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Summer 2016 Anthony King Anthony Alfred Stepan Alfred · Eugene Huskey Eugene · Michele L. Swers · with Nannerl O. Keohane with Nannerl O. Archie Brown, guestArchie Brown, editor Robert Elgie Robert Eric A. Posner Barbara Kellerman Barbara Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Journal of the American Academy On Political Leadership S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher Reicher Stephen D. Alexander Haslam & S. Dædalus

Dædalus Summer 2016 On Political Leadership @americanacad edited by Scott D. Sagan D. edited by Scott Fidler, P. David Michael C. Horowitz, Walzer, Michael with Lloyd Sagan, Lewis & Scott D. G. Jeffrey Kehler, C. Robert and Leaning, Dorn, Jennifer Axworthy & A. Walter Benjamin Valentino Sagan D. edited by Scott Colton J. & Timothy edited by George Breslauer Jane Mansbridge edited by James Fishkin & on the horizon: on the & War Technology Ethics, of War Rules The Changing Beyond PutinRussia: Democracy Prospects & Limits of Deliberative U.S. $14; www.amacad.org; $14; www.amacad.org; U.S.

Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

“On Political Leadership” Volume 145, Number 3; Summer 2016

Archie Brown, Guest Editor Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Peter Walton, Assistant Editor Heather Mawhiney, Senior Editorial Assistant

Committee on Studies and Publications John Mark Hansen and Jerrold Meinwald, Cochairs; Bonnie Bassler, Rosina Bierbaum, Marshall Carter, Gerald Early, Carol Gluck, Linda Greenhouse, John Hildebrand, Jerome Kagan, Philip Khoury, Arthur Kleinman, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Rose McDermott, Jonathan F. Fanton (ex of½cio), Don M. Randel (ex of½cio), Diane P. Wood (ex of½cio)

Inside front cover: Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1963 at a rally in Los Angeles. © 1963 by Julian Wasser. Malala Yousafzai speaking about gender inequality and education at the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival 2014. Photograph by Sarah Jeynes. Creative Commons Attribu- tion 2.0 Generic (cc by 2.0). For information and more images from the event, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/southbankcentre/albums/ 72157642042959713. Contents

5 Introduction Archie Brown

8 Leadership, Equality & Democracy Nannerl O. Keohane

21 Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher

35 Presidential Leadership & the Separation of Powers Eric A. Posner

44 Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: Representing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times Michele L. Swers

57 Varieties of Presidentialism & of Leadership Outcomes Robert Elgie

69 Authoritarian Leadership in the Post-Communist World Eugene Huskey

83 Leadership–It’s a System, Not a Person! Barbara Kellerman

95 Multiple but Complementary, Not Conflictual, Leaderships: The Tunisian Democratic Transition in Comparative Perspective Alfred Stepan

109 Against the Führerprinzip: For Collective Leadership Archie Brown

124 In Favor of “Leader Proofing” Anthony King Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Nineteenth-century depiction of a Roman mosaic labyrinth, now lost, found in Villa di Diomede, Pompeii

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was char- tered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than ½ve thousand members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Summer 2016 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 145, Number 3 member individuals–$48; institutions–$133. Canadians add 5% gst. Print and electronic © 2016 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$54; institutions– of Arts & Sciences $148. Canadians add 5% gst. Outside the United Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: States and Canada add $23 for postage and han- Representing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times dling. Prices subject to change without notice. © 2016 by Michele L. Swers Institutional subscriptions are on a volume-year Authoritarian Leadership in the Post-Communist World basis. All other subscriptions begin with the © 2016 by Eugene Huskey next available issue. In Favor of “Leader Proofing” © 2016 by Anthony King Single issues: $14 for individuals; $37 for institutions. Outside the United States and Canada Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, American Academy of add $6 per issue for postage and handling. Prices Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma subject to change without notice. 02138. Phone: 617 576 5085. Fax: 617 576 5088. Email: [email protected]. Claims for missing issues will be honored free of charge if made within three months of the Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299. publication date of the issue. Claims may be Dædalus publishes by invitation only and assumes submitted to [email protected]. Members of no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. the American Academy please direct all ques- The views expressed are those of the author(s) of tions and claims to [email protected]. each article, and not necessarily of the American Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be Academy of Arts & Sciences. addressed to Marketing Department, mit Press Dædalus (issn 0011-5266; e-issn 1548-6192) is Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, fall) 02142-1209. Phone: 617 253 2866. Fax: 617 253 1709. by The mit Press, One Rogers Street, Cambridge Email: [email protected]. 02142-1209, for the American Academy of ma To request permission to photocopy or repro- Arts & Sciences. An electronic full-text version duce content from Dædalus, please complete the of Dædalus is available from The Press. mit online request form at http://www.mitpress Subscription and address changes should be ad journals.org/page/permissionsForm.jsp, or con- dressed to mit Press Journals Customer Service, tact the Permissions Manager at mit Press Jour One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209. nals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142- Phone: 617 253 2889; U.S./Canada 800 207 8354. 1209. Fax: 617 253 1709. Email: journals-rights@ Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: [email protected]. mit.edu. Printed in the United States by The Sheridan Corporations and academic institutions with Press, 450 Fame Avenue, Hanover 17331. pa valid photocopying and/or digital licenses with Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals the Copyright Clearance Center (ccc) may re Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne tn 37086. produce content from Dædalus under the terms of their license. Please go to www.copyright.com; Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, ccc, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209. Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma and at additional mailing of½ces. The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately designed in the tradition of metal types. Introduction

Archie Brown

The character and quality of political leadership, both in one’s own country and in those of others, has huge implications for us all. It is a subject that has been widely studied, but this issue of Dædalus takes a distinctively fresh look at it. It appears during an American presidential election campaign that is even more than usually abrasive and which raises questions about the nature and efficacy of political authority. The contributors to the issue come from different disciplines and from different countries. The geographical scope of the discussion is also wide-ranging, but political leadership in the United States figures prominently. The conflicting roles of an American president, as simultaneously leader of the country, the executive branch, and the party, are examined in Eric Posner’s essay, and the U.S. presidency is placed in comparative context in the contributions of Robert Elgie and Anthony King. Michele Swers directs her attention to American legislative leaders and focuses on the notable underrepresen- tation of women in the House and Senate, whether the comparison is made with women as a proportion of the U.S. population (more than half ) or with the proportion of female members of the legislature in other democracies. Swers also identifies the distinctiveness of the policies women legislators espouse and the laws they back, even at a time when the partisan divide between the parties has become sharper. There has been a protracted debate in political science about the institutional design most conducive to democratic governance. Strong arguments have

5 Introduction been advanced that it is best attained–and them in their social and political contexts. also maintained–by a parliamentary sys- Kellerman takes issue not so much with tem, but the empirical evidence suggest- leadership studies as an area of intellectu- ing presidentialism is, indeed, a bad idea al inquiry as with the teaching of “leader- for fledgling democracies is contradictory. ship development” (or what she calls the The institutional design actually adopted “leadership industry”). She observes that by many countries emerging from long pe- during the decades in which the attempt riods of authoritarian rule is known as semi- to teach people how to be leaders has bur- presidentialism, and Elgie argues that some geoned globally, but especially in the United variants of semipresidentialism are more States, leaders in virtually every walk of life, consonant with the consolidation of de- including politics, have fallen increasingly mocracy than others. There is no getting into disrepute. She provocatively suggests away from the fact, however, that large-n that “we do not have much better an idea of statistical studies find it hard to capture the how to grow good leaders, or of how to stop significance of the quality and style of par- or at least slow bad leaders, than we did one ticular political leaderships as distinct from hundred or even one thousand years ago.” drawing conclusions based on analysis of Political theorist (and leader, as former their constitutional and de facto powers. president of two of America’s most pres- In a democracy there are, and should be, tigious higher educational institutions) multiple leaders. That the United States has Nannerl Keohane underlines, however, the numerous leaders is one of the themes of necessity of leadership as an activity, one Posner’s essay. He notes that Congress has needed “to protect the vigor and capacity four: specifically, the top party officers in of democratic governments.” It is required the House and Senate. Nevertheless, in the not only from presidents or other heads course of the twentieth century, the presi- of governments but, for example, also in dent acquired a leadership and agenda-set- congressional committees, local politics, ting role more capacious than the authors and education. In addressing the linkage of the Constitution envisaged. Posner’s ar- of “Leadership, Equality & Democracy,” gument that successful leadership “seems Keohane shares the concern of a number to depend fundamentally on the ability of of analysts that the extremes of econom- the leader to acquire and maintain the trust ic inequality that now prevail in many ad- of the group” to which he or she belongs vanced countries, and in the United States fits with the social identity approach of more than most, engender a political in- psychologists Alexander Haslam and Ste- equality so great as to undermine democ- phen Reicher. They are critical of studies racy. If, as other essays in this collection that concentrate on the qualities and char- make very clear, there are enormous dan- acteristics of leaders in the abstract, em- gers in a polity in which few, if any, checks phasizing that the successful leader is both and balances constrain a leader, there are prototypical of the group and someone ca- hazards of a different kind in a system pable of mobilizing followers around a col- where the power of money so exceeds the lective sense of “who we are” and “what we power of the majority of the people, and so are about.” limits the actions of political office-hold- Barbara Kellerman is likewise skeptical of ers, as effectively to veto social change. Yet any assumption that the individual leader in the absence of leadership that combines is overwhelmingly important. She empha- passion and pragmatism, the threat posed sizes the necessity of studying the relation- by “profound socioeconomic inequalities” ships between leader and led and of seeing will hardly begin to be overcome.

6 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences A case can be made that the American gether one-time enemies. This transpired Archie president–who has a stronger democratic in Tunisia but notably failed to occur in Brown legitimacy than any other actor in the sys- Egypt, Syria, and Libya. tem, having been elected by the whole coun- The yearning for a strong individual try (with occasional aberrations caused by leader comes under more sustained criti- the electoral college when, as in 2000, occu- cal scrutiny in the last two essays in this is- pancy of the White House went to the can- sue. While an effective government is a re- didate who received fewer votes)–should quirement of any modern state, this does be somewhat less constrained in domestic not necessarily imply a president or prime policy-making than he has been. A multi- minister who dominates the entire execu- tude of constraints on the presidency is not, tive and his or her political party. I argue however, a problem in the countries with that within authoritarian regimes, a more which Eugene Huskey is concerned–quite collective leadership is a lesser evil than the opposite. His essay on “Authoritarian personal dictatorship, and that in coun- Leadership in the Post-Communist World” tries attempting to escape from authoritar- examines half of the fifteen successor states ian rule, a collegial, inclusive, and collec- to the Soviet Union and explores the origins tive leadership is more conducive to suc- and development of personalistic rule in the cessful democratic transition than great region. Several of these states have seen the concentration of power in the hands of one emergence of monstrous cults of personali- individual at the top of the hierarchy. In es- ty, and their presidents, in a number of cas- tablished democracies, too, the quality of es, wield even more individual power than governance benefits from dispersed pow- that of a party leader in Soviet times, since– er within the executive, and from mem- the period of “high Stalinism” apart–Com- bers of the top leadership team having no munist rule was generally more oligarchic qualms about contradicting the top leader. than autocratic. Anthony King draws on his long study If a majority of the post-Soviet states of the American and British political sys- have moved from one form of authori- tems to provide a critique of particular tarianism to another, the same, alas, ap- presidencies and premierships. He pays pears to be true of several Middle East- attention also to the interesting case of ern and North African countries in which Switzerland, which, he suggests, has flour- high hopes for democracy were expressed ished economically and politically in re- during the Arab Spring. Even worse, some cent times, notwithstanding its linguistic have been plunged into bloody anarchy and religious differences and the absence and civil war. The one encouraging ex- of an instantly identifiable leader. Eschew- ception has been Tunisia, whose impres- ing such personal dominance has, it would sive, albeit still fragile, democratic transi- appear, contributed to Swiss success. The tion is analyzed by Alfred Stepan. He puts occasions in a country’s history when a the Tunisian experience in comparative mighty individual leader is necessary are context, noting that in common with the mercifully rare. A “strong” leader wielding transitions that produced effective dem- great power at the apex of the political sys- ocratic leadership in Spain, Chile, and In- tem is liable to do more harm than good. donesia, Tunisia has had a multiplicity of Indeed, King concludes, there is much to cooperating leaders, rather than a single be said for a country’s “political culture “strong leader.” Successful democratiza- and institutions having built into them a tion, he argues, often involves the forma- fair amount of ‘leader proofing.’” tion of a powerful coalition that brings to-

145 (3) Summer 2016 7 Leadership, Equality & Democracy

Nannerl O. Keohane

Abstract: The goal of this essay is to clarify the relationship between leadership and equality as two essential constitutive factors of a democratic political system. The essay is motivated by concern about increasing inequalities in the political system of the United States and other countries that describe themselves as democracies. The first section notes the logical tension between leadership and equality, and spells out my understanding of the key terms I use in this essay. I show how the tension between leadership and equality poses a conundrum for democratic governance. Yet the crux of my argument is that profound socioeconomic inequalities pose the more basic threat. I identify disparities in power, as distinct from leadership, as the root of the problem here. Leadership and power are often conflated. Eliding the differences between the two impedes our understanding of the dilemmas we face. The classical answer to concerns about the abuse of power is to establish institutional constraints on political leadership. Yet good leadership is essential in solving the problems we confront. Because leaders can take significant steps to reduce inequality, leadership and equality are not always in tension. If we are to emerge from our current malaise, we must recognize and draw upon the positive contributions of leadership to efficacious democratic governance.

NANNERL O. KEOHANE, a Fellow We begin with a conundrum: of the American Academy since 1) Democracy, as a system of government, depends 1991, is a political philosopher upon political equality: each citizen must have a and university administrator who voice and the opportunity to use it to influence de- served as president of Wellesley cisions made within the political community, par- College and Duke University. She ticularly those that have a direct effect on the inter- has taught at Swarthmore College ests of that citizen. Each person’s voice should count and Stanford, Duke, and Prince- as much as that of any other citizen. ton Universities. Her books include Philosophy and the State in 2) Democracy, like any complex social system, re- France: the Renaissance to the Enlight- quires leadership. In any situation in which more enment (1980), Higher Ground: Eth- than a few people want to accomplish some shared ics and Leadership in the Modern Uni- goal, leadership will be needed to mobilize their en- versity (2006), and Thinking about ergies effectively. Leadership (2010). She is a mem- 3) Leaders have more power than those they lead. ber of the Harvard Corporation, The disparity is less dramatic when the leadership is and serves on the Board of Trust- ees of the Doris Duke Charitable gentle and benign, rather than coercive, but it holds Foundation and the Board of Di- across the board. In order to clarify goals and mobilize rectors of the American Academy energies to accomplish a joint project, leaders must of Arts and Sciences. persuade others to engage in behaviors that these in-

8 dividuals might not otherwise choose to level . . . with all sharing alike, as far as pos- Nannerl O. undertake. In that sense, leaders are always, sible, in constitutional rights.”2 Keohane to use the memorable phrase from Animal In discussing the principles of the social Farm, “more equal than others.”1 contract, Rousseau adds: “From whatev- The first principle asserts that equality, in er side one traces one’s way back to the some form, is constitutive of a democratic principle, one always reaches the same regime. Other kinds of government may be conclusion: namely, that the pact estab- responsive to popular needs and demands lishes among the Citizens an equality such because of a sense of obligation, or from a that all commit themselves under the same shrewd awareness of how authority is best conditions and must all enjoy the same sustained. Thus, a regime’s responsiveness rights.”3 More recently, Robert Dahl, list- to popular needs and demands is not the ing the basic principles of democratic the- same as democratic governance. ory, chose “to lay down political equality The term democracy usually denotes pop- as an end to be maximized, that is, to pos- ular sovereignty, government in which ulti- tulate that the goals of every adult citizen mate power resides in the body of the cit- of a republic are to be accorded equal value izens. Other definitions emphasize popu- in determining government policies.”4 lar participation in determining policies Equality is a notoriously tricky term. For that affect the whole community. Popular our purposes, I want to concentrate on politi- sovereignty requires the people to choose cal equality. I understand this term to describe their leaders, hold them accountable, and a situation in which each citizen has the same potentially remove them from office. Par- rights as any other citizen to participate in ticipation in policy-making is a more ac- determining the outcome of a decision for tive and continuing requirement. In ei- the community. No one’s voice is amplified ther case, power rests with the people, the- by extraneous factors such as wealth, educa- oretically defined as all citizens of a polity, tion, race, or gender. Nor are any voices sup- though democracies throughout history pressed by fear of negative consequences for have understood the term with an implic- trying to express one’s views. it asterisk, excluding women, slaves, chil- This first principle–the link between dren, felons, or those without property, democracy and equality–is one that most among other groups. readers may already take for granted. The Despite these exclusions, political theo- second principle in my conundrum is less rists from Plato to the present have associ- familiar. Democracy, like any complex social ated democracy with equality. Readers of system, requires leadership. the Republic will recall how Plato, in book In Thinking about Leadership, I argue that viii, scorns democracy as a system of gov- “leaders determine or clarify goals for a ernment precisely because it can carry its group of individuals and bring together distinctive principle (equality) to absurd the energies of members of that group to and destructive ends. Aristotle defines de- accomplish those goals.”5 This approach mocracy in book iv of the Politics in terms builds on an understanding of leadership of equality as the principle by which we as set out by, for example, Philip Selznick, recognize whether any polity deserves this who describes leadership as “a kind of name. The most basic form of democracy work done to meet the needs of a social is one that comes closest to abstract equal- situation.”6 Such a low-key conception of ity, where the law declares “that the poor leadership is more often associated with are to count no more than the rich; neither administration or volunteer activities than is to be sovereign, and both are to be on a with political authority, but defining goals

145 (3) Summer 2016 9 Leadership, and mobilizing energies are the essential with democracy’s basic principle: equali- Equality & components of leadership in any context, ty. Therefore, democracy is an inherently Democracy including politics. contradictory form of government. Even in this basic understanding of leadership–as a common feature of complex How can this dilemma be resolved? human social interactions–the tension The first step is to acknowledge that de- with equality arises. If, with Dahl and other mocracy can never be achieved in its pure theorists, we definepower as influence over form. As defined above, democracy is an the behavior of others, whether by persua- abstract standard, an ideal that govern- sion or coercion, it follows that leaders even ments may approach more or less closely, in this minimalistic sense have more power but never fully reach. Most theorists of de- than other individuals. This is why radical- mocracy, including both Dahl and Rous- ly egalitarian movements, including Occu- seau, have recognized this explicitly. Hav- py Wall Street, have always tried to downing spelled out eight criteria for a political play or ignore leadership. system in which citizens effectively con- Some political theorists, well aware of trol their leaders, Dahl notes that, “it may the tension between equality and leader- be laid down dogmatically that no human ship, reason that in order to protect popu- organization–certainly none with more lar sovereignty, leadership must be severe- than a handful of people–has ever met ly constrained. Ideally, for such theorists, or is ever likely to meet these eight con- a democracy would do without leaders ditions.”8 Dahl’s mood reflected that of altogether. Benjamin Barber, an eloquent Rousseau, who wrote: “If there were a peo- advocate for democratic government, as- ple of Gods, they would govern themselves serts that precisely because of the tension democratically. So perfect a Government between leadership and equality, our ide- is not suited to men.”9 al goal would be to dispense with lead- We must also recognize that a completely ership entirely. He asserts that because egalitarian sociopolitical structure would it encroaches on individual autonomy, not provide a habitable environment for “leadership is opposed to participatory humans. Dystopias, including Kurt Von- self-government.” Therefore, “one might negut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” wish to say that in the ideal participatory make this point unassailably.10 The differ- system leadership vanishes altogether.” He ences between us as individuals are fun- recognizes grudgingly that “actual partic- damental to our species. Inevitably these ipatory systems . . . are clearly burdened disparities in talent, aspiration, effort, op- with the need for leadership.”7 Regarding portunity, and preference, multiplied by leadership as a burden with which democ- the accidents of fortune, yield a society in racies are saddled, instead of an essential which some individuals are more advanta- part of what makes them work, is part of geously placed than others. The challenge the problem I want to address. we face if we aspire to come closer to de- Leadership, in the sense I am using the term, mocracy is to ensure that these differenc- is a basic feature of all complex human activity, es do not durably aggregate to form a soci- including democratic politics. Thus, the prin- ety rigidly stratified into castes or impene- ciples of our conundrum, taken togeth- trable social classes, with some members er, identify a basic dilemma. Leadership almost inevitably winning in the game of is essential for democratic government. life and others perpetually disadvantaged, Because leaders have more power than oth- no matter how talented they are or how er individuals, leadership is incompatible hard they work.

10 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences We usually speak of our form of govern- tem and our increasing inequalities. They Nannerl O. ment in the United States as a democracy. cite data based on the Gini index, a famil- Keohane The term republic, used by Madison and iar way to measure inequality, which show memorialized by Benjamin Franklin, may that the United States has a worse score be more appropriate. As Philip Pettit has than other “long-standing democracies in shown, a republic is a form of government advanced economies,” and that this situ- that concentrates on protecting the free- ation has become markedly worse since dom of its citizens by avoiding domina- 1970. They also cite research that shows tion. This is not the same as democracy, that “the more veto players there are in a though the two are closely aligned. As Pet- political system, the more difficult it is to tit points out in his Seeley Lectures, it is construct a win-set to alter the political possible to develop a “republican theory status quo.” Such actors have “the poten- and model of democracy.”11 In the rest of tial to control a constitutionally embed- this essay, I will use the term democracy to ded, electorally generated veto point” that identify republics in which citizens aspire can obstruct significant political change.12 to popular sovereignty and vigorous pop- The United States has more veto players by ular participation, and feature this aspi- this definition than any other advanced de- ration as their dominant ideology, as op- mocracy; thus, it is not surprising that it posed to the abstract ideal form of democ- has been hard for our polity to tackle the racy discussed above. problem of growing inequality. The tension I have identified between As Stepan and Linz’s evidence makes leadership and equality will emerge in any clear, the dramatic socioeconomic in- kind of political system. Thus, it is not sur- equalities in the United States are correlat- prising that the first instinct of some the- ed with the difficulty of taking any bold po- orists of democratic government is to try litical action. Such action requires leader- to minimize or even do away with leadership in the halls of government, leadership ship. A more familiar response is to create that can build alliances and find ways to multiple checks and balances, to tie Gulli- work with, rather than be completely sty- ver down so that he cannot injure the Lilli- mied by, the checks and balances. putians. This was, of course, James Madi- The next step in resolving our dilemma son’s tactic, which forms the basic frame- is to recognize that those who see leader- work of the American constitution. ship solely as a threat to democracy are The abuse of power by leaders is a sig- confusing leadership with power and au- nificant concern for democracy, as it is for thority. There are connections between any form of government. It does not fol- leadership and each of these other terms, low, however, that constraints on leader- but it is not reducible to either of them. ship should be so severe that they make it At a minimum, power involves the kind impossible for our leaders to lead. There is of relationship so described by Dahl: ample evidence that such constraints be- “My intuitive idea of power is something come self-defeating. Theorists who regard like this: A has power over B to the extent leadership solely as a threat to good government, that he can get B to do something that a brute force to be cabined and constrained, un- B would not otherwise do.”13 This mini- dermine the performance of the political system malist definition has been usefully elabo- they wish to promote. rated by social scientists in several ways; Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz have but the basic point–getting someone to shown the correlation between the mul- do what he or she would otherwise not tiple blockages in the U.S. political sys- do–remains.

145 (3) Summer 2016 11 Leadership, Authority usually denotes some formal of- “Great men are almost always bad men, Equality & fice or position that conveys, in the words even when they exercise influence and not Democracy of the American Heritage Dictionary, “the authority.” It is the capacity to affect or di- power to enforce laws, exact obedience, rect the behavior of other individuals that command, determine or judge.” Author- opens opportunities for abuse. ity can also connote recognition of some- In discussing “great men,” Acton iden- one’s eminence, experience, or wisdom, tifies individuals who have unusual influ- and a resulting disposition to accept his or ence over others. Powerful persons prone her opinion as guidance. In political con- to this “badness” may operate in a very lim- texts, someone in authority usually has a ited domain. Some of the most corrupted title, badge, or office: an institutional po- power-holders are petty tyrants who abuse sition in a bureaucratic hierarchy. This of- their wives and families or mistreat their fice confers the legitimacy to enforce laws employees, servants, or slaves. This has and exact obedience within that system of nothing to do with leadership; it arises in- government. stead when persons prone to this behavior But authority is not the same as leader- have some licensed privilege to dominate ship as I have defined it. A title or an office other individuals. may convey a formal license to direct the Any leader capable of mobilizing the en- activities of others, but says nothing about ergies of others to pursue some goal has a whether the person occupying the office form of power. Thus, all leaders are subject has any clue about how to lead them. As to temptations that may lead to corruption John Gardner put it, “We have all occasion- because of the power they exercise, how- ally encountered top persons who couldn’t ever benign and minimal. It can be exhil- lead a squad of seven-year-olds to the ice arating to affect the behavior of other men cream counter.”14 and women. Power-holders (including political leaders) may in this way experience The key to my argument is the distinction power as a kind of personal high. They may between power and leadership. Leaders inev- also use it for their own aggrandizement. itably have some kind of power. But leaders Powerful individuals are often tempted on whom official authority has been con- to deploy the resources that power allows ferred are not the only powerful members them to accumulate–wealth, status, ac- of a democratic community. Inequalities in cess to privileges–to pursue selfish ends. power, not leadership as such, threaten po- If you possess political authority, you may litical equality. Therefore, constraints on also be tempted to oppress others in order leadership are not the only step we need to to keep them docile or magnify yourself. take to assure a healthy democracy. Limit- Arnold Rogow and Harold Lasswell con- ing opportunities for the abuse of power, nect the belief that power corrupts with not just constraining political leadership, the Christian conception of original sin. is the basic goal we must pursue. Acton thus gave memorable form to “one Lord Acton’s famous dictum–“Power of the deepest convictions of modern lib- tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts erals and democrats.”15 However, Rogow absolutely”–is usually taken as a state- and Lasswell warn against relying so heav- ment about political leadership. There ily on this conviction that we render our are good reasons for this: the most prom- leaders incapable of leading. And they re- inent and dangerous power-holders in mind us that not all leaders succumb to history have been in positions of political temptations that may arise. “For every authority. However, Acton goes on to say: Nero sunk in corruption and debauchery”

12 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences they assert, “there is a Trajan or Marcus “A may exercise power over B by getting Nannerl O. Aurelius who was notably upright.” him to do what he does not want to do, Keohane It would be hard to prove that histo- but he also exercises power over him by ry has produced an equal number of cor- influencing, shaping, or determining his rupt and upright leaders. Yet we can surely very wants.” This happens, Lukes goes on agree that “the personality structure of the to say, “through control of information, power-seeker” goes far to determine how through the mass media and through the any specific individual will react.16 Most processes of socialization.”19 He identi- leaders, like most of us, combine good and fies ways in whichA can manipulate B to bad qualities, strengths and weaknesses. A’s own advantage, thus getting him to do As James David Barber put it, “Power may something which is against his “real inter- corrupt–or ennoble or frighten or inspire ests,” however we might determine these. or distract a man. The result depends on When Lukes considers “the necessary his propensity for, his vulnerability to, par- conditions for human beings to flourish” ticular kinds of corruption or cleansing. –which is another way of describing “real . . . Political power is like nuclear energy: interests”–he supports the capabilities available to create deserts or make them approach subsequently developed by Am- bloom.”17 artya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The goal is to identify and bring about “the neces- In the decades since Dahl defined pow- sary conditions” for all individuals to live er in the minimal but memorable phrase “lives fit for human beings, who are treat- quoted above–the extent to which A can ed and treat one another as ends, have equal “get B to do something B would not other- dignity and an equal entitlement to shape their wise do”–social scientists have elaborated own lives, making their own choices and de- on this insight to deepen our understand- veloping their gifts in reciprocal relation- ing of power. The key work here is Steven ships with others.”20 Lukes’s book, Power: A Radical View. Lukes This linkage of the concept of equality criticizes Dahl’s definition as overly sim- with the concept of power draws our atten- plistic, identifying only one dimension of tion to the ways in which A’s exercise of power: decision-making about issues over power, in any of Lukes’s three senses, can which there is an observable conflict of undermine or constrain B’s equal status interests expressed in policy preferences. and capability. There are numerous ways Lukes follows Bachrach and Baratz in iden- in which A can get one or more Bs to do tifying a “second face of power” revealed something they would not otherwise do, when “A devotes his energies to creating and sometimes do things that an objective or reinforcing social and political values observer would regard as not in their “real and institutional practices that limit the interests.” As might use multiple resources scope of the political process to public con- –traditional status, seniority, education- sideration of only those issues which are al attainments, networks of partners, trib- comparatively innocuous to A.”18 In oth- al or ethnic ties, religious authority, intel- er words, where A can control the agenda lectual shrewdness, rhetorical gifts, an ag- so that only certain kinds of issues or con- gressive personality–to get others to do flicts are even up for decision,B may be pre- something that A prefers. cluded from pursuing goals that he would The resources used may include force or otherwise prefer. violence–threats to the safety and secu- Lukes’s own contribution to this discus- rity of individuals–resulting in oppression is in naming “the third face of power”: sion and domination. But in a healthy so-

145 (3) Summer 2016 13 Leadership, ciety, the resources do not always involve of an electoral or governmental system Equality & coercion, even though coercion is used (or so profoundly shaped by these forces as a Democracy threatened) in some situations. In close re- “democracy.” lationships of family or friendship, the resources are commonly benign, fluid, and Political scientists in the last few years sometimes reciprocal. These include affec- have provided ample evidence that po- tion, altruism, gentle persuasion, and col- litical decision-makers at all levels, espe- laboration, as well as coercion or threats cially in Washington, pass laws and hand of sanction. In larger communities, the re- down regulations that disproportionate- sources are more likely to be used imper- ly benefit more affluent Americans, par- sonally and less positively for the Bs. ticularly the very rich.22 This point may The resources that can be used most ef- seem unsurprising. But the striking fact is fectively to get others to do what you want how great the disproportion has become them to do are often economic. As Rous- in U.S. politics, despite our cherished con- seau pointed out in his Discourse on the Or- ception of our country as governed dem- igin and the Foundations of Inequality among ocratically. Martin Gilens and Benjamin Men, wealth is the most important of the Page note: “The central point that emerges various factors that conduce to inequali- from our research is that economic elites ty, because it can be used to purchase or and organized groups representing busi- secure most of the others.21 ness interests have substantial indepen- The power conveyed by the possession of dent impacts on U.S. government policy, wealth is especially insidious in democratic while mass-based interest groups and av- systems because of this all-purpose nature erage citizens have little or no independent of wealth. Among the things that wealth influence.”23 can purchase, of course, is political power In his book Affluence and Influence, Gilens or access to influence in governing. A poli- documents “enormous inequalities in the ty that allows the wealthiest citizens to pur- responsiveness of policy makers to the pref- chase speech that drowns out other voices erences of more- and less-well-off Amer- cannot claim to be a democracy. The prob- icans.”24 He concludes that there is over- lem is even greater when those who have whelming evidence that money makes a the most wealth are able to adjust the po- profound difference in who gets elected in litical institutions in such a way that some our country, and what policies are adopted. issues have no chance of making it onto the It is “political donations, not voting or vol- political agenda–the “second face” of pow- unteering,” that produce this result.25 Bor- er, in Lukes’s terms. rowing a term from James Snyder, Gilens We have become so accustomed to the asserts that very affluent Americans use impact of wealth in American politics that their wealth to make “long-term invest- we accept too readily the ways in which it ments” in individual politicians whose debilitates our democracy. We may grumble views accord with their own, knowing about the consequences of Citizens United, that the decisions of these politicians will or express concern about laws advantaging over time favor their interests. This kind some voters rather than others, laws passed of investment in American politics does by legislatures dominated by wealthy citi- not usually involve direct bribery (al- zens or those who finance their campaigns. though such corruption is surely not un- But if we understand a democracy as a sys- known). But the practice of “long-term in- tem in which citizens enjoy basic political vestment” raises “the disturbing prospect equality, it becomes hypocritical to speak of a vicious cycle in which growing eco-

14 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences nomic and political inequality are mutu- ernment of, by, and for the people, with Nannerl O. ally reinforcing.”26 rough political equality for all citizens, we Keohane Other students of politics make paral- cannot simply accept what we now face. lel arguments, including Larry Bartels in Even if our goal is more modest–to pre- Unequal Democracy, Jacob S. Hacker and serve the republican political system that Paul Pierson in The Winner-Take All Soci- protects citizens from oppression, and ad- ety, Nicholas Carnes in White-Collar Gov- dress those areas in which some citizens ernment, and the authors of the essays in (particularly young black men) are less well Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King’s vol- protected than others from abuses of power ume The Unsustainable American State.27 The –we cannot be complacent about our sit- arguments are somewhat different in iden- uation. tifying the culprit. According to Bartels, The vague hope that the unpredictable perhaps the problem is that many Amer- fortunes of our economic cycles will reduce ican citizens are uninterested in politics the glaring inequalities is a very dubious and too apathetic to vote, or too unin- source of amelioration. A rising tide does formed to vote their own apparent inter- not lift all boats when some of the boats ests. Or it may be, as Carnes argues, that are firmly anchored in the mud and will not enough working-class candidates are simply be swamped by the rising waters. recruited, trained, and encouraged to run Yet a falling tide will lower all boats with- for office, so that our government is domi- out specific human intervention to protect nated by leaders from the professional and those most at risk. business classes. Their conclusion, how- In the modern era, the French, Russian, ever, is identical: the health of our “dem- and Chinese revolutions brought about a ocratic” polity is in very poor condition dramatic short-term reduction in inequality. because of glaring socioeconomic dispar- The first and second world wars, along with ities among American citizens, reflected the Great Depression, accounted for signif- in our politics. icant short-term reductions in inequality in As a consequence of these findings, sever- Europe and the United States.30 Yet it would al students of American politics, including surely be perverse to hope for war or revolu- Jeffrey Winters and Benjamin Page, assert tion as a means to reduce inequality. that it is “now appropriate . . . to think about The most common response to the grow- the possibility of extreme political inequal- ing power of money in contemporary polity, involving great political influence by a itics in the United States is to urge citizens very small number of extremely wealthy in- to mobilize, to wake up from their apathy, dividuals. We argue that it is useful to think to put pressure on the government and take about the U.S. political system in terms of back the state.31 However, large numbers of oligarchy.”28 Gilens argues that “the pat- citizens cannot accomplish this goal indi- terns of responsiveness” he documents “of- vidually and spontaneously. Furthermore, ten corresponded more closely to a plutoc- this suggestion runs athwart the huge body racy than to a democracy.”29 of evidence about the problems posed by We can simply accept this state of affairs those who want to be “free riders” on the ef- as the lamentable consequence of the ac- forts of others to achieve collective goals.32 tions of a variety of powerful individuals, Here is where leadership–clarifying and do our best to navigate within it. If, on goals and mobilizing energies–becomes the other hand, we are committed to the deeply relevant. Good leadership is a po- United States as a democracy in the sense tential source of repair and reconstitution understood by Abraham Lincoln, as a gov- for our political system.

145 (3) Summer 2016 15 Leadership, A number of contemporary commenta- But the collective action for protest that Equality & tors assert that complex social systems can Shirky regards as the harbinger of broadly Democracy do without leadership, relying on crowd dispersed political activities is, in fact, sourcing, social media, or other ways of deeply reliant on leadership in the sense achieving social harmony and pursuing that I have used the term. Occupy Wall joint purposes. Clay Shirky argues that Street and the Arab Spring have been of- throughout history until the contemporary fered as paradigmatic examples of “lead- era, in order to “organize the work of even erless” activities. Yet these are surely not dozens of individuals, you had to manage instances of spontaneous behavior moti- them.” This meant setting up a centralized vated by “reciprocal altruism.” Fifty thou- organization with management by a ceo, a sand people did not magically turn up at king, a chair. The “new tools” of social me- Tahrir Square at exactly the same time on dia, email, websites, and other technologi- January 25, 2011. There had been protests in cal aids allow us to circumvent this problem. Egypt for more than a decade, most notably “By making it easier for groups to self-as- the broadly based strike on April 6, 2008. semble and for individuals to contribute to Dozens of young activists had tweeted and group effort without requiring formal man- communicated by email for months, plan- agement (and its attendant overhead), these ning the January 25 event. They reached tools have radically altered the old limits on out to colleagues and friends to let them the size, sophistication and scope of unsu- know about the chosen date. These activ- pervised effort.” Shirky argues that social ists had identified a goal–to protest against media allow potential groups to avoid Ron- Mubarak’s government–and effective- ald Coase’s “transaction costs” for organiz- ly mobilized the energies of many others ing, and thus do without management. An- to join them. The same is true for the or- other version of this idea, focusing on the ganizers of the Occupy Movement, whose formation of networks, has been provided goals were to highlight profound inequali- by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom in The ties in our contemporary societies and pol- Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Pow- itics; use social media effectively to mobi- er of Leaderless Organizations.33 lize the energies of large numbers of in- Shirky includes government among the dividuals to protest in specific, organized institutions that have lost their “relative communal spaces; and provide the sup- advantages,” compared with “the direct plies, schedules, and publicity that char- effort of the people they represent.” Al- acterized these spaces. though the obsolete villain of his piece In the Occupy protests around the world, is management rather than leadership, the principled commitment to equal sta- he occasionally hints at the implications tus for all protestors prompted aversion to for political life as well. At the end of his the emergence of identified leaders. How- book, he acknowledges that so far, in the ever, adherence to this principle made it political realm, technology-aided “collec- difficult for the leaders to translate the flu- tive action is more focused on protesting id power they exercised into the work of than creating,” because protesting is easi- institution-building. Protest is ultimate- er to do. He is optimistic that as social me- ly fruitless unless you establish a new set dia continue to develop, this difficulty will of institutions and policies in the space be overcome. “Reciprocal altruism” (as in your activities temporarily clear in a po- barn-raising in a farming village) will pro- litical system. The young activists who or- vide the motivation for creative construc- ganized the movement were deliberately tive action without leadership.34 contemptuous of “politics as usual,” in-

16 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences cluding compromise and coalition-build- each made significant progress toward this Nannerl O. ing. They had neither the will nor the tac- goal. It is worth pondering the distinctive Keohane tics to mobilize the political energy poten- qualities such leaders may possess that tially available in the broad concern about motivate them to work toward the goal of inequality that their protests both repre- reducing inequalities, and make it possi- sented and helped intensify. ble to achieve success. The only path that promises success in tackling Max Weber’s 1918 lecture on “Politics as the glaring inequalities that mar the American a Vocation” tells us that “three pre-eminent political system is visionary, pragmatic political qualities are decisive for the politician: pas- leadership. Leadership can make a differ- sion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense ence in several ways. Leaders in authority of proportion.” By “passion” Weber means can in some circumstances persuade oth- not “sterile excitation,” but “passionate de- ers to pass laws limiting the acquisition of votion to a ‘cause,’” deep commitment to wealth through the power to tax and re- something a leader believes is worth work- distribute. Leaders can inspire citizens to ing for. But passion alone is not enough. The think collectively and put the public good political leader also needs “a sense of pro- higher on the list of personal priorities for portion” or perspective, which Weber de- more of us. We need leaders who can avoid fines as the “ability to let realities work on the entanglements of excessive bureaucra- him [the leader] with inner concentra- cy as well as personal corruption and effec- tion and calmness.” This includes harbor- tively enlist the talents and energies of oth- ing a certain amount of “distance to things er citizens. Most basically, we need lead- and men,” rather than being so caught up ers who are motivated to use their power in dedication to a cause that a leader can- to help citizens less privileged than others, not see clearly how to make wise strategic and work for the creation of a more nearly judgments in pursuing that goal. As Weber democratic polity. notes, this combination of qualities is not often found together. “For the problem is This prescription may sound utopian in simply how can warm passion and a cool our current circumstances, in which money sense of proportion be forged together in is a powerful force in politics, many cit- one and the same soul?”35 izens are cynical and apathetic, and the Such a combination may be rare, but it is difficulties of being in the public spot- not unknown. In the broader global con- light deter many potential leaders from text, the premier example of a leader who choosing politics as a career. Yet histo- possessed a passion to reduce inequality, ry provides multiple examples of leaders and the sense of proportion that made it who have used their political talents in dif- possible to do so, would surely be Nelson ficult circumstances to reduce inequalities Mandela. He also possessed in large mea- and work toward a more balanced system. sure Weber’s other desideratum for a leader, In U.S. history, the list of such leaders in- “a feeling of responsibility.” His passion- cludes, most obviously, Abraham Lincoln, ate commitment to South Africa, and his Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon well-developed vision for its future, led him Baines Johnson. to feel deep responsibility for all South Afri- None of these leaders were perfect, by cans, white as well as black and colored. His any means; we could easily recite their sense of perspective and distance, honed by flaws. But each was determined to reduce the long years on Robben Island, made it glaring inequalities in the American pol- possible for him to lead without being dis- ity–inequalities of race or wealth–and tracted by parochial goals or petty loyalties.

145 (3) Summer 2016 17 Leadership, If such leaders, when they come on the ous and growing inequalities that threaten Equality & scene, are so constrained by political checks to undermine our quasidemocratic polity. Democracy and balances that they can achieve very lit- In the first sections of his essay “Politics tle, this pathway to social change is effec- as a Vocation,” Weber discusses the spe- tively blocked. As we have seen, this prob- cial qualities of charismatic leaders and lem affects the U.S. presidential system the effects they may achieve. In his conclu- especially acutely, compared with contem- sion, however, he describes politics as “the porary parliamentary systems, for exam- strong and slow boring of hard boards.”36 ple. But the basic principle should be kept Prominent charismatic leaders committed in mind in assessing the health of any polity. to decreasing the inequalities in our poli- Leaders of the caliber of Nelson Mandela ty can make a profound difference, and we or Abraham Lincoln are rare. Yet we do not can hope that more of them will be willing need to accept the “great man” theory of to run for high office. Equally important, history to understand how leadership is however, are the steady, dedicated efforts necessary to protect the vigor and capaci- of less visible leaders at every level of our ty of democratic governments. Leaders at a system, leaders willing to persist through less lofty level than the presidency are also the “slow boring of hard boards” to restore essential: leaders in congressional com- greater democracy and equity in our sys- mittees, the courts, in local political activ- tem of government. Without this contri- ities. Leadership by multiple actors within bution, we have little hope of reversing the our political system, including leaders of dangerous trends in contemporary politics corporations and nonprofit organizations, that so many of us deplore. is crucial if we are to reduce the danger-

endnotes 1 George Orwell, Animal Farm (New York: Penguin, 1956). 2 Aristotle, Politics, ed. Ernest Barker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), 22–23. 3 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Of The Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4, 63. 4 Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1956), 32. 5 Nannerl O. Keohane, Thinking about Leadership (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 23. 6 Philip Selznick, Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 22. 7 Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 237–238. 8 Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, 71. 9 Rousseau, Social Contract, 92. 10 Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron,” in Welcome to the Monkey House (New York: Delacorte Press [Random House], 1968). 11 Philip Pettit, On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 2012).

18 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 12 Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, “Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Nannerl O. Democracy in the United States,” Perspectives on Politics 9 (4) (December 2011): 844. Keohane 13 Robert Dahl, “The Concept of Power,” Behavioral Science 2 (3) (July 1957): 203. 14 John Gardner, On Leadership (New York: Free Press, 1990), 2. 15 Arnold A. Rogow and Harold Dwight Lassell, Power, Corruption and Rectitude (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963), 1–6. 16 Ibid., 33–35. 17 James David Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977), 12. 18 Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 20. 19 Ibid., 27. 20 Ibid., 117. Emphasis added. 21 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men, ed. Vic- tor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 184. Rousseau asserts that of the various kinds of inequality, “riches is the last to which they are finally reduced, because, being the most immediately useful to well-being and the easiest to transmit, it can readily be used to buy all the rest.” 22 Benjamin Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright, “Democracy and the Policy Preferenc- es of Wealthy Americans,” Perspectives on Politics 11 (1) (March 2013): 51–73. 23 Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspective on Politics 12 (3) (September 2014): 564. 24 Martin Gilens, Affluence and Influence(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), 12. 25 This point is made forcefully by Elizabeth Drew, “How Money Runs Our Politics,” The New York Review of Books, June 4, 2015, 22–26. 26 Gilens, Affluence and Influence, 239, 246, 252. 27 Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (New York: Rus- sell Sage Foundation; and Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008); Jacob S. Hack- er and Paul S. Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010); Nicholas Carnes, White-Col- lar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (Chicago: University of Chica- go Press, 2013); and Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King, eds., The Unsustainable American State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 28 Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, “Oligarchy in the United States?” Perspectives on Pol- itics 7 (4) (December 2009): 744. 29 Gilens, Affluence and Influence, 234. 30 For the reduction in inequalities in these periods, see the charts in Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014), 24, 316–317. 31 One example is Matt Stoller’s blog Naked Capitalism, cited by Jeffrey Isaacs in “Rethinking American Democracy” in a recent issue of Perspectives on Politics devoted to the topic of the increasingly oligarchical character of our democracy. Stoller says: “The lesson here is to organize. Citizens can matter, but only if they make themselves heard.” See Jeffrey Isaacs, “Re- thinking American Democracy,” Perspectives on Politics 12 (3) (September 2014): 560. 32 Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965). 33 Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (New York: Pen- guin Books, 2008), 19–21, 44–45; and Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (New York: Penguin, 2006).

145 (3) Summer 2016 19 Leadership, 34 Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 312–314. Equality & 35 Democracy Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 115. Emphasis in the original. 36 Ibid., 128.

20 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Rethinking the Psychology of Leadership: From Personal Identity to Social Identity

S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher

Abstract: Leadership is an influence process that centers on group members being motivated to reach collective goals. As such, it is ultimately proven by followership. Yet this is something that classical and contemporary approaches struggle to explain as a result of their focus on the qualities and characteristics of leaders as individuals in the abstract. To address this problem, we outline a social identity approach that explains leadership as a process grounded in an internalized sense of shared group membership that leaders create, represent, advance, and embed. This binds leaders and followers to each other and is a basis for mutual influence and focused effort. By producing qualitative transformation in the psychology of leaders and followers it also produces collective power that allows them to coproduce transformation in the world. The form that this takes then depends on the model and content of the identity around which the group is united.

“I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.” –Nelson Mandela

“I am, if I am anything, an American. I am an American from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.” –Theodore Roosevelt

“Above all, I am a German. As a German I feel at one with the fate of my people.” –Adolf Hitler1

S. ALEXANDER HASLAM is Profes- sor of Psychology and Australian Effective leadership is the ability to influence peo- Laureate Fellow at the Universi- ple in a way that motivates them to contribute to the ty of Queensland. achievement of group goals. As such, Nelson Man- STEPHEN D. REICHER is Ward- dela, Theodore Roosevelt, and Adolf Hitler were law Professor of Psychology at the all effective leaders. We may evaluate their vari- University of St. Andrews. ous achievements in very different ways (it would (*See endnotes for complete con- be worrying if we did not) but it would be hard to tributor biographies.) deny that their capacity to mobilize a mass constitu-

21 Rethinking the ency to bring about these achievements– ership.3 But that is precisely what we do Psychology of that is, their capacity for leadership–was suggest–and what we hope to provide– Leadership truly remarkable. in this essay. We start by explaining why a Because leadership mobilizes people and new approach is needed. This conviction focuses them on the achievement of cher- derives from the fact that classical and ished goals–even where this requires ma- contemporary understandings of leader- jor social change–it is highly prized and ship have been constrained by an individu- a major focus of academic and public de- alistic metatheory. This has led researchers bate. In fields as diverse as politics and re- and commentators alike to seek the roots ligion, science and technology, art and lit- of effective leadership within the person erature, sport and adventure, and indus- of the leader, and the ability of the leader try and business, leadership is commonly to satisfy the personal needs of followers. seen as the key process through which peo- We then outline our alternative approach ple are marshalled to contribute to the col- that argues, in contrast, that effective lead- lective projects that ultimately make histo- ership is always about leaders and follow- ry. In light of this, two key questions have ers seeing themselves as bound togeth- fascinated scholars and commentators for er through their joint membership of the over two millennia: What makes people ef- same group, and working together to sat- fective leaders? And, if we discover this, isfy group needs and realize group ambi- can we train others to be effective leaders tions. themselves? In short, whereas the existing leader- Answering these questions has spawned ship literature tends almost universally an industry so vast that its scale is hard to to see the psychology of leadership as an I fathom. For example, although their val- thing, we will endeavor to show that it is ue has been seriously questioned,2 there actually a we thing. Where the vast major- are close to one thousand different degree ity of the tracts on leadership write about courses in leadership in the United States its psychology in the first-person singular, alone, and it is estimated that U.S. com- we argue that it needs to be written in the panies spend around $14 billion a year on first-person plural. Leadership, we sug- leadership training. It has also launched gest, can never be “all about me” (the lead- an academic literature that spans multiple er). As our starting quotes from Mandela, disciplines, uses multiple approaches from Roosevelt, and Hitler suggest, ultimate- laboratory experimentation to historical ly it needs to be “all about we”–where we biographies, and again is so vast that no enfolds leaders and followers in the same one could digest more than a small fraction psychological group. of it. The British Library alone holds over eighty thousand documents with leader- The definition of leadership provided in ship in their title, including over fifteen our opening sentence contains at least four thousand books (of which around forty important elements that we need to come are simply called Leadership). to grips with before attempting to make Given all this information and knowl- headway. First, leadership is a process, not edge, it might seem arrogant, if not fool- a property, and it is more akin to a verb hardy, to suggest that there is a need to fun- than a noun. Accordingly, it is not some- damentally rethink the nature of leader- thing that a person possesses, but rath- ship or that we require (to cite the title of er something that he or she does. Second, the book we recently coauthored with Mi- leadership can never be something that a chael Platow) a new psychology of lead- person does on his or her own. Precisely

22 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences because it requires the mobilization of oth- sires of the mass? What is it that turns S. Alexander ers, it necessarily encompasses other peo- one person’s vision into a collective mis- Haslam & Stephen D. ple beyond the leader. This point is made sion that directs the energies of tens, thou- Reicher pointedly by Bertolt Brecht in his poem sands, or even millions of other people? “Questions from a Worker Who Reads.”4 As we argue in The New Psychology of Lead- “Who built Thebes of the seven gates?” ership, researchers have tended to answer he asks, alongside a range of similar ques- this question in one of three broad ways. tions about the feats of other heroic lead- Proponents of a classical approach gener- ers. “In the books you will read the names ally provide answers framed in terms of of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of core qualities that particular individuals rock?” Of course the answer is No. Third, possess (or lack). This, we argue, is char- this observation speaks to the fact that acteristic of an old psychology of leader- ultimate proof of leadership is found not ship that has relatively few disciples to- within leaders–neither their character, day (at least in academic circles). Build- their vision, nor even their actions–but ing upon this, adherents of a contextual in the followership of those they influence. approach supplement such analysis with Brecht’s poem speaks to the fact that in the a consideration of various features of the absence of hard work on the part of loyal prevailing social context that either facil- group members, there can be no leadership itate or else compromise the effectiveness to speak of, no leadership book to write. of individual leaders. This approach takes Accordingly, by telling us only about lead- many different forms and is characteristic ers, most analyses of leadership conceal of what we see as the contemporary psy- from us a key term in the leadership equa- chology of leadership. Finally, as we have tion. Fourth, it is important not to conflate already intimated, the new psychology of leadership and a range of other process- leadership that we will outline sets out an es with which it is commonly associated. identity approach. This sees leadership as a In particular, although leadership is often group process that centers on a psycho- discussed as a process of power, coercion, logical bond between leaders and follow- or resource management, it is fundamen- ers grounded in an internalized sense of tally about influence. As the social psychol- their common group membership; that is, ogist John Turner put it, it is about power a sense of shared social identity or “we-ness.” through, rather than power over, others.5 It is However, to appreciate what makes this about taking people with you so that they approach new, and what is distinctive and want to follow and do so with enthusiasm, useful about the analysis it affords, we first rather than beating them with a stick (or need to spend some time reflecting on the offering a carrot) so that they participate forms of understanding that it seeks to grudgingly, or only for so long as one has challenge and move beyond. carrots to offer. The mark of leadership, then, is not whether others feel obliged to Plato is commonly acknowledged as hav- do your bidding so long as you are standing ing provided, around 380 bc, the first for- over them, but whether they will go the ex- mal analysis of leadership. For him, as for tra mile for you and your cause even when Heraclitus before him, true leaders consti- you are absent. tute a rare breed of people who are born In these terms, the question that lies at with a cluster of attributes and qualities that the core of the leadership process is what set them apart from the hoi polloi. These it is that allows the plans of an individu- include quickness of learning, courage, al to be translated into the aims and de- broadness of vision, and physical prow-

145 (3) Summer 2016 23 Rethinking the ess. Moreover, because these qualities are that have had the most enduring appeal for Psychology of so rarely encountered in one person, when researchers and commentators alike: cha- Leadership they are they need to be nurtured and re- risma and intelligence. warded. As Heraclitus put it: “The many Max Weber’s original definition of cha- are worthless, good men are few. . . . One risma refers to “a certain quality of an in- man is ten thousand if he is the best.”6 dividual personality by which [a leader] is Although largely conversational, Plato’s set apart from ordinary men and treated as analysis provided a narrative framework endowed with superhuman, or at least spe- that has dominated leadership thinking cifically exceptional, powers or qualities.”9 for the last two-and-a-half millennia. Its This definition is therefore somewhat am- influence today can be seen in the range bivalent, referring to both a quality that the of popular texts that proliferate in airport individual has, and qualities that he or she bookstores and that serve to catalog the is treated as having by “ordinary men.” In distinctive prowess of the leader of the mo- the work of neo-Weberian leadership theo- ment–often as “secrets” to be generously rists like James MacGregor Burns, this am- shared with readers. But the popularity of bivalence largely disappears, and the focus this approach–and of this literary genre– is placed firmly on qualities of the leader: was cemented in the nineteenth century specifically his or her capacity to articulate through the writings of the Scottish histo- a group vision, to recruit others to his or rian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. His her cause, and to develop close and strong best-selling text On Heroes and Hero Wor- relationships with group members. Yet, as ship declared that “the history of what man we will discuss in more detail below, de- has accomplished in this world, is at bot- spite the fact that research provides fairly tom the History of the Great Men who have solid evidence that successful leaders tend worked here.”7 to be transformational in being both vision- This thesis of the great man invited ev- ary and empathic, attempts to root this in eryone from schoolchildren to scholars to the capacities of the individual have largely see leadership not as the stuff of ordinary failed. A key reason for this is that, on their mortals but as the stuff of gods, arguing own, vision (however brilliant) and empa- that great leaders’ distinctive and excep- thy (however authentic) are not enough to tional attributes qualified them not only guarantee success. for responsibility and high office, but also In contrast, the dimension of Weber’s for widespread admiration and respect. formulation that theorists tend to ignore Today still, it is the exceptional nature of seems more promising. For research shows such “stuff” that is used to justify the ex- that perceptions of charisma are critical to orbitant salaries routinely awarded to ex- the leadership process. Reflecting on the ecutive leaders. But what precisely are the Greek meaning of charisma as a “special qualities involved? It is in pinning down gift,” Michael Platow and his colleagues the details that the problems begin. thus observe that it is best thought of as Psychologists have studied an impressive a gift that is bestowed on leaders, rath- array of candidate variables: everything er than one that is possessed by them.10 from conventionalism and confidence to Moreover, in bestowing charisma, follow- sociability and surgency.8 Yet whatever the ers also commit their energies to the lead- target variable, summary reviews have gener. But whether followers bestow charisma erally concluded that personal attributes is not down to the leader alone. Indeed, at prove rather unreliable as predictors of different times and in different places, the leadership. This is true of the two attributes same leader may be seen as more or less

24 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences charismatic. This is because perceptions of In response to the limited predictive pow- S. Alexander charisma are a function of the changing so- er of approaches that focus exclusively on Haslam & Stephen D. cial relationship between leaders and fol- the character of the leader, most contempo- Reicher lowers and, more specifically, of whether rary leadership researchers endorse contex- the leader represents a group that the fol- tual approaches that pay heed to the social lowers currently identify with. So, in the environment in which leaders find them- context of the 2008 presidential prima- selves. Extreme versions of this interpre- ries, Democrats supporting Clinton may tation suggest that context is everything not have seen Obama as charismatic. But and the character of the individual counts in the context of the presidential election, for nothing; but for good reason, theorists those Clintonite Democrats are more like- and practitioners have found these expla- ly to have bestowed him with charisma. nations unconvincing. Accordingly, they And once president, even non-Democrats tend to embrace contingency models in which may have come to see Obama’s charismatic context is seen to moderate, but not entire- qualities. ly suppress, the contribution of the leader. Despite the fact that the construct of cha- Standard contingency models essential- risma has proved hard to pin down, one ly construe leadership as the outcome of a might imagine that intelligence would pro- “perfect match” between two core ingre- vide researchers greater predictive traction dients of the leadership process: the indi- as a result of its proud psychometric heri- vidual leader and the circumstances of the tage. Indeed, a key reason why this has been group that he or she leads. There are many an important focus for research is that in such models, and they constitute the most systematic reviews, intelligence typically influential way of thinking about leader- emerges as the best single predictor of lead- ship, both in formal academic treatments er success. Yet formal measures of leader in- of the topic and in everyday discourse. In telligence (such as IQ scores) still only ex- particular, they lend structure and content plain a very small amount of the variance to a plethora of management and personal in leader success. In an attempt to improve development courses that try first to classi- upon this, considerable energy has gone fy individuals as having a particular leader- into refining the analytic construct of intel- ship style, and then to train them to identi- ligence. The upshot is that researchers now fy (or create) situations in which this style tend to argue that it is particular types of in- will be effective. telligence that are especially important for The general notion that leadership is the leadership; notably either practical intelli- product between contingencies of person gence or emotional intelligence. Here again, and situation makes a lot of sense. Never- though, the constructs prove hard to iso- theless, a core problem with standard con- late, in part because their form and mean- tingency models is that they treat these two ing vary markedly across contexts; and in terms as fixed and, most problematically, part because, as with charisma, what real- as having no capacity to shape each oth- ly matters is a leader’s perceived intelligence, er. That is, they tend to neglect the capac- which is not highly correlated with formal- ity for the social context to be changed by ly assessed intelligence. At a broader level, leaders or for leaders to be changed by the then, what we see is that despite research- social context. Yet if one reflects for just ers’ efforts to keep their (and our) analyt- a moment on the leadership of Mandela, ic gaze solely on the psychology of leaders, Roosevelt, and Hitler, it is clear that in each the psychology of followers keeps worm- case, the leader and his social context both ing its way into the picture. exerted a powerful influence upon each

145 (3) Summer 2016 25 Rethinking the other. Indeed, as we explained above, the tom), these approaches have important Psychology of reason why leadership fascinates us is pre- limits. In particular, they presuppose that Leadership cisely because of this potential for trans- the terms of the exchange are set. That is, formation. It therefore makes little sense leaders should only provide people with to subscribe to a framework that allows no the things they already consider a reward, space for change. rather than change what they count as a re- Even more fundamentally, however, stan- ward. But, as we have already argued, one dard contingency models generally ignore of the key accomplishments of leadership the most important element of the lead- is to transform the things we care about and er’s context: followers. And even when the to make us concerned about things we pre- importance of followers is acknowledged, viously ignored, whether that be particu- such approaches fail to build their perspec- lar commodities, equality, environmental tive into the analysis. Does it matter wheth- sustainability, or whatever. Transactional er followers see the leader as the right per- approaches also presuppose that actors are son for the situation? Do these perceptions motivated entirely by personal gain, repre- of fit affect the support that followers give senting one of the ways they fail to break to the leader? Yes, it does, and such consid- with traditional individualism. Thus, they erations gain importance as the leadership reduce followership to the question what’s stakes become higher. Moreover, the fact in this for me? But this misses another key that the followers’ perspective is ignored accomplishment of leadership: the ability in most contingency models helps explain to transform followers’ focus on individual why empirical support for them is mixed at benefit into a concern for the greater good. best, and why it becomes weaker the further In short, it is generally only when leaders away from the laboratory one gets. and followers prove willing and able to rise More recently, the conceptual and empir- above their personal self-interest–to ask ical failings of standard contingency mod- instead what’s in this for us?–that they are els have led to new transactional and trans- able to advance their interests. formational approaches that make follow- The latter critique provided important ership a key part of the story. These models impetus for the development of transforma- mark an important departure (though, as tional approaches. These approaches insist we shall see, not a complete departure) that effective leadership (in whatever con- from the traditional individualist metathe- text, and however newsworthy) is based on ory of leadership research. For they treat more than just mercantile arrangements leadership as a social relationship between in which mutual obligation flows from in- leaders and followers, rather than as some- terpersonal account keeping. Instead, what thing to be sought within the leader alone. makes the process remarkable is precisely Transactional approaches view leadership its capacity to allow people to embrace a as a form of social exchange in which follow- bigger vision of their place in the world, to ers work to realize a leader’s vision to the work for the collective good, and thereby extent they believe that the leader is work- to scale new practical and moral heights.12 ing for them in return and that there is eq- We fully endorse this critique. In particu- uity between what they put in and what lar, we agree that people are able to impact they get out of the process.11 For all their the world to the extent that they are able appeal (not least in pointing to the ineffi- to work together as members of a group. ciency of organizations that provide exces- Such an approach marks a revolutionary sive remuneration to those at the top while turn in the study of leadership. Likewise, offering meager wages to those at the bot- it requires a revolutionary turn in the way

26 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences we conceptualize human psychology and, ership needs to explain. Five features in par- S. Alexander more particularly, concepts like identity ticular are important: Haslam & Stephen D. and interest. Yet the limitation of trans- 1) Leadership varies in form across so- Reicher formational leadership models is that they cial contexts; cannot fully deliver on their promise be- 2) Followers’ perceptions of leadership cause they still do not fully break with psy- are critical, but also vary across contexts; chological individualism. 3) Leadership involves leaders and fol- Thus, even if they accept that leaders lowers motivating and influencing each can transform the motivations of follow- other; ers, transformational approaches still as- 4) Leadership transforms not only the sume that the highest state of motivation world, but also the psychology of the lead- and morality is characterized by individu- ers and followers who bring transforma- al autonomy.13 And even though they root tion about; and the leader’s ability to be transformation- 5) Leaders and followers are bound to- al (that is, their charisma) in the percep- gether by being part of a common group. tions of followers, they still assume that The key contention of the new psychol- followers focus on fixed individual abilities ogy of leadership is that, by taking this last and qualities of the leader (as considerate, lesson seriously–by addressing leaders’ intelligent, or whatever). They therefore and followers’ conceptions of themselves miss the point–as the examples of Man- and each other as group members–we are dela, Roosevelt, and Hitler attest–that in in a position to explain the previous four. different contexts, people invest in a lead- To this end, we draw on the social identi- er for very different reasons. ty tradition in social psychology precise- What made these leaders so effective was ly because it uses people’s understandings precisely their sensitivity to social context. of their own group membership, and that What each did was to envision and be- of others, as the starting point for under- come emblematic of a particular group of standing processes within and between so- people in a particular place at a particular cial groups.14 point in time. This allowed them to mo- This tradition proposes that human be- bilize those people to transform the ma- ings have the capacity to define themselves terial landscape of society. And this is not in collective terms (“us Democrats,” “us just true of Mandela, Roosevelt, and Hit- social scientists”) as well as in individual ler, but of all leaders. This points to a sim- terms (“myself as a thoughtful person”); ple yet fundamental observation: leader- that collective (or social) identities are ev- ship is not just about leaders and follow- ery bit as real and important to us as in- ers, but about leaders and followers within dividual (or personal) identities; and that a specific social group. This observation takes the psychological understandings that flow us into new theoretical territory, for it re- from social identification arequalitatively quires us to articulate an analysis of lead- distinct from those that flow from personal ership within a broader understanding of identity. That is, the psychology of “we and basic group processes. they” cannot be assimilated to the psychology of “I and me” (the province of most Although our review has focused on the psychology theory), not least because our limitations of classical and contemporary relations with others are fundamentally approaches, these nonetheless provide valu- transformed once we define ourselves and able lessons. In particular, they help us un- others in collective terms. So when we per- derstand what an adequate theory of lead- ceive another person to share the same so-

145 (3) Summer 2016 27 Rethinking the cial identity as us (that is, to be part of our for whom politics appears pointless (pro- Psychology of psychological ingroup), we see them as viding us with a very different appreciation Leadership part of our self rather than as other.15 In or- of a Democratic victory), but we also be- der to see why this is critical for the analysis have differently. We go to particular meet- of leadership, it is helpful to flesh out four ings, we support particular candidates, we key points that emerge from social identi- cheer particular events–and we also en- ty theorizing and research. act and share these experiences with par- First, it is apparent that when (and to ticular people (even to the extent of hug- the extent that) people define themselves ging complete strangers as “our” presi- in terms of a particular group membership, dent is elected, provided they are wearing they are motivated to see that ingroup as the same blue badge). As an extensive ex- positively distinct from outgroups. That is, perimental literature has confirmed, social as far as possible, they want to see us as dif- identity is thus the basis for a range of key ferent to, and better than, them.16 In these social and organizational processes, includ- circumstances, too, what matters is not a ing social connection, communication, co- person’s sense of how he or she is doing ordination, and cooperation.18 That is, we as an individual, but the perceived stand- feel more connected to ingroup than to out- ing of the group as whole. For example, if group members, we trust and respect them a male baseball player defines himself first more, we are more concerned for them, we as a member of his team, he will care less communicate more and better with them, about his individual statistical accomplish- and we are more likely to help and work ments in a playoff series, and will priori- with them. All in all, social identity is what tize instead his team’s advancement to the underpins and indeed makes possible every next round. form of group behavior.19 Second, it is clear at the same time that Fourth, and more critically still for pres- the process of coming to define the self in ent purposes, social identity is also the basis terms of a particular social identity is al- for social influence processes. Thus, when ways meaningfully bound up with social people define themselves in terms of a giv- context. In particular, it depends on wheth- en social identity, they seek both to discover a given group membership has been a er what being a member of that group en- basis for our self-definition in the past (so tails and to act in ways that accord with this. that it is accessible) and whether it allows But in an uncertain and changing world, it us to make sense of our place in the situa- is not always clear how one should react, tion that confronts us (so that it is fitting).17 and so we look to guidance from others as For example, it makes more sense to define to what is appropriate. But who do we turn oneself as a Democrat (and hence to de- to? And when there are multiple voices ad- light in a Democratic election victory) if vocating multiple responses, which do we one has been a long-term supporter of the attend to and which do we ignore? The ob- party and is at present watching the elec- vious answer is that we turn to fellow in- tion results, rather than a baseball game on group members. For if we share social iden- the other channel. tity with them, and hence share common Third, when we define ourselves in terms perspectives and values, we should expect of social identity, it is apparent that this is to agree with them, at least on issues of rel- a basis not only for perception but also for evance to the group. So when it comes to behavior. If we see ourselves as Democrats, the question of how to respond to a mat- we do not just see the world differently ter of current political import, Democrats from supporters of other parties or people are most likely to turn to fellow Democrats.

28 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences However, given the choice, we would The second sense of being representative S. Alexander not turn to just any old group member. The is that leaders need to be seen as acting for Haslam & Stephen D. more we see someone as knowledgeable the group. Indeed, one of the things that is Reicher about the group culture, as consistently ex- most toxic to leadership effectiveness is the pressing in their pronouncements and their perception that one is either acting for one- actions those norms and values that make self or, even worse, for an outgroup. That our group distinctive from other groups– explains, perhaps, why would-be leader- in technical terms, the more we see them as ship contenders must always be seen as re- prototypical of the group–the more we will luctant candidates, not seeking power for pay heed,20 the more we will follow what themselves but being entreated to take on such people say, and the more effort we will the burdens of office. It also explains why put into supporting their proposals.21 Cincinnatus–who came back from retire- This is, of course, an implicit theory of ment to save Rome and, once successful, leadership (even if the original work on returned to obscurity–is often held up as group prototypicality and social influence a paragon of good leadership. Certainly, did not use the term). We have turned it into evidence suggests that where leaders are an explicit theory with three core premises. seen as promoting their own agenda or en- The first premise of the new psychology of richment, their perceived charisma rap- leadership is that effective leaders (those who idly evaporates.24 Witness, for example, can influence and harness the energies of fol- how Tony Blair is now regarded by many lowers) need to be seen to be representative of of those who once revered him. a shared ingroup. This is true in two sens- In this way we see that key qualities of es. One, that we have already discussed, leadership–like charisma–are not qual- is that leaders need to be seen as being of ities of the leader, but are rooted in the re- the group. They must instantiate what the lationship between the leader and group group stands for and, as our opening quo- identity. This in turn allows us to under- tations attest, it must be clear that they are stand why the qualities that define leader- a group member before all else. ship vary from group to group and context It is important, at this point, to preempt to context. The qualities that made Man- a potential point of confusion. In arguing dela prototypical of the South African lib- that leaders need to be prototypical, we are eration movement, Roosevelt prototypical not suggesting that they are typical in the of progressive Republicanism, and Hitler sense of being average group members.22 prototypical of Nazi Germany are evidently Rather, they stand for all the qualities that different. But in each case, the relationship we ascribe to our group: they may have to between the individual and the social cat- be seen as brilliant and humble and brave egory was the same. and self-effacing, if that is how we see our At this point, the attentive reader may ob- collective selves. To be prototypical is to be ject that we are open to the same criticism extraordinary, not to be average. Or rath- we have (more than once) made of others. er, because being influential depends upon That is, if effective leaders need to have the way one is perceived by other group qualities that match the distinctive quali- members, to be seen as prototypical is to ties of the group, then there is no room for be seen as extraordinary. Indeed, studies creativity or transformation. The leader- show that those who are seen as prototyp- ship process becomes entirely passive as ical are seen to be endowed with that most people simply wait for circumstances to elusive and most “magical” of all leader- hoist the mantle of prototypicality on their ship ingredients: charisma.23 shoulders. This criticism would be war-

145 (3) Summer 2016 29 Rethinking the rented if social identity were fixed or taken ca was a young, vibrant nation breaching Psychology of for granted. But it isn’t. Identity is an emi- a new frontier. To personify this narrative, Leadership nently moveable feast, and one of the key he not only hid his disability entirely, but features of effective leadership is the abili- at his own inauguration, where all around ty to take advantage of this. Hence, the sec- him wore warm hats to combat the freezing ond premise of the new psychology of leadership cold, he insisted on showing his full head of is that effective leaders need to be entrepreneurs hair and declared: “the new generation of- of identity. That is, they need to be able to fers a leader.” construe (and reconstrue) what the group This performative dimension to leader- is, who they themselves are, and what they ship can be taken a step further. Thus, lead- advocate, so as to place all in alignment. ership is not just about how the leader acts, By way of illustration, we can compare the but also how the leader shapes the perfor- leadership of two U.S. presidents: Frank- mance of followers. For in order to make lin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. their versions of shared identity compel- fdr was struck down in his early adulthood ling, they need to make them real. Obvi- with infantile paralysis (thought at the time ously, a critical part of this is success in to be polio). Because it undermined those enacting policies that embed group val- Platonic qualities considered critical for ues in social reality. But another, perhaps leadership–virility, energy, physical prow- underappreciated, part is the use of ritu- ess–this ought to have been, according to alized performances–celebrations, com- that model, catastrophic for his political as- memorations, festivals, rallies–in which pirations. Certainly Roosevelt did his best people are encouraged to act out the lead- to hide images of himself in a wheelchair, er’s vision of group values. Accordingly, the succumbing to paralysis; but at the same third premise of the new psychology of leader- time, he was willing to show himself to be ship is that effective leaders need to be impresa- symbollic of people overcoming profound rios of identity. This involves choreograph- hardship. ing groups and group life in ways that ac- In particular, when Roosevelt proposed tualize identity through lived experience. a train tour to support his 1934 presiden- To illustrate this point, one can reflect on tial campaign, advisors begged him not to Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous film of the 1934 present his broken body before the elector- Nazi Nuremburg rally, Triumph of the Will. ate. But he did. In town after town, he labo- The film begins with Hitler’s plane descend- riously dragged himself from train to podi- ing through the clouds, casting the shadow um. Then he spoke of America as a country of a cross on the expectant masses waiting with the ability and the will to overcome below. Hitler then walks through the rig- economic paralysis and to flourish again. orously ordered, serried ranks of the faith- It was a message articulated most famously ful before ascending to a platform in front in his First Inaugural Address: “This great of and above them. The performance, of Nation . . . will revive and will prosper. . . . which the masses are an essential part, cre- The only thing we have to fear is fear it- ates the Nazi vision of a Volksgemeinshaft–a self–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified horizontal, disciplined, ethnic community terror which paralyzes needed efforts to –combined with the Führerprinzip–a rigid- convert retreat into advance.” ly vertical form of political authority.25 In- How different this was from jfk, who was deed, the extent to which the performance also afflicted by a debilitating illness (Addi- aimed to actualize group values of hardness son’s disease, which led to the crumbling and order is exemplified by the care with of his spine). But his narrative of Ameri- which Albert Speer chose the materials

30 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences used in the construction of the Nuremberg ty, then that definition–and those leaders S. Alexander arena: granite and old, hard German oak. who advance it–will fall by the wayside. Haslam & Stephen D. Yet where, and so long as, mobilization suc- Reicher In summing up our analysis, it is worth ceeds in creating positive realities that re- emphasizing three significant points that flect a given definition of identity, then that emerge from the social identity approach to definition, and the leaders who help to ad- leadership. All relate to problems that arise vance and embed it, will enjoy considerable from endorsing too narrow an understand- support. In these terms, then, the X factor ing of leadership–problems that have rou- that Mandela, Roosevelt, and Hitler shared tinely beset the classical and contemporary was that they were responsible (or seen to approaches that we seek to move beyond. be responsible) for initiating and develop- The first is that, when it is effective, leading identity structures that allowed a particu- ership can never be the exclusive preserve lar model of “us” to be lived out and trans- of leaders. In particular, it is apparent that lated into material change in the world. acts of identity entrepreneurship and im- This, though, leads to a final point about presarioship are too demanding in scale the dangers of imagining that leadership for them to be performed only by those in is an exclusively positive process. The trap positions of formal authority. Leaders thus here is that precisely because our own lead- need loyal lieutenants to engage in these ership, and that of those we follow, is an processes, but they also need ordinary expression of a worldview that we believe group members to do the same. Indeed, to be right (a belief that is validated by our much of the power of a social identity anal- fellow ingroup members), we are generally ysis is that it explains not only how leaders inclined to see leadership as an inherently are able to be creative, but also how follow- virtuous process. Indeed, this inclination is ers are too, so that they not only “haul up cemented within social and organization- the lumps of rock” (as Brecht put it), but al science more generally in the form of a also do so in imaginative and generative strong, usually implicit assumption that ways. In these terms, the transformation- leadership is an unalloyed good (which is al power of social identity is that it is not why the leadership industry is so vast). Yet simply a source of creative leadership, but although we have argued that the identity also of the engaged followership upon which processes that underpinned the success of its success depends.26 leaders like Mandela, Roosevelt, and Hit- Relatedly, leadership–and the process- ler were essentially the same, we chose to es of identity-building that underpin it– focus on these three figures to make it clear can never be exclusively perceptual or rhe- that our analysis is explanatory rather than torical. It must also be material. To be sure, normative. That is, the model of identity leaders need to talk the talk of identity and leadership that we have presented seeks to mobilize followers around a collective sense understand what makes leadership effec- of “who we are” and “what we are about.” tive, not what makes it good. However, this alone is not sufficient to sus- The question of what makes leadership tain those followers’ enthusiasm in the long normatively good or bad, we suggest, is a run. Instead, social identity is ultimately matter of identity content and of identity only of use to the extent that it allows group process. When it comes to identity content, members to create a better future for their the way in which group boundaries and the group. Accordingly, if collective mobili- group values are defined is critical. Con- zation fails to translate a definition of so- trast the Nazi definition of German iden- cial identity into consonant forms of reali- tity with Mandela’s definition of South Af-

145 (3) Summer 2016 31 Rethinking the rican society. As the Nazis saw it: “What is text, and authority lies in the hands of those Psychology of the first commandment of every National who are allowed to interpret it: the clergy Leadership socialist? . . . Love Germany above all else alone, the clergy with congregational par- and your ethnic comrade [Volksgenosse] as ticipation, or the congregation as facilitat- yourself.”27 As Mandela saw it (as stated ed by the clergy. We would argue that sim- in his famous 1964 speech from the dock): ilar considerations extend to secular poli- “During my lifetime I have dedicated my- tics, and that one can identify a continuum self to this struggle of the African people. I from democratic leadership (where leaders have fought against white domination, and guide a collective conversation about “who I have fought against black domination. I we are”) to hierarchical leadership (where have cherished the ideal of a democratic leaders claim special access to the defini- and free society in which all persons live tion of group identity, but do not exclude together in harmony and with equal op- the participation of the population) to au- portunities. It is an ideal which I hope to thoritarian leadership (where leaders claim live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is to so embody the group that any criticism an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”28 of them is seen as an attack on the group). The one proposes an ethnically exclusive These are, of course, ideal types, and we definition of identity, the other proposes do not suggest one can neatly map particu- a racially inclusive version. The one values lar leaders onto particular categories. None- love for the category, but hostility to those theless, this framework may be helpful in outside it. The other values harmony and allowing us to identify the signs of creep- equality between peoples. The one facili- ing authoritarianism and nip it in the bud. tated genocide, the other ultimately pre- In this way, although the new psychology vented racial war. of leadership is intended primarily to offer Regarding the issue of identity process, here an analytic approach, it can, we hope, be di- the issue concerns the balance between rected to democratic and inclusive norma- leaders and followers in terms of who is en- tive ends. At the very least, it alerts us to the titled to define “who we are.” This lies at the power of identity as a leadership tool, and root of questions of political authority. The to the need to consider carefully the ways right to define identity is at its clearest in re- in which that tool is fashioned and wielded. ligious contexts in which there is a sacred

endnotes * Contributor Biographies: S. ALEXANDER HASLAM is Professor of Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Canadi- an Institute for Advanced Research and Associate Director of its Social Interactions, Identi- ty and Well-Being program. His research explores group and identity processes in social and organizational contexts, and is exemplified by the recent bookThe New Psychology of Leader- ship: Identity, Influence and Power (with Stephen D. Reicher and Michael J. Platow, 2011). STEPHEN D. REICHER is Wardlaw Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has a longstand- ing interest in crowd behavior, mass social influence, and political rhetoric. His recent books on these topics include Self and Nation (with Nick Hopkins, 2000) and a five-volume series of readings on Leadership (with S. Alexander Haslam, 2014).

32 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 1 Mandela quoted in Julie Frederikse, The Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa (Bloom- S. Alexander ington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 89; Roosevelt quoted in Mario Di Nunzio, Theodore Haslam & Roosevelt: An American Mind (London: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 46; and Hitler quoted in Gor- Stephen D. Reicher don W. Prange, Hitler’s Words (New York: American Council on Public Affairs, 1944), 101. 2 Barbara Kellerman, The End of Leadership (New York: Harper Collins, 2012). 3 S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher, and Michael J. Platow, The New Psychology of Lead- ership: Identity, Influence and Power (London and New York: Psychology Press, 2011). 4 Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913–1956, trans. Edith Anderson, Lee Baxendall, Eva Bornemann, et al., (London: Methuen, 1935; 1976). 5 John C. Turner, “Examining the Nature of Power: A Three-Process Theory,” European Journal of Social Psychology 35 (2005): 1–22. 6 Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 57. 7 Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (London: Harrap, 1840), 5. 8 Richard D. Mann, “A Review of the Relationship between Personality and Performance in Small Groups,” Psychological Bulletin 56 (4) (1959): 241–270. 9 Max Weber, “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority,” in Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and C. W. Milles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921; 1946), 359, 245–252. 10 Michael J. Platow, Daan van Knippenberg, S. Alexander Haslam, Barbara Wise, and Russell Spears, “A Special Gift We Bestow on You for Being Representative of Us: Considering Leader Charisma from a Self-Categorization Perspective,” British Journal of Social Psychology 45 (part 2) (2006): 303–320. 11 Edwin P. Hollander, “Organizational Leadership and Followership,” in Social Psychology at Work: Essays in Honour of Michael Argyle, ed. Peter Collett and Adrian Furnham (London: Routledge, 1995), 69–87. 12 James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978). 13 Naomi Ellemers, Dick De Gilder, and S. Alexander Haslam, “Motivating Individuals and Groups at Work: A Social Identity Perspective on Leadership and Group Performance,” Academy of Man- agement Review 29 (3) (2004): 459–478. 14 Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” in The So- cial Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1979), 33–47. 15 John C. Turner, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). 16 Tajfel and Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” 17 Penelope J. Oakes, S. Alexander Haslam, and John C. Turner, Stereotyping and Social Reality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). 18 S. Alexander Haslam, Psychology in Organizations: The Social Identity Approach (London: Sage, 2001). 19 John C. Turner, “Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group,” in Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, ed. Henri Tajfel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 21. 20 Michael Hogg and Daan van Knippenberg, “Social Identity and Leadership Processes in Groups,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 35, ed. Mark P. Zanna (San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 2003), 1–52. 21 S. Alexander Haslam and Michael J. Platow, “The Link between Leadership and Followership: How Affirming a Social Identity Translates Vision into Action,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27 (2001): 1469–1479.

145 (3) Summer 2016 33 Rethinking the 22 Niklas K. Steffens, S. Alexander Haslam, Thomas Kessler, and Michelle K. Ryan, “Leader Per- Psychology of formance and Prototypicality: Their Inter-Relationship and Impact on Leaders’ Identity En- Leadership trepreneurship,” European Journal of Social Psychology 43 (7) (2013): 606–613. 23 Platow et al., “A Special Gift We Bestow on You for Being Representative of Us.” 24 S. Alexander Haslam, Michael J. Platow, John C. Turner, et al., “Social Identity and the Ro- mance of Leadership: The Importance of Being Seen to be ‘Doing It for Us,’” Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 4 (3) (2001): 191–205. 25 Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (London: Bodley Head, 2014). 26 Stephen D. Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Joanne R. Smith, “Working Towards the Exper- imenter: Reconceptualizing Obedience within the Milgram Paradigm as Identification-Based Followership,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (4): 315–324. 27 Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 7. 28 Nelson Mandela, The Struggle is My Life (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1990), 217.

34 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Presidential Leadership & the Separation of Powers

Eric A. Posner

Abstract: The presidents who routinely are judged the greatest leaders are also the most heavily criticized by legal scholars. The reason is that the greatest presidents succeeded by overcoming the barriers erected by Madison’s system of separation of powers, but the legal mind sees such actions as breaches of constitutional norms that presidents are supposed to uphold. With the erosion of Madisonian checks and balances, what stops presidents from abusing their powers? The answer lies in the complex nature of presidential leadership. The president is simultaneously leader of the country, a party, and the executive branch. The conflicts between these leadership roles put heavy constraints on his power.

While the topic of presidential leadership has fascinated political scientists and historians for decades, legal scholars have ignored it. Legal scholars rarely discuss “leadership”–of the president or anyone else. They are concerned with the legal constraints on the presidency, not the opportunities that the office supplies to its occupant. Moreover, in contrast to political scientists and historians, who find it difficult to resist celebrating presidents who show great leadership qualities, legal scholars almost universally take a critical attitude toward the president.1 And the leaders who commentators frequently judge as “great”–including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow ERIC A. POSNER, a Fellow of the Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan– American Academy since 2010, receive the most critical attention. This is because is the Kirkland and Ellis Distin- those leaders turn out, with a few exceptions, to be guished Service Professor of Law the presidents who most frequently tread on consti- at the University of Chicago. His tutional norms. This raises a paradox. How can our books on executive power include top presidential leaders also be major lawbreakers?2 The Executive Unbound: After the Mad- isonian Republic (with Adrian Ver- To address this paradox, we start with the Consti- meule, 2011) and Terror in the Bal- tution. The Constitution says almost nothing about ance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts leadership. It does not identify a leader of the coun- (with Adrian Vermeule, 2007). try, a head of state, or even a head of government.

35 Presidential By vesting the executive power in the pres- or by a tyrannical legislature. Their solu- Leadership & ident, it implies that the president is lead- tion was to supplement elections with the the Separation of Powers er of the executive branch, but not that system of separation of powers. Elections he is the leader of the country or the gov- would ensure that government officials en- ernment. Moreover, not everyone agrees joyed popular support when they reached that the president is leader of the execu- office, but they could not, by themselves, tive branch. Even today it is controversial prevent those officials from accumulating whether executive agencies must answer power while in office or using it to main- to the president; the so-called independent tain their position and abuse the public agencies like the Federal Reserve do not. trust. The separation of powers addressed Congress sets up agencies and gives them this risk. Madison argued that each of the their marching orders, controls their bud- three branches of government would com- get, and routinely harangues their chiefs. pete for power and in the process con- And, of course, Congress demands that the strain each other. The usual picture is one president comply with its laws, citing the in which the officials in each branch are Constitution’s Take Care Clause and Su- motivated to inflate their personal power premacy Clause. The text of the Constitu- by expanding the power of the branch in tion could be read to envision a president which they operate, and hence by resisting who is merely an agent of Congress, one the efforts of officials in other branches to who has little discretion to exercise lead- extend their power. Actions that seek to re- ership except perhaps over a small staff of distribute power–actions that would re- assistants. sult in power being concentrated in one of- The Constitution is hardly clearer about fice or branch–would be blocked. Actions Congress. It designates the vice president that advance the public interest would as president of the Senate, but in consti- (presumably) not be blocked. A separate tutional practice, he is not its leader. The executive branch would enable the govern- Constitution gives the Senate and House ment to act quickly and decisively, but be- the power to elect officers, and the leader- cause the executive would derive most of ship positions in those institutions emerge its authority from Congress, it would be from that process. Even so, there is not a blocked from expanding its power. leader of the House or the Senate in a mean- Consistent with the Madisonian struc- ingful sense. The real leadership positions ture, then, the Constitution–more by im- are held by the top party official in each plication than by language–creates a group body; so Congress has four leaders, with of leaders, but no leader of the nation. The the majority leaders being something like government is a kind of institutional con- coequals. Finally, the Constitution does not federacy. The founders, who were well- create a leader of the courts (though it re- versed in classical history, may have en- fers in passing to a chief justice presiding visioned a system like the Roman Repub- over impeachment trials). Congress creat- lic, where there were leaders but no leader. ed the position of chief justice, whose pow- The Roman Senate was a collective body, ers over the federal judiciary are limited. and men with distinctive gifts like Cice- Why does the Constitution say so little ro could emerge as leaders at critical mo- about leadership? The founders sought a ments. But leadership was fluid; it moved more effective executive after the debacle from one person to another in response to of the Articles of Confederation, but they events. The most important office was the also feared an excessively powerful nation- consul, but there always were two consuls, al government led by an imperial president and they served only for a year. A dicta-

36 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences tor could be authorized for short periods ers was supposed to allow decisive action Eric A. during military emergencies. These and by the executive while blocking it or any Posner many other restrictions on office-hold- other part of government from acquiring ing worked to block–or at least retard– excessive power, but it has never been clear the emergence of charismatic individuals how this system could work. The Consti- whose power derived from their personal- tution’s checks and balances simply make ities, connections, accomplishments, and it difficult for the national government to family lineage, rather than from their tem- act, whether for good or for bad. The ba- porary occupation of an institutional po- sic problem with a government action– sition. The Roman Republic survived for whether a military operation, negotiation centuries without a king. Men who sought of a trade treaty, or the construction of a to become leaders, like Sulla and Caesar, new canal–is that it creates losers as well as were seen as usurpers. The imperial lead- winners. Vetogates enable potential losers ership of Augustus and his successors was to head off government action that harms not possible until the Republic collapsed. them, but the more vetogates that are built But the founders’ aversion to a national into the system, the easier it is for losers to leader ran into trouble from the start. Even block actions that may be in the public in- while debating in Philadelphia, it was wide- terest. Even if the actions hurt no one at all, ly understood that the new country would people located at the vetogates can block be led by a great man: George Washington. the action unless they receive special treat- And he would not be Speaker of the House ment. Separation of powers, which is dis- or chief justice; just as he was president of tinguished from other systems like parlia- the Constitutional Convention, he would mentary government by the large number be president of the country. The selection of of vetogates it creates, just leads to gridlock Washington was an obvious choice. He was and ineffective government. not just the hero of the Revolution; he was The rise of presidential leadership, be- a natural leader who had earned the trust ginning with George Washington, only of his officers and soldiers through many partly ameliorated this problem. Wash- years of wartime military service. The new ington alone entered office with a large country’s best chance was to throw its lot enough wellspring of trust to enable him to a man who already enjoyed the trust of to use the office aggressively–and, even the nation. And the position of president, then, he frequently acted with extreme cau- rather than House Speaker or chief justice, tion, careful to consult Congress and follow was the obvious choice as well. Washing- its laws even during emergencies like the ton was a military man, and what the coun- Whiskey Rebellion. Only a few successors try needed was a military leader to protect with exceptional talents–Jefferson, Jack- it from Indians, Europeans, and internal son, maybe Polk–could overcome the bar- dissenters. So while the founders drafted riers to government action, and they did a document that failed to recognize a na- so only on occasion. However, perhaps tional leader, they prepared the way for the because the country was focused inward first and greatest national leader. The nega- during the first sixty years of its existence– tion of presidential leadership was to be a or perhaps because the party system would legal fiction. permit new forms of cooperation among the branches–the cumbersome structure The immediate resort to presidential lead- of the national government could be toler- ership spelled trouble for the Madisonian ated. State governments undertook inter- system. The system of separation of pow- nal development. Congress tended to give

145 (3) Summer 2016 37 Presidential the president a free hand for foreign rela- While the separation of powers eroded, Leadership & tions and military operations, when quick the president’s personal authority expand- the Separation of Powers and decisive actions were necessary, and ed. Today, President Obama can use his le- the gains from security or territorial con- gal and constitutional authority to imple- quest could be widely distributed. Other- ment many of the policies he prefers. He wise, the national government was weak still needs congressional authority for ma- and presidential leadership thin. The great jor legislative changes, but the president controversies over slavery were resolved by initiates the debate by appealing to the Congress, not the president. And then the public and demanding support from the system buckled. The country was saved by thousands of people who owe him favors Lincoln, the greatest leader since Washing- for patronage and other benefits he has be- ton, who ran roughshod over the Madiso- stowed or has the capacity to bestow. He nian system in countless ways. But it was leads his party, which also gives him au- in the twentieth century that separation of thority over Congress when his party en- powers gave way decisively to a system of joys a majority in both houses, and influ- personalistic leadership by the president. ence over Congress even when he does The evolution was not linear, but it was not. He nominates judges who advance his unmistakable. Markers along the way in- ideological goals, and fills the top ranks of cluded Theodore Roosevelt’s innovation the bureaucracy with his supporters. He of appealing directly to the public for sup- leads an institution that gathers and pro- port rather than working through Con- cesses information (especially confidential gress; the concentration of presidential information) much better than Congress power under Woodrow Wilson; the vast can, and this informational advantage– expansion of the federal bureaucracy un- along with the fact that he occupies his of- der Franklin Delano Roosevelt, including fice continuously while Congress comes the inauguration of a new form of admin- and goes–gives him the ability to set the istrative government; and the Cold War– agenda and control the public debate, to era consolidation of presidential control act and confront Congress, passive and di- over foreign policy and a vast standing vided as always, with a fait accompli.3 army. A subtle but important change was President Obama came to office promis- that the locus of policy-making authori- ing economic stimulus, financial regulation, ty moved from Congress to the president. universal health care, carbon-emission reg- While Congress continued to debate legis- ulation, immigration reform, and reforms lation, the president set the agenda. From to counterterrorism. He set the agenda; a legal standpoint, the expansion of pres- Congress reacted. Congress gave him the idential power took two forms: the en- legislation he sought in the first three cas- actment of hundreds of statutes that gave es: the American Recovery and Reinvest- the president vast discretionary authori- ment Act of 2009, the Dodd-Frank Act, and ty (and large staffs to implement them); the Affordable Care Act. The second two and presidential assertions of unilater- examples are of dual significance. Not only al authority under the Constitution. The did Congress acquiesce in the president’s first required active congressional par- legislative agenda; it vastly expanded his ticipation, the second, acquiescence; but authority, and the authority of his succes- they were mutually reinforcing, and the sors, to regulate–that is, to make policy de- Supreme Court–after modest resistance cisions–in the financial and health sectors that ended with Roosevelt’s court-pack- of the economy. While Congress refused to ing plan–gave its imprimatur. give Obama the climate and immigration

38 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences laws he sought, the president implement- but he was also the leader of the executive Eric A. ed his plans administratively, relying both branch. Consistent with the constitution- Posner on constitutional norms of executive dis- al structure, this meant that Washington cretion and existing statutes that gave him found himself frequently being opposed by vast authority. The regulations were not as Congress. And then there was a develop- far-reaching as the legislation he sought, ment that the Constitution failed to envi- but they accomplished a great deal. Obama sion. Washington soon found himself the also used his regulatory authority and his le- de facto leader of the Federalists. In later gal team to advance lgbt rights. Of all of years, when the party system fully emerged, Obama’s major policy initiatives, the only the president assumed leadership of the one that Congress has completely frustrat- party. The president became the leader of ed is his plan to shut down the military pris- three separate institutions: the country, the on at Guantanamo Bay. executive branch, and a party. But the erosion of separation of powers To understand the significance of this did not lead to the abuses that the found- development, we need to examine the con- ers feared. While his critics argue–often cept of leadership more carefully. Broadly with justice–that Obama has violated con- speaking, a leader is someone who can mo- stitutional norms, the president is not a dic- tivate a group to act in ways that maximize tator; his policies have enjoyed the support the well-being of the group or promote its of popular majorities or large minorities. It values. Leaders typically face a collective is a major irony that the presidents whom action problem among group members historians and political scientists have de- who prefer to act in their self-interest un- clared great leaders have engaged in con- less they can be assured that all members stitutionally dubious behavior on a grand of the group will act in the group inter- scale: Washington, Lincoln, Theodore Roo- est. The successful leader provides these sevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Lyndon assurances. Leadership seems to depend Johnson, Reagan. While Nixon reigns as the fundamentally on the ability of the lead- greatest constitutional lawbreaker–and no er to acquire and maintain the trust of the one, I think, would call him a great leader– group. As long as the group believes that all the presidents who were constitutional- the leader will act in the interest of all its ly scrupulous have also been the most insig- members, and is intelligent and informed nificant and are now forgotten. This raises enough to make correct choices, the group a question. If the separation of powers no will give the leader its trust, and the leader longer constrains presidents from commit- will be able to lead by making choices on ting abuses, what does? the group’s behalf. How do leaders inspire trust in their fol- The answer lies in the nature of presiden- lowers? A huge and inconclusive litera- tial leadership, and the way in which the ture has failed to identify specific person- psychology of leadership interacts with the ality attributes or skills that are associat- institutional system we have inherited from ed with leadership (though this has not the founders. While George Washington stopped thousands of educational insti- was already turning the office of the pres- tutions from offering courses in “leader- idency into the primary leadership posi- ship”).4 In practice, however, we can see tion of the country, he did so from within that the leader demonstrates persuasively the separation-of-powers structure. Wash- –through word and action–that he or she ington was, from the start, the leader of the shares the group’s interests and will keep country–in defiance of the Constitution– his or her promises. Most leaders thus de-

145 (3) Summer 2016 39 Presidential pend on their reputation, which they build Regarding the question of why presi- Leadership & up through a long career of demonstrating dents do not abuse their positions, the an- the Separation of Powers success in different organizations and in in- swer is connected to conflicts inhering in creasingly large and heterogeneous groups. the institutional arrangements that they Group members typically trust leaders be- must manage. In place of the Madisoni- cause the leaders hail from their ranks, have an triptych of executive-legislative-judi- demonstrated integrity by keeping their cial, let me propose a different tripartite promises, and have shown competence by structure: executive-party-country. And making choices that advance the group’s in- in place of the Madisonian political equi- terests. Nearly all American political lead- librium maintained by the interaction of ers were born in America (and, of course, three opposing forces, consider a set of the president must be by law), and all pres- concentric circles. The president remains idents have held office or other significant the leader of the executive branch under leadership positions before being elected. the surviving detritus of the constitution- Presidents who are judged great leaders al structure imagined by Madison. By tra- overcome entrenched resistance to imple- dition, the president is leader of the coun- ment policies that advance the public inter- try and of a party. So the president is leader est; they do so usually by knitting together of three different groups at the same time. a coalition of groups whose trust they have Remember that leadership depends on managed to win. maintaining the trust of the group. This People with identical leadership qual- means acting in the interest of the group, ities can be greater or lesser leaders de- which often comes at the expense of peo- pending on the political contexts in which ple outside the group. When the president they operate. Some authors emphasize the acts as leader of the nation, the group con- large role of public expectations–which sists of all Americans, while the outsiders are shaped in part by the behavior of pre- are foreigners. When the president acts vious presidents–and the way that a presi- as leader of his party, the group consists dent’s biography and personality resonate of party members, Democrats or Repub- with the public at a particular moment in licans. When the president acts as leader history.5 Sometimes there is little scope for of the executive branch, the group consists leadership because the country is either of the members of the federal bureaucra- content or excessively divided; even an cy, including the military. This means that exceptionally talented leader may in these members of one group may be excluded contexts accomplish little. When people from another group, and yet they all look have diverse interests, policies that ad- to the same person for leadership. vance the interest of one group may harm Consider, for example, President Obama’s another. The leader, then, faces the chal- counterterrorism policies, including his use lenge of compensating the harmed group of drone strikes to assassinate suspected for its support, or promising to advance members of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. future policies whose benefits will out- Obama believes that it is in the interest of weigh the group’s short-term losses. Cir- the country to maintain these policies. Ag- cumstances also help define the interests gressive counterterrorism tactics have cost of the group. A population will be more Obama the support of some people in his unified when facing a foreign threat than party, but they have helped him maintain when debating the progressivity of taxes. support among people outside his party. This is probably why wartime presidents More aggressive military policies make it are often remembered as great leaders. harder for Republicans to accuse him of be-

40 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ing soft on terrorism, of being a closet Mus- Civil-service employees are typically ap- Eric A. lim, or of disregarding American security. pointed by agency heads who are not per- Posner Many of Obama’s policies advance his mitted to take partisan loyalties into ac- party’s interests. Here I mean both the count when hiring (and in any event, civil- party’s strategic interests and the values service employees will stay in office long the party stands for. Immigration reform after the administration turns over). Civil- provides a good example. Democrats seek service employees also vastly outnumber to cultivate the support of Hispanics, and the political employees, so while they are most Hispanics support Obama’s execu- nominally subordinate, their expertise, tive actions to protect people who entered mastery of institutional norms, and num- the country illegally. Obama’s support for bers ensure that they control most of an the Dodd-Frank Act was consistent with agency’s day-to-day actions. They can also Democrats’ view that the financial indus- embarrass their political leaders by leaking try should be subject to greater regulation. confidential documents, complaining to The Affordable Care Act also advanced a the press, dragging their feet when asked longtime Democratic position that health to implement policies the president favors, insurance should be provided universally. and threatening to resign. Obama, like his predecessors, must main- This is why the risk that the president tain his leadership of the country and his could abuse power though the bureaucracy leadership of the party, and it turns out that is exaggerated. This risk plays a part in po- strengthening his leadership of one group litical discourse, and worries about it have hurts his leadership of the other. The mech- a distinguished historical pedigree. After anism is straightforward. When Obama all, the Romans who helped bring down takes an action that advances the interests the Republic owed their power to their of one group at the expense of another, the leadership over the army. In the end, sol- losers of the deal begin to wonder whether diers were more loyal to the generals than he has their interests at heart; they are more to the state. In 1951, Truman lost confi- inclined to distrust him, even as the bene- dence in, and the confidence of, General ficiaries’ trust in the president is strength- Douglas MacArthur, and some historians ened. have argued that the country approached The president’s leadership of the exec- a coup d’état. In modern times, citizens utive branch introduces yet another com- worry that the president can use the civil- plicating factor. The federal bureaucracy ian bureaucracy to spy on them, stifle dis- comprises two groups of people: political sent, and interfere with personal freedom. appointees and civil-service employees. And there are still respectable commenta- Political appointees head the agencies and tors who see the military as a threat to po- fill their top ranks. Within this group, the litical independence.6 highest-ranked appointees must be con- But as we have seen, to lead the bureau- firmed by the Senate; lower-ranked posi- cracy, the president needs its trust, and tions can be filled by the president without maintaining the trust of the bureaucracy Senate approval. The president almost al- is in tension with national and party lead- ways selects political officials from the pool ership. Reagan was elected on a platform of personal and party loyalists. And these that railed against burdensome federal people expect to be rewarded for loyal ser- regulation, but he could not simply abol- vice with future promotions, access to the ish the bureaucracy. He needed it to un- president, and plum jobs outside of govern- wind some regulations while maintaining ment in think tanks and the private sector. others. Thus, he had to temper his criti-

145 (3) Summer 2016 41 Presidential cisms once in office while still trying to ap- norities combines with pervasive egalitar- Leadership & pease the antiregulatory wing of his party. ian resentment among the wider public– the Separation of Powers Obama campaigned on a platform calling that a great man (or woman) lords over for greater transparency of the bureaucra- all of us–to provide a checking power far cy, but has failed to follow through because more significant than the paper barriers of he needs the trust of officials who work for the Constitution. Day after day, the presi- him. In this case, Obama was willing to an- dent must labor to retain the public’s trust. ger his party in order to appease the bureaucracy, whose assistance he needed to The Madisonian system sought to pre- advance policies he cared about. vent government abuse by creating a set Leadership depends on trust, but people of competing institutions that check the tend to distrust those who exercise power ambitions of officeholders in each. The over them–the president above all. Pres- theory is that if no branch of government idential leadership is constrained by deep can dominate the government, then pow- egalitarian and antiauthoritarian norms er will never be concentrated enough to that constantly replenish the well of sus- threaten real harm. But we can also under- picion from which the public draws when stand this system in the light of the found- it evaluates presidential rhetoric and ac- ers’ fears about dominance by charismatic tion. The country was settled by dissent- leaders like Caesar or Cromwell. Most of ers, founded on revolution against a king, the individuals who operate the levers of and expanded by frontiersmen who con- power within the various branches would tributed to a national mythology of self- remain faceless cogs in the Madisonian reliance. While presidential leadership is wheelwork, while the handful of talent- acknowledged as necessary, the actions ed men who could distinguish themselves of the president and of contenders for the would never obtain a national following, or presidency are subject to relentless scru- at least not for long. The system was con- tiny. This level of scrutiny has increased structed so as to block the emergence of over the decades in tandem with the rise dominating leaders at the national level. of presidential power. Today, the president But Madison’s system failed because is stripped of all privacy, like the kings of it set up too many vetogates, rendering old whose bowel movements were exam- the federal government unable to func- ined by courtiers for signs of disease. Ev- tion effectively. It also underestimat- ery aspect of his private life (with a partial ed the unifying power of national lead- exception granted for his young children) ership. By the twentieth century, it was is considered a legitimate topic for media clear that Madison’s system made it im- scrutiny and public debate. This is meant possible for a national government to ef- not only to assure us that our trust in the fectively regulate the new national econ- president is not misplaced but, through his omy, to provide for social welfare, and to ritual humiliation, compensate us for our protect the country from foreign threats. subordination to him. This tendency is ev- Activist presidents with outstanding lead- erywhere, and the conspiracy theories that ership abilities dismantled the Madisoni- surround every president–in Obama’s an system piece by piece, paving the way case, centering on the question of wheth- for our current president-centered sys- er he was born outside this country and tem of national administration. Our con- is secretly a Muslim–is only an extreme temporary system heavily relies on the version of it. In the United States, conspir- magnetism, talent, and organization- acy-mongering by alienated political mi- al abilities of sitting presidents, who are

42 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences kept in check by public scrutiny, the me- institutions and groups in an enormous Eric A. dia, and the challenge of leading different and diverse country. Posner endnotes 1 A representative example is Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). For an alternative view, see Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule, The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 2 For purposes of this essay, I rely on the judgments about presidential greatness of historians, political scientists, journalists, and compilers of top-ten lists–and do not make my own. 3 William G. Howell, Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003). 4 In the presidential literature, an immense wave of speculation was triggered by Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: Wiley, 1960); see also Fred I. Greenstein, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton (New York: Martin Kessler Books, 2000); and George R. Goethals, “Presidential Leadership,” Annual Review of Psychology 56 (2005): 545–570. There are also thousands of books about the leadership qualities of CEOs, generals, and so on, which collectively manage to produce a small pile of cli- chés. See Barbara Kellerman’s essay in this volume for more on the growth of the leadership industry. 5 Stephen Skowronek, Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal, 2nd ed. (Law- rence: University Press of Kansas, 2011). 6 Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic.

145 (3) Summer 2016 43 Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: Representing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times

Michele L. Swers

Abstract: Women are drastically underrepresented in American political institutions. This has prompted speculation about the impact of electing more women on policy and the functioning of government. Examining the growing presence of women in Congress, I demonstrate that women do exhibit unique policy priorities, focusing more on the needs of various groups of women. However, the incentive structure of the American electoral system, which rewards ideological purity, means that women are not likely to bring more consensus to Washington. Indeed, women’s issues are now entrenched in the partisan divide. Since the 1990s, the majority of women elected to Congress have been Democrats, who have pursued their vision of women’s interests while portraying Republican policies as harmful to women. In response, Republican women have been deployed to defend their party, further reducing the potential for bipartisan cooperation.

In the spring of 2016, the public approval rating of the U.S. Congress stood at 17 percent. Congress has not garnered the esteem of even 30 percent of Amer- icans since 2005. To find brief periods of majority MICHELE L. SWERS is Professor approval, one must go back to 2003.1 This disillu- of American Government in the sionment with Congress coincides with long peri- Department of Government at ods of gridlock in which the legislature cannot seem Georgetown University. Her re- to tackle the problems of the day, from the econom- search interests include congressional elections and policy-mak- ic recession to foreign policy. Instead, an ideologi- ing, and women in politics. Her cally polarized Congress has continuously clashed books examining the policy behav- with the administrations of Republican President ior of women in Congress include George W. Bush and the current commander in chief, The Difference Women Make: The Poli- Democrat Barack Obama. These ideological fights cy Impact of Women in Congress (2002) are accompanied by brinksmanship politics, includ- and Women in the Club: Gender and ing government shutdowns and threats to block in- Policy Making in the Senate (2013). She is also coauthor of Women and Pol- creases in the debt ceiling, which would ruin Amer- itics: Paths to Power and Political Influ- ica’s credit rating and plunge the country back into ence (with Julie Dolan and Melissa recession. In this polarized political atmosphere, can Deckman, 2016). the election of more women to political office cre-

44 ate a more consensus-driven and produc- tries, including Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Michele L. tive government? The emergence of Hil- and Norway, women hold only 19.4 percent Swers lary Clinton as the front-runner for the of seats in the U.S. Congress and 24.2 per- Democratic presidential nomination fo- cent of seats in state legislatures.2 cuses more attention on the question of Unlike many European countries that women’s leadership style and whether ex- use proportional representation–where panding the number of women in govern- candidates win seats in proportion to the ment can improve the American political number of votes garnered by their party– system. the American system is candidate-cen- In this essay, I focus on the advance- tered. Congressional candidates are elect- ment of women into Congress since the ed from single-member districts with a early 1990s and the impact of women on plurality of the vote. Candidates must raise policy-making. My research suggests that large amounts of money to compete in pri- electing women will not be a miracle cure maries to secure their party’s nomination, for partisan polarization because the cur- and then raise more money to contest the rent structure of the American electoral general election. Given the arduous na- system favors intensely partisan candi- ture of congressional races, the U.S. sys- dates. Therefore, women who thrive in a tem strongly favors incumbents who have partisan context are the most likely female the name recognition and connections to candidates to win elections. Yet women raise the necessary funds and build a cam- do bring a different set of policy priori- paign operation to mobilize voters. As a re- ties to Congress. Women are more likely sult, despite the dismal approval ratings of to consider the needs of women, children, Congress, incumbents are consistently re- and families when developing their poli- elected at rates above 90 percent.3 cy agenda. As women and often as moth- Since the political incorporation of wom- ers, female officeholders bring a different en has been a slow process, spanning the perspective to the deliberative process, emergence of the suffrage movement in improving the quality of constituent rep- the mid-1800s to the feminist movement resentation and focusing more policy at- of the 1960s and 1970s, male incumbency tention on the needs of different groups was already firmly entrenched when wom- of women, from single mothers in pover- en entered the political arena (see Figure 1). ty to women climbing the corporate lad- In the early years, many women elected to der. Thus, increasing women’s represen- Congress were widows, elected as place- tation in Congress expands the range of holders to keep the seat in party control interests and perspectives considered by until the party elite could coalesce around government leaders. a candidate. By the 1970s and 1980s, when the feminist movement opened more of the While women constitute more than 50 careers that lead women to politics, more percent of the U.S. population, they are women entered Congress as professional dramatically underrepresented in Ameri- politicians. Still, these women continued can governing bodies. Examining legisla- to differ from their male counterparts in tive representation of women, the Unit- their occupational backgrounds and polit- ed States ranks seventy-first among the ical experience. Compared to men, wom- world’s parliaments and far behind most en in Congress were more likely to enter other advanced democracies. While wom- politics as community activists motivated en constitute around 40 percent of the low- by a cause or as local officeholders, such as er houses of Parliament in Nordic coun- school board members. For example, cur-

145 (3) Summer 2016 45 Women & Figure 1 Legislative Women in the House and Senate by Party (1917–2017) Leadership in the U.S. Congress 70

Democrat House Members 30 Republican House Members Democrat Senators Number ofNumber Women 20 Republican Senators

65th (1917 67th–19) (1921 69th–23) (1925 71st–27) (1929 73rd–31) (1933 75th–35) (1937 77th–39) (1941 79th–43) (1945 81st –47)(1949 83rd–51) (1953 85th–55) (1957 87th–59) (1961 89th–63) (1965 91st–67) (1969 93rd–71) (1973 95th–75) (1977 97th–79) (1981 99th–83) (1985 101st–87) (1989 103rd–91) (1993 105th–95) (1997107th–99) (2001 109th–03) (2005 111th–07) (2009 113th –11)(2013–15) Congress/Years

Source: Center for American Women and Politics (Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey), 2015.

rent senator Patty Murray (d-wa) began women serving in the contemporary Con- her political career as a community activ- gress are more likely to be committed par- ist protesting the elimination of a preschool tisans than moderate consensus-builders. program. She went on to serve on the school The rising number of women in Congress board and as a state senator before she ran starting in the early 1990s coincided with her first campaign for the U.S. Senate using a heightened period of political competi- the slogan “just a mom in tennis shoes.”4 tion in which control of the presidency and The largest increase in women’s rep- the majority in Congress was continuously resentation came after the 1992 election. at stake. In 1994, Republicans gained con- Dubbed the “Year of the Woman,” the trol of Congress for the first time in forty number of women in Congress jumped years. Since then, majority power has shift- from thirty-two to fifty-four. To date, this ed among Democrats and Republicans and remains the greatest increase in women’s margins of control remain so tight that the representation in a single U.S. election. The opposition perceives the number of seats advancement of more women into politics needed to win the majority as always in coincided with important changes in the reach. This has been particularly true in nature of American politics and the rela- the Senate, where party control shifted tionship between the parties. These chang- from Democrats to Republicans in 1994 es fueled a more partisan and polarized po- and briefly back to Democrats in 2001. Re- litical atmosphere that rewards more ideo- publicans retook the majority in 2002 until logically driven candidates. Therefore, the Democrats wrested control of the chamber

46 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2006, only to lose power again in 2014.5 majority-minority districts. To guarantee Michele L. However, for Democrats, majority control that minorities could elect a representative Swers is considered within reach for 2016. of their choice, minority populations were In addition to increased party competi- concentrated into districts that are more tion, the parties have become more ideolog- urban and strongly Democratic. The sur- ical, with the Republican Party more deeply rounding suburban districts became whit- conservative and the Democrats more uni- er and more Republican.9 As a result, the formly liberal. As this polarization devel- Democratic coalition in Congress and the oped, a partisan gap emerged in the elec- women in the Democratic Party are much tion of women to Congress. Before 1990, the more racially and ethnically diverse. These parties elected small but relatively similar minority members anchor the liberal end numbers of women to Congress. However, of the ideological spectrum. the 1992 Year-of-the-Woman elections real- Finally, the interest groups, donors, and ly marked the year of the Democratic wom- voters that support Democrats are also an, since the number of Democratic wom- more inclined than their Republican coun- en in Congress jumped from twenty-two to terparts to prioritize the election of women forty, while only four new Republican wom- to office. Women’s groups and civil rights en were elected, increasing the presence of organizations are central forces in the Republican women in Congress from ten Democratic coalition. These groups prior- to fourteen. Since 1992, the partisan gap has itize increasing representation of women grown, with representation of Democratic and minorities in elective office. Women’s women far outpacing Republican women.6 groups, most notably emily’s List (an ac- Of the one hundred and four women in the ronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast), have current 114th Congress (2015–2016), seven- developed operations to identify and re- ty-six are Democrats and only twenty-two cruit women candidates and support them are Republicans.7 with fundraising networks and campaign This partisan gap in women’s represen- services. Moreover, the donors and voters tation is larger than the gender gap in the who support Democratic candidates in the voting population and reflects a divergence primary and general election are increas- in the nature of the parties’ electoral coa- ingly liberal. Liberals are more responsive litions. The emergence of the civil rights to messages about the importance of group movement and the adoption of the Civ- representation in Congress and liberal vot- il Rights Act of 1964 precipitated a move- ers are more likely to embrace positive ste- ment of Southern white Democrats to reotypes about female candidates, such as the Republican Party. The formerly sol- that women are more knowledgeable about id Democratic South is now a Republi- social welfare issues.10 can stronghold; historically, this region Meanwhile, the Republican Party es- has also been less likely to elect women to chews identity politics, focusing instead political office. As the South moved to the on the ideological conservatism of the can- Republican Party, northeastern states and didate. Further, social conservatives–a urban areas became Democratic bastions. core constituency of the Republican Party Over time, the districts that elected wom- –hold more traditional views about gen- en tended to be more urban, more racial- der roles. Therefore, there is not a natural ly and ethnically diverse, and of a higher constituency of donors and voters with- median income. In contemporary politics, in the Republican Party responsive to ex- these districts lean Democratic.8 Further- plicit calls to expand women’s representa- more, the 1990s also saw the adoption of tion. While the party has made efforts to

145 (3) Summer 2016 47 Women & recruit more women candidates and form en sponsor and cosponsor more bills relat- Legislative donor networks that will contribute to fe- ed to women’s issues, ranging from fem- Leadership in the U.S. male candidates, these organizations do inist proposals regarding equal pay, fami- Congress not have the presence and donor connec- ly leave, and reproductive rights to social tions that groups allied with Democrats welfare proposals related to education and have developed.11 health care. Women are also more aggres- In sum, the modern American electoral sive advocates for these bills, expending system requires candidates to build a per- the political capital necessary to build sona that can attract a highly ideological set coalitions of support and move their fa- of primary voters and donors. Candidates vored policies through the legislative pro- who excel in this atmosphere are more cess. During floor debate, female legisla- likely to be partisan purists than moder- tors tend to discuss the impact of proposed ate compromisers. For women, the current bills on women and refer to their own per- structure of the parties’ electoral coalitions sonal experiences as women, for example, favors the elevation of more Democratic as single mothers struggling financially or women. Liberal Democratic voters and do- as women experiencing discrimination in nors aggressively support the election of the workplace.13 women and minorities who also hold lib- While these general trends hold across eral views on issues like abortion rights, time, the likelihood that an individual fe- while Republicans reject identity politics male legislator will advocate for a particu- and do not prioritize efforts to elect more lar type of women’s-issue bill is strongly in- Republican women. Therefore, the Re- fluenced by the member’s personal back- publican women who gain election must ground, ideology, party affiliation, and the demonstrate their conservative credentials nature of her constituency. For example, to their own highly ideological electorate. one should not expect a conservative Re- publican woman representing a strongly Proponents of electing more women to Republican Southern district to support Congress argue that because of their shared legislation protecting abortion rights. life experiences, women will better under- However, that legislator might advocate for stand the needs and interests of particu- bills to promote breast cancer research or lar groups of women. Moreover, they will curb human trafficking. bring these unique experiences to inform As more racial and ethnic minorities were policy development, will prioritize various elected to Congress in the 1990s, women issues of importance to women, and will of color emerged the most likely to pur- advocate for policy solutions to address sue women’s interest bills that target the these interests.12 needs of minority communities. For exam- Research examining the legislative activ- ple, during the early years of Bill Clinton’s ities of women in Congress from the 1990s presidency, with Democrats in control of to the present confirms this expectation. both Congress and the presidency for the Particularly at the agenda-setting stage of first time since 1980, Democratic women policy-making, women are more likely to sought to advance abortion rights. Looking develop bills focused on the needs of wom- to leverage this unified party control into en, children, and families. Examining the policies promoting reproductive rights, policy priorities of Republican and Dem- white female Democrats focused their ef- ocratic female members in the House of forts on passing the Freedom of Choice Act, Representatives in the early 1990s and in a bill that would codify the right to abor- the Senate in the 2000s, I found that wom- tion granted by Roe v. Wade.14 By contrast,

48 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences minority women were more concerned women losing their seats to Democrats. Michele L. with access and costs for poor women, The new Republican women being elect- Swers rather than abstract rights. They therefore ed were much more conservative legisla- pursued the goal of overturning the Hyde tors elected from the South and West. In- Amendment, which prohibits the use of deed, studies of voting behavior demon- federal Medicaid dollars to pay for abor- strate that Republican women in the House tions. Similarly, during the debates over of Representatives were distinctly more welfare reform, women of color were the liberal than their male colleagues, partic- most aggressive opponents of the Repub- ularly on women’s issues, throughout the lican bill, speaking out against what they 1980s and 1990s. However, by 2002, the vot- perceived as stereotyping of women on wel- ing records of male and female Republicans fare as poor, irresponsible minority women. in the House were converging, and the cur- These congresswomen of color voted uni- rent contingent of Republican women is formly against the bill while white Demo- just as conservative as Republican men.17 cratic men and women split their votes.15 Meanwhile, the few Republican women in The ideological and partisan profiles of the Senate have remained more moderate the women in Congress strongly impact than their male counterparts,18 though, fol- their legislative priorities and leadership lowing the 2012 and 2014 elections of in- styles. Just as the larger chamber has polar- creasingly conservative women to the Sen- ized, Democratic women are now more uni- ate, even this trend may reverse. formly liberal and there are few conservative Democratic men or women. Similarly, Today there is little cross-party collabora- Republicans in Congress are more intense- tion among women legislators, particularly conservative. In the early 1990s, many of ly in the House of Representatives. Under the Republican women in Congress were current electoral configurations, women’s moderates who would work across the issues have become strongly associated aisle with Democratic women on specif- with the Democratic Party. Utilizing is- ic women’s issues, including reproductive sues like contraception and equal pay, the rights, women’s health research, and initia- party actively courts women voters, partic- tives to help women in the workforce. In- ularly young women, single women, and deed, in the 1990s, moderate Republican college-educated women, to win elections. and Democratic women worked together Indeed, in both the 2012 and 2014 elections, to pass legislation that funded research on Democrats appealed to women voters by various women’s health concerns, ensured accusing Republicans of waging a “war that women were included in more clinical on women” in which Republican policies trials, and created the Office of Women’s condoned pay discrimination and sought Health at the National Institutes of Health. to deny women access to health care and When Republicans gained the majority in contraception.19 1994 and promoted welfare reform, Repub- The fact that women’s issues are a key lican women who held seats on the com- element of Democratic electoral strate- mittee of jurisdiction, the Ways and Means gy means that when Democratic women Committee, convinced their male Republi- champion issues like child care, pay equi- can colleagues to incorporate child-support ty, or reproductive rights, they are pursu- enforcement and greater funding for child ing their own policy priorities and helping care in the bill.16 their party energize voters and donors. For Yet by the early 2000s, electoral trends example, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, resulted in these moderate Republican the first bill signed into law by President

145 (3) Summer 2016 49 Women & Obama, was a top priority for Democrat- heavily for him and her story became an Legislative ic women looking to advance pay equity. integral part of the Democratic campaign Leadership in the U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (d-md), House message. After Obama’s victory, he signed Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi (d-ca), and Con- the bill into law as his first major legisla- gresswoman Rosa DeLauro (d-ct) had tion, with Lilly Ledbetter and a group of worked for years to advance initiatives to Democratic congresswomen looking on in combat pay discrimination. When the Su- a visual that reinforced the image of Dem- preme Court decided that Lilly Ledbetter ocrats as the party of women’s rights. could not recover damages from her em- In such a partisan atmosphere, Repub- ployer Goodyear Tire and Auto because lican women could not collaborate with the statute of limitations to file a claim had Democrats on pay equity. Instead, when run out, Democrats seized on her story to Democrats accuse the Republican Party of promote legislation that would reset the being antiwomen, Republican women are clock with each discriminatory paycheck. called on to defend the party against these As a result, women like Ledbetter, who was charges. In the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchi- not aware of the ongoing discrimination son, a Texas Republican who served in par- until a colleague secretly sent her a note ty leadership as Policy Committee chair, outlining the disparities between her pay was the lead sponsor of a Republican al- and that of male colleagues with less se- ternative to the Ledbetter bill. She defend- niority, could now fight for equal pay. To ed the party’s position on the floor and build support for the legislation, the Dem- pushed back against the characterization ocratic women of the House and Senate of Republicans as protecting their busi- held press conferences, wrote editorials ness allies and denying women equal pay. in support of the bill, organized speech- In the House of Representatives, conserva- es on the floor, and continuously worked tive women voted against the Democratic to move the bill forward in the legislative bill, while the more moderate Republican process and see it through to law. 20 women, particularly the moderates in the While the Democratic women were ful- Senate, voted in favor of the Democratic ly dedicated to the policy goals behind the bill. However, the Republican women who legislation, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was voted for the bill and supported the goals also used as an electoral tool to highlight of the policy did not actively lobby for the Democrats’ commitment to women’s eco- bill by participating in press conferences nomic empowerment and to portray Re- and other efforts to build support for it; publicans as siding with their business al- those efforts were wrapped in rhetoric to lies over the interests of women and their mobilize women voters for the Democrat- families. First proposed in the 2008 elec- ic Party and against Republicans.21 tion cycle, Senate Democrats used the de- Similarly, Democratic women have bate and the vote on the bill to let Dem- long advocated for making contraception ocratic presidential primary candidates, more affordable and accessible. President senators Barack Obama (il) and Hillary Obama’s decision to pursue national health Clinton (ny), make floor speeches demon- insurance created an opportunity to achieve strating their commitment to women’s this goal. Democratic women were among economic needs, while portraying the Re- the most aggressive advocates for requir- publican nominee, John McCain (az), as a ing insurance companies to provide free business apologist unconcerned with the access to contraceptives as part of a broad- needs of women. Once Barack Obama won er package of preventative health benefits. the nomination, Ledbetter campaigned Making contraception more widely avail-

50 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences able is popular with the public and reduc- tained that Republicans are concerned with Michele L. es the incidence of unwanted pregnancies. protecting religious freedom, not denying Swers However, the issue is also wrapped up in the women contraception. Most recently, Ay- contentious politics of abortion; it quick- otte has promoted a bill with Senator Cory ly developed into a fight over the need for Gardner (r-co) to allow contraception to exemptions for employers who have reli- be sold over the counter without a prescrip- gious objections to providing contraception. Gardner successfully used the propos- tion. Democratic women wanting to ex- al to counter the incumbent Democratic tend benefits to as many women as pos- senator’s attempts to portray him as dam- sible, including Senators Patty Murray aging to women’s health, and subsequent- (wa), Barbara Boxer (ca), Debbie Stabe- ly won his 2014 Senate challenge.23 now (mi), and Jeanne Shaheen (nh), ag- The sharp polarization surrounding gressively pressed for the broadest possi- women’s issues has engulfed formerly bi- ble coverage. Meanwhile, other prominent partisan areas of agreement. Thus, while Democrats, including Vice President Biden, the Violence Against Women Act passed advised President Obama to create a wid- easily in the 1990s and was later renewed er exemption, fearing a backlash from the without controversy, the most recent ef- Catholic Church and antiabortion groups. fort to reauthorize the legislation was en- Thus, while most Democrats supported in- snared in conflict over gay rights and oth- cluding contraception in the preventative er issues delaying passage. The conflict health package, Democratic women were followed the familiar pattern of parti- more strongly committed to the issue and san polarization, with Democratic wom- resisted efforts to scale back coverage. Ul- en championing the proposal, the Dem- timately, President Obama opted for broad ocratic Party highlighting Republican re- coverage, precipitating an ongoing fight sistance as evidence of the party’s lack of over the parameters of the religious exemp- commitment to women’s rights, and Re- tion and who qualifies for it. To date, the ad- publican women speaking up to defend ministration has revised the rules numer- the party.24 ous times, the Supreme Court weighed in Still, when issues arise that dispropor- and expanded the exemption to privately tionately impact women and are not as- held corporations, and the courts are still sociated with the partisan divide, wom- considering other issues related to religious en engage in cross-party collaboration. freedom and the contraception mandate. For example, Democratic and Republi- Amidst this continuing controversy, Dem- can women in the Senate have aggressive- ocratic women remain among the staunch- ly pursued reforms to the military justice est defenders of the mandate.22 system to address the problem of sexual As with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, assault in the military. Pentagon surveys the contraception mandate is also a pillar in indicate that the incidence of sexual as- Democratic efforts to attract women vot- sault in the military increased 35 percent ers, and the party uses the partisan battles between 2010 and 2012. Moreover, only a over contraception as supporting evidence small percentage of victims file a report of the Republican war on women. As a re- and very few perpetrators are prosecuted. sult, Republican women have been called Incensed by the ongoing problem of sexu- on to defend their party. Most prominent- al assault and the military’s inability to ad- ly, Senator Kelly Ayotte (r-nh) has served dress it, the women in the Senate sought as a primary cosponsor and spokesperson to draw more attention to the issue and for a religious freedom bill, and has main- began crafting policy solutions. Because

145 (3) Summer 2016 51 Women & seven women, two Republicans and five problem more seriously. McCaskill had the Legislative Democrats, served on the Armed Services support of the chairman of the Armed Ser- Leadership in the U.S. Committee, they were able to convince the vices Committee and the two Republican Congress Committee chair to call a rare hearing with women on the Committee, Kelly Ayotte the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all (nh) and Deb Fischer (ne). McCaskill’s the uniformed chiefs of the armed services proposal was ultimately adopted, and ef- in order to confront each of them about the forts to improve the treatment of women issue and what could be done to improve in the military are ongoing.26 the military’s response. The female senators then worked together to craft reforms, Female senators’ success in building bi- several of which Congress ultimately ad- partisan policy coalitions to force the mil- opted, including changing the procedures itary bureaucracy to change its policies used to prosecute sexual assault, eliminat- regarding sexual assault was facilitated ing the ability of military commanders to by the fact that women held a significant overturn jury convictions, and providing block of seats on the Armed Services Com- services and legal counsel to victims.25 mittee, constituting seven of the Commit- While the female senators agreed on tee’s twenty-six members. Further, wom- the importance of the issue, they did not en held pivotal leadership positions on the always agree on the necessary policy solu- Committee, including Kirsten Gillibrand’s tions. Indeed, the Senate was strongly di- position as chair of the Subcommittee on vided over the question of whether the de- Personnel. The advancement of women cision to prosecute a sexual assault should into congressional leadership is a relative- be taken out of the hands of military com- ly new phenomenon and raises questions of manders and entrusted to independent whether women have different leadership prosecutors. The coalitions on this issue styles from men. Seniority is a crucial fac- did not fall neatly along party lines. Dem- tor for advancement into leadership posi- ocrat Kirsten Gillibrand (ny)–supported tions in committees and within the parties. by most of the Democratic women in the Since most women in Congress today were Senate and two Republican women, Lisa elected after 1992, women have only recent- Murkowski (ak) and Susan Collins (me)– ly earned the seniority necessary to attain championed a proposal to remove this committee and party leadership posts. power from the chain of command, hop- The partisan gap in women’s representa- ing to encourage more women to come for- tion means that women have greater num- ward to report the crime and to increase the bers and more seniority in the Democrat- rate of prosecutions. The Pentagon and the ic Party. Thus, when sexual assault reforms chair of the Armed Services Committee, were adopted in 2013 and 2014, Democrats Carl Levin (d-mi), strongly opposed Gil- held the majority in the Senate and Demo- librand’s bill; in response, she worked dili- cratic women chaired eight of the Senate’s gently to build a cross-party coalition, even committees, including the powerful Appro- gaining the support of conservative stal- priations Committee and Budget Commit- warts Rand Paul (r-ky) and Ted Cruz (r- tee. In the current Republican-controlled tx). Meanwhile, another female Demo- Congress, women chair only one commit- crat, Claire McCaskill (mo) led a coalition tee in the House, the Committee on House working to keep the imperative to prose- Administration, and two committees in the cute within the military chain of command Senate, the Energy and Natural Resources in order to clearly delineate responsibili- Committee and the Select Committee on ty and pressure military leaders to take the Aging.27 Because most Republican women

52 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences serving in Congress were elected as part of Looking at female leadership in Con- Michele L. or following the 2010 Republican wave, few gress, scholars who focus on legislative Swers Republican women have gained enough se- behavior note distinct differences in how niority to acquire committee chairman- men and women spend their time. Wom- ships. As a result, when Republicans con- en engage in higher rates of bill sponsor- trol the majority, women have a much more ship and cosponsorship, and when ear- limited influence over policy. marks were still allowed, female members Looking at the party caucuses, few wom- brought home more projects to their dis- en have advanced to the highest levels of tricts.31 Thus, female legislators are more party leadership. Women in both the Re- active than men and are more likely to cast publican and Democratic parties have a broad net in their policy activity. Examin- served in lower-level leadership positions, ing how far members’ proposals advance in such as conference vice chair, conference the legislative process, there are clear gen- secretary, and deputy whip. However, in der differences in levels of policy success. the Senate, no women have advanced to Women are more effective legislators than the top leadership positions of party leader men when they serve in the minority par- and whip. In the House of Representatives, ty. As minority-party legislators, women’s only Nancy Pelosi has reached the highest ability to build consensus and potentially leadership position: Speaker of the House. reach across party lines to forge coalitions Republicans in the House have elected two is necessary for achieving progress on leg- women to serve as conference chair, the islation. However, when serving in the ma- fourth-ranking leadership position that jority party, women are less effective than is focused on selling the party’s agenda to men as measured by how far their propos- the public.28 Both Deborah Pryce (r-oh), als advance through the legislative process. conference chair from 2003 to 2007, and This gender disparity is particularly true in current conference chair Cathy McMor- more recent polarized Congresses; parti- ris Rodgers (r-wa) cite outreach to wom- san environments value confrontation over en voters and combating the Democratic female consensus-building skills.32 war-on-women message as among their As perhaps the most prominent woman top priorities.29 in Congress, former Speaker of the House Studies of the leadership styles of fe- Nancy Pelosi illustrates how a female lead- male committee chairs in the state legis- er can both bring distinctive policy priori- latures indicate that compared with male ties to Congress and thrive in a highly polar- committee chairs, women display a more ized and partisan context. Pelosi won a con- egalitarian leadership style that values tested race for minority party whip in 2001. consensus and collaboration, while men Emerging from the more liberal wing of the adopt more authoritative styles that em- Democratic Party to run against Steny Hoy- phasize conflict and competition. Howev- er (d-md), Pelosi emphasized the need for er, gender differences in leadership style more diversity in leadership and had the are less apparent in more professional- support of most of the women in the Dem- ized legislatures: institutions that meet ocratic caucus, as well as the large Califor- year round with a full-time staff and are nia delegation. Rising to minority leader in likely to be partisan bodies in the mold of 2003, Pelosi became Speaker of the House Congress.30 Thus, it is possible that the in- when Democrats took back the majority in stitutional norms of Congress make it less the 2006 elections. Rather than someone likely that women will exhibit a distinctive who builds coalitions across party lines, Pe- leadership style. losi has been described as a partisan warrior

145 (3) Summer 2016 53 Women & in the mold of Newt Gingrich (r-ga), the never advanced in the Senate.34 Clearly, Legislative former Speaker of the House who led the Pelosi has pursued both a partisan agenda Leadership in the U.S. Republican revolution of 1994. Like Ging- and a distinctive set of priorities focused Congress rich, Pelosi draws sharp contrasts between on the needs of women, children, and fam- the policy agendas of Democrats and Re- ilies. These priorities reflect both the poli- publicans. As Speaker, she pushed a strong- cy preferences of current Democratic elec- ly liberal agenda, and as minority leader in toral coalitions and Pelosi’s own life expe- the current Congress, she prefers to force riences as a woman and a mother. Republicans to find votes within their own party for must-pass bills before coming to In sum, it is clear that women are bring- the table to negotiate a deal. Pelosi is a pro- ing a distinctive perspective and set of issue lific fundraiser and a favorite target of Re- priorities to Congress. In comparison with publicans who characterize her as a San men, Democratic women and moderate Francisco big-government liberal emblem- Republican women have focused more at- atic of the wrongheaded ideas of the Dem- tention on the needs and interests of wom- ocratic Party.33 en, children, and families. Yet the advance- Meanwhile, in line with research on ment of women into Congress coincided women’s leadership styles, within the with electoral trends that have created a Democratic caucus, Pelosi is seen as a con- more partisan and polarized Congress. In sensus-builder who listens to the needs of this contentious atmosphere, issues relat- her members and tries to bridge differenc- ed to women’s rights are now strongly as- es across the different factions of the cau- sociated with the Democratic Party, in ef- cus. She also prioritizes bringing more di- fect reducing opportunities for bipartisan versity to the leadership table via appoint- cooperation among women. Democratic ing more women and more minorities to women aggressively pursue policies rang- chair committees.33 Pelosi is strongly coming from expanded family leave to women’s mitted to pursuing legislation focused on health initiatives while utilizing these pro- the needs of women, children, and fami- posals to attract particular groups of wom- lies. She played a pivotal role in pressing en voters, such as single and college-ed- President Obama to make his health in- ucated women. Since women’s issues are surance reform as comprehensive as pos- now a part of the partisan divide, Demo- sible, rather than scale it back in the face cratic women serve their party’s electoral of Republican opposition. As Speaker, she goals by attacking the Republican agenda also pushed through an expansion of the as harmful to women’s interests. In turn, State Children’s Health Insurance Pro- Republican women are compelled to de- gram, which provides health insurance fend their party’s record rather than reach to low-income children whose family in- across the aisle to find compromise. While comes are above the poverty threshold women as a group may be more inclined necessary to qualify for Medicaid. Pelo- to compromise and consensus-building, si is a staunch defender of abortion rights current electoral trends and partisan dy- and a proponent of equal pay initiatives. namics in Congress reward women can- She helped convince President Obama to didates and legislators who are aggres- make the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act the sive partisans. Thus, the election of more first bill he passed through Congress and women to Congress will bring more di- she shepherded passage of other equal pay verse viewpoints to the legislative process, bills through the House, such as the Pay- but is not likely to change overall levels check Fairness Act, although these bills of polarization and gridlock.

54 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Michele L. Swers 1 Gallup, “Congress and the Public,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx (accessed May 16, 2016). 2 Interparliamentary Union, “Women in National Parliaments,” http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/ classif.htm (accessed July 17, 2015); and Center for American Women and Politics, “Fact Sheet: Women in the U.S. Congress 2015” and “Fact Sheet: Women in the State Legislatures 2015” (New Brunswick: Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2015). 3 Gary Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Elections, 8th ed. (New York: Pearson, 2013). 4 Julie Dolan, Melissa Deckman, and Michele L. Swers, Women and Politics, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). 5 Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Elections. 6 Laurel Elder, “The Partisan Gap among Women State Legislators,” Journal ofWomen, Politics & Policy 33 (1) (2012): 65–85; and Danielle M. Thomsen, “Why So Few (Republican) Women? Explaining the Partisan Imbalance of Women in the U.S. Congress,” Legislative Studies Quar- terly 40 (2) (2015): 295–323. 7 Center for American Women and Politics, “Fact Sheet: Women in the U.S. Congress 2015.” 8 Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon, Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling: Women and Congressional Elections, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2008). 9 Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Elections. 10 Barbara Burrell, Gender in Campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014). 11 Ibid. 12 Jane Mansbridge, “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Con- tingent ‘Yes,’” Journal of Politics 61 (3) (1999): 628–657. 13 Michele L. Swers, The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); and Michele L. Swers, Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). 14 Debra Dodson, The Impact of Women in Congress (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 15 Mary Hawkesworth, “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions,” American Political Science Review 97 (4) (2003): 529–550. 16 Swers, The Difference Women Make. 17 Brian Frederick, “Are Female House Members Still More Liberal in a Polarized Era? The Con- ditional Nature of the Relationship between Descriptive and Substantive Representation,” Congress and the Presidency 36 (2) (2009): 181–202. 18 Brian Frederick, “Gender and Patterns of Roll Call Voting in the U.S. Senate,” Congress and the Presidency 37 (2) (2010): 103–124. 19 Dolan, Deckman, and Swers, Women and Politics. 20 Swers, Women in the Club. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Seung Min Kim and Jennifer Haberkorn, “‘War on Women’: The gop Counteroffensive,” Polit- ico, June 17, 2015, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/contraception-gop-war-on-women -counteroffensive-gardner-ayotte-119088.

145 (3) Summer 2016 55 Women & 24 Beth Reinhard, “The Democrats’ War to Win Women Voters,” National Journal, February 16, Legislative 2013. Leadership 25 in the U.S. Dolan, Deckman, and Swers, Women and Politics; and Donna Cassata and Nedra Pickler, “Obama Congress Orders Military to Review Sexual Assault,” Associated Press, December 20, 2013. 26 Melinda Henneberger, “Sen. McCaskill’s Military Sexual-Assault Bill is Meatier than Adver- tised,” The Washington Post, March 9, 2014. 27 Center for American Women and Politics, “Fact Sheet: Women in Congress—Leadership Roles and Committee Chairs” (New Brunswick: Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2015). 28 Ibid. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (r-me) was the first woman to hold a significant leadership position, serving as Republican conference chair from 1967 to 1972. Smith also ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1964. 29 Michele Swers and Carin Larson, “Women and Congress: Do They Act as Advocates for Wom- en’s Issues?” in Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox, eds., Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 30 Cindy Simon Rosenthal, When Women Lead: Integrative Leadership in State Legislatures (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 31 Sarah Anzia and Christopher R. Berry, “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congress- women Outperform Congressmen?” American Journal of Political Science 55 (3) (2011): 478–493. 32 Craig Volden, Alan E. Wiseman, and Dana E. Wittmer, “When Are Women More Effective Lawmakers Than Men?” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2) (2013): 326–341. 33 Ronald M. Peters, Jr., and Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Pol- itics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 33 Swers and Larson, “Women and Congress.” 34 Robert Pear, “House Votes to Expand Children’s Health Care,” The New York Times, January 15, 2009; and Vince Bzdek, “Why Did Health-Care Reform Pass? Nancy Pelosi was in Charge,” The Washington Post, March 28, 2010.

56 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Varieties of Presidentialism & of Leadership Outcomes

Robert Elgie

Abstract: This essay explores aspects of the relationship between political leadership and institutional power, comparing the different forms that presidential institutions have taken across the world and identifying the relationship between these structures and social, political, and economic outcomes. Semipres- idential systems are distinguished from presidential systems, and within the former, a distinction is made between president-parliamentary and premier-presidential regimes. Some scholars have argued that presidential regimes are less conducive to the successful transition from authoritarian rule to democracy than are parliamentary governments, but the empirical evidence is contradictory. Recent research has, however, drawn attention to finer distinctions within the various broad categories of presidentialism, focusing on more precise institutional arrangements and trying to identify which are more, and which are less, consonant with the consolidation of democracy.

What is the relationship between institutional power and political leadership? What is the effect of presidential institutions on political, economic, and social outcomes? These are questions that scholars have debated for centuries. For many years, proponents of U.S.-style presidentialism were pitted against supporters of U.K.-style parliamentarism. Here, there were seminal contributions from Wood- row Wilson and Walter Bagehot in the late nine- 1 ROBERT ELGIE is the Paddy Mori- teenth century, as well as an important exchange be- arty Professor of Government and tween Harold Laski and Don Price in the mid-twen- International Politics at Dublin tieth century.2 In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this City University. His many books debate was revived with the creation of many newly include Semi-Presidentialism: Sub- independent states and a wave of democratization. Types and Democratic Performance At this time, many scholars warned against what (2011), Political Institutions in Con- they saw as the potentially negative consequences temporary France (2003), and Divid- ed Government in Comparative Perspec- of presidential leadership on young democracies. tive (2001). He is the editor of the Over the last few decades, though, the terms of the journal French Politics and the review debate have broadened and changed. In particular, editor for Government and Opposition. scholars have begun to consider the pros and cons of

57 Varieties of what are known as semipresidential regimes. presidential regimes in existence, most Presiden- Scholars have also started to look at insti- notably France. Now, though, this type tialism & of Leadership tutional variation within presidential and of constitutional arrangement is much Outcomes semipresidential regimes. This work has more common. Indeed, in the late 1980s, suggested that successful presidential lead- there were fewer than ten countries with a ership is a realistic possibility for countries semipresidential constitution; now there in the process of democratic consolidation. are more than fifty.4 While Duverger’s general label has persisted, scholars have When scholars debate the pros and cons further distinguished between two types of different political regimes, the two base- of semipresidential regimes. These have line categories are well known. Presiden- the unwieldy names of president-parliamen- tial regimes have both a popularly elected, tary and premier-presidential regimes.5 Both fixed-term president and a fixed-term leg- have the basic features of semipresiden- islature. The president nominates mem- tialism, but under president-parliamen- bers of the Cabinet subject to legislative tarism, the government is responsible to approval, but the government collectively both the legislature and the president, cannot be dismissed by the legislature. By whereas under premier-presidentialism, contrast, parliamentary regimes are head- the government is responsible solely to ed either by a figurehead monarch or by a the legislature. The list of president-par- weak, indirectly elected president, who is liamentary countries includes Kyrgyzstan, often selected by the legislature. The leg- Mozambique, Namibia, Russia, Sri Lanka, islature approves the choice of the prime and Taiwan. The list of premier-presiden- minister, who is the central figure with- tial countries includes France, Georgia, in the executive and who individually se- Lithuania, Mongolia, Romania, and Tur- lects the members of the Cabinet. The key. It is safe to say that while scholars prime minister and Cabinet, though, re- previously tended to confine their analy- main collectively responsible to the legis- ses of presidential leadership to presiden- lature. In presidential and parliamentary tial countries, they now invariably include regimes, the institutional choices are very consideration of semipresidential coun- stark. For example, should there be a pop- tries and, indeed, presidential leadership ularly elected president? Should the gov- within the two subtypes of semipresiden- ernment be collectively accountable to the tial regimes. legislature? There has been a long schol- Since the wave of democratization in the arly debate about the effects of these dif- late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars have ferent choices, particularly on the fate of debated the relative merits of these regime young democracies. types in relation to the transition from au- In 1970, the French political scientist thoritarianism to democratic consolida- Maurice Duverger challenged the standard tion. Here, there has been considerable fo- presidential/parliamentary dichotomy. cus on whether presidential institutions He identified another type of institutional affect the likelihood of democratic consol- arrangement that he labeled semipresiden- idation. At the very beginning of the 1990s, tial regimes.3 These are countries where Juan Linz framed the terms of the debate there is both a popularly elected fixed-term in this regard.6 He argued that presiden- president and a prime minister and Cabi- tialism was a perilous choice for young de- net that are collectively responsible to the mocracies. At first glance, this recommen- legislature. When Duverger first identified dation seems highly contentious, because them, there were only a handful of semi- it flies in the face of the U.S. experience.

58 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences After all, as the world’s oldest presiden- debates, by the late 1990s, there was agree- Robert tial regime and also the world’s oldest con- ment that presidential leadership was likely Elgie stitutional democracy, it might be tempt- to be problematic for new democracies. ing to conclude that presidentialism is In the background of this debate was the well suited to democratic consolidation. issue of political leadership itself. The in- However, Linz drew heavily on the experi- stitutional architecture of presidential and ence of presidentialism in Latin America, president-parliamentary regimes seemed where, at the time he was writing, democ- to render the choices made by individ- racy had not yet taken firm root. Subse- ual political leaders highly consequen- quently, Scott Mainwaring built on Linz’s tial. Were young democracies safe in the work, arguing that the interaction of pres- hands of the people who headed such re- identialism and a multiparty system was a gimes? Could they be trusted to exercise dangerous combination for young democ- benign, never mind beneficial leadership racies.7 Again relying primarily on Latin over their country? Would leaders who America, he claimed that the difficulty in- were brought up under nondemocratic re- volved in coalition-building in multipar- gimes have the requisite skills to exercise ty presidential systems could threaten the leadership safely, even if they wanted to? survival of such democracies. Scholars calculated that, on balance, it was By contrast, Matthew Shugart and John more risky to introduce a presidential sys- Carey argued that the popular election of tem in which idiosyncratic and potentially the president was not necessarily problem- unpredictable leaders could exercise per- atic.8 Drawing on the distinction between sonal leadership than to establish a parlia- president-parliamentary and premier-pres- mentary system in which the prime min- idential regimes, they argued that the for- ister was checked by party politics. They mer should be avoided, but that there were were also skeptical that placing checks merits to the latter because premier-pres- upon presidential leadership would make identialism allowed a degree of presiden- a positive difference. After all, history tial leadership, while also constraining it showed that, outside the United States, within certain limits. By and large, though, frustrated presidents had a habit of call- Shugart and Carey’s recommendation was ing in the military and/or ruling by decree, overlooked because premier-presidential- and even here, Watergate was still fresh in ism can also exhibit what is known as cohab- the collective memory. itation. This is where the presidency is sup- This scholarly consensus against presi- ported by one political force and the legis- dentialism had and continues to have con- lature is controlled by an opposing force. crete practical application. Many newly This is similar to divided government in the independent countries adopted their first United States. The difference is that in a pre- ever constitution in the early 1990s. Mean- mier-presidential system, the prime minis- while, other countries embarked upon a ter and the government are also indepen- process of major constitutional reform. dent of the president because they have the More than that, Tom Ginsburg, Zachary support of the legislature. The potential for Elkins, and James Melton have shown that conflict within the executive, and not mere- constitutional amendment is an ongoing ly between the president and the legislature, process in many countries.9 Whatever the was usually enough for constitution-build- motivation, one of the issues that consti- ers to recommend against premier-presi- tution-builders invariably have to address dentialism and, indeed, semipresidential- is how to organize both the executive and ism in general. On the strength of these executive-legislative relations. In short,

145 (3) Summer 2016 59 Varieties of they have to make a basic choice among reason, semipresidentialism has emerged Presiden- presidential, semipresidential, and par- as the regime of choice for many young tialism & of Leadership liamentary systems. Previously, constitu- democracies. In this sense, contrary to the Outcomes tion-builders tended to call upon individual advice of much of the scholarly community, experts to guide their choice. Over time, the opportunity for presidential leadership international organizations, such as the In- has spread around the world. ternational Institute for Democracy and Nearly three decades on, though, the Electoral Assistance, have emerged with question is whether there is empirical ev- the expertise to provide general resources idence to support the academic consen- for constitution-builders across the world. sus against presidential leadership. Here, The academic consensus against presiden- the situation is much more confused. Ini- tialism has been influential in this context. tially, scholars such as Linz drew on in- With the exception of Latin America, depth regional knowledge to back up where there is a very long history of this their arguments against presidentialism. institutional arrangement, and some parts They pointed to particular examples to of Anglophone Africa, where personalis- show that democracy had collapsed in tic leaders found it convenient to central- presidential countries. Other scholars, ize authority, most countries opted against though, identified counter-examples in presidentialism during the most recent which presidentialism had survived. The wave of democratization. In Afghanistan, same point applies to semipresidential- local constitution-builders did eventually ism. This system is said to have suited opt for a presidential system, even though countries like Mongolia, but critics have they were strongly warned against it by in- pointed to the problems that it created ternational advisers, including U.S. aca- in other countries, such as Niger. These demics. The puzzle is why semipresiden- examples merely show that the relation- tialism has become so popular in recent ship between presidentialism and dem- decades. In general, constitutional experts ocratic collapse is not deterministic. The warn against this form of government: it question, then, is whether presidential can generate strong presidential leader- leadership increases the probability of ship when the president is backed by a democratic collapse. Here, the evidence is secure legislative majority, but it also has contradictory. The results are highly sensi- the potential to generate confused lines of tive to the sample of countries under inves- political authority between the president, tigation, to the controls that are included in prime minister, and legislature, which can the equation, and to the statistical model result in cohabitation. The scholarly decks that is used in the estimation. For example, are truly stacked against this type of system. based on a sample of 123 democratizations Even so, semipresidentialism has often from 1960 to 2004, Ethan Kapstein and suited local decision-makers. It provides a Nathan Converse found that parliamen- neat compromise between political forc- tarism was more dangerous for democra- es that want presidentialism, usually be- cy than presidentialism.10 Taeko Hiroi cause they calculate that their party will and Sawa Omori, looking at 131 democ- win the presidency, and those that want racies from 1960 to 2006, also conclud- parliamentarism, usually because they ed that parliamentarism was more peril- believe that they are not strong enough to ous than presidentialism.11 By contrast, on win the presidency, but stand a chance of the basis of 135 democratic periods from entering a coalition government, thereby 1800 to 2004, Ko Maeda discovered that sharing in executive power. Mainly for this parliamentarism was better than presi-

60 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences dentialism over the long run.12 The value bring some consideration of both context Robert of the whole debate was called into ques- and leadership back in. Elgie tion when Ming Sing, with a sample of 85 countries from 1946 to 2002, unearthed no One of the reasons why arguments about relationship between either form of gov- the supposed perils of presidential leader- ernment and the collapse of democracy.13 ship have been so difficult to resolve relates For his part, José Cheibub argued that pres- to the concepts under investigation. The identialism is dangerous only if it is adopt- presidential system in the United States is so ed in countries that were previously subject familiar that it is tempting to think only in to military rule, effectively shifting the ex- terms of its example when discussing pres- planatory focus to the importance of histo- idential leadership. Yet there is great vari- ry and away from institutions altogether.14 ety of presidential leadership even within Overall, after a quarter-century of system- purely presidential regimes. For example, atic study, it is still unclear whether presi- in Latin America, where the U.S. presiden- dentialism is more dangerous for young de- tial model has been adopted wholesale, mocracies than parliamentarism, or wheth- there are currently old-style caudillo presi- er the choice of regime makes no difference. dents in Venezuela and Bolivia, whereas in Indeed, the same can be said about semi- other countries, including Ecuador, hos- presidentialism. There is some support- tile congresses have resorted to presidential ing evidence for Shugart and Carey’s claim impeachment to divest themselves of un- about the perils of president-parliamen- popular political leaders. Indeed, some au- tarism relative to premier-presidential- thors have seen such presidential “inter- ism,15 but there is no reliable, replicable ruptions” as an increasingly common way evidence that premier-presidentialism is of resolving political crises in the region.17 either more or less likely to be associated In Africa, where there is also a tradition of with democratic collapse than either pres- presidentialism, the “strong man” president identialism or parliamentarism. Thus, af- is still a model of reference, though in some ter so many studies, in terms of the empir- African countries, including Nigeria, presi- ical evidence at least, the jury is still out. dents have recently struggled to assert their In one sense, this is unsurprising. The authority over the legislature. In Asia, too, success or failure of democracy is condi- there is considerable variation: in the Phil- tional upon many different factors. Con- ippines, there is a form of hyperpresidential- text matters. More than that, the scholar- ism,18 while in South Korea and currently ly debate about presidentialism assumes in Indonesia, presidents have had difficulty it is an exogenous factor affecting lead- in passing their reform agenda through a ership outcomes. Yet it is endogenous divided legislature. What this all suggests too. As Archie Brown points out in rela- is that while the United States may be the tion to semipresidentialism, there is a archetypal presidential regime, presidential “chicken-and-egg question about whether leadership can take many forms. This is per- leaders and political elites in countries haps one reason why it has been difficult to with a tradition of authoritarian rule opt identify a general association between pres- for a strongly presidentialized semi-presidentialism and democratic performance. identialism, leading to an excessive con- This point applies even more forcefully centration of power in the hands of the to presidential leadership under semipres- chief executive.”16 Faced with such issues, identialism. Here, scholars are obliged scholars have started to unpack presiden- right from the start to make a basic dis- tial and semipresidential institutions, and tinction within semipresidentialism, typ-

145 (3) Summer 2016 61 Varieties of ically between president-parliamentarism es in which the presidency is also a purely Presiden- and premier-presidentialism. The differ- ceremonial office, even if the president is tialism & of Leadership ence between the two subtypes is purely directly elected. In these countries, which Outcomes constitutional, relating to whether or not include Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Macedo- the president has the power to dismiss the nia, and Slovenia, the practice of politics is prime minister and government. While purely parliamentary. By contrast, in coun- this is a constitutional distinction, it maps tries such as France, Turkey, and Ukraine, quite nicely on to the overall power of the president is usually the most impor- presidents in practice. Presidents in pres- tant actor in the system. What is more, ident-parliamentary systems do tend to be there is also considerable variation across stronger than presidents in premier-pres- time within individual premier-presiden- idential systems. Even so, the distinction tial countries. David Samuels and Matthew masks important variation within each Shugart have shown that cohabitation is al- subtype. For example, Austria and Ice- most unheard of in president-parliamen- land both have purely ceremonial presi- tary systems.19 However, it is not uncom- dents, yet their presidents enjoy the con- mon in premier-presidential systems. Here, stitutional power to dismiss the Cabinet. when the legislative majority is opposed to It is simply that, by convention, this power the president, the president usually loses is never used. So they are president-parlia- the opportunity to exercise leadership. For mentary in constitutional terms, but their example, in France, power shifted from the presidents act like figurehead presidents in president to the prime minister during all parliamentary regimes. three periods of cohabitation (1986–1988, There are also differences in presidential 1993–1995, and 1997–2002). In Romania, leadership between president-parliamenta- President Băsescu faced two periods of cory countries such as Mozambique and Na- habitation (2007–2008 and 2012–2014). mibia, on the one hand, and Taiwan, on the On both occasions, the legislative majority other. In the former, presidents have been voted to suspend him from office and or- backed by dominant parties with a cohesive ganized a popular referendum to decide majority in the legislature. This ensures that whether or not he should be impeached. the president enjoys the political resources On both occasions, President Băsescu sur- to exercise great power. By contrast, in the vived politically, but it was a sign that pres- latter, President Chen Shui-bian was with- idential leadership under premier-presi- out a legislative majority for much of his dentialism cannot be taken for granted. In eight-year term, limiting his power consid- Portugal, by contrast, the opposite scenario erably. There is also the well-known case occurs during cohabitation: the president of president-parliamentary Russia. When becomes stronger. The Portuguese presi- President Putin was term-limited in 2008, he dent is not the party leader. Instead, when simply moved to the premiership, dominat- the president and prime minister are from ing the system from there before returning the same party, the latter has more party au- to the presidency in 2012. Putin’s example thority than the former. During cohabita- shows the limitations of an analysis focused tion, though, the president is now the most solely on a consideration of basic separa- senior party figure remaining within the tion-of-powers features. executive. As a result, party opposition to Under premier-presidentialism there is the government expresses itself through the also considerable variation in presidential presidency, which becomes more powerful. leadership. The list of premier-presiden- What this all suggests is that a typology tial countries includes a number of cas- of regimes based on institutional design is

62 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences a relatively blunt conceptual instrument. It deed, in president-parliamentary systems Robert may be possible to identify some very gen- are stronger than their counterparts in pre- Elgie eral trends about presidential leadership mier-presidential regimes, who, in turn, are under presidentialism compared with par- stronger than their head-of-state equiv- liamentarism, and also, adjusting for coun- alents in parliamentary systems. In other tries such as Austria and Iceland, about the words, regime-oriented studies can already effect of president-parliamentarism rel- be interpreted as studies of the relative im- ative to premier-presidentialism. Even if pact of presidential power. However, as this were the case, though–and so far, as has been noted, there is considerable vari- has been shown, the evidence is contradic- ation in presidential power within each of tory–it would still miss much of the effect these regime types. Therefore, if presiden- of within-regime variation. Partly for these tial power really is the variable of interest, reasons, the research agenda has started to then scholars have argued that it needs to be shift toward new questions about institu- operationalized much more carefully than tions and presidential leadership. is possible in regime-based analysis. The question arises, then, as to how pres- Some scholars have chosen to focus on the idential power is best measured. Typical- study of presidential power more specifically, measures are based on a set of individ- ly. For example, in a recent survey of articles ual indicators, such as whether a presi- in top-rated political science journals, Da- dent has the power to issue decrees with vid Doyle and I identified forty-nine studies the force of law. If a president enjoys a par- that included an estimation of presidential ticular power, then a value of one may be power.20 In forty-five of these, presidential assigned for that indicator. Otherwise, a power was operationalized as an explanato- value of zero is recorded. The total score for ry variable, and in thirty of these forty-five presidential power is invariably the sim- studies, presidential power was confirmed ple aggregate of the scores for each indica- to have had a significant effect on the out- tor. This generates a set of cross-national come under investigation. What is more, presidential power scores for individual the outcome of interest varied considerably countries. This methodology, though, begs across the set of studies. Some authors were some important questions. What powers indeed concerned with democratic consoli- should be included in the set of indica- dation. However, other scholars were inter- tors? Here, scholars make very different ested in the relationship between presiden- decisions. Some prefer a relatively small tial power and outcomes such as economic number of indicators, others include up reform, economic growth, the level and tim- to forty. Moreover, even if they include a ing of privatization, protectionism, corrup- similar number of indicators, they do not tion, human rights violations, Cabinet sta- necessarily include exactly the same ones. bility, ministerial portfolio allocation, the In addition, whatever indicators are cho- effective number of political parties, and sen, are the values assigned in each case voter turnout. Most of these studies were determined by the wording of the con- conducted in the last few years, suggesting stitution or by presidential leadership in that there is an increasing interest in the ef- practice? The Austrian and Icelandic cases fect of presidential power. demonstrate clearly that constitutions can This approach is consistent with some sometimes be an imperfect guide to polit- of the underlying logic of the more tradi- ical life in reality. So there are serious con- tional regime-based inquiry. In general, cerns about the reliability of the measure- presidents in presidential systems and, in- ment of presidential power. These issues

145 (3) Summer 2016 63 Varieties of have led some observers to question the the individual quality of political leader- Presiden- validity of the exercise altogether.21 Re- ship. Working within the same institution- tialism & of Leadership cently, though, Doyle and I have tried to al framework in the same country, politi- Outcomes maximize the reliability of presidential cal leaders can exercise leadership very dif- power measures by, in effect, pooling the ferently. This personal element of political scores of scholars who have already come leadership is very difficult to capture. In up with such measures.22 We drew upon fact, comparative scholars who engage in the mass of information contained in large-n statistical studies do not attempt twenty-eight existing presidential power to do so. For them, the impact of politi- measures, reducing them to a single score cal leadership can be found somewhere in for each country’s president. We adjusted the error term of the equation. This is a for measures that appeared to produce natural consequence of the type of analy- idiosyncratic scores for particular coun- sis in which they are engaging. They wish tries and we provided some information to make general statements about the im- as to whether there was general scholarly pact of certain explanatory factors. Insti- agreement on the presidential power score tutions, whether operationalized as dif- for any given country. ferent separation-of-powers regimes or This exercise suggests that there is now presidential power scores, can be manip- the opportunity to engage in the study of ulated and the effect of institutional vari- the impact of presidential power more re- ation on various outcomes can be tested. liably than was previously the case. All the By contrast, variation in individual politi- same, it leaves open the difficult issue of cal leadership cannot be investigated in the within-country variation over time. For same way. This does not mean that politi- example, on a scale from zero to one, the cal leadership does not matter. On the con- French president has a normalized presi- trary, whether good or bad, competent or dential power score of 0.465.23 This figure incompetent, honest or corrupt, political is in the right ballpark intuitively. There leadership will always make a difference in are plenty of executive presidents in Latin particular contexts. However, the study of America with higher scores, as well as plenty both regime types and presidential pow- of figurehead presidents with much lower scores does not place the focus on such er scores. However, as has been indicated, questions. Thus, while there is a growing presidential power has varied over time interest in estimating the general effect within France in the context of cohabita- of presidential power, and while there are tion. A single country score cannot cap- now measures of presidential power that ture this variation. Moreover, these scores are more reliable than ever before, there are based on twenty-eight measures of the are nonetheless still profound limitations constitutional powers of presidents. This is to this exercise. a more reliable foundation upon which to base a study in the sense that no in-depth Partly in response to these issues, some country knowledge is required. It is simply scholars have placed the emphasis on the a matter of reading the words in a country’s importance of more particular aspects publicly available constitution. That said, of presidential leadership. This work ad- it does leave the issue of the difference be- dresses head-on one of the issues that has tween constitutional powers and actual bedeviled regime-based inquiry. Why is presidential leadership still unresolved. there variation in outcomes within par- More fundamentally, though, such pres- ticular regime types? Specifically, why is idential power scores can never capture presidential leadership more successful in

64 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences some presidential countries than others? democratic collapse. However, since de- Robert This question was first asked in relation mocracy was reinstated in the late 1980s, Elgie to Latin America, where most countries it has survived. At least in part, this success have a presidential system. In this sense, has been put down to the success of pres- the broad institutional context is con- idential coalition-building. According to stant. At the same time, and in contrast to Timothy Power, the “core insight of coa- the two-party polarization in the United litional presidentialism is that presidents States, most Latin American countries also must behave like European prime minis- have multiparty systems. Therefore, pres- ters. Executives must fashion multiparty idents often come to power without the cabinets and voting blocs on the floor of backing of majority support in the legisla- the legislature.”24 In this regard, President ture: they are minority presidents. Indeed, Cardoso wrote what has been described this was the difficult combination for dem- as a user’s manual for other presidents to ocratic consolidation that Scott Mainwar- follow.25 ing identified in the mid-1990s. More than While the study of coalitional presi- that, and in this regard there are similar- dentialism is rooted in the Brazilian ex- ities with the United States, political par- perience, it has struck a chord with schol- ties in Latin America often lack cohesion in ars of the region generally. For example, the legislature. Parties are not loyal to the Carlos Pereira and Marcus Andre Melo ar- president. There is party switching: depu- gue that the success of coalitional presi- ties shift their allegiance from one party or dentialism can be attributed to three fac- coalition to another. In other words, even if tors: 1) whether the president is constitu- the president has the nominal support of a tionally strong; 2) whether the president particular party or coalition, such support has “goods” to trade in order to attract and cannot be taken for granted. keep coalition partners; and 3) whether In this context, why have some minori- there are institutionalized and effective ty presidents been more successful than checks on presidential actions.26 For them, others? For example, in Brazil, both Pres- it is important that presidents have the ident Fernando Henrique Cardoso and constitutional power to distribute politi- President Lula were able to pass reforms cal goods, such as Cabinet posts and bud- through Congress, even though their own getary resources. Presidents can use these party did not have a majority there. By con- goods in the form of “selective incentives” trast, in Ecuador, presidents have been to reward and/or punish members of the stifled in their ambitions, with President legislature. In a form of politics that would Abdalá Bucaram even being dismissed from be familiar to U.S. observers, coalitional office by Congress in 1997 on the grounds presidentialism relies on the president’s that he was mentally unfit to rule. To put ability to distribute “pork” to members of it another way, why have some presidents Congress. At the same time, though, it is been more successful at building legisla- also important for there to be checks on tive coalitions than others? The attempt the president’s power, including an active to find an answer to this question has gen- and independent judiciary and a plural erated a literature on so-called “coalitional media. For his part, Steven Levitsky em- presidentialism.” phasizes a slightly different combination The work on coalitional presidentialism of factors to explain the success of presi- (or presidencialismo de coalizão) has roots in dential coalition-building.27 For him, the the study of Brazil. Here, there were re- three important aspects are 1) the sharing peated periods of democracy followed by of executive power through the distribu-

145 (3) Summer 2016 65 Varieties of tion of Cabinet seats to coalition parties; “blended cabinet management, informal Presiden- 2) pork, budgetary clientelism, and oth- institutions, and agenda power into a sin- tialism & of Leadership er discretionary side payments; and 3) the gle coherent strategy for coalition man- Outcomes presence of oversized coalitions to com- agement.”31 Indeed, this example shows pensate for the lack of party cohesion.28 how the presidential toolkit does not sim- Levitsky thinks of these factors as infor- ply manage itself. Skillful leaders have to mal institutional rules, taking the focus of decide on a strategy for manipulating it the analysis even further away from the re- successfully. This opens up a space for the gime-based inquiry of the early 1990s. study of innovative and resourceful politi- The work on coalition presidentialism cal leadership. It is reasonable to speculate in Latin America has proved popular be- that such leadership is in fact one of the cause it is potentially transferable to the reasons why Benin has had one of the more study of presidential leadership in other successful democratic experiments in Af- regions. This has led to an interest in the rica since the early 1990s. In other words, so-called “executive toolbox,” or “presi- even though Benin has a presidential re- dential toolkit” approach.29 For example, gime and presidents have lacked solid sup- Paul Chaisty, Nic Cheeseman, and Timo- port in the legislature, the judicious use of thy Power have extended the logic of coa- tools in the presidential toolkit by succes- litional presidentialism to countries in Af- sive leaders has perhaps helped maintain rica and in the former Soviet Union. They broad support for the regime, not least by argue that presidents have a range of tools bringing potentially oppositional forces that they can draw upon to engage in suc- into the decision-making process. cessful coalition-building, and that the particular tools they use will vary accord- How should we sum up the long debate ing to the local context. Specifically, they about the relative benefits of presidential- identify five key tools for constructing leg- ism and parliamentarism? Over the years, islative coalitions: agenda power, budget- this simple distinction has become less rel- ary authority, Cabinet management, par- evant, first with the rise of semipresiden- tisan powers, and informal institutions, tial regimes across the world, and then though they acknowledge that other tools with the scholarly focus on intraregime might be appropriate in other contexts variation and the study of coalitional presi- still. For example, they show that many dentialism, as well as the presidential tool- African presidents have failed to com- kit. The development of this scholarship mand the support of a natural majority is important not least because it indicates in the legislature. Faced with this prob- the need to go beyond the standard ar- lem and citing Benin as an example, they chetype of presidential leadership in the show how presidents there have had lit- United States. Looking to Latin America tle choice but “to engage in complex pro- for lessons about presidential leadership, cesses of alliance formation, appointing Juan Linz argued that a key problem with representatives of opposition parties to presidentialism was the potential for con- the cabinet.”30 This has meant, though, flict between presidents who failed to en- that presidents in Benin have been con- joy majority support in the legislature and strained in their exercise of power. For ex- the legislature itself. This was exactly the ample, they have not always been able to type of scenario that he believed was likely monopolize control over economic rents either to lead to the intervention of the mil- and public policy. Instead, like President itary in an attempt to restore stability to Kibaki in Kenya, presidents in Benin have the regime (the golpe), or to see presidents

66 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences abusing the rule of law and governing by nign leadership was likely to be exercised Robert decree (the autogolpe). in presidential regimes. At the same time, Elgie However, following on from work point- the debate about the relative effects of in- ing out that coalitions are, in fact, relatively stitutional structures on outcomes, includ- common in presidential regimes,32 the ing the debate about the effects of varia- literature on coalitional presidentialism tion in presidential power generally, has and the presidential toolkit has provid- been conducted largely without reference ed an explanation as to why presidential to leaders or leadership. There are signs, leadership in Latin America and elsewhere though, that the most recent scholarship has been less destructive of democracy in is trying to address this issue more directly recent times. Specifically, it has done so (and yet still systematically). The logic of by shifting the emphasis away from blunt, the presidential toolkit approach is that regime-based inquiry, and, instead, has presidents have to choose which tools are unpacked the concept of presidential lead- best suited to the specific context they ership. This work is at once both consis- face. Some presidents are likely to choose tent with and neglectful of the study of in- well and others less well. Here, in the individual political leadership. Underlying teraction of institutions, leaders, and con- the arguments about the perils of presi- text, lies the eternal dilemma of the study dentialism was a distrust of individual of presidential leadership. leadership, or at least a skepticism that be-

endnotes 1 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: C. A. Watts, 1964); and Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1885). 2 Don K. Price, “The Parliamentary and Presidential Systems,” Public Administration Review 3 (4) (1943): 317–334; Harold J. Laski, “The Parliamentary and Presidential Systems,” Public Ad- ministration Review 4 (4) (1944): 347–359; and Don K. Price, “A Response to Mr. Laski,” Public Administration Review 4 (4) (1944): 360–363. 3 Maurice Duverger, Institutions politiques et droit constitutionnel, 11th ed. (Paris: Presses Universi- taires de France, 1970). 4 Robert Elgie, Semi-Presidentialism: Sub-Types and Democratic Performance (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2011). 5 Matthew Soberg Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 6 Juan J. Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy 1 (1) (1990): 51–69; and Juan J. Linz, “The Virtues of Parliamentarism,” Journal of Democracy 1 (4) (1990): 84–91. 7 Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combina- tion,” Comparative Political Studies 26 (2) (1993): 198–228. 8 Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies. 9 Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins, and James Melton, The Endurance of National Constitutions (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 10 Ethan B. Kapstein and Nathan Converse, “Why Democracies Fail,” Journal of Democracy 19 (4) (2008): 57–68.

145 (3) Summer 2016 67 Varieties of 11 Taeko Hiroi and Sawa Omori, “Perils of Parliamentarism? Political Systems and the Stability Presiden- of Democracy Revisited,” Democratization 16 (3) (2009): 485–507. tialism & of 12 Leadership Ko Maeda, “Two Modes of Democratic Breakdown: A Competing Risks Analysis of Demo- Outcomes cratic Durability,” Journal of Politics 72 (4) (2010): 1129–1143. 13 Ming Sing, “Explaining Democratic Survival Globally (1946–2002),” Journal of Politics 72 (2) (2010): 438–455. 14 José Antonio Cheibub, Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 15 Elgie, Semi-Presidentialism. 16 Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (London: The Bodley Head, 2014), 61. 17 Leiv Marsteintredet and Einar Berntzen, “Reducing the Perils of Presidentialism in Latin America through Presidential Interruptions,” Comparative Politics 41 (1) (2008): 83–101. 18 Susan Rose-Ackerman, Diane A. Desierto, and Natalia Volosin, “Hyper-Presidentialism: Sep- aration of Powers without Checks and Balances in Argentina and Philippines,” Berkeley Jour- nal of International Law 29 (1) (2011): 246–333. 19 David Samuels and Matthew Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 20 David Doyle and Robert Elgie, “Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presi- dential Power,” British Journal of Political Science (published online December 23, 2014), doi:10.1017/ S0007123414000465. 21 Jessica Fortin, “Measuring Presidential Powers: Some Pitfalls of Aggregate Measurement,” International Political Science Review 34 (1) (2013): 91–112. 22 Doyle and Elgie, “Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power.” 23 Ibid., Supplementary Material 3, 9. 24 Timothy J. Power, “Optimism, Pessimism, and Coalitional Presidentialism: Debating the In- stitutional Design of Brazilian Democracy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 29 (1) (2010): 18–33. 25 Ibid., 29. 26 Carlos Pereira and Marcus Andre Melo, “The Surprising Success of Multiparty Presidential- ism,” Journal of Democracy 23 (2) (2012): 156–170. 27 Steven Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Politics in Latin America,” in Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics, ed. Peter R. Kingstone and Deborah J. Yasha (London: Routledge, 2013), 88–100. 28 Ibid., 94. 29 Eric D. Raile, Carlos Pereira, and Timothy J. Power, “The Executive Toolbox: Building Leg- islative Support in a Multiparty Presidential Regime,” Political Research Quarterly 64 (2) (2011): 323–334; and Paul Chaisty, Nic Cheeseman, and Timothy Power, “Rethinking the ‘Presiden- tialism Debate’: Conceptualizing Coalitional Politics in Cross-Regional Perspective,” Democ- ratization 21 (1) (2014): 72–94. 30 Chaisty, Cheeseman, and Power, “Rethinking the ‘Presidentialism Debate,’” 83. 31 Ibid., 85. 32 José Antonio Cheibub, Adam Przeworski, and Sebastian M. Saiegh, “Government Coalitions and Legislative Success under Presidentialism and Parliamentarism,” British Journal of Political Science 34 (4) (2004): 565–587.

68 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Authoritarian Leadership in the Post-Communist World

Eugene Huskey

Abstract: A quarter-century after the collapse of the USSR, authoritarian politics dominates seven of the fifteen successor states. Placing the post-communist authoritarian experience in the broader frame of nondemocratic governance, this essay explores the origins and operation of personalist rule in the region; the relationship between time and power; and the role of Soviet legacies in shaping the agenda and tools of leadership. It also examines the efforts of post-communist authoritarians to enhance personal and regime legitimacy by claiming to rule beyond politics. Within the post-communist world, the essay finds significant variation among authoritarian leaders in their approaches to personnel policy and to the use of policies, symbols, and narratives to address the ethnic and religious awakening spawned by the collapse of Soviet rule. The essay concludes with a brief assessment of the trajectories of post-communist authoritarian leadership.

. . . nothing is harder to manage, more risky in the undertaking, or more doubtful of success than to set up as the introducer of a new order. –Machiavelli

New countries create unique challenges and opportunities for political leadership. Founding leaders help to establish the rules of the political game and often acquire a personal authority that inspires deference, EUGENE HUSKEY is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political or even reverence. However, they also face the daunt- Science at Stetson University. His ing tasks of building or consolidating state and na- research focuses on politics and tion and, in many cases, of redefining relations with legal affairs in the Soviet Union an imperial power. In addition to the challenges pres- and the post-communist successor ent in all fledgling states, leaders of new post-commu- states of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. He nist countries had to confront the peculiar legacies is the author of Russian Lawyers and of the Soviet era, which included a command econ- the Soviet State (1986) and Presidential Power in Russia (1999), and editor of omy, one-party rule, and a single, all-embracing ide- Russian Bureaucracy and the State: Of- ology that removed religion from public life. It is no ficialdom from Alexander III to Vladimir wonder that instead of systemic change, which char- Putin (with Don K. Rowney, 2009). acterized the transformational leadership of Mikhail

69 Authoritarian Gorbachev, most post-Soviet leaders have thoritarian regime for a decade or longer. Leadership focused on systemic stabilization.1 It is also These include Belarus and Russia, which in the Post- Communist unsurprising that, with their immature po- are predominantly Slavic and Orthodox World litical institutions and uncertain identities, countries, and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, post-communist states have been a breed- Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, ing ground for authoritarian leaders.2 De- states with majority Muslim and Turkic or spite the hopes of many in the West for Iranian populations (see Table 1). a democratic transition throughout the Some may object that the concept of “au- post-communist world, authoritarian pres- thoritarian leadership” is an oxymoron. Be- idents have governed in one-third of the al- cause leadership is most frequently associ- most thirty post-communist countries of ated with the pursuit of laudable goals by Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Many contin- fair-minded means, there is a reluctance to ue to do so today. apply the term to the exercise of power by Scholars have offered compelling struc- authoritarian rulers. Yet the most essential tural explanations of why some post-com- element of leadership–the power to per- munist countries have pursued authori- suade–is found in authoritarian as well as tarian rather than democratic paths,3 and democratic leaders. As Sergei Guriev and new works appear regularly on individu- Daniel Triesman recently argued, authori- al authoritarian leaders in the region, es- tarian rulers today prefer to govern with a pecially Vladimir Putin. However, as Tim- velvet fist.5 Thus, in authoritarian regimes, othy Colton has observed, “we have not getting followers to go in the direction the learned nearly enough” about the nature leader wants requires more than applying and impact of leadership in the post-com- force, rigging elections, and controlling munist world.4 This comment applies with the media.6 It also requires the exercise of particular force to the region’s authoritar- leadership in the selection of personnel, the ian countries, where the limited account- adoption of public policies, the cultivation ability of rulers allows them to shape po- of a compelling personal image, and the litical developments in ways that would be construction and manipulation of nation- unimaginable in democratic regimes. In al symbols, rituals, and narratives. These Turkmenistan, for example, the first lead- universal functions of political leadership er of the post-communist era, Saparmurat are at the center of the analysis below. Niyazov, plunged his country into diplo- matic isolation while creating a cult of per- It is tempting to regard post-communist sonality of epic proportions. authoritarian leadership as a legacy of the A quarter-century after the collapse of Soviet era, and yet in two fundamental the Soviet Union, this essay examines the ways it represents a sharp break with the record of rule in seven states in order to past. Except for the period of high Stalin- identify and explain patterns of author- ism, the Soviet system of government was itarian leadership in the post-commu- an oligarchy, in which the power of the nist world and to locate the post-commu- general secretary was constrained by the nist experience in the broader landscape other members of the ruling elite and the of nondemocratic governance. Although rules and conventions of the Communist several countries in the region, including Party. Post-communist presidents, on the Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine, have other hand, govern in personalist regimes flirted briefly with authoritarian rule, the where the leaders have acquired “so much main focus here is on the post-commu- power that they can no longer be credibly nist states that have maintained an au- threatened by their allies.”7

70 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Table 1 Eugene Authoritarian Leaders in Post-Communist States Huskey

Polity Period as Leader of Years IV Country Leader Territory in Age+ Score* Office+ (2014) Soviet Era Post-Soviet Era Heidar Aliev 1969–1982 1993–2003 23 Deceased Azerbaijan -7 Ilham Aliev 2003–Present 12 54 Alexander Belarus -7 1994–Present 21 61 Lukashenka Kazakhstan -6 Nursultan Nazarbaev 1989–1991 1992–Present 26 75 Russia 4 Vladimir Putin 2000–Present 16# 63 Tajikistan -3 Emomali Rakhmon 1994–Present 21 63 Saparmurat Niyazov 1985–1991 1992–2006 31 Deceased Turkmenistan -8 Gurbanguly 2006–Present 9 58 Berdymukhamedov Uzbekistan -9 Islam Karimov 1989–1991 1992–Present 26 78

* Polity IV scores, which range from 10 (consolidated democracy) to -10 (hereditary monarchy), classify two of our countries (Russia and Tajikistan) as “anocracies,” which combine elements of democratic and authoritarian governance, and the remaining five as autocracies. The index from Freedom House considers all the countries under review to be “unfree,” with scores between 6 and 7, where 7 is the most unfree. # Although Putin left the presidency to serve as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, allowing his protégé, Dmit- rii Medvedev, to assume the presidency, Putin remained the most important leader in the country in this period. One should also note that it was not until approximately 2003 that authoritarian rule was consolidated in Russia. It took Lukashenka, Nazarbaev, and Rakhmon two to four years to consolidate authoritarian rule. + As of March 1, 2016.

How does one explain these patterns of many of the functions, as well as some of personalist over party rule, and what Mi- the offices and personnel, of the old ruling lan Svolik has called an “established au- communist parties. In effect, one now had tocracy” over a “contested autocracy”?8 the Soviet structure of government minus One answer lies in the choice of institu- the ruling party, which placed the presi- tions, specifically a semipresidential mod- dent above the other branches of govern- el of government that grants unusual pow- ment–parliament, courts, and council of er and prominence to an elected president. ministers–like a republican monarch. In order to reduce the role of the Commu- Not all countries under review suc- nist Party and increase the efficiency and cumbed immediately to authoritarian rule. reform orientation of executive authori- Whereas leaders in Uzbekistan and Turk- ty, presidencies were created in eleven of menistan tolerated organized and vocal op- the fifteen republics on the eve of the So- position forces for only a few months af- viet Union’s collapse. Within two years ter arriving in office, the Russian president after the breakup of the ussr, all of the remained accountable to parliament and new states, except the three Baltic repub- people until approximately 2003. In the lics, had adopted constitutions that placed end, however, all leaders eliminated the the presidency at the center of political life, primary sources of popular and elite op- which meant that this institution inherited position to their rule by expanding the for-

145 (3) Summer 2016 71 Authoritarian mal powers of the presidency; arresting, booth–are less likely to topple a repressive Leadership exiling, or intimidating critics; manipulat- ruler than rebellions in the palace. To keep in the Post- Communist ing elections; and, with the exception of their political allies in line, authoritarians World Belarus, creating a subservient party or par- used both carrot and stick. In exchange ties that were instruments of electioneer- for their fealty, political allies received ing and not governance. To paraphrase the important sinecures in the state appara- Russian historian Kliuchevsky, as the office tus and/or patronage for their lucrative of the president swelled up–in terms of and often illicit business activities;9 for power and size–the liberal institutions of their part, suspect members of the polit- state grew lean. Although the substitution ical or economic establishment were sub- of a strong president for a collective party ject to prosecution or worse. It is easy to leadership does not lead inexorably to au- forget, however, that some ties binding po- thoritarianism in the context of post-com- litical allies to their leaders go beyond cal- munist rule, it creates a favorable institu- culations based on fear or greed. President tional climate for the consolidation of per- Putin, for example, has surrounded him- sonalist rule. Compared to authoritarian self with a team of officials and advisers regimes based on one-party rule or a mil- whose loyalty rests in part on lengthy per- itary government, presidentialism makes sonal friendships or professional collabo- oligarchy or other forms of “contested au- ration, or on traditions of deference devel- tocracy” a less likely outcome because of oped in the security services. the symbolic majesty and extensive formal Ties based on kinship or common geo- powers of the office of the president. graphic origin, which are especially preva- The legacy of republican-level politics lent in Central Asia and the Caucasus, may in the ussr may also have contributed to also bind members of the political elite to the emergence of single-man, as opposed a ruler and discourage defection. In Ta- to oligarchic, rule in post-communist au- jikistan, President Rakhmon has recruit- thoritarian regimes. We noted above that ed his inner circle from his home region, a collective leadership governed the coun- Kulob, while in Azerbaijan, officials with try through most of Soviet history, yet one- origins in Nakhichevan or Erevan form the man rule by a party chieftain was the norm president’s core support group.10 In Turk- in subnational politics in all but the Russian menistan, President Niyazov employed a Republic. Although Moscow appointed re- different, though equally effective, tactic, publican leaders and established intricate surrounding himself with political eu- checking mechanisms to ensure their loy- nuchs: that is, officials who had no pos- alty, in the individual republics, these par- sibility of contending for power because ty first secretaries tended to dominate the they were foreigners or from minority eth- political landscape. Thus, when the former nic groups.11 Both the kinship and the po- Soviet republics became independent states litical eunuch principles have informed in late 1991, there was no tradition of collec- the recruitment decisions of President tive leadership in their capitals. Nazarbaev, whose inner circle was report- Whatever the role of legacies in prepar- edly divided into two contending groups ing the ground for one-man rule, each lead- at the end of 2014, one led by his daughter, er employed a range of measures to ensure Dariga, and the other by a member of the that he controlled his own political allies as Uighur minority, Kasim Masimov.12 Such well as the governed. As numerous writ- tactics minimize the chances of “allies’ re- ers on authoritarianism have pointed out, bellions” and serve as a reminder of the ex- rebellions in the street–or in the voting traordinary diversity of leadership choic-

72 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences es on matters of patronage, even within a For President Niyazov–known as the Eugene single region of the world. Turkmenbashi, or Father of the Turkmen– Huskey it was not enough to be a founding leader The first post-communist authoritarians of a modern state with ancient roots. In were unlikely candidates to lead new coun- Paul Theroux’s words, Niyazov presented tries experiencing an ethnic and religious himself as “a sort of reincarnation of Oguz awakening. As traditional products of So- Khan [the legendary founder of the nation], viet rule–four had been party first secre- just as powerful and wise, and to prove it taries, two collective farm chairmen, and he has named cities and hills and rivers and one a kbg officer–they clung to many of streets after himself.”15 Leadership for Ni- the political, economic, and cultural values yazov was in many ways a caricature of per- of the communist era, including an aver- sonalist rule, where the wellsprings of legit- sion to ethnic nationalism and religious be- imacy flowed less from the distant past than lief.13 Cast against type, they faced the diffi- from the nation’s present fortune of living cult challenge of creating a new state iden- under the rule of the Turkmenbashi.16 tity and new state policies that could satisfy Given the number of ethnic Russians in the surging nationalism of the titular peo- his country and a lengthy shared border ple, while reassuring minority groups that with Russia, Kazakhstan’s Nazarbaev has they had a viable future in the country. Es- exhibited less enthusiasm for grounding pecially in the non-Slavic authoritarian re- his country’s identity in distant histori- gimes, like in Kazakhstan, where there was cal symbols and events.17 Nazarbaev has considerable intraethnic tension based on sought personal and regime legitimacy regional or tribal/clan loyalties, it was of- more in current economic performance ten necessary to move gingerly along two and his ambitious plans for the future than tracks at once: using ethnic nationalism to in connections to the Kazakh past. The unite and appease the titular population, symbols of this radiant future include the while trying to transcend, or at least con- dramatic architecture of the new capital of tain, ethnic nationalism by pursuing a sym- Astana and the long-term strategic plans bolic politics that could draw together all that stretch out to 2050. Even Nazarbaev, communities.14 however, remains vulnerable to demands Authoritarian leaders of the non-Slav- from his nationalist flank, demands that ic countries under review reached back to increased in intensity after President Pu- the period before the Russian conquest to tin remarked in 2014 that Kazakhstan had discover historical figures and/or political no state tradition and was part of the “Rus- communities that could be used as founda- sian world” (russkii mir). In the context of tions for the modern state. Where the Ta- the Ukrainian crisis, which raised the spec- jik president Rahmon traced the origins of ter of Russian irredentism throughout the post-communist Tajikistan to the Samanid post-communist world, Nazarbaev was Empire, President Karimov sought a legit- forced to respond by employing the back- imating lineage in the fourteenth-century ward-looking discourse of neighboring founder of the Timurid dynasty, Tamerlane. presidents. Acceding to the wishes of Ka- To bask in the reflected glory of these ear- zakh nationalists, Nazarbaev announced lier leaders or communities, the presidents that the country would celebrate in 2015 organized grand celebrations of these ide- the 550th anniversary of the founding of ational cornerstones of the new state: 660 the modern Kazakh state.18 years for Tamerlane in 1995 and 1,100 years Unlike in Central Asia and the Caucasus, for the Samanid Empire in 1999. where new states rejected much of the Rus-

145 (3) Summer 2016 73 Authoritarian sian and Soviet inheritance in order to in- ness to include persons living outside the Leadership digenize their languages, toponyms, and country, he treats some of his critics liv- in the Post- Communist histories, in Belarus and Russia, Lukashen- ing inside Russia as unwelcome members World ka and Putin rehabilitated important parts of the political community, claiming that of the Soviet heritage that had been reject- they are fifth columnists in the service of ed by earlier post-communist leaders in foreign powers. A trademark of authori- each country. In fact, nostalgia for the com- tarian leadership everywhere, this demon- munist era became the centerpiece of Lu- ization of the other in the post-communist kashenka’s leadership.19 Where his prede- world targets enemies ranging from Islam- cessors in the early 1990s had highlighted ists to human rights advocates.21 the distinctiveness of Belarusian language Post-communist authoritarians had to and history–thereby claiming a national contend with religious as well as ethnic identity that differed from Russia’s–Lu- nationalist revivals at the breakup of the kashenka came into office intent on restor- ussr. While maintaining the secular sta- ing the dominant position of Russian lan- tus of their states, post-communist au- guage and culture in the country and the thoritarian leaders have sought to chan- centrality of a civic identity that down- nel religious observance into the quietism played ethnic distinctions. Instead of at- found in established religions. Achieving tempting to tame and control ethnic na- this goal has proved especially difficult for tionalism, Lukashenka chose to suppress it. post-communist authoritarian presidents Under Putin’s leadership, Russia has ex- in Muslim-majority countries, in part be- perienced a crisis of identity that is more cause of the nonhierarchical character of nuanced, and more consequential, than Sunni Islam, the dominant branch of the that in the imperial periphery. As Ron- faith in the region, and in part because the ald Suny has argued, the struggle over na- presidents insist on using state agencies to tional identity in Russia is less about re- “manage” religions.22 Where the Moscow lations between Russians and non-Rus- patriarchate exercises control over the vast sians within the country than about who majority of Orthodox believers in Belar- is a Russian and where Russia’s boundar- us and Russia, there is no such authority ies should lie. Writing on the eve of Putin’s figure for Muslims in Central Asia. Cyni- accession to power, Suny noted that Rus- cal efforts by Central Asian presidents, all sians are “deeply divided over the ques- of whom are essentially secular, to con- tion of what constitutes the Russian na- trol the Islamic brand has only fed under- tion and state. Russians remain uncertain ground religious resistance. In Uzbekistan about their state’s boundaries, where its and Turkmenistan, being a devout Mus- border guards ought to patrol . . . and even lim is enough to incur the suspicion, and its internal structure as an asymmetrical in some cases the wrath, of the state. federation.”20 Where the Second Chech- Nowhere was the cynicism in leadership en War facilitated the rise of Putin and on religious matters more pronounced than his consolidation of authoritarian rule, in Uzbekistan. After winning the Decem- Putin’s recent discourse on an expand- ber 1991 election, Karimov took the oath ed Russian identity and his military ac- of office on the Koran and made the hajj to tions in Ukraine have deepened his hold Mecca, but shortly thereafter launched a on the country and made it more difficult campaign to eliminate independent Mus- to challenge state policies. The result is a lim organizations and subordinate imams paradox of leadership on identity politics: to the state-run Muslim Directorate of Uz- as Putin expands the concept of Russian- bekistan.23 Given the high level of religios-

74 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ity in Uzbekistan, President Karimov was ers hold officepro tempore–until the vot- Eugene understandably hesitant to follow the lead ers, party or parliamentary colleagues, or Huskey of neighboring leaders Emomali Rakhmon term limits turn them out–authoritarian and Saparmurat Niyazov, who sought to rulers view death as the only insurmount- temper Islam’s influence in their societ- able threat to their tenure. The result is a ies by legitimizing alternative belief tradi- bias toward longevity in office. In the five tions. In the case of Rakhmon, it was Zo- post-Soviet democratic or hybrid regimes roastrianism, which recently celebrated its with strong presidencies, the average ten- three-thousandth anniversary in Tajikistan. ure of the leader has been a little less than In Turkmenistan, it was Niyazov’s magnum six years;26 in the seven post-Soviet au- opus the Rukhnama (“book of the soul”) that thoritarian states, it has been sixteen-and- began to displace the Koran as the country’s a-half years, and no authoritarian leader holiest book in the last years of Niyazov’s has served for less than nine years. In fact, rule. In a statement a few months before his in only two of the seven post-communist death, the Turkmenbashi noted that “any- countries under review has an authoritar- one who reads his book three times will be- ian leader left office. Azerbaijan’s Heidar come intelligent and understand nature, Aliev transferred power to his son, Ilham, laws, and human values. And after that he in 2003, less than two months before his will enter directly into heaven.”24 death at age eighty, and Turkmenistan’s In Russia, the “symphonia” between ec- Niyazov died in office in 2006 at the age clesiastical and civil authority in the Or- of sixty-six, succeeded by the minister of thodox tradition has simplified President health, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Putin’s leadership on religious affairs. Al- who was Niyazov’s dentist. In both in- though the Orthodox Church is not a stances, the transitions occurred with min- monolith, and some of its elements have imal interelite turmoil, which is unusual by supported radical Russian nationalist ideas, world standards. From 1945 to 2002, au- the church hierarchy has signed on with thoritarian rulers worldwide died in of- alacrity to Putin’s recent campaign to es- fice or transferred power by constitution- tablish a Russian cultural identity that sep- al means only one-third of the time; in the arates the country from the “decadence” remaining cases, almost two-thirds of au- of modern Western values on issues such thoritarian leaders were removed by a mil- as homosexuality and freedom of expres- itary coup, 12 percent by a popular revolt, sion on religious themes. President Putin and 7 percent by assassination.27 Given this still struggles, however, to come to grips background, authoritarian leadership in with the challenges posed by Islamic reviv- the post-communist world has exhibited alism in a society where, by 2030, Muslims remarkable continuity and stability. may represent as much as 20 percent of Rus- If younger authoritarian rulers in the re- sia’s population. Even the country’s depu- gion may be contemplating another decade ty chief mufti recently warned that Putin’s or longer in office, older rulers, such as Uz- discourse about the “Russian world” had bekistan’s Islam Karimov (born 1938) and alienated many Muslim youth in Russia.25 Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbaev (born 1940), recognize that they are approach- Among the many contextual differenc- ing the end of their tenures. This declining es between leadership in the democratic time horizon, especially when paired with and authoritarian worlds, none are more rumors of the ill-health of both men, al- important than the relationship between ters the political calculations of the leader, power and time. Where democratic lead- establishment elites, and the opposition;

145 (3) Summer 2016 75 Authoritarian it also fuels speculation about likely suc- the competitiveness of the race–and the Leadership cessors, which can destabilize the regime. political system more broadly–because in the Post- Communist To this point, however, neither leader has it captures the strength of the opposition. World been willing to identify a successor, in part Unfortunately, that indicator has its own because to do so would eliminate the ad- limitations as a measure of contestation. vantage of open-ended rule and transform Post-communist authoritarian leaders have the president into a lame duck.28 regularly recruited deferential opponents to Authoritarian leaders in the post-com- run against them in order to create the illu- munist world have reduced, but not elim- sion of competitiveness and to divide the inated altogether, the role of electoral cy- opposition vote so that no single contend- cles in structuring political time.29 Through er receives a substantial share of the results. popular referendums or legislation adopted Shattering this illusion in the 2011 presiden- by quiescent parliaments, several authori- tial race in Kazakhstan was the public ad- tarian presidents in the region have extend- mission by one candidate that he had voted the time between presidential elections, ed for President Nazarbaev.31 which changes the calculus of leaders and Like authoritarians everywhere, post- led and discourages an already weak oppo- communist authoritarians insist on avoid- sition. On occasion, presidents in the re- ing genuinely competitive elections out of gion have altered electoral timing by calling fear as well as greed. In democratic societ- early or snap elections that are designed to ies, the loss of office reduces dramatically catch regime opponents off guard and avoid the visibility and influence of leaders; in au- going to the nation when the health of the thoritarian regimes it also endangers their leader or the national economy might be in property and their lives. Through trusted doubt. This desire to control the timing of associates, post-communist authoritari- elections suggests that although post-com- ans engage in acts of political repression munist authoritarians possess numerous le- and in self-enrichment on a grand scale, vers of influence over electoral outcomes– which leaves them vulnerable to prosecu- from disqualifying opponents to falsifying tion upon leaving office. In these circum- results–they still squirm at the thought of stances, the only way for an authoritarian the “institutionalized uncertainty” repre- to ensure his or her security on retirement is sented by elections. to relinquish power to another leader who One measure of the degree of compet- is strong and loyal enough to maintain the itiveness of elections in post-communist impunity of the former ruler. authoritarian regimes is the percentage of One option, already adopted in Azerbai- votes won by the ruler. As Table 2 illustrates, jan, is family rule. Rumors of dynastic suc- with the exception of the election of Vlad- cession involving the sons, daughters, or imir Putin in March 2012, all authoritarian sons-in-law of post-communist authoritar- incumbents have received over 70 percent ian leaders have circulated widely, but is- of the vote in their respective elections, and sues of personal character and timing com- the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and plicate this form of transition. For a num- Turkmenistan have garnered over 90 per- ber of years, President Karimov’s older cent.30 While the share of the results go- daughter, Gulnara, appeared to be on track ing to the incumbent authoritarians has to succeed her father, but after a series of remained relatively stable in recent years, scandals, including accusations that Gul- there has been an overall decline in the re- nara had extorted over $1 billion from for- sults obtained by the second-place finisher, eign firms, the Uzbekistani leader placed which may be a more accurate indication of this former diplomat/businesswoman/

76 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Table 2 Eugene Presidential Election Results in Post-Communist Authoritarian Countries Huskey

Election Election Election Election Election Election Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 Winner 60.9 98.8 77.6 75.4 87.3 84.5 Azerbaijan Second Place 33.8 1 11.8 15.1 2.8 5.5 Winner 80.6* 77.4 82.6 79.7 83.5 Belarus Second Place 14.2 15.7 6 2.4 4.4 Winner 81 91.2 95.6 97.8 Kazakhstan Second Place 11.9 6.6 1.9 1.6 Winner 54.4* 53.4 71.9 71.3 63.6 Russia Second Place 40.7 29.5 13.8 18 17.2 Winner 59.5 97.6 79.3 83.9 Tajikistan Second Place 34.7 2.1 6.3 5 Winner 99.5# 89.2 97.1 Turkmenistan Second Place 0 3.2 1.1 Winner 95.7 90.8 90.4 Uzbekistan Second Place 4.3 3.3 3.1

* The results here are from the second round of the election. In the other elections shown, the candidates won in the first round by receiving a majority of the votes. In the first round in Belarus in 1994, Lukashenka received 44.8 percent of the vote and his closest opponent 17.3 percent; in Russia in 1996, Yeltsin received 35.8 percent in the first round and his closest opponent 32.5. # Niyazov ran unopposed and was never subject to reelection. The remaining figures in these rows are for con- tests involving President Berdymukhamedov.

pop singer under house arrest in February to succeed him as early as the next pres- 2014.32 President Lukashenka, for his part, idential election, in 2020, President Rah- has shown signs of preparing his preteen mon proposed changes to the constitution son, Nikolai (born 2004), to succeed him.33 that reduce the minimum age of the pres- At recent military parades Nikolai has been ident from thirty-five to thirty–Rustam dressed in the uniform of a marshal of the would be thirty-three in 2020. As expect- armed forces, and on a visit to Venezuela ed, a popular referendum approved these in 2012, President Lukashenka observed changes overwhelmingly on May 22, 2016. that Nikolai could carry the torch of Be- Whereas numerous factors, from po- larus-Venezuelan friendship in twenty to litical economy to political culture, help twenty-five years, at which point the pres- to create the conditions for authoritari- ident would be in his late seventies or ear- anism’s rise, it is the leader’s instinct for ly eighties.34 Among current authoritarian self-preservation that perpetuates author- leaders in the region, President Rahmon itarian rule and makes an orderly transi- of Tajikistan has set out the clearest path tion to constitutional governance so diffi- for the perpetuation of family rule. For sev- cult. In fact, as the Russian case illustrates, eral years, he has been grooming his son, the logic of self-preservation of the pres- Rustam (born 1987), the head of the coun- ident, his family, and his political allies try’s powerful anticorruption committee, may also accelerate the transformation of as his successor.35 In order to allow Rustam a hybrid regime into an authoritarian or-

145 (3) Summer 2016 77 Authoritarian der. To arrange protection for himself and Russian president that purportedly allows Leadership his entourage, President Yeltsin and his unmediated contact between the leader in the Post- 36 Communist advisers found a successor, Vladimir Pu- and the people. World tin, whose background in the security ser- Arguing that existing intermediary in- vices and whose lack of an existing political stitutions, such as ngos, are unrepresen- base made him amenable to an agreement tative of society, Putin and other author- that secured the lives, properties, and even itarian leaders in the region have created some of the jobs of the Yeltsin team. By se- their own official substitutes. These range lecting Putin as his prime minister and heir from youth groups like Nashi (“ours”) to apparent, and then stepping down from of- the appointed State Council and Public fice early in order to speed up the timing of Chambers, which compete with tradition- the presidential election to benefit Putin, al elected assemblies, and the All-Russian Yeltsin prevented the transfer of power to Popular Front, a new pro-Putin protopar- a different ruling group, which is one of the ty masquerading as an inclusive, grass- fundamental features of democratic rule. roots national movement.37 In their Rous- seauist-like antipathy toward the idea of Due to its limited accountability, leader- partial interests, authoritarians construct ship in authoritarian regimes is more idio- institutions that claim to represent, like syncratic than in democracies. Even in the the presidents themselves, the interests seven countries under study here, one finds of society as a whole. an unusual range of leadership styles, from Accompanying these institutional “in- the supernatural weirdness of the Turk- novations” is a rhetoric of rule that em- menbashi to the business-like pragma- phasizes the special knowledge wielded tism of Nazarbaev. There is also significant by the leader, whether it emanates from a variation in the use of force. While most of transcendent vision, as was the case with the presidents have favored an economy Niyazov, or technocratic expertise, in the of violence, Islam Karimov has shown less case of rulers like Lukashenka, Nazarbaev, hesitation in killing his enemies: witness and Putin.38 This rhetoric is grounded in the massive loss of life in the Andijon re- ruling ideologies that challenge the as- volt of 2005. All of the authoritarian lead- sumptions of Western democratic thought ers in the region, however, share a desire and provide cover to authoritarian rule.39 to present themselves as governing above “Sovereign democracy,” Russia’s semiof- traditional politics. Although they retain ficial ideology, insists that the indepen- elections, parties, and parliaments because dence and interests of the state must al- they are universally recognized features of ways prevail, and procedural democracy a modern state, post-communist author- as practiced in the West is an insufficient itarians are constantly searching for dis- guarantee of these values. The architect of cursive and institutional innovations that sovereign democracy, Vladimir Surkov, will illustrate not just the legitimacy but holds that “the nation has not given its the superiority and exceptionalism of their currently living generations the right to system of governance. Perhaps in no oth- terminate its history,” which is another er region of the world are authoritarians way of saying that presidential leadership as conscious of their own image and that bears the responsibility for protecting the of their regime. An example of this sen- country from the mistakes of its people.40 sitivity to public perception is Direct Line As Martha Olcott argues, this deep-seat- with Vladimir Putin, a three-hour live ques- ed suspicion of the populace is evident in tion-and-answer television show with the Nazarbaev’s view that “as Asians, Kazakhs

78 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences are not disposed by history or culture to be at the top of the charts. However, the con- Eugene democratic and . . . popular rule could em- trol of post-communist authoritarian lead- Huskey power nationalist demagogues, secession- ers over their populations and their political ists, communists or Islamic radicals and allies has grown steadily over time.44 An ob- put the future of the nation–not to men- vious corollary of this finding is that author- tion economic reform–at risk.”41 itarian leaders are at their most vulnerable Governing above politics also means in the early years of power: witness the top- avoiding accountability for policy failures. pling of the fledgling authoritarian regimes Projecting an image of invincibility while in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine in 2010 and 2013. shirking responsibility for corruption, in- An even more difficult and weighty ques- competence, and poor economic perfor- tion is whether the successors to current mance has been raised to an art form in the rulers will continue to steer their coun- post-communist world. Expressions found tries along an authoritarian path. The re- in the lexicon of democratic politics, like cent decline in energy revenues, on which “taking personal responsibility for a prob- many of the region’s economies depend, lem” or “the buck stops here,” are alien to as well as the growing attraction of radical the leadership style of post-communist au- religious movements for post-communist thoritarians. Continuing a tradition that youth may lead to governing crises in one began in the Soviet era, authoritarian rul- or more of our countries under review. It ers in the post-communist world engage is far from clear, however, that such crises in blame-shifting, often through ritualized would provide an opening for meaning- humiliation of subordinates on television, ful political opposition. As Barbara Ged- as a means of deflecting public criticism of des and colleagues found in their study their leadership.42 Facilitating this practice of authoritarianism worldwide, the very is the semipresidential form of government structure of rule in post-communist au- found in all of the states under review ex- thoritarian regimes may impede liberaliza- cept Turkmenistan. By formally separat- tion: transitions to democracy from per- ing the president from the council of minis- sonalist regimes are much rarer than those ters that oversees the budget and economic from one-party or military governments.45 and social affairs, semipresidentialism of- Moreover, the deepening regional integra- fers up the prime minister as a convenient tion and mutual learning of post-commu- scapegoat for policy failures. nist authoritarian regimes on matters of security, law enforcement, and economics From our vantage point a generation into are helping to inoculate most of the states the post-communist era, it may be worth against internal and external pressures for returning to a question on leadership tra- reform. Given the age and health of some jectories posed by Archie Brown in the late of the region’s authoritarians, we may not Brezhnev period of Soviet politics.43 Do have long to wait to acquire additional ev- post-communist authoritarian leaders, like idence on the trajectories of leadership in their Soviet predecessors, strengthen their post-communist regimes. hold on power as they age in office? The evidence is compelling that post-communist authoritarian leaders govern with fewer constraints the longer their tenure. Not every leader, of course, accumulates power to the same degree or at the same pace– on both scores, Karimov and Niyazov were

145 (3) Summer 2016 79 Authoritarian endnotes Leadership in the Post- Author’s Note: I wish to thank Hannah Chapman, William Fierman, Joel Moses, Alesia Sedziaka, Communist Paul Steeves, and Joshua Solomon for their comments on an earlier version of this article. World 1 For a discussion of the concept of transformational leadership, see Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (New York: Basic Books, 2014), chap. 4. 2 New states give birth to 36 percent of “authoritarian spells” worldwide, where a spell is an uninterrupted period of authoritarian rule in a single country. Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 26. 3 See, for example, M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 4 Timothy J. Colton, “Political Leadership after Communism,” Demokratizatsiya 20 (2) (Spring 2012): 65. 5 Sergei Guriev and Daniel Triesman, “The New Dictators Rule with a Velvet Fist,” The New York Times, May 24, 2015. 6 W. H. Cowley, “Three Distinctions in the Study of Leaders,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy- chology 23 (July–September 1928): 145, cited in Glenn D. Paige, The Scientific Study of Political Leadership (New York: The Free Press, 1977), 74. 7 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 6. 8 Ibid. 9 As Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy explain, “Participants in the system are not bought off in the classic sense of that term. They are compromised; they are made vulnerable to threats. . . . Loyalty is ensured through blackmail.” Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Oper- ative in the Kremlin (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2013), 215. 10 Farid Guliyev, “Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: Transition to Sultanistic Semiauthoritarianism? An Attempt at Conceptualization,” Demokratizatsiya 13 (3) (2005): 402–405. 11 Sebastien Peyrouse, Turkmenistan: Strategies of Power, Dilemmas of Development (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2012), 73–76. According to Peyrouse, because Niyazov “had developed a patho- logical distrust toward his whole entourage, especially the Turkmen, [the Presidential Guard] was composed primarily of Russians, Turks, Arabs, and Caucasians.” Ibid., 76. 12 “Rakhat Aliev: deianie Nazarbaeva kvalifitsirovat’ mozhno tol’ko kak prestuplenie i preda- tel’stvo kazakhskogo naroda,” Svobodakz.net, October 31, 2014, http://www.svobodakz.net/ soprot/268-rahat-aliev-deyaniya-nazarbaeva-kvalificirovat-mozhno-tolko-kak-prestuplenie -i-predatelstvo-kazahskogo-naroda.html; and Sebastien Peyrouse, “The Kazakh Neopatri- monial Regime: Balancing Uncertainties among the ‘Family,’ Oligarchs, and Technocrats,” Demokratizatsiya 20 (4) (Fall 2012): 359. 13 The one exception to this pattern may be Vladimir Putin, whose expressions of Orthodox pi- ety may be more than a political tactic. 14 Identity divisions in post-communist states rarely ran neatly along ethnic lines. In Kazakh- stan, many Russified, urban, and secular Kazakhs had more in common with ethnic Russians in the republic than with their more religious, Kazakh-speaking kin from the countryside. Cengiz Surucu, “Modernity, Nationalism, Resistance: Identity Politics in Post-Soviet Kazakh- stan,” Central Asian Survey 21 (4) (2002): 385–402. 15 Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 107; and Michael Denison, “The Art of the Impossible: Political Symbolism, and the Creation of National Identity and Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Turk- menistan,” Europe-Asia Studies 61 (7) (September 2009): 1167–1187. 16 Under Niyazov’s successor, Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan shed some of the symbolic excesses of the Turkmenbashi era. Abel Polese and Slavomir Horak, “A Tale of Two Presi-

80 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences dents: Personality Cult and Symbolic Nation-Building in Turkmenistan,” Nationalities Papers Eugene 43 (3) (2015): 457–478; and Peyrouse, Turkmenistan, 108–131. Huskey 17 The exception is the celebration of the December 1986 uprising in Almaty, then the capital of Kazakhstan, when crowds protested the appointment of an ethnic Russian from outside Kazakhstan to lead the republic. 18 Ekaterina Kravets, “Nazarbaev otvetil Putinu, ob’iaviv o 550-letii gosudarstvennosti Kazakhsta- na,” Birzhevoi lider, October 24, 2014, http://www.profi-forex.org/novosti-mira/novosti-sng/ kazakhstan/entry1008231993.html. 19 Steven M. Eke and Taras Kuzio, “Sultanism in Eastern Europe: The Socio-Political Roots of Authoritarian Populism in Belarus,” Europe-Asia Studies 52 (3) (2000): 526. 20 Ronald Grigor Suny, “Provisional Stabilities: The Politics of Identities in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” International Security 24 (3) (Winter 1999/2000): 148. 21 Henry E. Hale, “Democracy, Autocracy, and Revolution in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” World Politics 58 (1) (October 2005): 147. 22 Only Azerbaijan among the region’s Muslim-majority countries has a predominantly Shi’a population. 23 Shireen Hunter, “Islam and Politics in Central Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, ed. John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 313. 24 “Niyazov po dogovorennosti s Allakham poshlet v rai vsekh turkmen, prochitavshikh ego Rukh- namy tri raza,” Newsru.com, March 20, 2006, http://www.newsru.com/world/20mar2006/ ruhnama.html. 25 Igor Gashkov, “Musul’mane khotiat drugoi russkii mir,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, March 18, 2015, http://www.ng.ru/ng_religii/2015-03-18/3_musulmane.html. 26 This excludes the parliamentary republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. 27 Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 41; and Milan W. Svolik, “Power Sharing and Leader- ship Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes,” American Journal of Political Science 53 (2) (April 2009): 478. Unlike in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, the military stays in the barracks at moments of crisis in the post-communist world. 28 Hale, “Democracy, Autocracy, and Revolution in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” 135. 29 The one exception was Turkmenistan’s Niyazov, who became president for life at the end of 1990s. 30 In the case of the initial post-communist presidential elections in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, and the first two elections in Russia, authoritarian rule had not yet been consolidated and so the winners were not authoritarian incumbents. 31 Viktor Khrapounov, Nazarbaev: votre ami le dictateur (Paris: Editions du Moment, 2013), 206. 32 Joanna Lillis, “Uzbekistan: Telecoms Firms Paid Gulnara up to $1 Billion in Backhanders— Watchdog,” Eurasianet.org, March 23, 2015, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/72656. 33 Lukashenka is estranged from his two older sons and their mother. These sons complained that “now we all live encircled by barbed wire, but what will happen to us, Dad, when you stop being president?” Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Are Today’s Authoritarian Leaders Doomed to be Indicted when They Leave Office? The Russian and Other Post-Soviet Cases,”Commu- nist and Post-Communist Studies 39 (4) (2006): 452. As Karen Dawisha points out, the same logic applies to those at lower levels of the establishment. “Attempts to safeguard one’s children and oneself from possible persecution by former colleagues along the ‘power vertical,’ along with the desire to maximally enrich oneself while in power, has become practically the main purpose of all political and economic decisions.” Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 348.

145 (3) Summer 2016 81 Authoritarian 34 Shaun Walker, “Who’s that Boy in the Grey Suit? It’s Kolya Lukashenko, the Next Dictator of Leadership Belarus. . .” The Independent, July 29, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ in the Post- whos-that-boy-in-the-grey-suit-its-kolya-lukashenko-the-next-dictator-of-belarus-7897089.html. Communist World 35 Nadin Bakhrom, “Will Tajikistan Be Ruled by an Emomali Dynasty?” Silk Road Reporters, Sep- tember 1, 2015, http://www.silkroadreporters.com/2015/09/01/will-tajikistan-be-ruled-by-a -emomali-dynasty/. 36 Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, “The Discourse of a Spectacle at the End of the Presidential Term,” in Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon, ed. Helena Goscilo (London: Routledge, 2013), 104–110. President Nazarbaev also experimented with this institution from 2005–2009. 37 Richard Sakwa, in “Putin’s Leadership: Character and Consequences,” Europe-Asia Studies 60 (6) (2008): 879–897, calls these practices “para-constitutional.” See also Andrew Wilson, Virtual Pol- itics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005); and Nikolay Petro, Maria Lipman, and Henry E. Hale, “Three Dilemmas of Hybrid Regime Gover- nance: Russia from Putin to Putin,” Post-Soviet Affairs 30 (1) (2014): 10. Throughout the region, authoritarian leaders reacted to the color revolutions in neighboring countries by clamping down on ngos, which were seen as instruments of revolution and potential agents of the West. 38 Karimov distinguishes himself, with his “scientific world view,” from the “barbarians . . . ignorant, uneducated people who use pseudo-Islamic slogans to increase their own power.” Adeeb Khalid, “A Secular Islam: Nation, State, and Religion in Uzbekistan,” International Jour- nal of Middle East Studies 35 (4) (November 2003): 587. 39 Karimov’s “national ideology” is “an extended argument against politics.” Andrew F. March, “From Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and Authoritarian Legitimation,” Post-Soviet Affairs 19 (4) (2003): 308, 310. 40 V. I. Surkov, “Nationalization of the Future: Paragraphs pro Sovereign Democracy,” Russian Studies in Philosophy 47 (4) (Spring 2009): 18. 41 Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie En- dowment for International Peace, 2010), 89. 42 Masha Gessen, The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012), 265; Helena Goscilo, “Russia’s Ultimate Celebrity: vvp as vip Objet d’Art,” in Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon, ed. Goscilo, 19; and Eke and Kuzio, “Sultanism in Eastern Europe,” 531. 43 Archie Brown, “The Power of the General Secretary of the cpsu,” in Authority, Power, and Policy in the USSR, ed. T. H. Rigby, Archie Brown, and Peter Reddaway (London: Macmillan, 1980), 136. 44 The only exception to this pattern may have been during the Medvedev interregnum in Rus- sia from 2008–2012, when there was a “tandemocracy,” with Putin as prime minister and his younger client, Dmitrii Medvedev, as president; even here Putin’s role as the “national leader” remained unquestioned, and once Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, his grip on the reins of power tightened further. 45 Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdowns and Regime Tran- sitions: A New Data Set,” Perspectives on Politics 12 (2) (June 2014): 313–331.

82 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Leadership–It’s a System, Not a Person!

Barbara Kellerman

Abstract: This article argues that the leadership industry has been beset by a bias. This bias has been directed toward leaders and away from two other variables that equally pertain–and that equally explain the trajectory of human history. The first is followers, or others who are in any way relevant, even if passively. And the second is contexts, within which leaders and followers necessarily are embedded. Together these three parts, each of which is equally important and each of which impinges equally on the other two, make up the leadership system. This article suggests that the approximately forty-year-old leadership industry has paid a heavy price for its obsession with leaders at the expense of whoever/whatever else matters. For the industry has not in any major, measurable way improved the human condition, which is precisely why it should be reconsidered and reconceived.

Notwithstanding what might appear in this essay to be self-evident, no more than simple commonsense, it needs to be said. Most leadership experts, especially those who are card-carrying members of what I call the leadership industry, continue to fixate on leaders at the expense of other elements equally important to the creation of change. What exactly is the leadership industry? It is my catch-all term for the now countless leadership cen- BARBARA KELLERMAN is the James ters, institutes, programs, courses, seminars, work- MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Lead- shops, experiences, trainers, books, blogs, articles, ership at the Harvard Kennedy websites, webinars, videos, conferences, consul- School. She is the author and editor of many books on leadership tants, and coaches claiming to teach people–usual- 1 and followership, including Lead- ly for money, generally for big money–how to lead. ership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Teaching people how to lead has become a business, (1984); Reinventing Leadership (1999); a big business, in which mostly the private sector, Bad Leadership (2004); Women and but by no means only the private sector, invests big Leadership (2008); Followership (2008); bucks: more than $50 billion a year is spent global- The End of Leadership (2012); and ly on leadership development and learning. Clearly Hard Times: Leadership in America (2014). She has also taught at Ford- the assumption is that leaders can be developed, ham, Tufts, George Washington, trained, and taught how to lead or, at least, taught Dartmouth (Tuck), and Uppsala how to lead better than they would without any in- Universities. vestment in their learning.

83 Leadership– Of course, there are several other as- leaders who contribute to the development It’s a System, sumptions on which the leadership indus- of justice and the well-being of society.” The Not a Person! try is predicated. They include the belief mission of the Harvard Medical School is to that leadership can be taught to the many, “create and nurture a diverse community of not just to a select few; the conviction that the best people committed to leadership in leadership can be taught, simultaneously, to alleviating suffering cause by disease.” The relatively large numbers of people, in spite mission of the Harvard Divinity School is of the obvious differences among them; to “educate women and men for service as and some sense of certainty that leadership leaders in religious life and thought.” And can be taught relatively quickly and easily, the mission of the Harvard School of Edu- in, say, a semester-long course, or an exec- cation is to “prepare leaders in education and utive program that lasts a couple of weeks. to generate knowledge.” (Italics all mine.) But there is one overweening assumption Need I add that the mission statements of that dominates the rest: that becoming a the Harvard Kennedy School (of Govern- leader means that you are becoming some- ment) and the Harvard Business School thing good. contain more of the same? Here the word “good” is used in sever- This fixation on learning leadership–in al different ways. First, the word assumes particular on learning how to lead, as op- that leadership training is training some- posed to learning about leadership–ripples one to be effective. Second, it assumes that across American curricula as it does across leadership education is educating some- corporate America. It is by no means con- one to be ethical. Finally, and most import- fined only to higher education, any more ant, it assumes that developing a leader is than leadership learning is confined any developing someone important and conse- longer to big business. As suggested, lead- quential, as opposed to them remaining un- ership development, education, and train- important and inconsequential. Put di- ing are as prevalent in middle and high rectly, the leadership industry, in collabo- schools as they are in institutions of high- ration with other institutions–including er education, and they are considered as corporate America and, yes, academia– important in the public and nonprofit sec- has managed to make becoming a leader tors as they are in the private one. More- a mantra. It is presumed a path to mon- over, while the leadership industry was ey and power; a medium for achievement, conceived in the United States, it is by no both individual and institutional; and a means any longer confined to it. The indus- mechanism for creating change, some- try has become a global phenomenon, evi- times, though hardly always, in the inter- denced and invested in Europe and Asia as est of the common good. much as in America. As I have pointed out elsewhere, my own Of course, some–a select few–had an university, Harvard, is an obvious case in interest in leadership from the beginning point.2 When Lawrence Summers was in- of recorded history. But the leadership in- augurated president in 2001, he asserted dustry as mass phenomenon, and as big that “in this new century, nothing will mat- business involving large sums of money, is ter more than the education of future leaders only about forty years old. While I will not and the development of new ideas.” Simi- go into the reasons for its relatively recent larly, nearly every one of Harvard’s gradu- inception, I will note that it has come to ate schools has the word “leader” or “leader- focus nearly all of its efforts on the educa- ship” in its mission statement. The mission tion, development, and training of single of the Harvard Law School is to “educate individuals or, occasionally, teams. In the

84 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences main it has become a how-to exercise in a system that consists of three parts, each Barbara which, to all appearances, both seller and of which is equally important, and each of Kellerman buyer assume that being a leader is some- which impinges equally on the other two. thing that can be learned, and that being a The first part is theleader –and I am not leader is better than being a follower. here diminishing, and still less minimiz- There are however some parallel truths: ing, the importance of the leader. The sec- that leaders of every stripe are in disre- ond is the follower–the “other” whom the pute; that the tireless teaching of leader- leader must engage or, at least, neutralize ship has brought us no closer to leadership in order to advance his or her goals. And nirvana than we were previously; that we the third is the context or, better, contexts– do not have much better an idea of how within which both leaders and followers to grow good leaders, or of how to stop or are necessarily situated. at least slow bad leaders, than we did one hundred or even one thousand years ago; While the leadership industry is a rel- that the context is changing in ways that atively recent phenomenon, our interest leaders seem unwilling or unable to fully in leadership stretches back across human grasp; that followers have become, on the history. In fact, to understand leadership one hand, disappointed and disillusioned now, in the second decade of the twenty- and, on the other, entitled, emboldened, first century, it is important to put it in and empowered; and, lastly, that notwith- historical context. For in the beginning, standing the enormous sums of money learning about leadership was, for good and time that have been poured into try- and sound reason, all about leaders: sin- ing to teach people how to lead, over its gle individuals who could, despite being roughly forty-year history, the leadership a tiny minority, control the overwhelming industry seems not in any major, meaning- majority and, on occasion, single-handedly ful, or measurable way to have improved change history. the human condition.3 In fact, as the 2016 It was, I should add, by no means assumed U.S. presidential campaign would seem to that these all-important leaders would nec- testify, leadership, or at least the strenuous essarily be good: that is, simultaneously attempt to secure the nation’s highest of- ethical and effective. Plato, one of our early fice, has hit a new low. written guides on the subject, wrote about Which brings us to the question: what tyrannical leaders: “Such a crop of evils re- is to be done? Is there anything about the veals how much more wretched is the ex- leadership industry to which one can rea- istence of the tyrannical man. . . . Not only sonably point that could be fixed, improved, is he ill governed within himself, but once or changed so as to make the process of lead- misfortune removes him from private life ership learning richer, fuller, deeper, and and establishes him in the tyrant’s place, therefore more likely to yield more obvi- he must try to control others when he can- ously positive results?4 While I do not for a not control himself. He is . . . obliged to en- moment presume to have a cure for what ails gage adversaries in never-ending rivalry it, I argue that the industry’s obsession with and discord.”5 Plato’s attention, though, single individuals, with leaders or would- was on leaders, not on followers, for not- be leaders at the expense of other elements withstanding Athenian democracy, ancient that similarly pertain, is as misleading as it Greeks safely assumed that it was the for- is misguided. mer, not the latter, who held most of the Leadership is not about the individu- power, most of the authority, and most of al man or woman. Leadership is, instead, the influence. No wonder, then, that our

145 (3) Summer 2016 85 Leadership– thinking about leadership–the leadership Though one might reasonably point out It’s a System, literature–was focused for eons on gods that participatory democracy was not new Not a Person! and goddesses, sages and princes, philos- altogether–recall the reference to democ- opher kings and virgin queens. racy (of a sort) in ancient Athens–this was It took a few thousand years of history different. For pursuant to the Enlighten- for Western political thinkers to persist ment were the American and French Revo- in presuming that ordinary people had lutions, which sealed the idea that in dem- certain rights, rights that were natural- ocratic systems, followers have the right ly theirs. Previously it was given that the not only to share power, but to depose educated and privileged few–generally their leaders if they do not merit the priv- clergy and/or royalty– would control the ilege of governing. Further, the idea that many and that this was the natural order power and influence were to be shared be- of things. Even into the nineteenth cen- came enshrined in U.S. constitutional law. tury as learned a man as Thomas Carlyle Our separation of powers and checks and could still write with unmitigated fervor balances are precisely to preclude the pos- about the heroic leader who alone could sibility that people in positions of power and indeed did change the course of histo- and authority will accrue too much of one ry: “Universal history, the history of what or the other, or even both, for themselves. man has accomplished in this world, is at Not only must no single individual or in- bottom the History of the Great Men who stitution of government be permitted to have worked here. They were the leaders dominate, but followers–ordinary peo- of men, these great ones. . . . The soul of the ple–had the right, it was now presumed, whole world’s history, it may justly be con- to participate in determining their own sidered, were the history of these.”6 (political) fortunes. Notwithstanding Carlyle, led by the Of course, “we the people” was not then great political philosophers of the En- inclusive. Most obviously, people of col- lightenment, ideas on leadership and, es- or and women were excluded from the pecially, on followership, began dramati- original conception, both in Europe and cally and irrevocably to change. The wa- in the United States. But during the nine- tershed to which I refer is the gradually teenth century, these exclusions began to growing conviction that leaders have an give way. Pressures from below built up: obligation to share power with their fol- followers began to press leaders for equal lowers. For example, John Locke’s insis- rights, equal to each other’s and to those tence on the right to hold private proper- of leaders. As a result of these various so- ty; his conception of social contract theo- ciopolitical movements, slaves were freed ry, which argued that governments derive and, in time, women gained rights that their legitimacy from the consent of the eventually came to be considered basic, in- governed; and his assertion that the social cluding the right to be educated, the right contract must apply equally to leader and to own property, and the right to exercise led all were breakthroughs. Locke, perhaps the franchise. more than any other political philosopher In the twentieth century, these pres- (with the possible exception of Montes- sures, and those that were roughly analo- quieu), provided the moral, legal, and phil- gous, grew stronger, not only in the West osophical basis for a system of governance but worldwide. Anticolonial passions, per- based on a reasonably equitable distribu- sonified by Mahatma Gandhi, became in tion of power between the governors and time global; anti-apartheid protests, per- the governed.7 sonified by Nelson Mandela, became in

86 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences time successful; and various other socio- poet James Merrill recalled that when he Barbara political movements–including, in the taught at Bard in the 1940s, his students Kellerman United States, the antiwar movement, the called him “Sir,” even though he was fresh civil rights movement, the women’s move- out of college, a stripling of twenty-two.) ment, the gay and lesbian rights (and, lat- Similarly, if in the past you went to see er, transgender) movement, the disabili- a doctor to get a remedy for whatever it ty rights movement, and the animal rights was that ailed you, and he (yes, he) told movement, among many others–all sig- you to swallow one or another red pill, the naled the continuing transfer of power and chances are good that you would have gone influence from up top to the middle, and ahead and done just that. Now you are like- even down below. To be clear: these many ly as not to second guess your physician by different movements were not simply so- going online to corroborate his, or her, os- cial and political abstractions. Their real tensibly expert advice. Should what you world consequences included profound find online be in opposition, the majority changes in relations between leaders and recommending a blue pill not a red one, led, shifting power and influence from the chances are that you will question your former to the latter, never again to revert physician, having zero compunction about (at least not in political and organization- challenging the person in the position of al democracies). No semblance of a demo- medical authority. This diminishment of cratic system has been exempt from these the expert is, in short, endemic. It is in trends, not in the public or private sec- evidence in nearly every area of twenty- tors–in which, in recent years especially, first-century life; it has been, moreover, ceos have been under something of a siege exacerbated by easy access–easy cultur- –and not in any of the many countries that ally and easy technologically–to the pri- count themselves democracies. vate lives of even the most highly placed Moreover, in the twenty-first century individuals. Notwithstanding his persist- these trends have accelerated. Changes ing popularity, once we knew the coarse in culture and technology have added to details of President Bill Clinton’s rela- follower power and detracted from lead- tionship with White House intern Monica er power. Until quite recently, someone Lewinsky, neither he, nor, for that matter, like me–a professor in an American insti- American politics or the American presi- tution of higher education–would have dency, were ever quite the same. been addressed by her students with a Over the last decade, revolutionary modicum of respect, as in “Professor Kell- changes in technology–in particular in- erman,” or “Dr. Kellerman.” Now they ad- stant, widespread access to information dress me differently, not without respect and instant, widespread access to social exactly, but with no obvious evidence of a media–further fueled the changing bal- distinction between my status as a teach- ance of power between leaders and fol- er and their status as learners. By calling lowers. It used to be that information was me “Barbara,” which many, if not most, of a valuable resource, harbored and hoard- them now do (even before we get to know ed by a powerful few. Now it is not; in- each other), they level the playing field. My formation is cheap and easy to come by, students are bringing me down to their lev- and accessible to almost everyone. Sim- el or, if you prefer, raising themselves up to ilarly, expression and connection were mine. Either way, the gap between us has difficult if not impossible for ordinary narrowed, which is another way of saying people; now they are not. Ordinary peo- that my authority has diminished. (The ple today can express themselves for all

145 (3) Summer 2016 87 Leadership– the world to hear, at least hypothetically; tion of the fact that people want to think It’s a System, moreover, they can choose to do so anon- of themselves as leaders rather than as fol- Not a Person! ymously, voicing ideas and opinions that lowers. Though the word “follower” re- they would not otherwise associate with mains the single reasonable antonym of publicly. Finally, even people without any “leader,” the former is associated with be- power, authority, or influence can connect, ing passive rather than active, weak rather one to the other, without interference from than strong, dependent rather than inde- those with. To be sure, the capacity to con- pendent, smacking of failure, not success. nect is not altogether unmitigated, and in Second, our bias is a function of what some countries (and companies) it is dif- the late social psychologist Richard Hack- ficult or even impossible. But for count- man called the “leader attribution error.” less millions, it has become remarkably Which is to say that we assume the over- unfettered. weening importance of leaders, even when Easy enough to see, then, even in this this assumption is demonstrably false. I cursory review, that the history of leader- sometimes ask audiences: “History tells ship cannot be understood apart from the us that Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews. history of followership. They are, neces- How many Jews did Hitler actually kill?” sarily, entwined–twinned, even. Clearly, The answer, it may surprise, is none. To over thousands of years of human history our knowledge, Hitler himself did not relations between them have shifted: lead- murder a single Jew. What he did was is- ers have gotten weaker, and followers have sue orders that others–followers–execut- gotten stronger. Therefore, as the history ed. So how is it possible to know the histo- of leadership and followership would seem ry of Nazi Germany if we understand only to attest, for the leadership industry to pre- its leader? How is it possible to understand occupy itself with the one without the oth- what happened in Nazi Germany without er cannot on any reasonable grounds be understanding Germans in the 1930s and justified. 1940s more generally? Third, our bias is in consequence of se- Since the inception of the leadership in- mantic confusion. Not only is the word dustry several decades ago, it has been di- “follower” burdened by the presumption vided, if roughly, into two parts. The first of weakness, it is further weighed down is leadership studies: the study of leadership by the lack of clarity about what exactly it as an area of intellectual inquiry. The sec- means. In fact, even those few among us ond, and the more dominant in the indus- who persist in using the word, and who in- try, is leadership development: the practice of sist that followers are as important as lead- teaching or training people how to lead. ers, readily acknowledge that as we our- For a number of reasons, both leadership selves define the word, followers do not al- studies and leadership development have ways follow. They do not always do–nor been biased by their fixation on leaders at should they always do–what their leaders the expense of followers. This is not to say tell them to do. In other words, while there that followers are ignored altogether. But is the presumption that leaders ought to it is impossible to exaggerate the degree to lead, there is not the presumption that a which followers have been relegated to the follower ought, necessarily, to follow. In margins in both segments of the industry. fact, followers are typically encouraged Though I will not here detail the multi- not to follow in any circumstance in which ple reasons for this bias, I will single out what the leaders tell them to do manifestly three. First, as earlier indicated, it is a func- is wrong.

88 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences You might think that leadership schol- demonstrably have taken followership as Barbara ars, if not practitioners, would have con- seriously as leadership.10 Most of these Kellerman quered the complexities to which I allude. (including me) have imposed an order on You might think that the study of leader- followers by making some sort of distinc- ship would be objective, free from the as- tions among them. After all, followers no sumption that leaders are more important more resemble each other than do lead- than followers, or even that leaders can be ers, so why do we typically lump them to- studied independently of those they neces- gether, as if they are one and the same: sarily engage. After all, leaders do not ex- as, say, American voters or Amazon em- ist in a vacuum; by definition, every lead- ployees? Moreover, since there are usual- er must have at least one follower. Well, ly many more followers than leaders, de- you would think wrong. Leadership stud- constructing their numbers by highlight- ies is indistinguishable from the rest of ing differences among them turns out to the leadership industry: it functions on be an important exercise. In the 1960s and the implicit assumption that leaders are 1970s, Harvard Business School professor more important and therefore more wor- Abraham Zaleznik distinguished among thy of study than are followers. This in followers by placing them along two axes: spite of the fact that over time, over the dominance and submission, and activi- course of human history, and especially in ty and passivity. Accordingly, he divided the twenty-first century, followers have them into four groups: impulsive subordi- played comparatively larger roles, and nates, compulsive subordinates, masochistic leaders comparatively smaller ones. subordinates, and withdrawn subordinates.11 To be sure, to this general rule there Years later, in the 1990s, Carnegie Mellon have been important exceptions. In fact, Business School professor Robert Kelley several studies of followers and follower- similarly recognized that followers were ship have been path-breaking. In the wake different from each other, similarly placed of World War II, several social scientists– them along two different axes, and similar- recognizing the pivotal part played by or- ly came up with four different types: alien- dinary men in the Nazi genocide–set out ated followers, exemplary followers, passive fol- to explore the phenomenon of previous- lowers, and conformist followers. Ira Chaleff, ly unremarkable men (and women) mor- whose book The Courageous Follower is a sta- phing into mass murderers or, at least, ple of the fledgling field of followership, into bystanders, millions of whom stood also came up with four follower types or, by while mass murder took place. Stan- as he named them, “styles”: high support, ley Milgram’s 1963 experiment on “obe- low support, high challenge, and low challenge. dience to authority” has become perhaps After years of looking at leaders, I also the most famous–infamous, really–so- concluded that looking at followers was cial scientific experiment ever conduct- not sufficient, but was necessary; I defined ed.8 It was followed by Philip Zimbardo’s them as “subordinates who have less pow- somewhat similar (and nearly equally in- er, authority, and influence than do their famous) Stanford prison experiment, in superiors and who therefore usually, but which he, like Milgram, showed that or- not invariably, fall into line.” “Follower- dinary men, in this case ordinary American ship,” in turn, I defined as “a relationship men, could under certain circumstances (rank) between subordinates and superi- quickly and easily be brutalized.9 ors, and a response (behavior) of the for- Since then there have been only a very mer to the latter.”12 I further developed small number of leadership scholars who my own typology based on a single, sim-

145 (3) Summer 2016 89 Leadership– ple metric that aligns followers along only because they are so heavily invested, they It’s a System, a single, simple axis: level of engagement. work hard, either on behalf of their lead- Not a Person! That is, all followers were divided into five ers, or to undermine and even unseat them. types depending on where they fell along Diehards: followers who are prepared to a continuum that ranged from doing ab- sacrifice whatever it takes for their cause, solutely nothing, on the one hand, to be- whether an individual, an idea, or both. ing passionately committed and deeply en- Diehards are deeply devoted and com- gaged, on the other. The five types of fol- pletely committed. They will do every- lowers are: thing in their power to support or to up- Isolates: followers who are completely end a cause. Diehards are defined by their detached. They have no interest in their dedication, including their willingness leaders, nor do they respond to them in to risk life and limb on behalf of those in any way. Moreover, isolates have no in- whom they believe and in what they be- terest in the system in which they are em- lieve to be true. bedded, preferring instead to remain alien- I do not for a moment assume that my ated. Their alienation is, however, of con- (or anyone else’s) typology will be em- sequence. By knowing and doing little or braced by everyone with an interest in the nothing, isolates support the status quo. leader-follower dynamic, either in theory Albeit passively, they further strengthen or in practice. I do, however, claim this: leaders who already occupy positions of First, my typology is like the other typol- power. ogies; each is a significant attempt to im- Bystanders: followers who are observant pose some sort of order on the whole– and aware, but who deliberately and con- on all followers in all situations. Second, sciously stand by and do nothing. They re- the five types outlined above highlight the main disengaged, both from their leaders mistake we make when we put every fol- and from the system within which they lower into a single basket. Again, followers reside. In the end, however, as with iso- are different from one another, just as lead- lates, bystanders have an impact, usually ers are different from one another. Third, a significant one. For their withdrawal is, the five types make clear that while follow- in effect, a declaration of neutrality that ers follow most of the time, they do not, at amounts to tacit support for the status quo. least not necessarily, follow all of the time. Participants: followers who are in some Fourth, the five types imply that followers way engaged. Sometimes they support matter when they do something, but that their leaders and the groups and organi- they equally matter when they do nothing. zations of which they are members. Some- When people are alienated and detached times they do not. In either case, partic- from the systems within which they are ipants care enough to put their money situated, there are consequences. Finally, where their mouths are, to invest some of each of the five types makes clear, implic- their resources, like money and time, to at- itly if not explicitly, the integral relation- tempt to gain influence. ship between leaders and followers. The Activists: followers who are impassioned, one is wholly dependent on and irrevoca- who feel strongly about their leaders and bly tied to the other, which is why thinking act accordingly. Activists are, if you will, about leadership without thinking about the opposite of bystanders. They are sim- followership is a fool’s errand. ilarly aware, but in vivid contrast to those who stand by and do nothing, activists are These considerations about follower- eager, energetic, and engaged. Precisely ship are at least as true of context. It is

90 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences not that leadership scholars and practi- radical reforms that became known as per- Barbara tioners are oblivious to the importance estroika. Russians have traditionally been Kellerman of context altogether. Rather, it is that it attracted to the idea of a strong man as their is given short shrift. The subject of con- leader–to wit, Vladimir Putin–possess- text is raised; then, typically, it is dropped. ing a firm grip on power that conveys au- Most analyses assume that context is un- thority and obliges allegiance. Additional- important or, at least, much less impor- ly, during the Soviet era there was a system tant than the individual leader. Moreover, of governance that had a “sophisticated ar- students of leadership–whether of leader- ray of rewards for political conformism and ship as a subject of study, or of leadership a hierarchy of sanctions and punishments as a practice to be mastered–are simply for nonconformity and dissent.”14 Final- not taught that contexts, plural, matter. In ly, the Communist Party was itself strictly examining business leadership, for exam- hierarchical. So it was an anomaly when ple, the proximate context–in the work- within this particular historical and insti- place–matters. As does the more distant tutional setting Gorbachev–who alone in context: the industry within which the the top leadership group had a “more criti- workplace is situated. Again, a term such cal view of the condition of Soviet society as contextual intelligence is not entirely unfa- in the mid-1980s”–became General Sec- miliar, nor is it completely and consistent- retary of the Communist Party and sub- ly integrated into the leadership industry. sequently President of the Soviet Union. While context is thought relevant, mostly Nothing cultural or contextual had pre- it is thought marginal, not central. pared Soviet citizens, or for that matter the In contrast, I have come to consider con- Soviet elite, for a man as ready, willing, and text integral to the leadership system. It is es- able as was Gorbachev to break with previ- sential to understanding how, when, and ous traditions, practices, and values. why leadership does, or does not, take This discrepancy, between the nature of place. And it is essential to understanding the man and the nature of the context with- how, in any given situation, leadership is in which he was located, is the most ob- likely best to be exercised. vious explanation for why his tenure end- Of course, I am not the only leadership ed badly, certainly for him, and why he is scholar to emphasize the importance of now so widely criticized, belittled even, in context. Archie Brown, the editor of this his own homeland. Brown writes: “Gor- collection, is another. In his most recent bachev’s style of leadership was at odds book, The Myth of the Strong Leader, Brown with traditional Russian political culture.” points to the importance of context, Interestingly, notwithstanding this dis- which explains why the leaders he dis- juncture, Brown’s conclusion is that Gor- cusses are set in their respective circum- bachev was a transformational leader. “It stance. “Leadership must be placed in con- is certainly difficult to think of anyone in text if it is to be better understood,” Brown the second half of the twentieth century writes.13 He goes on to identify “four dif- who had a larger (and generally beneficent) ferent, but interconnected frames of ref- impact not only on his own multinational erence for thinking about leadership–the state but also internationally.”15 Still, the historical, cultural, psychological and in- fact remains that Gorbachev did not sur- stitutional.” vive, at least politically, and that his try- For example, Brown shows how difficult ing to save the state by changing the sys- were the Russian and Soviet contexts with- tem ended with both collapsing. Clearly, in which Mikhail Gorbachev launched the to undertake pluralizing political change

145 (3) Summer 2016 91 Leadership– in the Russian and Soviet contexts was not leaders, especially political leaders, to draw It’s a System, only a tall order, but was nearly impossi- on religion in America as a tie that binds. Not a Person! ble to execute. Institutions. In the not so distant past– In keeping with my newfound emphasis · in the early 1960s–most Americans held not on leaders, or even on leaders in tan- American institutions in high esteem. But dem with followers, but rather on the lead- public trust in institutions has since plum- ership system, I focused my own most recent meted. This applies across the board, to pri- book on context. Specifically I explored in vate-sector, public-sector, and even non- detail what I call the distal context, in par- profit institutions, including the nation’s ticular the United States of America in the schools and military. No surprise, then, second decade of the twenty-first centu- that leaders in America–all leaders– ry. Given that I was struck by how leader- have suffered a similar decline in public ship in America is so fraught with frustra- approval. tion, so inordinately laborious to exercise, the question I sought to answer was: how · Law. Americans are singularly litigious. does this particular country at this particu- This complicates and constrains the lives lar moment impact leadership and follow- of leaders for various reasons, including ership?16 by draining their resources, of which time Any reasonable response had to be mul- may be the most valuable. Attending to lit- tifaceted, involving a multiplicity of con- igation and to the possibility thereof is an textual components, such as, for example, important part of what leaders are now history and ideology, religion and politics, paid to do. Aggressive litigiousness is, not money and technology, class and culture, incidentally, in keeping with a culture that innovation and competition, and risks has been, since its inception, antiauthority. and trends. The purpose of my explora- Technology. As soon as leaders familiarize tion, then, was to answer my own ques- · themselves with one type of technology, it is tion and, more generally, heighten aware- likely to be replaced by another type of tech- ness of leadership as a system in which nology. Moreover, in the realm of technol- context is key. ogy, leaders are typically surpassed by their What are some components of context? followers. They are outclassed, if not out- Here are just six: ranked, by those who are far younger and · History. American revolutionaries were who, in other contexts, are their subordi- the first to proclaim the old authoritari- nates, but here, especially in social media, an order dead and a new democratic order are much more knowledgeable, much more born. Thus was democratic leadership the capable, and much more comfortable. only sort of leadership ever enshrined in the Divisions. Far from being united, Amer- United States, which is precisely why effec- · icans are divided. They are, for example, tive leadership has always been relatively divided by race and gender; by income difficult to exercise, and why effective fol- and class; and by ideology and geography. lowership has always been relatively easy. Most of these divisions are not new. But for · Religion. More Americans than ever be- various reasons have recently been exacer- fore now consider themselves religiously bated, with more extremism and less cen- unaffiliated, or affiliated less strongly. -Ad trism changing the character of the nation- ditionally, Americans are more religious- al debate, as they changed the character of ly diverse. This makes it more difficult for the nation’s Congress.

92 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Two concluding comments on context. dent, no more than simple commonsense. Barbara First, though the examples that I provide However, by pulling the various threads Kellerman pertain to America in the second decade of together, by stitching them into a single the twenty-first century, the various com- tapestry or overarching argument, what I ponents of context are fungible, as relevant have written is, I trust, somewhat new and to the United Kingdom and to the United different. The leadership industry has dis- Arab Emirates as to the United States. Sec- appointed; it has not lived up to its initial ond, while leadership and followership are promise. This is not to say that it has not different now from what they were as re- done anyone any good. Evidently many are cently as five or ten years ago, human nature persuaded that they have benefited from has not changed during at least the most re- leadership study or, more likely, from lead- cent millennia. We are what we were when ership training. Shakespeare, or for that matter Confucius But this has not translated into leader- and Socrates, walked the earth. It is precise- ship betterment, at least not on a suffi- ly because of this stability that Machiavel- ciently sweeping scale. If the leadership li still matters. But what has changed, what industry has made any contribution at is radically different now from before, is all, it has done so in infinitesimally small the context within which leadership takes and unimpressive ways, and it has not de- place. Think of the impact of the printing monstrably enabled us to tackle intracta- press on relations between leaders and fol- ble problems. What I am arguing, then, is lowers. And then think of the impact of so- that the industry itself needs to be recon- cial media on relations between leaders and sidered and indeed reconceived; that we followers. Clearly context matters–which need to reimagine leadership learning by is precisely why anyone with any interest shedding our obsession with single indi- in the theory of leadership, or in the prac- viduals and adopting instead a more inclu- tice of leadership, underestimates its im- sive, systemic perspective. Only by broad- portance at their peril. ening our conception of how change is created will we be able to translate leadership I began this discussion by noting that theory into measurably more ethical and what I argue might appear to be self-evi- effective leadership practice.

endnotes 1 For an extended critique of the leadership industry, see Barbara Kellerman, The End of Lead- ership (New York: HarperCollins, 2012). 2 Ibid., 155ff. 3 Ibid., xiv. 4 I address this question in The End of Leadership, especially in chapters seven and eight. The book does not, however, address what I now call the leadership system, at least not directly. 5 Plato, Republic (348 bce). Excerpt in Barbara Kellerman, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 25. 6 Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: Harrap, 1840). Ex- cerpt in Kellerman, Leadership: Essential Selections, 57. 7 Kellerman, The End of Leadership, 12.

145 (3) Summer 2016 93 Leadership– 8 Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008). It’s a System, 9 Not a Person! United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Corrections: Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3 of the Committee on the Judiciary, 92nd Congress, 1st session, Part II, “Prisons, Prison Reform, and Prisoners’ Rights: California,” Serial No. 15, October 25, 1971 (statement of Philip G. Zambardo, “The Power and Pathology of Imprisonment”). Zambardo’s statement available at http://pdf.prisonexp.org/congress.pdf. 10 See, for example, Robert Kelley, The Power of Followership (New York: Doubleday, 1992); Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009); and Jean Lipman-Blumen, The Allure of Toxic Leaders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11 Abraham Zaleznik, “The Dynamics of Subordinacy,” Harvard Business Review, May/June 1965, 118. 12 Barbara Kellerman, Followership: How Followers are Creating Change and Changing Leaders (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2010), xix–xx. 13 Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 25. 14 Ibid., 165. 15 Ibid., 177. 16 Barbara Kellerman, Hard Times: Leadership in America (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2014).

94 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Multiple but Complementary, Not Conflictual, Leaderships: The Tunisian Democratic Transition in Comparative Perspective

Alfred Stepan

Abstract: Many classic studies of leadership focus on strong leadership in the singular. This essay focuses on effective leaderships in the plural. Some of the greatest failures of democratic transitions (Egypt, Syria, Libya) have multiple but highly conflictual leaderships. However, a key lesson in democratization theory is that successful democratic transitions often involve the formation of a powerful coalition, within the opposition, of one-time enemies. This was accomplished in Chile, Spain, and Indonesia. In greater detail, this essay examines Tunisia, the sole reasonably successful democratic transition of the Arab Spring. In all four cases, religious tensions had once figured prominently, yet were safely transcended by the actions of multiple leaders via mutual ideological and religious accommodations, negotiated socioeconomic pacts, and unprecedented political cooperation. A multiplicity of cooperating leaders, rather than a single “strong leader,” produced effective democratic leadership in Tunisia, Indonesia, Spain, and Chile.

ALFRED STEPAN, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1991, is Many of the classic studies of leadership focus on the Wallace Sayre Professor of Gov- strong leadership in the singular.1 In this essay, I focus ernment Emeritus at Columbia instead on effective leaderships in the plural, partic- University. He previously taught at ularly in democratic transitions. Some of the greatest Oxford University and Yale Uni- failures of democratic transitions have multiple but versity. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1997. highly conflictual leaderships; whereas many of the His many works, which have been most successful democratic transitions have multi- translated into a dozen languages, ple but complementary leaderships. Cases in which include Crafting State Nations (with multiple leaders have been able to transform initially Juan J. Linz and Yogendra Yadav, conflictual relationships into collaborative and com- 2011), Problems of Democratic Transi- plementary ones have been understudied, and are my tion and Consolidation (with Juan J. primary concern here. Linz, 1996), Arguing Comparative Pol- itics (2001), and Rethinking Military The Arab Spring illustrates three of the classic forms Politics (1988). He has been to Tu- of democratic failure that can come about from mul- nisia six times for his current re- tiple but conflictual leaderships: statelessness; pro- search on Islam and democracy. longed and inconclusive civil wars; and what I call

95 The Tunisian “Brumairian abdication” of the chance to securing their own territorial autonomy. Democratic rule democratically in return for protec- Western interventions have not helped. In Transition in Comparative tion from a nondemocratic actor, such as this context of multiple leaderships in pro- Perspective the military.2 longed and inconclusive civil wars, a peace- Libya is a clear example of the extreme ful democracy in one state is inconceivable. peril–in this case, statelessness–of multi- In Egypt, three generals ruled the country ple oppositions that cannot craft any com- from 1952 until the Tahrir Square protests plementary goals. Qadhafi had for a long of 2011. But after Mubarak stepped down time created, dismantled, and recreated in the face of sustained protests, there were chains of commands and security struc- quite distinct leadership groups in Egypt: tures at will. He supported his sons’ emer- the Muslim Brotherhood, which had not re- gence as possible dynastic successors, and newed its membership or ideology in over entrusted core security posts to relatives. twenty years and was committed to using Few business groups could assume any po- “sharia as the only source of legislation”; a litically relevant autonomy. It took a civil variety of secular leaders who feared and op- war–and massive help for the rebels in the posed the Muslim Brotherhood as much or form of a un-backed nato bombing cam- even more than they opposed the military; paign–to topple the “Brother Leader.” and the “military as institution,” which Weber asserted that a “state is a human helped overthrow Mubarak as the “military community that [successfully] claims the as government,” but stepped into his shoes monopoly of the legitimate use of force and retained many prerogatives inconsis- within a given territory.”3 It will be a long tent with the democratic spirit of many in time before such a successful monopolistic the opposition. claim can be made in Libya, and likely lon- At the height of the Tahrir Square protests ger before a useable state comes into exis- in February 2011, such multiple-but-con- tence throughout its territory. A reporter flicting leaderships did not strike most of who had traveled widely in the country’s the protestors as a problem. Indeed, be- interior just two months before the July cause they believed a headless protest 2012 parliamentary elections document- was invulnerable to “decapitation,” many ed the threats of Libya’s extreme version young protestors were against any kind of of multiple leaderships with absolutely no leadership. complementary goals: This perception missed a fundamental Libya has no army. It has no government. point about the history and theory of suc- These things exist on paper, but in practice cessful versus failed democratic transitions Libya has yet to recover from the long mael- in recent decades. The scholarly literature strom of Qadhafi’s rule. . . . What Libya does on democratic transitions normally makes have is militias, more than 60 of them. . . . a distinction between the tasks of resistance Each brigade exercises unfettered authori- within “civil society” that help to decon- ty over its own turf. . . . There are no rules.4 struct authoritarianism, and the tasks of “political society” that help to construct democ- Obviously, Syria is also a case of multi- racy. Among political society’s construc- ple leaderships in opposition to Assad that tive tasks is to help bring diverse groups of have virtually no complementary goals. democratic opposition leaders–who may Some of these conflicting leaderships have even dislike each other–into agreements included liberal-secular forces, jihadist mi- concerning shared goals and tactics to litias (even before the arrival of isis), and erode the authoritarian regime, and even the Kurds, who are increasingly focused on on plans for an interim government and

96 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for elections capable of generating consti- A key lesson in democratization theory Alfred tution-making authorities with democrat- is that successful democratic transitions Stepan ic legitimacy. often involve the formation of a coalition, Civil society in Egypt was, if anything, within the opposition, of one-time ene- more diverse and robust than in Tunisia. mies. I look very briefly at how this task of However, to this date, Egypt has done re- transforming conflicting multiple leader- markably little to create an effective po- ships into a complementary coalition was litical society. Why, and with what conse- accomplished in three important cases: quences? The leading U.S. scholar of the Chile, Spain, and Indonesia. Then, in great- Muslim Brotherhood, Carrie Rosefsky er detail, I will examine the case of Tunisia, Wickham, has explained that its “leaders the sole reasonably successful transition of affiliated with the reformist trend have the Arab Spring. What makes these cases never gained more than a marginal pres- noteworthy is that in each, religious ten- ence in the Guidance Bureau, the group’s sions and differences figured prominent- highest decision-making body.”5 Given ly, yet to a large extent were safely tran- this doctrinal opposition within the Mus- scended by the actions of multiple leaders. lim Brotherhood to internal reform, and In 1973, the Christian Democratic Par- the reluctance of secularists to reach out for ty in Chile, with the tacit support of the possible Islamist allies who did not agree U.S. government and the Roman Catho- with the Brotherhood’s political theolo- lic Church, in effect asked General Pino- gy, the multiple potentially democratic Is- chet to overthrow the legally elected so- lamic and secular leaderships never tried, cialist government of Salvador Allende. much less attained, any complementa- After this, from 1973 until the early 1980s, ry goals with each other of the sort I will any possibility of joint cooperation be- document were achieved in Tunisia. This tween the Christian Democrats and So- may account for the fact that in Egypt, af- cialists in order to act against Pinochet ter the fall of Mubarak, but six months be- was impossible. However, starting in the fore the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi be- early 1980s, with the support of the Ger- came president, 62 percent of respondents man Christian Democrat Konrad Adenau- in a survey were already hedging their dem- er Stiftung and the German Social Dem- ocratic bets by agreeing to the statement ocrat Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Chil- that the military “should continue to inter- ean Christian Democrats and the Chilean vene when it thinks necessary.”6 Indeed, a Socialists began to consider whether they columnist in a widely read Cairo publica- hated each other less than they hated Pino- tion, Ahram Online, asserted as early as Sep- chet. Eventually, by the mid-1980s, the two tember 2011 that: “In general, liberal par- parties mobilized joint anti-Pinochet pro- ties would like the constitution to be writ- test demonstrations. These shared activi- ten before the elections take place, fearing ties slowly turned into shared political pro- that a post-election constitution-making grams. They formed an electoral coalition process will be dominated by Islamists.”7 with a joint platform in 1988 that defeat- Thus, in classic Eighteenth-Brumair- ed Pinochet in a plebiscite based on Pino- ian fashion, many Egyptian citizens were chet’s own 1980 constitution. In 1989, this willing to abdicate their right to rule to a coalition won the presidency and ruled to- nondemocratic force such as the military, gether as a successful, reformist coalition in return for protection from a potential from 1990–2010, with the presidency os- and unwanted, but democratically elected, cillating between the Christian Democrat- government. ic and Socialist parties.

145 (3) Summer 2016 97 The Tunisian In the Spanish case, the legacy of the civ- On the key issue of socioeconomic re- Democratic il war was poisonous; it left approximate- form and temporary price controls, Suárez Transition in Comparative ly five hundred thousand people dead, and invited the multiple leaders of every party Perspective was followed by thirty-six years of dictato- with seats in the parliament to a series of rial rule by General Franco. When Franco private meetings in the prime minister’s died in November 1976, there were many residence (the Moncloa). Between these potentially conflictual leadership groups Moncloa meetings, party leaders periodi- who had fought on opposite sides in the cally held consultative meetings with their civil war. On the Republican side were the key civil society members, to explain de- Socialists, most of whom had been mili- cisions that were emerging from the pro- tantly secularist and anticlerical, and the cess and to solicit their feedback. Suárez still very strong Communist Party, which correctly understood that the give and was hated by the military but supported by take of these consultations was crucial many trade unionists. On the Nationalist for the Communist and Socialist opposi- side were the military, led by Franco; much tion leaders if they were going to be able to of the Catholic Church; and many mem- get their own core union leaders to under- bers of the propertied classes who during stand, and support, any painful Moncloa the civil war viewed the Communists as Pact wage-control policies and antistrike their mortal enemies. The idea of restor- agreements for the first year of the demo- ing the monarchy was a strongly divisive cratic experiment. issue, with former Nationalists supportive, Only after these extensive negotiations and former Republicans hostile to the idea. and agreements did Suárez call a formal The key leadership contribution of the session of both houses of parliament to first prime minister of post-Franco Spain, vote on the Moncloa Pact. Despite difficult Adolfo Suárez, was that he helped trans- concessions made by many of the parties, form within five years these potentially there was only one vote against it in the conflictual multiple leaderships into mul- Lower House. The Moncloa Pact is now tiple but complementary, pro-democrat- widely considered one of the most success- ic leaderships. Suárez talked informally to ful pacts in the history of democratic tran- the leader of the Communist Party, Santia- sitions. In the process of constructing the go Carrillo, soon after Carrillo was released agreement, the multiple, once-conflicting from jail, and reached an implicit inclusion- leaderships in Spain had arrived at the crit- ary agreement that the Communist Party ical mass of complementary goals. would be legalized and could compete in This pact continued to repay its mem- parliamentary elections if it accepted de- bers when, on February 23, 1981, the mon- mocracy and a constitutional monarchy– archy, as one of the multiple leaderships which they did, partly because the Com- available to Spain’s democracy, played its munist Party in Spain had already become part in averting a military coup. The king, a Euro-Communist party. With Cardinal as head of state, ordered the rebellious tank Tarancón, the leader of the post-Vatican II commanders to end their revolt and return Catholic Church, the politicians arrived at to their barracks. They did.8 a mutually respectful position of “twin tol- In Indonesia, in the decade leading up erations,” whereby the Church agreed to re- to the fall of the thirty-six-year-long mil- spect and endorse the right of democrati- itary dictatorship of General Suharto, Ab- cally elected officials to make legislation, durrahman Wahid, the leader of the larg- and the democratic state allowed religious est Muslim civil society group, created the groups to participate in the public square. “Democratic Forum,” in which almost all

98 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences the potentially conflicting religious and isis-inspired attacks launched from Alfred secular groups met regularly to formulate Libya in 2015 killed sixty people at two of Stepan and release joint documents in favor of hu- Tunisia’s most popular tourist destina- man rights, greater political freedoms, and tions: the Bardo National Museum in Tu- democratic values.9 These years of cooper- nis and the beach resort of Sousse. How- ation turned out to be very helpful in the ever, no isis-related group in Tunisia has surprisingly successful constitution-build- been able to hold territory, or set up a ruling process that followed the fall of Suhar- ing council to implement their version of to in May 1998, a process that Donald L. Islamic law; thus, Tunisia is not one of Horowitz, a major comparative constitu- the eleven officially recognized “provinc- tional scholar, recently called “meticulous- es” of the isis “caliphate” spreading from ly consensual.”10 Iraq to Nigeria. I do not think such attacks will destroy Tunisia’s fledgling democra- This brings me to a more detailed look cy, but they did strengthen hard-line voices at how Tunisia turned multiple conflict- in the democratic coalition. They may also ing leaderships into multiple but comple- so hurt the Tunisian economy that despite mentary (and democratic) relationships. being a democracy, Tunisia will lose its at- The Economist named Tunisia its “country tractiveness to other countries in the Arab of the year” in 2014.11 That same year, the world.13 But this makes it all the more im- U.S.-based democracy-evaluating organi- portant for Western nations to encourage zation Freedom House awarded Tunisia its trade with Tunisia, to give more econom- highest possible score for “political rights,” ic and security aid to the country, and to marking the first time an Arab country re- recognize how Tunisia achieved a degree ceived this distinction since Freedom of democratic success in such a very diffi- House’s rankings debuted in 1972. No oth- cult neighborhood. er Muslim country in the world, includ- Even more than in Chile, Spain, or In- ing Indonesia, has as high a ranking, and donesia, the role of religion in Tunisia is this puts Tunisia in a place of its own com- central to our concern with multiple but pared with the other Arab Spring countries, conflicting leaderships, and raises signif- not one of which is remotely close to being icant questions regarding the possibility classified as democratic.12 of creating effective, coalition-friendly This achievement is all the more note- democratic leaderships in Muslim-major- worthy when we situate Tunisia geopolit- ity Arab countries. In my six research trips ically. When the Warsaw Pact disintegrat- to Tunisia since the fall of Ben Ali in Janu- ed, nine Central European countries sud- ary 2011, four questions in particular have denly found themselves in a “supportive caught my attention, which I will use the neighborhood” of peace and prosperity rest of this essay to address. and were rapidly able to join the Europe- First, why and how were secular, mod- an Union. In contrast, Tunisia is obvious- ernizing, authoritarian leaders in Muslim ly in what international relations theorists majority countries–like Kemal Atatürk in call a “difficult neighborhood”:isis re- Turkey or Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia– cruiting and training camps abut its po- able to build what I call a constituency of co- rous desert borders with stateless Libya, it ercion against any party with Muslim-in- borders authoritarian Algeria and is close fluenced religious goals, even a pro-dem- to economically and politically troubled ocratic party? Egypt, and it has no hope of joining the Eu- Second, what religious and political ar- ropean Union. guments can be utilized by Islamic lead-

145 (3) Summer 2016 99 The Tunisian ers to support democracy, build coalitions ment, “enshrined a political power distinct Democratic with pro-democratic secular leaders, and from religion,” and built upon the previous Transition in Comparative carry the day within a major Islamic party “Covenant of Social Peace,” emphasizing Perspective and against the constituency for coercion? freedom of religion.15 The great Arabist Al- Third, unlike Egypt, why and how was bert Hourani highlighted the progressive Tunisia able to bring together most of the role of Zeitouna Mosque University in this pro-democratic secular and Islamic lead- period.16 erships into a joint civil and political so- After gaining independence in 1956, ciety, unite opposition to the authoritar- Bourguiba, in the name of modernism and ian regime, and eventually construct the laïcité, attempted to remove religion from most progressive and democratic consti- the public square and from most programs tution in the history of the Muslim world? of higher education, and in essence closed Fourth, how and why was there, in fact, the progressive Zeitouna Mosque Universi- a peaceful alternation of power away from ty, which had been founded in Tunis in 737 the initial, Islamist-led ruling coalition? ce, more than two centuries before Cairo’s Many people believe that should a Mus- Al-Azhar University.17 lim-controlled party win free and fair elec- From independence until 2011, Tunisia tions, the Muslim majority will insist on was ruled by only two presidents, Bour- holding onto power, and democracy will guiba and then Ben Ali. In this entire peri- end: they fear there will only be “one per- od neither president allowed one fully free son, one vote, one time.” Tunisia shows this and fair election. Bourguiba, however, saw need not be so. How? himself, and was seen by many, as a mod- ernizing, secular leader. Concerning wom- What were the origins and consequenc- en’s rights, he passed the most progressive es of the “constituency of coercion” that family code in the Muslim world; in fact, it existed in Tunisia before the Arab Spring? was at the time one of the most advanced Lack of trust between secularists and Isla- family codes anywhere. Polygamy was mists inhibited their cooperation against banned and polygamists subject to impris- the nondemocratic regime of the first two onment, men’s right to unilaterally divorce presidents of independent Tunisia, Habib their wives was abolished, women’s rights Bourguiba (1956–1987) and Ben Ali (1987– to initiate divorce and receive alimony were 2011). One of the reasons for this was that, put into law, and women’s child custody unlike in Indonesia or even Senegal, by the rights were strengthened. Abortion was le- time Tunisia became independent from galized, under some conditions, as early as France in 1956, the country formed a part of 1965. Women’s access to higher education what I call the iron triangle of aggressive laïcité soon rivaled men’s.18 secularism: the three points being France Bourguiba and Ben Ali skillfully used from 1905 to 1958 (before de Gaulle allowed the progressive family code and women- the state to subsidize Catholic schools); friendly educational policies to help build Atatürk’s Turkey; and Tunisia under Bour- a constituency for coercion. They crafted guiba and Ben Ali (1956–2011).14 this constituency by maintaining that if Islam in Tunisia was relatively progres- there were free elections, Muslim extrem- sive in the mid-nineteenth century. The ists would win and curtail women’s free- country abolished slavery in 1846, two years doms, so it was in women’s interest not to before France. In 1861, Tunisia created the push too hard for elections. Parties with first constitution in the Arab world. This religious affiliations were forbidden and constitution, in Jean-Pierre Filiu’s judg- many Muslim leaders were accused of be-

100 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ing terrorists, sentenced to imprisonment that new political parties, such as Ennahda, Alfred and torture. The autocratic state’s dis- should respect. One such “specificity” for Stepan course about Muslim terrorism strength- Ghannouchi was Tunisia’s women-friend- ened the constituency of coercion and in- ly educational and legal system. During a tensified following the events in Algeria, brief thaw in the transition from Bourgui- where after the Islamist party had won the ba to Ben Ali, Ennahda participated in the first round of elections in 1990, the mili- 1989 elections, and articulated the reasons tary canceled the second round in January why good Muslims should treat men and 1991. The outcome was a civil war between women as equals. Ennahda polled very well Islamists and the military that ravaged in the capital city, Tunis, before the party the country from 1992 to 1997, claiming was outlawed by Ben Ali, on ill-document- as many as one hundred thousand lives.19 ed terrorism charges. In these circumstances, the multiple In the two decades of exile that followed leaderships of secularists who opposed Ben for Ghannouchi in the United Kingdom, Ali and Muslims who opposed Ben Ali were from 1991 to 2011, he wrote hundreds of not available to each other as potential al- articles in English, French, and Arabic, in lies. Most secularists who opposed the au- which he increasingly advanced arguments thoritarian regime of Ben Ali and wanted against violence and against the imposition democracy did not see Islamists as desir- of Sharia on people (whether Muslims or able or even possible allies, given what they not). He also insisted, along with the key assumed were their anti-democratic ide- Islamic democratic leaders in Indonesia ologies and jihadist tendencies. For their and Senegal, that, as stated in one of the part, Islamic activists viewed laïcité secular- shortest and most explicit injunctions in ists as deeply anti-religious and complicit the Koran (sura 2:256), “in matters of reli- in the repression of Islamic parties. Thus, gion there can be no compulsion.” there existed multiple opposition leaders, Ghannouchi noted also that the Islam- but no complementary goals. ic juridical virtue of ijma (“consensus”), when combined with the Koranic injunc- But from 2003 to 2011, something similar tion against compulsion in matters of re- to what happened in Chile, Spain, and In- ligion, creates a space in Islam for a ver- donesia began to happen in Tunisia: an ac- sion of democracy that respects individ- commodation between enemies. This ac- ual rights and pluralism. Ghannouchi commodation was greatly encouraged by further stressed that in the modern con- the internal democratizing changes with- ditions of cities, with their populations in the major Islamic activist group known in millions, the traditional Islamic virtue as Ennahda (“renaissance”), starting many of shura (“consultation”) is best achieved years before in the early 1980s. These chang- by consulting the citizens of a polity, both es were led by Rachid Ghannouchi, Ennah- Muslim and non-Muslim, in open compet- da’s leader. itive elections. One of Ghannouchi’s key arguments about democracy that eased Ennahda’s en- In June 2003, representatives from ap- try into electoral politics–first briefly in proximately twenty Tunisian opposition 1989, and then as the largest party in Tuni- organizations met in France. Their goal sia’s National Constituent Assembly (nca) was to see if they could overcome secular- from 2011 to 2014–was that, while democ- Islamist distrust and become more uni- racy has universal principles, each demo- fied and powerful, and thus erode Ben Ali’s cratic country has historic “specificities” “constituency of coercion.” Participants

145 (3) Summer 2016 101 The Tunisian at the meeting included Islamist Ennah- This includes the right to adopt a religion Democratic da and two secular, center-left parties: the or doctrine or not.”21 Transition in Comparative Congress for the Republic (cpr) and Et- Agreement on a “civic state,” in which Perspective takatol. Together, eventually, these three citizens were to be the sole source of legiti- parties would between 2011 and 2014 con- macy, helped weaken any anti-democratic stitute the ruling coalition in Tunisia’s Na- claim against elections along the lines that tional Constituent Assembly. “only God, not men, makes laws.” Ennah- The first meeting in France in 2003 of da could easily accept that “there can be no twenty political groups from Tunisia re- compulsion in religion,” drawing support sulted in a document that has only recent- from the Koranic verse that Ghannouchi ly become widely known: the “Call from in Tunisia, Abdurrahman Wahid in Indo- Tunis.” In essence, it endorsed the two fun- nesia, and Sufi leaders in Senegal like Sou- damental principles that make democracy leymane Bashir Diagne have consistently possible in a highly religious Muslim-ma- employed in their arguments against their jority country. First, any future elected gov- own fundamentalists and to reassure clas- ernment would have to be “founded on the sic secularists. sovereignty of the people as the sole source Ghannouchi could not participate di- of legitimacy.” Second, the state, while rectly in these meetings because he was showing “respect for the people’s identity forbidden from entering France. How- and its Arab-Muslim values,” would pro- ever, some secular leaders like Moncef vide “the guarantee of liberty of beliefs to Marzouki, head of the secular cpr party, all and the political neutralization of places along with Islamic leaders like Ghannou- of worship.” Ennahda accepted both these chi displayed an extraordinary willingness fundamental agreements. “The Call” also to cooperate. Marzouki made over twenty went on to demand “the full equality of trips from France to London to meet with women and men.”20 Ghannouchi and other Ennahda leaders.22 The three main opposition political par- Trust, cooperation, and goal complemen- ties at the meeting, together with represen- tarity between the multiple secular and Is- tatives of smaller parties and some civil so- lamist democratic opposition leaderships ciety leaders, met nearly every year after were deepened by the fact that Marzouki 2003 to reaffirm, and even deepen, their had taken the risk of a major confrontation commitment to the “Call from Tunis” with Ben Ali by using the Tunisian League principles. Their key 2005 manifesto, “Col- of Human Rights, an organization he had lectif du 18 Octobre pour les Droits et les once headed, to defend the basic human Libertés,” stated that after a “three-month and political rights of Ennahda. dialogue among party leaders,” they had Important as these accommodations and reached consensus on a number of crucial agreements were, a militant core of secu- issues. All parties, including Ennahda, sup- larists and feminists never joined these di- ported in great detail the existing liberal alogues; indeed, they denounced them. family code. Moreover, the manifesto add- Nonetheless, in comparison with Egypt, ed the crucial proviso that any future dem- the existence of secular-Islamic dialogues ocratic state would have to be a “civic state . . . in Tunisia were of critical importance. drawing its sole legitimacy from the will of the people,” for “political practice is a hu- In the first four months after the fall of man discipline [without] any form of sanc- Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011, a di- tity.” Finally, the manifesto reasserted that verse group of 155 members was tasked “there can be no compulsion in religion. with forming a commission whose pur-

102 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences pose was to create an even stronger polit- with ranked names on every list, but to en- Alfred ical society by preparing for elections.23 sure that every other name on each elector- Stepan Known as the Ben Achour Commission, al list be that of a woman. it agreed that the first polity-wide election The final April 11, 2011, vote on the pro- should be to elect a Constituent Assembly, posals saw only two abstentions and two not a president. The decision as to whether walk-outs; all other members of the com- the political system should be presidential, mission voted yes. This exceptionally cre- parliamentary, or semipresidential should ative and consensual political society work be made by the elected Constituent Assem- helped contribute to the success of the Oc- bly, not an unelected working group such tober 2011 election of the National Con- as the Ben Achour Commission. stituent Assembly, which was widely con- The commission also agreed that there sidered by national and international ob- could not be an election without an elec- servers alike to be free and fair. The results toral law outlining procedures on how to were roughly as predicted, with Ennahda run the elections, and that transparency receiving the first plurality with 40 per- should be enhanced by a large network cent of the vote, and forming a coalition of national and international election ob- government with two secular parties with servers. They decided to use an elector- which Ennahda had been negotiating since al system of proportional representation 2003: Ettakatol, whose leader, Mustapha (pr), rather than a “first-past-the post” Ben Jaafar, became president of the Con- single-member-district system (as is used stituent Assembly, and cpr, whose lead- in the United Kingdom), because the gener, Moncef Marzouki, was elected interim eral agreement, shared by Ennahda, was president of Tunisia by the Constituent As- that the British system would produce an sembly. These three parties, with their mul- overwhelming Ennahda majority. tiple but complementary leaderships, be- In an interview in Tunis on March 26, came the ruling troika during the constitu- 2011, Ghannouchi told me that Ennahda tion-writing period. Once again, nothing could well win the first plurality in 90 per- remotely like this consensual, political so- cent of the seats under a first-past-the-post ciety-building process occurred in Egypt. system, given the fragmentation of the newly emerging party system.24 He said he was Despite its auspicious beginning in free worried that such a result would produce and fair elections in October 2011, for a six- an anti-democratic, Algerian-style back- month period, from July to December 2013, lash. Ghannouchi went on to estimate that Tunisia experienced a crisis that threatened with a pr system, Ennahda would prob- the entire transition process. But by De- ably not get more than 40 percent of the cember of that year, Tunisia had managed seats, and would thus need to govern with to reequilibrate and consensually pass an one or two secular parties, an outcome inclusionary constitution in January 2014. that he said would help protect Tunisia’s How did innovative consensus-building, in young democracy. Ghannouchi, with the the midst of crisis, enable this democratic support of his party, was making a delib- reequilibration in Tunisia? erate choice for multiple coalition leader- The roots of the crisis lay in the consti- ships, and was also helping to craft com- tution-making process and expectations plementary goals. about its speed. The majority of members The commission also decided, with strong of the Constituent Assembly pledged to backing from Ennahda, not only to have complete the new constitution within one what is called a “closed list” pr system, year of starting their deliberations. This

145 (3) Summer 2016 103 The Tunisian was unnecessarily fast, dangerous, and un- ing. He managed to convince every party Democratic usual: India spent three years writing its with seats in the nca, no matter how large Transition in Comparative constitution; Spain spent two. or small, to agree to have only one “voice” Perspective In this context, some of the major actors in the decisions about every contested ar- in Tunisia who had not done well or had not ticle in a body that came to be called the participated in the Constituent Assembly Consensus Committee. elections–such as Beji Caid Essebsi, who This was a major sacrifice of power for had once been the interior minister under Ennahda: with 41 percent of the seats in the Bourguiba and had founded the new secular nca, their representation in the Consensus opposition party Nidaa Tounes in the sum- Committee was no more than that of parties mer of 2012–began to declare that the Na- with less than 5 percent of the seats. It was tional Constituent Assembly, having failed also agreed that there would be no formal to deliver on its promise, would become il- votes in the Consensus Committee. Rath- legitimate on the one-year anniversary of er, an article would be considered consen- its opening session. Essebsi suggested that sually agreed-upon when it was approved other groups (of unclear origin) should as the “sense of the meeting” by two-thirds draft a new constitution and send it to the of the participants. Progress in overcoming reactivated nca for its ratification. deadlocks in this fashion commenced rapid- Compounding this emerging crisis were ly once Ben Jaafar reopened the nca. the assassinations of two leading leftist Ben Jaafar used the period of the nca’s Ennahda critics in February and July of suspension to reach as many key actors in 2013. The assassinations, and the fact that civil society who were outside the Assembly they were not solved, led to charges of En- as possible. The most important of these nahda’s incompetence or, worse, complic- was a secular group led by the most pow- ity. Events in Egypt colored the interpre- erful trade union in all of North Africa, tations of those in Tunisia: the massive the uctt; it was rapidly supported by the Egyptian petition movement called Ta- Tunisian League of Human Rights and the marod (“rebellion”), directed against the Tunisian Bar Association, and was eventu- Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed ally joined by the leading employer’s as- Morsi, facilitated the Egyptian military’s sociation, utica.26 These four groups to- coup against Morsi on July 3, 2013. This, in gether intensified a process increasingly turn, appeared to have strengthened the referred to as “the Dialogue.” This exter- copycat Tamarod movement in Tunisia, nal group was never a formal part of the and led to increasingly large protests out- Consensus Committee in the nca, but in side the Constituent Assembly. interviews, its leaders explained that, with In this highly charged context, on Au- the agreement of the Consensus Commit- gust 6, 2013, one of the multiple leaders of tee, they regularly sent two representatives the three-party ruling coalition, Musta- to key meetings to listen and offer the Di- pha Ben Jaafar, president of the Constit- alogue’s suggestions. uent Assembly and of the Ettakatol Par- The Dialogue leaders eventually brought ty, temporally suspended the work of the other weighty political and social actors nca in order to buy time for the demo- into discussions about a “road map” to cratic groups, in and outside the Assem- transcend the crisis. This road map, which bly, to develop ways to transcend the cri- approximately twenty groups and parties sis.25 Ben Jaafar’s persuasive leadership supported, entailed dates for signing the achieved something virtually unprece- constitution, the voluntary resignation of dented in democratic constitution-mak- the Ennahda-led troika coalition, the ap-

104 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences pointment of an interim technocratic prime the chief executive body of Ennahda–the Alfred minister and government, the final appoint- Shura Council–voting against including Stepan ment of an electoral commission, and the any reference to Sharia in the constitution. holding of parliamentary and then presi- Like Indonesia, and unlike el-Sisi’s Egypt, dential elections. there is thus no reference to Sharia in the Ennahda agreed to everything but, un- 2014 Tunisian constitution.27 derstandably, refused to resign until the day the final constitution was signed. On Many commentators have argued that the same day the constitution was ap- once an Islamic party wins power in elec- proved, Ennahda duly stepped down, and tions, they will never relinquish power. an interim government of technocrats However, in the parliamentary elections took over to run the administration and of October 26, 2014, Essebsi’s secularist oversee the holding of parliamentary and party, Nidaa Tounes, won the first plural- presidential elections. The crisis had been ity (and the right to nominate the prime consensually resolved. minister); three weeks later, in December 2014, Essebsi won the presidency in a tight, The Tunisian Constitution, after four second-round run-off election in which drafts, was ratified on January 27, 2014. The Ennahda honored its pledge not to run a final vote of the 216 deputies to the Con- candidate. stituent Assembly was quite consensual: I talked to Ghannouchi three days after two hundred voted yes and twelve voted Ennahda’s parliamentary defeat. He was no, with four abstentions. Some of the ar- philosophical and his reflections mainly ticles in the final constitution are the most concerned the future of democracy in Tu- progressive ever passed in an Arab or Mus- nisia, to which he was convinced Ennahda lim country; indeed they are more progres- had contributed: sive than what is law in many long-stand- In a period of transition it was useful we did ing democracies. The preamble states flat- not push religion too hard. We are very keen ly that the Tunisian polity is based upon to make a success of the transition. We have “equality of rights and duties between all a very heavy responsibility for the success of citizens, male and female.” Article 46 also democracy. Even if we lose in elections, de- affirms that “the state works to attain par- mocracy gains. The main goal is to make a ity between women and men in elected success of democracy. Assemblies.” To accuse a person in many Muslim Tunisia has got rid of despotism. There is cha- countries of being an “apostate” often puts os in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Iraq. that person at great risk, possibly even of We saved our country. We lose power but death. In Article 6 of the Tunisian consti- we saved Tunisia. tution, probably for the first time in the We will try to oblige Nidaa Tounes to accept constitution of a Muslim-majority coun- the game of democracy. Moving from gov- try, making such an accusation has itself ernment to opposition, and preserving the been criminalized. right to come back, this is the point of de- Although many members of Ennahda’s mocracy. 28 base may have wanted Sharia law, Ghan- nouchi gave a major speech before the first On the night of the presidential elec- of the four drafts of the constitution was tions, Ghannouchi quickly phoned Essebsi written arguing against Sharia appearing to congratulate him on his victory and ac- in the constitution. This was followed by cept the results of the free and fair election.

145 (3) Summer 2016 105 The Tunisian President Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes won a than his Marxist-secularist Popular Front Democratic plurality in the parliamentary elections allies, could help him more. Transition in Comparative with eighty-six seats, but this was twen- For his part, Ghannouchi probably cal- Perspective ty-three seats short of the absolute major- culated that he would be in a better posi- ity needed to form a government by itself. tion to pressure Essebsi to accept Ennahda Eventually, Nidaa Tounes crafted a major- as a normal part of democratic participa- ity by putting together a coalition of five tion in Tunisia if that party was in the gov- parties that included Ennahda. The forma- erning coalition and thus had the potential tion of this coalition was very unpopular to cause the fall of the government in the with those members of Nidaa Tounes’s event of renewed undemocratic repres- base and allies who had fought an anti-Is- sion against them. For Ghannouchi, the lamist campaign, and was just as unpop- achievement of the “normalcy” of Ennah- ular with many in Ennahda’s base who da and the persistence of Tunisian dem- feared a return to anti-Islamic repression ocratic politics would be his great legacy. and who did not want to share the inevitable costs of government with opponents. Tunisia has completed a “democratic tran- So why did the coalition form, when Nidaa sition,” but a fully “consolidated democra- Tounes and Essebsi could have put togeth- cy” normally requires more time, a supporter a majority without Ennahda, and when ive geopolitical neighborhood, and more Ennahda, with sixty-nine seats in parlia- tangible socioeconomic benefits from de- ment, was only given one ministry, while mocracy than Tunisia has had so far.29 The a party with only eight seats in parliament magnitude of Tunisia’s future democratic was given three? tasks becomes clear when we situate Tu- In a democratic context, even the lead- nisia in a comparative geopolitical frame- ers of the two most opposing parties may work. I have noted the contrast between at times deem it in their interest to pur- Tunisia’s difficult neighborhood and that sue complementary rather than conflict- in which some Central European coun- ual goals. Before the coalition was agreed tries found themselves following the dis- upon, there was talk in Tunis of the possi- integration of the Warsaw Pact. Not only bility of a “two-sheikh” leadership formu- has Tunisia no hope of joining the Euro- la that could be a “multiple-sum” compro- pean Union, but the United States, which mise, rather than a “zero-sum” conflict. gives $1.3 billion a year to the military of The two-sheikh metaphor refers to the ag- authoritarian Egypt, allocated only $166 ing founding leaders of the two major con- million to democratic Tunisia in 2015. flicting parties in Tunisia: Beji Caid Essebsi, The isis-inspired attacks at two of Tu- of Nidaa Tounes, and Rachid Ghannouchi, nisia’s most popular tourist destinations of Ennahda. were followed, more recently, by the isis Of the largest parties in parliament, the onslaught of March 8, 2016, on Tunisian only two with significant overlaps in eco- army and police posts near the southern nomic policy–despite great differences border with Libya. Although repulsed, on Islam–are Nidaa Tounes and Ennah- the attack was unprecedented in that isis da. The leader of the former, Essebsi, was seemed to have intended to hold territory then eighty-eight years old, and the coali- within Tunisia. Such attacks may not de- tion offered the promise of majority sup- stroy Tunisia’s democracy, but economi- port for many of his difficult economic re- cally and politically, they will make a full forms. If Essebsi wanted to leave a legacy consolidation of democracy much more of statesman-led growth, Ennahda, rather difficult to achieve.

106 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences If Tunisia, the Arab country that has by in the Arab world. It is time for the Unit- Alfred far the best chance of consolidating democ- ed States and other democracies to give Tu- Stepan racy, fails despite its multiple and comple- nisia’s fledgling but imperiled democracy mentary leaderships, democracy as a credi- much greater priority and help. ble prospect to aspire to withers everywhere

endnotes 1 A major exception is Archie Brown; see, for example, Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (New York: Basic Books, 2014). 2 My term “Brumairian abdication” builds on Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Na- poleon,” Die Revolution (1852). Tensions between different revolutionary leaderships led some of them to make deals with Napoleon (in hopes of using him for their own ends), which in turn created the opening for him to seize power. In Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973, and Egypt in July 2013, the Brumairian abdication was also a Brumairian invitation for the military to rule. 3 See Max Weber, “Politics as Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 78. 4 Robert F. Worth, “In Libya, the Captors Have Become the Captive,” The New York Times Mag- azine, May 9, 2012. 5 Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Organization (Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013), 286. 6 Emphasis added. Data supplied to me by Professor Stephen Whitefield of Oxford Universi- ty based on a not-yet-published poll he and his colleagues conducted in Egypt in December 2011 with 2,001 respondents. 7 Samir El-Sayed, writing for Ahram Online, on September 23, 2011. 8 For multiple leaderships in the Spanish transition, see Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Prob- lems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 87–115. 9 See Mirjam Künkler, “How Pluralist Democracy Became the Consensual Discourse Among Secular and Nonsecular Muslims in Indonesia,” in Democracy and Islam in Indonesia, ed. Mir- jam Künkler and Alfred Stepan (New York: Columbia University, Press, 2013), 53–72. 10 Donald L. Horowitz, Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 293. 11 “Our Country of the Year: Hope Springs,” The Economist, December 20, 2014. 12 On Freedom House’s seven-point scale, the highest score for political rights is one, and the worst score is seven. In 2015, Egypt and Libya received the second lowest possible score, a six, and Syria the lowest possible score, a seven. 13 See “Islamic State: Spreading its Tentacles,” and “Tunisia’s Economy: The Other Victim,” both in The Economist, July 4, 2015, 39–40. 14 For a discussion of “aggressive secularism” in France and Turkey, in contrast to a religion- friendly “passive secularism” in the United States, see Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France and Turkey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 15 Jean-Pierre Filiu, The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (London: C. Hurst, 2011), 14.

145 (3) Summer 2016 107 The Tunisian 16 Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939 (New York: Cambridge University Democratic Press, 1983), 65. Transition in 17 Comparative Alfred Stepan, “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations,” Journal of Democracy 23 (2012): Perspective 89–103, esp. 99–102. 18 M. M. Charrad, States and Women’s Rights in the Making of Post-Colonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Moroc- co (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 19 Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 254–275. 20 The original version was drafted in Arabic and French. 21 Original in Arabic. Emphasis added. 22 Interview with Marzouki in Tunis, and a separate confirmatory interview with Ghannouchi in Tunis, both in May 2013. 23 Stepan, “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations,” esp. 91–94. 24 Ghannouchi was right in this estimate: Ennahda did win a plurality in about 90 percent of the electoral districts. 25 What follows concerning the new style of internal work of the nca is based largely, but not exclusively, on a long interview Monica Marks and I conducted with Mustapha Ben Jaafar on November 4, 2014, in his nca presidential office in Tunis. 26 Monica Marks and I interviewed top leaders of these organizations in Tunis from October 30 through November 3, 2014. 27 Article 2 of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution passed under the domination of General el-Sisi stipulates that the “principles of Islamic Sharia are the main source of legislation.” 28 Interview with Rachid Ghannouchi, October 29, 2014, Tunis. 29 For a definition and more extensive discussion of democratic consolidation, see Linz and Ste- pan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, chap. 1, esp. 5–15.

108 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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 dictatorship. 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.

109 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 government 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

110 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 111 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 power, 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

112 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 113 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 polity, 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

114 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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 regimes 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 115 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-

116 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 117 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

118 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 119 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 dominate 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-

120 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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

145 (3) Summer 2016 121 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, 1848), 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).

122 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 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.

145 (3) Summer 2016 123 In Favor of “Leader Proofing”

Anthony King

Abstract: Although it is widely assumed that successful polities require strong leaders, something like the opposite is probably the case. A successful political system may well be one that has no need of strong leaders and may even eschew them. Strong leaders may occasionally be desirable in any polity, but those occasions are–or should be–rare. As often as not (possibly more often than not) strong leaders pose substantial risks. They are liable to do as much damage as good, possibly more. There is a lot to be said for any polity’s political culture and institutions having built into them a fair amount of “leader proofing.”

Switzerland is undoubtedly one of the world’s most successful countries, probably the most successful in Europe. It is also one of the world’s most intriguing countries, because it should probably not exist. Indeed, the most widely read book on the country (apart from guidebooks) is entitled Why Switzer- land?1 Historically, the country has been divided in multiple ways: by dauntingly high mountain peaks, by language and by religion. Switzerland boasts no fewer than four national languages, although a large proportion of Swiss can speak only one of them (for most, English is their preferred second language). For many centuries, the religious divide, between Catho- ANTHONY KING, a Foreign Hon- lics and Protestants, went deep. Early in the sixteenth orary Member of the American century, Zwingli preached and practiced his brand of Academy since 1994, is the Mil- lennium Professor of British Gov- revolutionary Protestantism in predominantly Cath- ernment at the University of Essex. olic Zurich. Soon afterward, Geneva became a hot- His books on American politics bed of militant Calvinism. Protestants and Catholics and government include Running fought three civil wars between 1529 and 1847, and a Scared: Why America’s Politicians Cam- constitutional ban on Jesuit priests living and work- paign Too Much and Govern Too Lit- ing in Switzerland was lifted only in 1973. tle (1997) and The Founding Fathers v. Yet the Swiss confederation has remained in be- the People: Paradoxes of American De- mocracy (2012). He has also taught ing for more than seven centuries, its occasional civil at the University of Wisconsin– wars have been relatively bloodless affairs (certain- Madison and Princeton University ly as compared with the American Civil War), and as well as the University of Oxford. for generations past the Swiss have been at peace

124 both with their neighbors and with each his dealings with them, he needed to be cir- Anthony other. Whatever language they speak, Swiss cumspect. He could relieve senior officers King people think of themselves as Swiss. Class of their commands only when they had de- conflict in the country, as well as religious monstrably proved ineffective. His pow- conflict, is muted. Violent crime is virtu- er was overwhelmingly the power to per- ally unknown. The Swiss are among the suade; and, when he failed to persuade, as best-educated people in the world and enjoy he often did, he almost invariably failed one of the world’s most advanced health- to achieve his objectives. Especially to- care delivery systems. Switzerland is a lib- ward the end of the war, as Britain’s pow- eral democracy in the fullest sense of both er waned, Churchill had no option but to words. Not least, the people of Switzerland be collegial, even deferential, in his mode enjoy one of the highest standards of living of operations. in the world (however measured). Switzer- The position of John F. Kennedy during land positively exudes peace and prosperity. the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis differed What is intriguing for our purposes, how- sharply from that of Churchill in 1940. ever, is a zone of silence relating to that Churchill spoke eloquently and often. Ken- country. Ask the members of any audience nedy said almost nothing in public. But, in- anywhere, however well-informed, to name formally as well as formally, all the impor- anyone who is now, or ever has been, a Swiss tant decisions taken by the United States political leader and the result is invariably government during the crisis were for Ken- an embarrassed silence. No one can think of nedy and Kennedy alone to take. As pres- anybody. The only person anyone can ever ident, he was commander-in-chief, with think of is William Tell, but Tell–he of the duties he could neither share nor delegate. famous crossbow and apple–may never But Kennedy in 1962 found himself in a sit- have existed and, even if he did, it was a very uation far outside the orbit of his own per- long time ago, during Switzerland’s earliest sonal experience and without precedent in days. The Swiss people clearly do not suffer human history. He needed to think long from any form of leader addiction. and hard–and knew that he did. He also needed others’ help as his ideas devel- Britain’s Winston Churchill was a leader, oped–and knew that he did. in two senses. Formally, he was the leader President Kennedy, someone as grown- of the Conservative Party and, on two occa- up as Churchill could be child-like, dealt sions, he served as his country’s prime min- with his problem by convening what he ister. Less formally, in 1940, when Britain’s called the Executive Committee. How- fortunes in World War II were at their nadir, ever, it was scarcely a committee and cer- he emerged as the country’s rhetorical and tainly not an executive. Its membership symbolic leader. His speeches, cigars and fluctuated, and the president continually defiant V-for-victory gesture are still re- conducted smaller meetings, with vary- membered. But in practical military terms ing personnel. Kennedy’s central concern he was less a leader than a goad, gadfly and was to keep America’s options open for as interferer-in-chief. His military leadership long as possible and to ensure that all of was always severely constrained: not mere- his advisers felt free to speak their minds. ly by circumstances (Britain’s weaknesses, Toward the latter end, he encouraged his the strengths of the enemy, the increasing advisers to talk among themselves in his power of the United States, and so on) but absence. The president’s brother, Robert also by his need to carry his military, na- Kennedy, subsequently wrote: “This was val and air force commanders with him. In wise. Personalities change when the Presi-

145 (3) Summer 2016 125 In Favor dent is present, and frequently even strong ment continued to function normally. It of “Leader men make recommendations on the basis seemed not to matter much that during Proofing” of what they believe the President wishes these months 10 Downing Street was ef- to hear.”2 Kennedy continues: fectively unoccupied. During all these deliberations we all spoke One of Winston Churchill’s former com- as equals. There was no rank, and, in fact, we panions-in-arms was similarly ill and in did not even have a chairman. . . . As a result office during the same decade. President . . . the conversations were completely unin- Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart at- hibited and unrestricted. Everyone had an tack in September 1955 and then a stroke in equal opportunity to express himself and to November 1957. The heart attack kept him be heard directly. It was a tremendously ad- out of action for approximately a month vantageous procedure.3 and a half, and he actually recovered more quickly from the stroke, although his speech It was out of these informal and semifor- was impaired for a time and, like Churchill, mal discussions that the idea of imposing he briefly contemplated resignation. Poten- a naval “quarantine” on Cuba–rather than tially, Eisenhower’s illnesses placed a great- launching air strikes to destroy the Soviets’ er strain on America’s president-centered– missile sites on the island–arose. The ul- and therefore individual-centered–gov- timate responsibility and the final deci- erning arrangements than Churchill’s did sions were, of necessity, the president’s, but on Britain’s more loose-textured arrange- throughout, his chosen style was collegial. ments. In Britain, ministers simply as- An implicit commentary on the func- sumed, rightly, that they would carry on as tioning of any institution is provided by usual, with central direction, if needed, be- what happens whenever the nominal head ing provided collectively by the Cabinet. In of that institution is unavailable for any the United States, however, it was far from reason. How does the institution function clear what was supposed to happen. under those circumstances? Fortunately, in Eisenhower’s case three In late June 1953, during his second term separate factors eased the strain. One was as prime minister, Churchill suffered a that on both occasions the president was stroke which left him partially paralyzed only briefly unable to communicate and down his left side. Initially, it was thought take decisions. Even after the stroke, his he would have to resign, but he retreated to mental faculties seem to have been unim- his country home, Chartwell, to recuper- paired. The second was that, by coinci- ate and quite quickly–within about eight dence, no difficult decisions needed to be weeks–he recovered. Although the prime taken during either of the president’s two minister was largely incapacitated, the con- short periods of convalescence. In partic- sequences for the conduct of government ular, no major foreign-affairs crises super- were minimal. One of his senior colleagues, vened. The third was that Eisenhower, by R. A. Butler, “took charge of the Cabinet outlook and temperament and despite the with tact and competence,” and depart- fact that he had formerly occupied positions mental ministers went calmly about their of high military command, was a firm be- business.4 Business as usual also character- liever in cabinet government and “sought ized Churchill’s last few months in office. to establish in the executive branch a bu- The old man, now eighty, was increasingly reaucratic structure that minimized disrup- lethargic and absent-minded, but few out- tion caused by the absence of the chief exec- side his inner circle were aware of the ex- utive.”5 While he was recovering from his tent of his deterioration and the govern- heart attack, Sherman Adams, his chief of

126 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences staff, stayed with him in Denver and relayed Instead, what seems to have happened Anthony back to Washington any presidential deci- is that, with Reagan’s tacit approval, effec- King sions that had to be taken, while Richard tive control of the government was taken Nixon, the vice president, presided over in hand by three members of his White Cabinet meetings and meetings of the Na- House staff: Edwin Meese, James Baker tional Security Council. An informal coor- and Michael Deaver. This trio of aides be- dinating committee began to meet regularly came, in effect, the president’s surrogates, to oversee the government’s operations as more than merely his aides. It was an ar- a whole.6 Although the outward forms dif- rangement that emerged immediately fol- fered, these arrangements resembled quite lowing the assassination attempt but then closely the ones that evolved at the top of lasted for most of the rest of Reagan’s first British government following Churchill’s term. Neither Churchill nor Eisenhower stroke. would have tolerated any such arrange- The aftermath of the attempt on Ronald ment, but Reagan seems to have been com- Reagan’s life in 1981 was a good deal messier, fortable with it.8 The original trio later be- even though in the meantime a new amend- came a quartet, with the addition of Nancy ment to the U.S. Constitution, the Twen- Reagan, the first lady. As we shall see lat- ty-Fifth Amendment, had been ratified to er, when that collegial arrangement even- provide for situations in which the presi- tually broke down, the American system dent was “unable to discharge the powers of government itself nearly broke down. and duties of his office.” Having been shot and seriously wounded, Reagan for several How do episodes and observations such hours underwent massive surgery and was as these speak to questions of political clearly incapable of discharging the duties leadership in general and strong political of his office. He remained poorly and un- leadership in particular? Before answer- able to do a full day’s work for another two ing that question, it would be a good idea months. His White House physician, Dan- to engage in a somewhat more systemat- iel Ruge, believed that, during the hour or ic enquiry, one relating only to liberal de- so before his life-saving operation and while mocracies. There is no need to labor that he was still conscious and in full possession last point here. It is well known that polit- of his faculties, Reagan should have been ical leaders in autocratic and authoritarian asked, under the terms of the Twenty-Fifth regimes tend to be megalomaniacs, mon- Amendment, to sign a declaration transfer- sters, murderers, liars and crooks. ring his powers temporarily to the vice pres- Archie Brown, in The Myth of the Strong ident, who would thereupon serve as act- Leader, suggests that although the term ing president. But no such suggestion was “strong leader” is open to more than one ever made. All this occurred when Reagan interpretation, it is generally taken to mean had been in office for only sixty days. The “a leader who concentrates a lot of power new administration had scarcely begun to in his or her hands, dominates both a wide bed in, and nothing in the way of contin- swath of public policy and the political par- gency planning had been done. “[E]nor- ty to which he or she belongs, and takes the mous tension and uncertainty permeat- big decisions.”9 A strong leader on that defi- ed the government.”7 Reagan had already nition may or may not be successful in his proved himself to be a wholesale delega- or her own terms or in the judgment of tor, but most of his delegations were to indi- others. Equally, a man or woman may be viduals. Nothing resembling Eisenhower’s successful in his or her own terms and yet committee system existed. may not be adjudged by himself, herself or

145 (3) Summer 2016 127 In Favor anybody else to have been a strong lead- for his glamor, his astute handling of the of “Leader er. Strength and success are not the same Cuban Missile Crisis, and the horrific cir- Proofing” thing, and to infer strength from success cumstances of his death, he would proba- is, as Daniel Kahneman and others have bly be little remembered. Through no fault pointed out, a common but primitive type of his own, the ratio of promise to perfor- of logical fallacy.10 Luck may be the key vari- mance in his case was high. able. Alternatively, personal qualities oth- That Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded er than strength may well in practice count Kennedy, was a strong president–in Ar- for more than strength. chie Brown’s terms or anyone else’s–can- By way of illustration, let us consider not be doubted. The big Texan was also a briefly the careers in office of the thirty big president. In terms of success, his per- men and one woman who held office as formance, however, was Janus-faced: on either American president or British prime one side, his ambitious domestic Great So- minister during the eighty years between ciety programs (including the War on Pov- 1935 and 2015. erty and radical civil-rights legislation); Given the constraints imposed on the on the other, the ill-advised escalation of power and authority of every American American involvement in the war in Viet- president by America’s constitutional nam. Johnson withdrew from the race for structure, Franklin Delano Roosevelt has the presidency in 1968. Richard Nixon, the to be accounted both strong and success- man who subsequently won that election, ful, his strengths contributing to his suc- certainly aspired to be a strong president cess. He failed in his attempt to pack the and took steps to extend his and his allies’ U.S. Supreme Court, and only the outbreak sway across the entire executive branch. of World War II brought the Great Depres- Had Nixon retired on the eve of the 1972 sion to an end; but much of the legacy of election, historians today would probably his New Deal lives on, and his handling of account him a success. He began to wind America’s noninvolvement then involve- down American involvement in Vietnam, ment in World War II was masterly. His normalized U.S. relations with China, initi- successor, Harry Truman, did not aspire ated détente with the Soviet Union and in- to follow in fdr’s gigantic footsteps and stituted a wide range of domestic reforms. never tried; as president, he was neither a Unfortunately for him and his reputation, strong leader nor pretended to be one. But his vanity and mendacity during the Water- it was on his watch that the United States gate scandal forced him from office. Nix- launched the Marshall Plan, played a lead- on’s successor, his vice president, Gerald ing role in creating nato and resisted So- Ford, remained in office for only eighteen viet-sponsored aggression in Korea. His months. He attempted to accomplish little successor, Eisenhower, a thoroughgoing and succeeded in doing just that. conservative, resembled Truman in hav- The next two presidencies–those of Jim- ing no great desire to exalt the presiden- my Carter and Ronald Reagan–were among tial office–and he did not do so. His style the strangest of modern times. Carter, a was collegial, his lasting accomplishments complete novice to the ways of Washing- few. Eisenhower regarded his steady-as- ton, sought to be a strong president, not in she-goes presidency as a success. In its own the sense of being constantly in control, but terms, it was. His more glamorous succes- in the sense of advancing a bold agenda. Ap- sor, John F. Kennedy, was more ambitious parently failing to recognize that, in Bis- for his time in office, but in the event he marck’s memorable phrase, “politics is the served for fewer than three years, and, but art of the possible,” he never sought to per-

128 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences fect and practice that art. His boldness did coming implicated. Throughout his time Anthony bring him some successes: civil-service re- in the White House, Reagan relied heavily King form, the return of the Panama Canal Zone on his support staff, whatever there was of to Panama and the signing of the Camp Da- it. When that staff failed him, he failed– vid peace accords between Egypt and Is- or did not even try. rael. But his political clumsiness ensured However, there was one front on which that many of his legislative proposals were Reagan was anything but weak. On that one blocked in Congress, and he signally failed front, he held strong views, held onto them to persuade either congressional majorities tenaciously and acted upon them. That or the American people that the energy cri- was America’s relationship with the Sovi- sis of the late 1970s really was “the moral et Union. Reagan’s views were often misun- equivalent of war” and needed to be con- derstood and to the outside world could eas- fronted as such. ily appear contradictory. On the one hand, If we accept Brown’s definition of strong he believed that the Soviet Union really leadership, then Ronald Reagan, Carter’s did constitute an “evil empire” and that the successor in the White House, was one of United States, in all its dealings with the So- the weakest presidents of recent decades. viet Union, should therefore do so from a He did not concentrate a lot of power in position of strength. And so he promoted his own hands. He did not dominate a massive increases in U.S. defense spending. wide swath of public policy. And he did But, on the other hand, he was terrified by not take, except in a purely formal sense, the possibility that someday someone, or most of the big decisions. As we noted ear- something, would trigger an all-out nuclear lier, from the time of the failed attempt on war. He feared that sooner or later–absent the president’s life, only two months into some kind of Soviet-American rapproche- his presidency, until toward the end of his ment–the triggering of such a war would first term in office, most of the domestic prove all but inevitable. He therefore went policy decisions that emanated from the out of his way to seek a rapprochement with Oval Office, while signed off by the presi- the ussr; and, as luck would have it, ear- dent, were in fact the work of Meese, Bak- ly in his second term he found someone, er and Deaver, possibly with inputs from Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he felt he Nancy Reagan. The members of this troika could do business. On this issue, Reagan got did not operate in isolation from the rest stuck in: not in the sense of mastering de- of the government, but the president him- tail (he never did that) but in the sense of self largely did. Following Reagan’s reelec- taking a close continuing interest in Amer- tion in 1984, the original members of the ica’s relations with Russia. Between them, troika dispersed, and the troika imploded Reagan and Gorbachev effectively negoti- into the person of a single individual: Don- ated the beginning of the end of the Cold ald Regan, the new White House chief of War. President Reagan proved capable of staff. He, too, positioned himself between strength when, in his own eyes, strength the president and the rest of his adminis- was needed. tration; but whereas the three members of Neither of Reagan’s successors in the the troika had been subtle, emollient and Oval Office–George H. W. Bush and Bill protective of the president, Regan lacked Clinton–was an especially strong presi- both political feel and any instinct for pro- dent, though Clinton’s charm and larger- tecting Reagan’s interests. He was deep- than-life personality sometimes concealed ly implicated in the Iran-contra affair and the fact. The elder George Bush, like Eisen- did not prevent Reagan himself from be- hower and Ford before him, did not have an

145 (3) Summer 2016 129 In Favor exalted conception of either himself or the Predictably, given Clinton’s personal of “Leader presidential office. He had held many low- style, his capacity for dithering and the Proofing” er-level positions in government and, when fact that the Republicans controlled Con- he arrived in the White House, was content gress during six of his eight years in office, to do the top job to the best of his (consid- Clinton’s record as president was a thing erable) ability. He was not remotely a pres- of shreds and patches. He persuaded Con- idential imperialist. However, few doubted gress to ratify the North American Free his basic competence, especially in foreign Trade Agreement, outfaced Newt Gingrich affairs. He guided skillfully American poli- and the Republicans over the 1996 budget cy during the reunification of Germany and and helped broker the Dayton Accords, the disintegration of the ussr itself, and which brought peace, of a sort, to Bosnia. his was the victory over Saddam Hussein’s On his watch, the enormous budget defi- Iraq during the First Gulf War. Although it cits accumulated by his profligate Repub- cost him dearly politically, he was strong lican predecessors, Reagan and Bush, were enough in 1990 to break his own election eliminated. But, against all that, Clinton pledge–“Read my lips: no new taxes”–in and his wife badly botched their vain effort the interests of scaling back the U.S. gov- to introduce a universal health care regime ernment’s burgeoning budget deficit. Had in the United States, Clinton in 1996 felt Bush senior won reelection in 1992, and had forced to sign Republican-inspired wel- he then carried on much as before, history fare legislation which he abhorred, few of today would almost certainly account him his own legislative proposals found their a modest, Eisenhower-like success. Even as way onto the statute book, and he never it is, he can hardly be accounted a failure. developed a coherent conception of what Bill Clinton was more ambitious, for both America’s role in a rapidly changing world himself and his presidency. He evident- should be. It did not help that Clinton had ly saw himself as his generation’s fdr or to devote much of his second term to deal- jfk; in other words, as an archetypal strong ing with the fall-out from his bizarre rela- leader. Unfortunately for him, his personal tionship with Monica Lewinsky. As Fred limitations, together with the rampant po- I. Greenstein has put it, Clinton is likely larization of contemporary American pol- to be remembered “as a politically talent- itics, resulted in an eight-year tenure of of- ed underachiever.”11 fice that was more memorable (sometimes George W. Bush, Bush senior’s son, is for the wrong reasons) than effective. He unlikely to be remembered as an achiev- lacked any real sense of direction, and the er of any kind. He is more likely to be re- men and women he appointed to his ad- membered as one of the most inept occu- ministration, many of them exceeding- pants of the White House since that ele- ly able, were unable either to provide him gant building was first occupied in 1801. His with such a sense or even to persuade him handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Ka- that he needed one. Clinton sought to paint trina, which devastated much of New Orle- a big picture but could never find the right ans, was both chaotic and insensitive. Un- canvas and colors to fit the frame. Espe- der him the era of escalating federal budget cially in its early days, the administration’s deficits returned. His administration’s re- modus operandi often resembled an unfo- sponse to the September 11 terrorist attacks cussed conversation at an academic confer- succeeded in dislodging the Taliban from ence more than a meeting of a tough-mind- their control of most of Afghanistan, but ed advisory board. Eisenhower would have failed to either capture Osama bin Laden been horrified. or destroy al Qaeda. Subsequently, Amer-

130 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ican troops in Afghanistan waged war for to promote, but instead badly damaged, Anthony more than a decade against Islamist and an- America’s interests. King ti-Western insurgents. That war was Amer- Mirrors can magnify as well as accurate- ica’s longest-ever. It was never won. Two ly reflect, and Bush allowed his vision to be years after 9/11, in March 2003, Bush ex- both mirrored and magnified by his chosen tended his administration’s self-declared circles of advisers. Over both Afghanistan “War on Terror” to Iraq, although there and Iraq, he listened almost exclusively to was no evidence to suggest that Saddam those who already agreed with him, the so- Hussein’s regime in Iraq, however unpleas- called neocons: notably, Dick Cheney, his ant, had anything to do with either al Qae- influential vice president, Donald Rums- da or terrorism. In the Iraq case, military feld, his forceful defense secretary, and victory was quickly achieved and Saddam Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy. Those Hussein toppled; but–partly in response who expressed doubts or entered caveats– to the administration’s mismanagement Colin Powell, the secretary of state, Con- of post-Saddam Iraq–what amounted to doleezza Rice, the national security advis- a civil war ensued, one in which Ameri- er, and a substantial proportion of the mil- can forces were involved for seven more itary–were sidelined. Bush’s approach to years. Needless to say, terrorism in the decision-making was thus the opposite of Middle East and elsewhere has not been Kennedy’s during the Cuban Missile Cri- eliminated. On the contrary, since 2003, sis. The same approach to decision-mak- it has spread, becoming ever more brutal. ing, coupled with Bush’s “vision thing,” The terrorists have scored greater success- that of a low-tax, lightly regulated econo- es than President George W. Bush ever did. my, also played its part in the great finan- One feature of Bush’s deportment in of- cial collapse of 2008.14 fice stands out. Bush aspired to be a strong Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, could leader; and, indubitably, he was a strong hardly have come into office at a worse leader, at least during his first term. He time. Bush’s legacy was dire: a domestic made it abundantly clear to everyone who economy in deep recession and large num- would listen that that was his aim (adding bers of American soldiers still being killed on occasion that he had God’s backing). in the ruinous and arguably useless wars in Following the intervention in Afghani- Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, by the stan, he told the well-connected journal- time Obama took over, American politics ist Bob Woodward: “I rely on my instincts. was even more polarized than it had been I just knew that at some point in time [im- in Bill Clinton’s time. Although Obama mediately after 9/11] the American people disappointed liberal Democrats and out- were going to say, Where is he? . . . Where’s raged a large proportion of Republicans, your leadership?”12 The American people some of whom positively hated him, he wanted action; Bush was intent on provid- will leave the White House in early 2017 ing it. The same went for Iraq. He want- having led America out of recession (far ed Saddam Hussein ousted from power. more successfully than any European lead- That would be made to happen. To quote er), wound down American involvement Greenstein again: “George W. Bush had in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and no lack of policy vision. He took it as an ar- succeeded, where both Truman and Clin- ticle of faith that if he failed to set his ad- ton failed, in introducing a state-spon- ministration’s policy agenda, others would sored universal health care delivery sys- set it for him.”13 He never allowed them to. tem. History will almost certainly judge Unfortunately, Bush’s vision did nothing Obama, not to have been a barn-storm-

145 (3) Summer 2016 131 In Favor ing or triumphalist president, but to have sistently been admired or admirable. At of “Leader been a dignified, pragmatic and broadly the same time, many perfectly satisfacto- Proofing” successful one. He may not have been a ry presidents–and, happily, most modern strong leader–in the face of Republican American presidents have been at least sat- and interest-group opposition he often ap- isfactory–have not sought to function and peared weak–but more often than not he have not functioned in any kind of “strong got his way. leader” mode. Thus, the correlation be- One of the most confident and balanced tween strength and success is low and, de- of modern presidents, Obama was far pending on one’s own personal judgments, more Kennedy-like than Bush-like in his may even be negative. willingness to appoint advisers with strong views, not necessarily his own. As he said Our survey of British prime ministers on the eve of his inauguration: during the same eighty-year period can be I think that’s how the best decisions are shorter, for one simple reason. It has nev- made. One of the dangers in a White House, er occurred to the great majority of Brit- based on my reading of history, is that you ish prime ministers to try to function as get wrapped up in groupthink and everybody strong leaders. They have not been direct- agrees with everything and there’s no discus- ly elected and are not ceremonial heads of sion and there are no dissenting views. So state as well as heads of government. They I’m going to be welcoming a vigorous debate owe their position to the fact that they are inside the White House. But understand, I the leader, for the time being, of the cur- will be setting policy as president. I will be rently victorious political party, and they responsible for the vision that this team car- well know that they can be ousted from ries out, and I expect them to implement that that particular position at any time (with- vision once decisions are made.15 out the electorate’s having any say in the matter). Most of them have forceful and Once in office, he was true to both parts of able colleagues who are also their rivals. that utterance. Given the essentially collegial nature of It would seem that, of the thirteen U.S. British government, most prime minis- presidents who have held office since ters see their primary tasks as promoting the late 1930s, only four–Franklin Roos- their party’s agreed-to policies, maintain- evelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and ing the unity of their government and par- George W. Bush–have been strong lead- ty and coping ad hoc with crises. Notions ers in anything approaching Brown’s sense. of strong leadership seldom come into it. Only those four–plus, arguably, Kennedy Sixteen individuals have held office as and Carter–have sought to concentrate British prime minister since 1935, two of an unusual amount of power in their own them (Winston Churchill and Harold Wil- hands and to dominate the formation and son) on two separate occasions. The great implementation of a wide range of govern- majority of them, like the great majority ment policies. It is noteworthy, to say the of American presidents, have been com- least of it, that two of the four strongest petent, sometimes more than competent, leaders listed above–Nixon and George W. but most of them–too many to list here– Bush–have been among the least satisfac- have not sought to direct and dominate tory of modern presidents, with the Viet- their administrations. They have func- nam War meaning that Lyndon Johnson’s tioned as executive chairmen rather than record in office was also, to put it charita- chief executive officers. One outstanding bly, mixed. Strong presidents have not con- exception has already been mentioned:

132 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Winston Churchill during World War vert someone else first.” He freely admit- Anthony II, especially during its early phases. But ted his determination to “leave my mark King during his second, postwar premiership, behind me as P.M.”16 even Churchill in no way dominated, or Chamberlain had a clear sense of direc- sought to dominate, his government. His tion. He was determined upon “the ap- successor, Anthony Eden, was more force- peasement of Europe” and Hitler in par- ful and developed a reputation, similar to ticular. Toward that end, although Brit- Jimmy Carter’s, for paying overmuch at- ain’s cabinet system required him to listen tention to detail and attempting to micro- to those who disagreed with him, he ap- manage his administration. Eden’s suc- peared to hear only those who applauded cessor, Harold Macmillan, functioned for him. Just as President Bush, over Afghan- the most part as a conventional premier, istan and Iraq, heard only Cheney and the though he was more given than most to other neocons, so Chamberlain in his deal- taking personal initiatives, including try- ings with Hitler increasingly relied on the ing to take the United Kingdom into the views of a close aide, Sir Horace Wilson, European Common Market. Harold Wil- and a small “group of trusted advisers who son towered above his colleagues politi- all passionately shared his vision and pri- cally during the first phase of his first -ad orities.”17 Bush sidelined the State Depart- ministration, but within a few years his au- ment, headed by Colin Powell. Chamber- thority had all but vanished, and during lain sidelined the Foreign Office, headed his second term he was an almost entirely by an official who doubted whether a man passive figure. The present occupant of 10 like Hitler could possibly be appeased. It Downing Street, David Cameron, is a more goes without saying that Chamberlain’s typical British premier: more a light-touch leadership, while undoubtedly strong, was chairman of the board and public-rela- not exactly successful.18 tions chief than an actual head of govern- Edward Heath succeeded Harold Wil- ment. He is certainly not in any conceiv- son as prime minister in 1970. Heath’s style able sense a strong leader. was certainly more collegial than Chamber- Apart from the wartime Churchill, only lain’s had been. Unlike Chamberlain, he four post-1935 British prime ministers have was a good if sometimes impatient listener, sought to play the role of strong leader: and he readily talked to people he thought Neville Chamberlain (though his inclusion worth listening to, even if they questioned in this list will probably come as a surprise his views. Nevertheless, by force of intellect to most readers), Edward Heath, Marga- and personality, he dominated his govern- ret Thatcher and Tony Blair. A word about ment–and dominated it across the board– each of them is in order. to an extent that few of his predecessors Neville Chamberlain, although consid- had. That said, his strength in office man- erably more intelligent than George W. ifested itself in one curious way. Heath al- Bush and with far greater governmental ways had a clear sense of direction, but he experience, functioned as prime minister frequently changed direction, sometimes in a manner not unlike Bush’s. Like Bush, abruptly. His government’s policy U-turns, he was determined–in contrast to his im- well advertised and much mocked at the mediate predecessor, Stanley Baldwin– time, played a part in the government’s de- to be a strong leader. On becoming prime feat in an election forced upon him when he minister in 1937, he expressed in a letter to had been in office for less than four years. a friend “some relief at being able to carry In the event, almost every one of the Heath out my own ideas without having to con- government’s policy initiatives, whatever

145 (3) Summer 2016 133 In Favor their direction, failed to survive his gov- that he aspired to be a Thatcher-like lead- of “Leader ernment. His government’s only substan- er and probably had the capacity to be one; Proofing” tial achievement–and it was a substantial prior to the election that brought him to one–was to negotiate Britain’s entry into power in 1997, one of his closest advisers what is now the European Union. More actually suggested that the British system than four decades on, even that achieve- of government should become less feu- ment was being called in question. dal and more Napoleonic.21 On the other Margaret Thatcher was an even stronger hand, Blair was far less clear than Thatcher leader than Heath and an infinitely more had been about exactly what he wanted to successful one. She probably conformed achieve in government, and he had a pow- more than any other modern head of gov- erful colleague, Gordon Brown, his chan- ernment on either side of the Atlantic to cellor of the exchequer, whom he could Brown’s template of the strong political neither control nor dismiss. Brown, who leader. A highly intelligent workaholic coveted Blair’s job and eventually seized with few if any interests outside politics, it, found every opportunity he could she managed to combine, almost unique- think of–and there were many–to ei- ly, a strong sense of strategic direction ther bounce Blair or thwart him; but his with an ability and a willingness to attend standing in the financial markets as chan- to the minutest details. “The Old Testa- cellor and among the Labour Party’s rank ment prophets,” she once said, “did not and file, to whom he continually appealed, say, ‘Brothers, I want a consensus.’ They was such that the political price to be paid said: ‘This is my faith, this is what I pas- for dismissing him was likely to be exorbi- sionately believe.’”19 She believed in free tant. As Lyndon Johnson would have put markets and private enterprise and from it, it was better to have Brown inside the the outset was determined to be prime tent pissing out than outside the tent piss- minister of a government whose members ing in. The so-called Blair government was spoke with one voice in promoting both: thus in reality a quarrelsome Blair/Brown “I’ve got to have togetherness. There must duopoly, with two would-be strong lead- be a dedication to a purpose, agreement ers constantly struggling for supremacy– about direction . . . [My government] must as though the United States had two rival be a conviction government . . . As Prime presidents at the same time. That said, it Minister, I could not waste time having any was Blair rather than Brown who ensured internal arguments.”20 She silenced doubt that the United Kingdom joined the Unit- and criticism among the ranks of her min- ed States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The isters by the simple expedient of firing most momentous decision of the Blair pre- the doubters and critics. As well as being miership, with Blair casting himself in the the Churchill of the 1982 Falklands War, role of strong leader, was also the most di- she and her loyal colleagues virtually de- sastrous, including to Blair’s reputation. stroyed the power of Britain’s trade unions As in the case of the United States, it and launched the world’s first large-scale would seem that the relationship in Britain program of privatization. Only in the last between strong leadership and successful few years of her premiership did she suf- leadership is tenuous and may even, pos- fer from the hubris and mental self-isola- sibly, be negative. Among the acknowl- tion that led to her fall, coordinated by her edged strong leaders, the wartime Win- fellow Conservatives. ston Churchill and later Margaret Thatch- The case of Tony Blair is a strange one. er were undoubted successes; but Neville On the one hand, there can be no doubt Chamberlain and Edward Heath were

134 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences both failures as prime minister–Cham- harm than good, quite possibly a lot more Anthony berlain in the grand manner–and history harm. King will probably remember Tony Blair more 4) A successful liberal democracy is li- for his enthusiastic participation in the able to be one that is effectively “leader American-led invasion of Iraq than for any proofed,” one in which it is not made abso- of his other initiatives as prime minister. lutely impossible, but is made difficult, for Conversely, for example, Clement Attlee, a strong leader to acquire and wield power not so far mentioned in this essay, was one and in which the government does not rely of the most successful and respected prime on strong leaders for its long-term success. ministers of the modern era; but he laid 5) Leaders who rely on the advice only no claim to being a strong leader. He was of those whose advice they find congenial merely shrewd, calm, sensible and, when should be viewed with suspicion, especial- occasion required, stubborn. He was also, ly, but not only, if the group of acceptable famously, someone who never used one advice-givers is small and tightly knit, op- word when none would do. As in the Unit- erating to the exclusion of others. Colle- ed States, few modern British prime min- giality, in fact as well as form, makes for isters have been hopelessly inept, though better government than individuality, pro- Neville Chamberlain and one or two oth- vided individuals are permitted, indeed re- ers–including Anthony Eden, the princi- quired, to make their views known. pal author of Britain’s part in the aborted 6) Given that leaders, strong as well as Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in 1956, weak, are liable to illnesses, mental as well and Gordon Brown, once he succeeded in as physical, prudence suggests that ar- displacing Blair in 2007–have come close. rangements should be made in advance either to dispose of such leaders (as can easi- What inferences should we draw from ly be done in the case of British prime min- the above? The following half-dozen prop- isters) or to have their functions performed ositions–set out in terse summary form– by some other person or persons. are at least worth contemplating. Some are We began with Switzerland and can personal judgments, some are empirical hy- usefully end there. In 2015, a high-flying potheses, and some are a mixture of the two. Swiss banker (than whom few bankers fly 1) Many of the best-governed liberal de- higher) was asked at a private gathering to mocracies in the world–notably but not name the current Swiss prime minister. He only Switzerland–owe their good govern- confessed that he could not remember. He ment in large part to the fact that their po- thought it was a woman (it was), but even litical institutions and political culture ob- of that he could not be sure. Switzerland viate the need for strong leaders. must be one of the most thoroughly leader- 2) Strong leaders may on occasion be proofed countries on the planet. Being desirable, even essential, as in the case of leader-proofed does not seem to have done the United States during the Great De- Switzerland any harm. pression or Britain in 1940. But strong leaders should be allowed to emerge only on special occasions. A country constantly in need of strong leaders is a country in trouble. 3) Strong leaders are high-risk individuals. They may do good, but even in liberal democracies they are likely to do more

145 (3) Summer 2016 135 In Favor endnotes of “Leader 1 Proofing” Jonathan Steinberg, Why Switzerland? 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For a more detailed account of the workings of the Swiss political system, see Wolf Linder, Swiss Democracy: Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke, Hamp- shire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 2 Robert F. Kennedy, 13 Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), 37. It is not clear whether Kennedy deliberately absented himself from meetings of the actual Executive Committee. For the view that he did not go that far, see Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myth versus Reality (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012), 156. 3 Kennedy, 13 Days, 49. 4 For the quotation, see John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (Lon- don: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 669. Colville was one of Churchill’s private secretaries and the one personally closest to him. Anthony Eden, Churchill’s heir apparent, was out of the country at the time. Otherwise he would almost certainly have played–well or badly– the role played by Butler. 5 Robert E. Gilbert, The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 119. 6 See the quite detailed account in ibid., 120–122, of how the Eisenhower administration functioned before, as well as during, the president’s illness. Gilbert quotes Nixon as saying that Eisenhower had “set up the Administration in such a way that . . . it can go ahead despite the temporary absence of anyone.” It could, of course, be argued–and has been–that Eisen- hower’s style of government diminished his own decision-making capacity. See Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: John Wiley, 1960), 158–160. 7 Gilbert, The Mortal Presidency, 190. 8 While Reagan was recuperating in the hospital, the White House trio spoke with him every day and sought to give the impression that, despite his physical condition, he was fully in charge. However, a pair of well-informed journalists claimed later that one of the trio ad- mitted subsequently that “the hospital visits had been window dressing. In reality, the troika paid only brief visits to the ailing President, spending the rest of the time in the hospital caf- eteria, quietly keeping the government going for him.” See Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus, Landslide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 26. 9 Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (New York: Ba- sic Books, 2014), 1. 10 Daniel Kahneman comments mordantly: “The ceo of a successful company is likely to be called flexible, methodical, and decisive. Imagine that a year has passed and things have gone sour. The same executive is now described as confused, rigid, and authoritarian.” See Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2011), 206. 11 Fred I. Greenstein, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Barack Obama, 3rd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 188. 12 Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 168. 13 Greenstein, The Presidential Difference, 204. 14 On the economy, Bush listened to those who shared his determination to cut taxes even at the cost of vastly increasing the U.S. government’s indebtedness, and mostly closed his ears to those, including Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who inclined toward greater caution. See Graham K. Wilson, “President Bush and the Economy” in Assess- ing the George W. Bush Presidency: A Tale of Two Terms, ed. Andrew Wroe and Jon Herbert (Edin- burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 160–161. 15 Quoted in Greenstein, The Presidential Difference, 216–217.

136 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 16 Quoted in Robert Self, Neville Chamberlain: A Biography (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), Anthony 261. Chamberlain despised his predecessor, Baldwin. He wrote “I can’t do all the things that King S.B. did, as well as the things he didn’t do, and I consider that at present at any rate the latter are more important” (quoted in ibid., 262). 17 Ibid., 292. 18 At least George W. Bush was–and still is–widely regarded as being a generous and good-heart- ed person. Chamberlain’s most recent biographer admits to concluding finally that Cham- berlain was “an unpleasant man” and “a nasty piece of work.” See Nick Smart, Neville Cham- berlain (London: Routledge, 2010), xiv. 19 Quoted in Anthony King, “The Outsider as Political Leader: The Case of Margaret Thatcher,” British Journal of Political Science 32 (2002): 445. 20 Quoted in ibid., 447. 21 The adviser, Jonathan Powell, explains himself in The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 78.

145 (3) Summer 2016 137 Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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Inside Back cover: Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in 1945. The image belongs to the United Kingdom Gov- ernment and is held at the National Archives. President Barack Obama meets with Eurozone leaders on the Laurel Cabin patio during the g8 Summit at Camp David, Maryland, May 19, 2012. Photograph by Pete Souza, Official White House Photogra- pher. The image is a work of the U.S. Government.