Session 18 – Political Executives and Leadership

- Executive
 Execution and implementation of policy
 Political executives, especially chief executives - face of politics with which the general
public is most familiar
 The executive is the source of political leadership
 Its role as the source of leadership – enhanced by media’s tendency to portray politics in
terms of personalities
- Division of government into:
 Legislative – makes law/enacts legislation
 Executive – implements law/executes legislation
 Judicial – interprets law/adjudication on the basis of law
for the separation of powers
- Distinction between political and bureaucratic executive – most clear in parliamentary systems:
 Political executive
o Elected politicians and ministers from the assembly
o Accountable to the assembly
o Make policies aligning with the political and ideological priorities of their party
o Oversee policy implementation
 Bureaucratic executive
o Civil servants
o Offer advice and administer policy
o Uphold political neutrality
o Loyal to their ministers
- This distinction:
 Most clear in parliamentary systems
 Overlap in presidential systems
 Communist regimes – the distinction is redundant
- There are various levels of status and responsibilities within the executive – members are not
equal – hierarchical structure organized according to a leadership structure:
1. Head of the state – President – largely symbolic authority and importance
2. Head of the government/chief executive – PM – carries our policy-making and political
responsibilities
3. Ministers and secretaries
 Have the responsibility of developing and implementing policy in specific areas
 Hierarchy amongst them as well – either due to
o The importance of their policy areas or
o Due to the entitlement to sit in the cabinet or senior committees
4. Bureaucrats and administrators – concerned with policy implementation
5. Enforcement agencies
 Police, armed forces
 Quasi-governmental bodies – ‘quangos’
  Help put government policy into effect
 However, the personnel are independent of the government
- The role of Cabinets:
 Policy-making power through collective leadership
 Offer advice
 Coordinate executive policy
- The political executive – provides leadership – performs the following roles:
 Ceremonial duties
 Control of policy-making
 Popular political leadership
 Bureaucratic management
 Crisis response
- Ceremonial Leadership
 These executives ‘stand for’ the state
 They represent the larger society and its unity
 Largely formal and ceremonial role
 Their role:
o Provides a focus for unity and political loyalty - helps to build legitimacy
o Foreign relations
o Allows those at the top of the executive to portray themselves as ‘national
leaders’ - vital to the maintenance of public support and electoral credibility
- Policy-making Leadership
 Their function is to direct and control the policy-making process
 They are expected to ‘govern’
 They are supposed to develop coherent economic and social programs
 They must control the state’s external relations in an increasingly interdependent world
 As a result, their legislative powers are increasing
- Popular Leadership
 The popularity of the executive – crucial to the character and stability of the regime
 The ability of the executive to mobilize support ensures compliance and cooperation of
the general public (popular support from people, charisma)
 Without support from the public – policy implementation is difficult
 The political executive’s authority – linked to the legitimacy of the regime
- Bureaucratic Leadership
 Executives have bureaucratic and administrative responsibilities
 They oversee policy implementation
 Therefore, they make up the ‘top management’ – run the machinery of the government
 Senior ministers – have responsibility for particular policy areas
 Bureaucrats – administer those areas
 Policy coordination done through the cabinet
- Crisis Leadership
 Executives have the ability to take swift and decisive action
  When crisis breaks out, the executive responds due to the scope for personal leadership
provided by its hierarchical structure
 Therefore – assemblies may grant executives near-dictatorial power in times of crisis
– ‘emergency powers’ – ‘states of emergency’
- 3 dimensions of power
 Formal – the constitutional roles of executive officers
 Informal – the role of personality, political skills, relationship with parties and the media
 External – political, economic, and diplomatic context of the government – pressures on
the executive branch (e.g., pressure from the military)
- President
 A formal head of the state
 Constitutional/non-executive vs executive presidents
 Constitutional/non-executive presidents
o Parliamentary systems
o Responsibilities confined to ceremonial duties
o A mere figurehead
o Main executive power is with the PM and/or cabinet
 Executive presidents
o Presidential systems
o Their powers may be limited or unlimited
o Limited by constitutional constraints, democracy, party competition, separation
of powers (legislative, executive, judicial), and a popularly elected assembly –
Congress as opposition parties in the USA – can impeach the president
o Unlimited – president invested with near-unchecked powers - dictatorships
 Semi-Presidential systems
o Combination of presidential and parliamentary systems
o A separately elected president invested with executive powers
o A government with a PM and a cabinet - drawn from and accountable to the
assembly
- Prime Ministers
 Parliamentary systems – parliamentary executives
 Accompanied by a constitutional or non-executive president – fills ceremonial duties
 This parliamentary political executive is drawn from the assembly
 The executive – responsible to the assembly – his government only survives if it has the
assembly’s confidence
 Greater pressure on the PM for collective decision-making and collaboration
 Cabinet has high power
 Two sets of key PM relationships:
o Relationships with cabinet, individual ministers, government departments
o Relationship with one’s party, assembly, and the public
 PM power has grown in recent years due to:
o Tendency to focus on personalities (through media)
o The growth of international politics – PMs as statesmen
 o Their control of the cabinet system – ability to appoint cabinet members
o Ability to dominate the assembly as leaders of the largest party
o Access to media – appealing to voters
- Cabinet
 Cabinets enable the government to present a collective face to the assembly and public
– without it, a government could be perceived as a personal tool used by one individual
 Ensure effective coordination of government
 Presidential systems:
o Cabinets serve the president
o Act as policy advisers
 Rise of PM power:
o Ensures that most decisions are made elsewhere and reach the cabinet in a
prepackaged form
o Weakens the cabinet – strengthens the PM’s control
o Cabinets have to remain loyal to the PM
- Democratic politics – has placed constraints on leadership by:
 Making leaders accountable
 Establishing an institutional mechanism through which they can be held accountable
and removed
- Democracy has increased the importance of personality – forced political leaders to ‘project
themselves’ in the hope of gaining electoral support
- Modern means of mass communication and media – provided politicians with the means to:
 Emphasize personalities rather than policies
 Act as weapons to manipulate their public images
 Communicate their personal vision to people, which might attract the public
- Theories of Leadership
 A natural gift
 A sociological phenomenon
 An organizational necessity
 A political skill
- A natural gift
 Nature
 Some people are destined to be leaders
o Extreme manifestation – Fascist leaders - Ubermensch – rises above ‘herd
mentality’
o Modest manifestation – charisma – power of personality
 Leadership as a strictly individual quality
 How authentic? - Cults of personality
 Harold Lasswell – leaders are motivated by their own pathological needs for power and
then justify it by claiming to work for the people
 James Barber – categorizations of ‘presidential character’ – US presidents –
psychological phenomenon in terms of human personality
o Active or passive – in terms of the energy they put into their jobs
 o Positive or negative – how they feel about political office
o 4 categorizations:
1. Active-positive
2. Active-negative
3. Passive-positive
4. Passive-negative
- A sociological phenomenon
 Nature
 Leaders are ‘created’ by socio-historical forces
o Marxists
 Historical development is structured by economic factors and a class
struggle
 Personalities of individual leaders – less important than the class
interests they stand for
 Society creates leaders – a manifestation of class differences
o Collective behavior as a basis for political leadership:
 Crowd psychology
 Leaders impelled by the collective behavior of the masses
- Organizational Necessity
 Leadership - an organizational necessity - arises from the need for coherence, unity, and
direction
 Legal-rational authority
- A political skill
 Leadership as a political skill that can be learned or practiced
 Cults of personality – a skill of manipulation – manufactured charisma - speeches,
media, rallies, party members
 Emotional intelligence – balance between rational and emotional - 4 key competencies:
o Self-awareness
o Self-management
o Empathy
o Relationship management
- 3 leadership styles
 Laissez-faire leadership
o Reluctance of the leader to interfere in matters outside his or her personal
responsibility
o Subordinates – given greater responsibility
o Fosters teamwork, harmony, and network
o Allows leaders to concentrate on political and electoral matters
o However, it can also lead to weak communication and the PM being unaware of
what his subordinates are doing
 Transactional leadership
o Transactional leaders adopt a positive role in policy-making and government
management
 o Negotiation and transactions
o Motivated by pragmatic goals and considerations
 Transformational leadership
o The leader is an inspirer or visionary
o Motivated by strong ideological convictions
o Have the will power to put these into practice
o Mobilize support from within the government, political parties, and the public
- Problems faced by political leaders:
 Failure to live up to high expectations that are formulated due to global influences
 Old ideological narratives breaking down – hard to formulate new compelling narratives
to have wide support
 Modern societies – diverse and fragmented – hard to construct a political appeal based
on common culture
 Political leaders – tend to be viewed as self-serving and out of touch

CLASS NOTES
- Military – cannot check the chief executive’s power because it comes under the government
- Bodies that can check the executive in a Liberal democracy:
 Judiciary
 Opposition parties
 Legislature
 The public through voting
 Cabinet – members of their own party
- Bills – how the executive proposes laws
- Russia and China – have parliaments, but their presidents have specialized powers, which may
often be skewed toward the president