rested, of whom approximately 682,000 And once Stalin reached that conclusion, were shot.12 Millions more died, directly there could be no dissension in Moscow. or indirectly, as a result of the policies pur- On June 21, 1941, the day before German sued by Stalin. In China, during the years troops launched their blitzkrieg on the So- of Mao’s supreme power, barbaric means viet Union, the head of the security police, were used in the attempt to reach wildly Lavrenti Beria, issued an instruction that impractical utopian goals. The Great Leap four nkvd officers “be ground into labour Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s camp dust” for having persistently sent re- sidelined the institutions of China’s cen- ports of an impending Nazi invasion. “I tral government, created vast “people’s and my people,” wrote Beria to Stalin on communes” in the countryside, and sub- the same day, “have firmly embedded in stituted mass mobilization for the techni- our memory your wise conclusion: Hitler cal expertise of engineers and technolo- is not going to attack us in 1941.”11 gists. Along with the purposeful killing of While all authoritarian regimes, by defi- tens of thousands, who dragged their feet nition, suffer from lack of accountability rather than make the Great Leap, at least and from censorship and self-censorship, thirty million people–forty-five million oligarchy is generally a lesser evil than au- according to a high-end estimate, but one tocracy. A more collective leadership is less based on archival research–died, mainly likely than personal dictatorship to com- of starvation as a direct or indirect conse- mit state-sponsored murder on an indus- quence of this attempt to fast-track Chi- trial scale. A brief glance at the history na into communism.13 Mao’s other infa- of the two largest, and most important, mous brainchild, the Great Proletarian communist states, the Soviet Union and Cultural Revolution, killed fewer people the People’s Republic of China, helps to il- (between 750,000 and one-and-a-half mil- lustrate the point. The Soviet Union in the lion died as a direct result of it), but it last- 1920s and in the post-Stalin era was nev- ed much longer, from the mid-1960s until er less than a highly authoritarian state Mao’s death in 1976, especially harshly in (until, that is, the system-transformative the second half of the sixties. The Cultural change of the late 1980s), as was China in Revolution affected the political elite and the first half of the 1950s and in the years the most educated segment of Chinese so- of more enlightened absolutism following ciety, and the urban population more gen- Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. Yet these pe- erally, to a greater extent than did the ear- riods in the two countries’ histories were lier revolution from above. Both the Great far less politically oppressive, lethal, and Leap and the Cultural Revolution were un- arbitrary than the years of Stalin’s and mitigated disasters, and it was revulsion Mao’s overwhelming personal ascendan- against this turmoil that enabled prag- cy (in the Soviet case, roughly the twen- matists and reformers to gain ascendancy

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the in the post-Mao era, with Deng Xiaoping precision. The results of such studies, how- Führerprinzip: playing a decisive role.14 ever, have been contradictory and inconclu- For Collective Leadership sive, not least because they leave out of the If the most that can be said of collective analysis factors less readily measurable but leadership as compared with the dictator- still more important–the values of the top ship of one person in authoritarian regimes leader and of the leadership group and also is that the former is a lesser evil, the gener- the style of leadership of the head of govern- al point can be made much more positively ment in a democratizing regime. when we consider transitions from author- With good reason, scholars view Spain itarian rule to democracy. While there are as an outstanding example of transition a number of factors conducive to the suc- to democracy, following the long years of cess or failure of attempts at democratic Franco’s authoritarian rule. Adolfo Suárez, transition, among them political-cultural the Spanish prime minster who was ap- inheritance and geopolitical environment, pointed by King Juan Carlos in 1976 and the characteristics and values of the prin- who held that post for just five years, had cipal leaders of the attempt to accomplish a consensus-building style that succeed- systemic change can make a decisive dif- ed in bridging what had appeared to be ir- ference. There is a body of evidence, drawn reconcilable differences in Spanish society especially from the comparative study of and among competing political groups. In Latin American countries, which indicates a television address justifying the legaliza- that in the transition and early posttransi- tion of the Communist Party, Suárez pro- tion period, the normative commitment of claimed his belief that the Spanish people leading politicians to democracy is of par- were mature enough “to assimilate their ticular relevance for its attainment. Politi- own pluralism.”16 Of equal significance, cians who place great value on democracy the most important opposition personal- as such are “less likely to understand pol- ity, Felipe González, the leader of the So- icy failures” of the new postauthoritarian cialist Party and future prime minister, pluralist politics–following the disman- was firmly committed to democratic val- tlement of the old order–“as regime fail- ues. If Suárez was the key political actor in ures,” and they have longer time horizons Spain’s transition to democracy, González than those who do not share their commit- was no less surely the most crucial figure ment to democratic values.15 in its consolidation. There are also good reasons to conclude It was an integral part of Suárez’s ap- that collegial, inclusive, and collective lead- proach to leadership to get Spain’s new ership is more conducive to successful tran- constitution accepted as a result of nation- sition to democracy than great concentra- al accord, rather than by using all the in- tion of power in the hands of one individual struments of power at his disposal to drive at the top of the political hierarchy, regard- it through by a simple majority. In this less of whether that person is a prime min- strategy of inclusiveness, he was remark- ister or president. A focus exclusively on in- ably successful. The constitution was ap- stitutional arrangements, involving link- proved almost unanimously in parliament age of successful democratic transition to and by nearly 90 percent of the population. the choice of a parliamentary rather than Suárez was by no stretch of the imagina- a presidential system, or to a particular tion a charismatic leader, nor was he a type of semipresidentialism, is attractive “strong” leader in the sense of maximizing because it provides the possibility of mea- his power and dominating all those around surement and gives at least the illusion of him. His style was collegial and he made

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 significant concessions and compromis- context and enlightened leadership were Archie es in order to get agreement on important likewise crucial. That leadership was pro- Brown issues, not least to persuade long-standing vided, most impressively, by Fernando Republicans to accept that a constitution- Henrique Cardoso, president from 1995 al monarchy had a place in the new polit- until 2003, who was both a distinguished ical order. The Socialist Party eventually social scientist and an astute politician. acquiesced in exchange for Suárez agree- Summarizing the successes and shortcom- ing to their demands for abolition of the ings of Brazil’s transition to and consoli- death penalty and reduction of the voting dation of democracy, Cardoso observed: 17 age to eighteen. This turned out to their We were able to converge around the main advantage, and that of other Spanish dem- objectives despite the plurality of visions and ocrats, when the king played a pivotal role interests of the different opposition parties in ending the 1981 attempted military coup that rose up. In this way, a culture of mutu- against the new democratic regime. al negotiation and dialogue was reinforced Inclusive leadership and a commitment as an aspect of Brazilian democracy. But this to dialogue were important also in the suc- can deteriorate into co-optation and the ac- cessful transitions to democracy of Chile commodation of interests, weakening demo- and Brazil. The international environment cratic politics, discouraging the citizenry, and changed beyond all recognition in the compromising the state’s ability to engage second half of the 1980s as a result of the in republican action. The style of the transi- transformation of the Soviet Union, which tion conditions democratic governance, for undermined the claims to international le- better or worse.19 gitimacy of right-wing authoritarian re- gimes on the pretext of standing as a bul- The Chilean academic and politician wark against the spread of communism. Sergio Bitar and the American special- In Chile, this change in the external envi- ist on Latin American politics Abraham ronment, including a shift of attitudes in Lowenthal undertook a series of reveal- Washington, made Augusto Pinochet’s ing interviews with leaders of transitions op­pressive regime more vulnerable. The from authoritarian rule in Europe, Lat- Chilean autocrat’s loss of a plebiscite in in America, Asia, and Africa and reached 1988 was followed by victory for the Chris- significant conclusions. They stress that tian Democratic political leader Patricio a common factor among the leaders they Aylwin in 1989 and a return to democrat- interviewed was a commitment to inclu- ic civilian rule in 1990. Aylwin sought di- sionary and accountable governance and alogue with union leaders to get their a fundamental preference for peaceful and agreement to moderate their economic incremental, rather than violent or convul- demands and they, in turn, compromised sive, transformation. They shared power, in pursuit of the more fundamental goal rather than hoarding it, and relied heav- of reestablishing and consolidating dem- ily on capable associates, some of whom ocratic rule. Noting that “throughout my had specific expertise that they themselves political life I have always worked well in might not possess. Although they some- teams,”18 Aylwin proved to be a successful times made key choices personally, most coalition builder, and he played an import- of these leaders “concentrated on building ant part in reducing the dangerous level of consensus, forging coalitions, construct- polarization in Chilean politics. ing political bridges, and communicating In Brazil’s transition from military au- consistently with key constituencies and thoritarian rule, both the international the broad public.”20

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the The most momentous systemic change to which Gorbachev was indirectly elect- Führerprinzip: of all in the past half-century was of the ed by the new legislature, the Soviet leader For Collective Leadership Soviet Union. The second half of the 1980s could have been removed from office at a witnessed the historic role that could be moment’s notice by a vote in the Politburo, played by a leader who both acquired the speedily endorsed by the Central Commit- most powerful political office and who had tee. Only when in 1990 Communist Par- different values from those dominant in ty organs ceased to be the highest institu- the regime hitherto. The Gorbachev era tions of state power did Gorbachev have was one of movement from government some protection from removal from power by fiat and fear to governance by persua- by his Politburo colleagues. The threats to sion and societal empowerment. Funda- his leadership were by then, however, com- mental change of the Soviet political sys- ing thick and fast from other quarters.21 tem was accompanied by a transformation For the first five years of his leadership, of Soviet foreign policy, including enuncia- it made sense for Gorbachev patiently to tion in 1988 of the principle that the people persuade his Politburo colleagues to go of every country were entitled to decide for along with policy innovation that was far themselves what kind of political and eco- in excess of anything they had contem- nomic system they wished to live in. One plated, and which was to become threat- year later these words became deeds, facil- ening to their interests. Accepting collec- itating the democratization of half a conti- tive responsibility, following lengthy dis- nent. The countries of Eastern and Central cussions, for new policies and concepts Europe, whose sovereignty had previously weakened their resistance, which would been strictly limited by their Soviet over- have been stronger had Gorbachev simply lords, became non-communist and inde- bypassed them. Moreover, the change in pendent while Soviet troops obeyed orders the political system brought countervail- from Moscow to remain in their barracks. ing forces into play, including public opin- In many respects Mikhail Gorbachev led ion. Even so, in a highly ideologized sys- from the front, especially during the first tem, Gorbachevian formulations, such as, four years of perestroika; yet at the same from 1987, socialist pluralism, which by 1990 time, government became more collegial had become political pluralism, met with re- and collective, partly from necessity. The sistance in the party leadership. general secretary of the Central Commit- Nevertheless, as even one of the more tee of the Communist Party of the Soviet conservative members of the Politburo, Union had significant levers of power at his Vitaliy Vorotnikov, noted, Gorbachev gave disposal, but he enjoyed a high security of everyone around the table a chance to tenure only so long as he did not challenge speak, and he listened to their arguments. any of the basic norms of the system. Gor- His style of chairing the meetings, as tran- bachev, however, embarked on a process of scripts of the proceedings attest and as Vo- change in 1985 that had become increasing- rotnikov, among others, has confirmed, ly fundamental by 1988–1989, with glas- was “democratic and collegial.” If there nost by then virtually indistinguishable was significant disagreement, Gorbachev from freedom of speech and (increasingly) would propose a change of wording, adopt publication, and with contested elections a middle position, or postpone a decision introduced for a legislature with real pow- until a later meeting, although in the final er. Thus, the last leader of the Soviet Union analysis, Gorbachev more often than not was running grave risks. Until the creation would get his way.22 Even those to whom in March 1990 of an executive presidency, in the early years of his general secretary-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 ship Gorbachev could simply have issued as in a number of consolidated democra- Archie instructions, he sought, rather, to per- cies, and not only in countries in transition Brown suade. The head of Soviet space research, from authoritarian rule, there is a danger of Roald Sagdeev, had opportunities at that heads of government concentrating exces- time to observe Gorbachev in small group sive power in their hands, this is scarcely a discussions. The general secretary, he re- serious problem in the United States, with called, overestimated his, admittedly, for- the partial exception of some foreign pol- midable powers of persuasion, apparently icy areas. It is exceedingly difficult for an believing that “he could persuade anyone American president to become over-pow- in the Soviet Union of anything.” Yet what erful, given the constitutional constraints, was especially significant, Sagdeev aptly institutional obstacles, and powerful inter- observes, was precisely that Gorbachev ests that confront him (or her). U.S. presi- attempted to persuade his interlocutors, dents have little option but to try to work since this approach represented a sharp collegially, given the strength of the other break with Soviet tradition. Hitherto, se- components of the American political sys- nior party officials “never tried to change tem. They may wield greater power with- people’s genuine opinions or beliefs, but in the executive than a prime minister in simply issued an instruction and demand- a parliamentary system typically does, but ed that it be followed.”23 Sagdeev’s person- there is a strong convention that the presi- al journey was just one illustration of the dent does not readily dismiss members of dramatic scale of change during the peri- the Cabinet. Moreover, American presi- od of less than seven years of perestroika. dents are usually weaker vis-à-vis the leg- In what would earlier have been unthink- islature than their prime ministerial coun- able for a Soviet scientist with close ties terparts. to the military-industrial complex, he be- Yet there is a hankering in the United came the husband of Susan Eisenhower, States for more assertive leadership, as well granddaughter of President Dwight D. Ei- as ambivalence when it is provided. The senhower, and was able freely to move to chief U.S. commentator of the Financial the United States in early 1990. Times, Edward Luce, recently wrote, “One of the loudest complaints of Mr Trump’s Persuasion is no less central to political followers is they believe America lacks a life in established democracies than in strong leader.” He immediately added, “If regimes in transition from authoritari- Mr Trump is the answer, there is something an rule. Democracy itself has been de- wrong with the question.”26 The search for scribed as “above all the name for politi- a strong leader–in the sense of one who cal authority exercised solely through the will dominate all and sundry–is indeed the persuasion of the greater number.”24 More pursuit of a false god. But Luce is correct concretely, as Richard Neustadt famous- when he goes on to note that there is still a ly put it: “Presidential power is the power case for a president taking the initiative in a to persuade.” Although a simplification, political system that has seen as much grid- the statement encapsulated an important lock as the United States has experienced truth, and drew on President Harry Tru- in recent years. man’s remark that he spent his days “try- On the vexed issue of gun control, Pres- ing to persuade people to do things they ident Obama has, in fact, increasingly led ought to have sense enough to do without from the front, in the face of a gun lobby my persuading them. . . .That’s all the pow- that attributes the prevalence of death by ers of the President amount to.”25 Where- shooting merely to “bad people” in the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the United States without explaining why, finally decide to do.”29 But why should the Führerprinzip: then, there should be such a spectacularly prime minister “finally” decide this ques- For Collective Leadership higher incidence of evil among the Amer- tion? There is a secretary of state for trans- ican population than, for example, in the port and also a Cabinet subcommittee on United Kingdom, Western Europe, or Aus- aviation, for the issue, with its environmen- tralia. Obama also led from the front on tal as well as economic dimensions, is polit- health care, but was more sparing in the ically sensitive. That suggests that the mat- use of his “power to persuade” Congress ter should, “finally,” be debated and decid- than was a Lyndon Johnson. Of course, the ed by the whole Cabinet. Perhaps collective gulf between Obama’s and Johnson’s ties responsibility will remain a political reality to and knowledge of every member of the and the decision will emerge from Cabinet House and Senate was immense, but with discussion rather than by prime ministerial his constant telephone calls, plus invita- ruling. At best, then, the political discourse tions to the White House, Johnson used to is misleading. At worst, prime ministers are the full his considerable powers of persua- getting too big for their boots and treating sion and cajolery. If Obama has appeared colleagues in whom executive powers have less constantly engaged, his wariness of been vested as if they were but advisers. entanglement in foreign conflicts, and re- Some authors, who argue that heads luctance to accept that American leader- of government have gained in power as ship should consist “of us bombing some- well as visibility over the past half-centu- body,” is one vital area where his style con- ry, see this as a positive development: “By trasts favorably with the way Johnson was focusing attention on the prime minister sucked into a disastrous war in Vietnam as an individual who is accountable for the and did not know how to get out.27 government’s collective performance, the The demand for a strong leader is heard public finds it easier to deliver reward or in many countries, including Britain, where punishment, particularly when compared over the past half-century there has been with an abstract collectivity.”30 This is very an increasing focus in the mass media on doubtful. There has been a long-term de- the person of the prime minister (and on cline in voter turnout in general elections the leader of the main opposition party), in the United Kingdom over the postwar rather than on the government as a whole or period. Voters in 1945 or in the 1950s (when on ministers responsible for particular ar- in 1950 and 1951 the turnout was as high as eas of policy. Newspaper articles have come 84 percent and 82.5 percent, respectively) to discuss prime ministers in much more did not have any trouble in voting for or personal terms, and with reference to their against a Labour government. We do not perceived leadership qualities.28 Television have survey data on the relative popularity has accentuated the focus on the top lead- of Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee er, who now has to be viewed going to the in 1945, but given that acclaim for Chur- scene of a disaster, such as a flooded town, chill’s wartime leadership crossed party looking determined as he promises that ev- boundaries and that victory of the Allies erything will be done to avoid such devas- in World War II, in which Churchill had tation in the future. Similarly, on one cur- counted as one of the “Big Three,” was the rently controversial issue, whether or not high point of his career, it is a reasonable London’s Heathrow airport should open assumption that he would have had more a third runway, the Financial Times quotes personal support than did Attlee that sum- an “official close to the process” as saying: mer and would have prevailed if votes had “Only David Cameron knows what he will been cast primarily for leaders rather than

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 for parties and policies. In fact, the elec- a strong leader–who maximizes his or her Archie tion resulted in a landslide victory for the personal power and attempts to take all the Brown Labour Party. big decisions in different areas of policy– The greater prominence accorded prime exemplifies the most successful and admi- ministers and party leaders in postwar rable type of leadership. There are only Britain did not translate into votes primar- twenty-four hours in the day of even the ily for the leader, rather than for the par- strongest leader, and the more that person ty. Harold Wilson, the Labour leader and tries to do individually, the less time he or outgoing prime minister was more pop- she has to focus on and to understand the ular in 1970 than the Conservative lead- complexity and nuances of each issue. A er, Edward Heath, but the Conservatives prime minister’s personal aides are usual- won the election comfortably enough. ly among the most enthusiastic supporters Although commentators write of Mar- of placing ever greater power in the hands garet Thatcher’s triumph over James Cal- of the head of government. That is hardly laghan in the 1979 general election, Cal- surprising, for they are the main beneficia- laghan enjoyed a popularity lead of more ries of a leader cult and of concentration than twenty points over Thatcher on the of power in the leader’s office. The more eve of the poll.31 The vote was against the one top leader is set apart from other elect- Labour government, which had become ed politicians, the greater the independent unpopular during a “winter of discontent” influence–and de facto power–acquired marked by industrial unrest, and a victo- by his or her nonelected advisers. ry for the Conservative Party, rather than A case in point is Jonathan Powell, who a personal accomplishment of their lead- was chief-of-staff to Tony Blair through- er. In contrast, in 1983, a year after the suc- out Blair’s premiership. Before he en- cessful Falklands war, Thatcher polled well tered 10 Downing Street as Blair’s right- ahead of the policies of her party.32 hand man, Powell expressed the wish to More commonly, of course, support for curb the independence of individual min- a party and for the party’s leader go togeth- isters and government departments, and er. Although it has been hypothesized that to move to what he called a “Napoleon- the personality of the party leader would ic system” of government.34 Reflecting on be most important for people with a weak his years at the heart of government, after sense of party identification, the evidence intraparty pressure had forced Tony Blair points the other way. Attachment to the to cede the premiership to Gordon Brown, party label determines to a large extent the Powell made a sustained effort to portray perception of particular leaders, with party Blair as a strong leader and Brown as weak. loyalists the most attached to the team cap- His underlying assumption was that Ma- tain.33 Having a popular leader is, of course, chiavelli’s maxims for a prince operat- a plus for a political party and, in a closely ing within an authoritarian system are no contested election, may have real electoral less applicable, with suitable updating, for significance. It is, nevertheless, rare for the a democracy. While Machiavelli and Na- personality and popularity of the top lead- poleon may be useful mentors for an au- er to make the difference between victory tocratic leader within an authoritarian re- and defeat in a general election. gime, they are highly dubious models for Exaggeration of the electoral impact of political leaders in a democracy. It may be party leaders in parliamentary democra- assumed also that Powell would not wish cies is less serious than the notion, regu- the Labour Party leader elected in 2015 to larly encountered in the mass media, that follow his and Machiavelli’s precepts on

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the the maximization of his power, since Jer- ate Cabinet committee or with the Cabinet Führerprinzip: emy Corbyn abhors much of what Blair as a whole. With the passage of time, and For Collective Leadership stood for. partly because Attlee was such an unflam- Were we to draw a graph of the extent to boyant politician, the nature and effective- which personal power has been hoarded ness of the collegial and collective style of and wielded by the various British prime leadership of the radical government he ministers over the last hundred years, headed has receded not only from public it would not, however, show an upward consciousness, but even from the heads of curve of increasing power, but zigzags. Da- many British political commentators. vid Lloyd George, almost one century ago, The creeping-in of the idea in Britain and Neville Chamberlain, in the late 1930s, that the prime minister should be the dom- wielded more individual power vis-à-vis inant policy-maker owes a lot to the pre- their colleagues than did the great ma- miership of Margaret Thatcher. In her own jority of their post–World War II succes- terms–what she set out to achieve and the sors. A comparison over time would also extent to which she met those objectives– not show a positive correlation between she was a successful prime minister, and prime ministerial domination of Cabinet undoubtedly a strong one. The disadvan- colleagues and of the policy process, on the tages, however, of an overly mighty head one hand, and governmental achievement, of government became increasingly appar- on the other. The two postwar British gov- ent the longer she was in office. Sir Geof- ernments that made the biggest difference frey Howe, whose House of Commons to the country they ruled–they can be de- speech in 1990 explaining his resignation scribed as redefining governments in the sense from the government triggered Thatch- that they redefined the limits of the possi- er’s removal from the premiership by her ble in UK politics, and introduced radical own Conservative colleagues, later noted change–were the Labour government of how the prime minister had come to domi- 1945–1951, headed by Clement Attlee, and nate the reactions of ministers and officials the Conservative government of 1979– to such an extent that meetings in White- 1990, under the leadership of Margaret hall and Westminster were “subconscious- Thatcher. The immediate postwar Labour ly attended, unseen and unspoken” by her. government set the political agenda for a He added: “The discussion would always generation until it was challenged funda- come round somehow to: how will this mentally by the Conservative government play with the prime minister?”35 of Margaret Thatcher. That illustrates a major flaw of the The leadership styles of Attlee and “strong leader” who so intimidates his (or Thatcher could scarcely have been more in this case, her) colleagues that they en- different. Attlee neither dominated the gage in self-censorship and themselves rule policy process nor aspired to do so. His out policy options that might displease the main achievement was to keep a strong leader. As no leader in a democracy was ever team together–a group of people of in- selected because he or she was believed to dependent political standing, of great and have a monopoly of wisdom, it defies com- varied experience, divergent views, and mon sense and is at odds with democrat- personal animosities and rivalries. Attlee ic values for senior politicians to subordi- played a coordinating rather than domi- nate their own judgments to the perceived neering role. Individual ministers had au- predilections of the top leader. Eventually, tonomy, subject to their clearing import- of course, Thatcher’s senior colleagues re- ant issues of principle with the appropri- belled, and so her style of leadership–not-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 withstanding her considerable, but highly War II–did Blair’s power and control (the Archie controversial, achievements while she oc- euro apart) match popular perceptions. Brown cupied 10 Downing Street–led to her po- But since it is his zealous advocacy of Brit- litical demise. ish participation in the 2003 war-of-choice In any government, of course (including in Iraq that is most clearly remembered in that headed by Margaret Thatcher), policy contemporary Britain, its resonance does is made by a great many people, not least the former prime minister no favors. by the departmental heads (secretaries of state, ministers) in whom executive pow- Wise decisions are less likely to be forth- er is vested. A president or prime minister coming when one person can predetermine can do much to set the tone, but political the outcome of a meeting or foreclose the commentary, especially in the mass me- discussion by pulling rank. In any cabinet, dia, focuses excessively on the head of gov- council, committee, or group, some mem- ernment. Thus, it is common in the Unit- bers are better informed than others. There ed Kingdom to find everything that was will be a few whose judgment generally car- done between 1997 and 2007 attributed ries particular weight. That will often in- to the prime minister, Tony Blair. Yet the clude the chair of the meeting, but the col- most far-reaching innovation of that La- lective wisdom of the group will almost bour government lay in its constitutional invariably be greater than that of the indi- reform: the creation of a Scottish parlia- vidual presiding over the proceedings, even ment and government; the formation of a if he or she heads the government. The ad- Welsh assembly and executive; devolved vantages of collective leadership can man- government and a power-sharing agree- ifest themselves, however, only when dis- ment in Northern Ireland; the passing of cussion is unconstrained–not governed by the Human Rights Act; the introduction of obsequiousness or fear of the consequenc- a Freedom of Information Act; and House es of contradicting the top leader. of Lords reform (which, while incomplete, Barbara Kellerman is prominent among rid the legislature of 90 percent of the he- those who argue that “Leader-centrism no reditary peers). longer explains, if it ever did, the way the Of those reforms, Blair played a major world works.”36 Yet her observation that role only in the Northern Ireland settle- “the traditional view of the leader, the sug- ment. Indeed, he was unenthusiastic about gestion that ‘the leader’ is all-important, is several of the others. More important in simply passé”37 may be less true than it de- their formulation, and as chairman of the serves to be, so far as popular perceptions relevant Cabinet committees, was an un- are concerned. Social psychologists Alex- sung member of the Cabinet, Derry (Lord) ander Haslam, Stephen Reicher, and Mi- Irvine, the Lord Chancellor. Similarly, the chael Platow are right to regard an “indi- economic policies of that government are vidualistic and leader-centric view of lead- regularly attributed to Blair, though they ership to be deeply flawed,” being both “a were jealously guarded by an even-more- poor explanation of leadership phenom- than-usually powerful Chancellor of the ena” and “bad in the sense of sustaining Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Among other toxic social realities.”38 Yet, they observe, things, he prevented Blair from realizing his the idea of heroic leadership remains pop- wish to take Britain into the common Eu- ular, in spite of its evident deficiencies. The ropean currency. Only in foreign policy– attraction for many a top leader of the idea where heads of governments generally have that victories and successes are due to him played a more dominant role since World and failures the fault of insufficiently loyal

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 Against the “followers,” is clear enough. Why the rest in its absence pine for it, rather than em- Führerprinzip: of us should go along with such illusions, brace a more collective and dispersed lead- For Collective Leadership put up with one-person dominance, and ership, is altogether less obvious.

endnotes 1 H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and trans., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948), 250. 2 Adam Smith, Lectures in Jurisprudence, ed. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael, and P. G. Stein (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 201–202. 3 Malala Yousafzai, I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban (Lon­ don: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013), 261–262. 4 Ian Kershaw, Hitler (London: Penguin, 2009), 200–201. 5 Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (London: Penguin, 2007), 428. 6 Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940–1941 (London: Penguin, 2007), 69–70. 7 Ibid., 68. 8 Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London: Fontana, 1993), 451. 9 The Russian word, vozhd’, acquired a connotation close to that of Führer. 10 Smith, Lectures in Jurisprudence, 322–323. 11 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Allen Lane, 1999), 123–124. 12 N. Vert and S. V. Mironenko, Massovye repressii v SSSR, T. 1. Istoriya stalinskogo gulaga (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), 728; and Michael Haynes and Rumy Hasan, A Century of State Murder? Death and Policy in Twentieth-Century Russia (London: Pluto Press, 2003), 70. 13 Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 2004), 194–198; and Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 (London: Bloomsbury, 2011). 14 Roderick MacFarquhar, ed., The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao and Deng, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Archie Brown, The Rise and Fall of Communism (New York: Ecco, 2009). 15 Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Liñán, Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 273–274. 16 Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 96. 17 Simon Parlier, “Adolfo Suárez: Democratic Dark Horse,” in Leaders of Transition, ed. Martin Westlake (London: Macmillan, 2000), 149. 18 Sergio Bitar and Abraham F. Lowenthal, eds., Democratic Transitions: Conversations with World Leaders (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), 71. 19 Ibid., 44. 20 Ibid., 442. 21 These changes are analyzed in much greater detail in Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Ox­ ford: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Archie Brown, Seven Years that Changed the World (Ox­ ford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00401 by guest on 26 September 2021 22 V.I. Vorotnikov, A bylo eto tak . . . Iz dnevnika chlena Politbyuro TsK KPSS (Moscow: Sovet veteran­ Archie ov knigoizdaniya, 1995), 260. Brown 23 Roald Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist: My Adventures in Nuclear Fusion and Space from Sta- lin to Star Wars (New York: Wiley, 1994), 272. 24 John Dunn, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy (London: Atlantic Books, 2005), 132. 25 Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: Wiley, 1960), 9–10. 26 Edward Luce, “Obama’s High Stakes Final Year,” Financial Times, January 4, 2016. 27 Ibid.; Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4: The Passage of Power (London: Bod­ ley Head, 2012); Randall B. Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (Cambridge, Mass.: Har­ vard University Press, 2007), esp. 434–436 and 440–441; and Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, “Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States,” Perspectives on Politics 9 (4) 2011: 841–856. 28 Lauri Karvonen, The Personalisation of Politics: A Study of Parliamentary Democracies (Colchester, United Kingdom: European Consortium for Political Research, 2009), 87–93. 29 Jim Pickard and Tanya Powley, “Heathrow Decision Faces Emissions Delay,” Financial Times, December 7, 2015. 30 Ian McAllister, “Political Leaders in Westminster Systems,” in Political Leaders and Democratic Elections, ed. Kees Arts, André Blais, and Hermann Schmitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 52, 64. 31 Kenneth O. Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 692–693. 32 Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography. Volume Two: Everything She Wants (Lon­ don: Allen Lane, 2015), 58. 33 Karvonen, The Personalisation of Politics, 102; Amanda Bittner, Platform or Personality? The Role of Party Leaders in Elections (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 73; and Anthony King, ed., Leaders’ Personalities and the Outcomes of Democratic Elections (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 34 Jonathan Powell, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 78. 35 Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (London: Bod­ ley Head; and New York: Basic Books, 2014), 352. 36 Barbara Kellerman, The End of Leadership (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 183. 37 Ibid., 65. 38 S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher, and Michael J. Platow, The New Psychology of Lead- ership: Identity, Influence and Power (Hove, United Kingdom; and New York: Psychology Press, 2011), 200.

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