Political Leadership

Abstract

Political leadership concerns those who play, in institutions, the decisive roles that determine “who gets what, when, how” (Lasswell, 1936). Power relations – and hence politics – exist in the smallest of groups, and leadership can be studied at every level – from the workgroup to global forums. Some social scientists understand leadership as a necessary social function within group and institutions, while others interpret it in terms of individual characteristics that seed the drive for power and facilitate success or failure in its exercise. The first approach drew on the foundational analyses of elite formation and bureaucratic rationalization (e.g., Michels, 1968 [1911]; Weber, 1961 [1922]), while the second drew on psychological theory as applied to the question of power (for example, Lasswell, 1977 [1930]). Both were later tempered by the emergence of social psychology; and the best contemporary work bridges institutional structure, historical context, group processes, and psychology (Elcock, 2001).