Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-03T10:10:09.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Study of Political Leadership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Lester G. Seligman
Affiliation:
University of Chicago

Extract

      It is a lesser question for the partisans of democracy to find means of governing the people than to get the people to choose the men most capable of governing.
      Alexis de Tocqueville, in a letter to John Stuart Mill.

Politics by leadership is one of the distinguishing features of the twentieth century. If the eighteenth century enunciated popular sovereignty and direct democracy as a major theme in democratic thought and the nineteenth century was concerned with the challenge of stratification and group conflict, then twentieth century trends have made us sensitive to the role of leadership. The search for the values of security and equality have led to changes in the character of politics. If one were to delineate this newer pattern of a politics by leadership, it would include the following: (1) the shift in the center of conflict resolution and initiative from parliamentary bodies and economic institutions to executive leadership; (2) the proliferation of the immediate office of the chief executive from its cabinet-restricted status to a collectivity of co-adjuting instrumentalities; (3) the tendency toward increased centralization of political parties, with the subordination of the victorious parties as instruments for the chief executive; (4) the calculated manipulation of irrationalities by political leadership through the vast power-potential of mass communications; (5) the displacement of the amateur by the professional politician and civil servant; (6) the growth of bureaucracy as a source and technique of executive power but also as a fulcrum which all contestants for power attempt to employ; (7) the growth of interest groups in size, number and influence, with the tendency toward bureaucratization of their internal structure; (8) the changing role of the public that finds its effective voice in a direct and an interactive relation with the chief executive.

Type
Research on Political Parties and Leadership
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1950

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Kirchheimer, Otto, “Changes in the Structure of Political Compromise,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Vol. 9, pp. 264–89 (1941)Google Scholar.

2 On the leadership political trends, see Finer, Herman, The Future of Government (London, 1946), Ch. 1Google Scholar; Barker, Ernest, Reflections on Government (London, 1942), pp. 123 ff.Google Scholar; Jennings, W. Ivor, Cabinet Government (London, 1942)Google Scholar; Weber, Max, “Politics as a Vocation” in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1946), pp. 77128 Google Scholar; Herring, E. Pendleton, Presidential Leadership (New York, 1940)Google Scholar; Friedrich, Carl J., Constitutional Government and Democracy (New York, 1946), Ch. 18Google Scholar.

3 For the growing literature on “constitutional dictatorship,” see Watkins', Frederick M. essay, “The Problem of Constitutional Dictatorship,” in Friedrich, C. J. and Mason, Edward S. (eds.), Public Policy (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 324–79Google Scholar; Rogers, Lindsay, Crisis Government (New York, 1934)Google Scholar; Rossiter, Clinton L., Constitutional Dictatorship (Princeton, 1948)Google Scholar.

4 Studies of large-scale organizations indicate that formal centralization may in fact result in the devolution of authority to elements that are away from the center; thus formal centralization may well result in decentralization in terms of effective influence. This decentralization to other elements of leadership in the structure does not do violence to a conception of politics by leadership, but is quite consistent with it.

5 On England, see Fyfe, Hamilton, “Democracy and Leadership,” Nineteenth Century and After, Vol. 129, pp. 465–76 (May, 1941)Google Scholar; on France during the Popular Front regime, see Rogers, Lindsay, “Personal Power and Popular Government,” Southern Review, Vol. 3, pp. 225–42 (19371938)Google Scholar.

6 See Brecht, Arnold, “Constitutions and Leadership,” Social Research, Vol. 1, pp. 265–86 (May, 1934)Google Scholar. F. A. Hermens stresses the role of P. R. as a major deterrent to leadership in Democracy or Anarchy (Notre Dame, 1941)Google Scholar.

7 On this general theme see the stimulating essay by Salomon, Albert, “Leadership and Democracy,” in Ascoli, Max and Lehmann, Fritz (eds.), Political and Economic Democracy (New York, 1937), pp. 243–54Google Scholar.

8 We may note the resurgence of demands for “cabinet government” in America as an expression of this desire to institutionalize executive leadership. (Institutionalization may result in generating the “myth” of the leader although the capacities of the man are not in accord with the myth.)

9 Mannheim, Karl, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Fromm, Erich, Escape from Freedom (New York, 1941)Google Scholar.

10 See the interesting study by Merton, Robert K., Mass Persuasion (New York, 1947)Google Scholar. On bureaucratization and leadership generally, see Michels, Robert, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Eden, and Paul, Cedar trans.; Glencoe, 1949)Google Scholar, together with the writings of Gaetano Mosca and Max Weber.

11 A question asked by Adams, Brooks in The Law of Civilization and Decay (New York, 1943)Google Scholar.

12 The writer is engaged in preliminary research on the men of the “inner circle” of presidential leadership, in which this question, among others, is explored.

13 Joseph A. Schumpeter addresses himself to this question of reformulation of the conception of democratic politics in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (2d ed.; New York, 1947), Chs. 21–23Google Scholar. Schumpeter stretches his “theory of competitive leadership” too far in relegating the public to a mass-passivity status, and he does not go far enough in considering extra-governmental group factors in politics.

14 Locke's chapter “Of Prerogative” in his Second Treatise of Civil Government showed appreciation of the necessity of executive leadership in the democratic state.

15 See Schmitt, Carl, Staat, Bewegung, Volk (Hamburg, 1935)Google Scholar; Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Verfassung (Hamburg, 1937), pp. 90 ffGoogle Scholar; Williamson, René de Visme, “The Fascist Concept of Representation,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 3, pp. 2941 (Feb., 1941)Google Scholar; Faguet, Émile, The Cult of Incompetence (Barstow, Beatrice trans.; New York, 1911), among othersGoogle Scholar.

16 Illustrative are the following: Laski, Harold J., “The Personnel of the English Cabinet, 1801–1924,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 22, pp. 1231 (Feb., 1928)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heinberg, John G., “The Personnel Structure of French Cabinets,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 33, pp. 267–78 (April, 1939)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sorokin, Pitirim A., “Leaders of Labor and Radical Movements in the United States and Foreign Countries,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, pp. 382411 (Nov., 1927)Google Scholar; (for a summary of many such studies, Sorokin, Pitirim A., Social Mobility [New York, 1927])Google Scholar; Mason, John Brown, “Lawyers in the 71st to 75th Congress,” Rocky Mountain Law Review, Vol. 10, pp. 4352 (Dec., 1937)Google Scholar; McKinney, Madge M., “The Personnel of the Seventy-seventh Congress,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 36, pp. 6775 (Feb., 1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, J. F. S., Parliamentary Representation (London, 1948)Google Scholar; Brockway, Marion, A Study of the Geographical, Occupational, and Political Characteristics of Congressmen (M.A. thesis, University of Kansas, 1934)Google Scholar; Bourgin, Frank P., Personnel of the American Senate (M.A. thesis, Claremont College, 1933)Google Scholar. Consult especially Smith, Bruce Lannes, Lasswell, Harold D., and Casey, Ralph D., Propaganda, Communication and Public Opinion (Princeton, 1946)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for references to many studies on the social recruitment of political leadership.

17 See Lippit, Ronald, “Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology: Autocratic and Democratic Atmospheres,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 45, pp. 2649 (July 1939)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and also Bavelas, Alex and Lewin, Kurt, “Training in Democratic Leadership,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 37, pp. 115–19 (Jan., 1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other studies in small group leadership, see Pigors, Paul, Leadership or Domination (Boston, 1935)Google Scholar; Whitehead, Thomas N., Leadership in a Free Society (Cambridge, 1936)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Redl, Fritz, “Group Emotion and Leadership,” Psychiatry, Vol. 5, pp. 573–96 (Nov., 1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merei, Ferenc, “Group Leadership and Institutionalization,” Human Relations, Vol. 2, pp. 2340 (no. 4, 1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Lippit, loc. cit.

19 Lewin never committed this error. See “The Special Case of Germany,” in his post-humous Resolving Social Conflicts (New York, 1948)Google Scholar and note its kinship to Mary P. Follett's emphasis upon primary groups as the base of a dynamic citizenry. (Her collected papers appear as Dynamic Administration [New York, 1942]Google Scholar.) See also Lindsay's, Alexander Dunlop The Essentials of Democracy (Philadelphia, 1929)Google Scholar.

20 Political scientists, in developing our comparatively rich literature on urban political machines, long ago recognized the influence of primary contact relationships. See, for example, Forthal, Sonya, Cogwheels of Democracy (New York, 1946)Google Scholar; Salter, J. T., Boss Rule (New York, 1935)Google Scholar; Peel, Roy V., The Political Clubs of New York City (New York, 1936)Google Scholar.

21 The literature of this group is abundant and is largely summarized in Mayo, Elton, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization (Boston, 1945)Google Scholar. The most significant work for a theoretical treatment of leadership is Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, 1946)Google Scholar.

22 Political scientists should find much of relevance to their interests when the study of personal ascendancy in economic development, viz., business entrepreneurship, is advanced. See the following three papers, which were presented at the annual meeting of the Economic History Association, 1946, and which may be found in Supplement VI of the Journal of Economic History, entitled The Tasks of Economic History (1946): Cole, Arthur H., “An Approach to the Study of Entrepreneurship,” pp. 115 Google Scholar; East, Robert A., “The Business Entrepreneur in a Changing Colonial Economy, 1763–1795,” pp. 1627 Google Scholar; Destler, Chester McArthur, “Entrepreneurial Leadership among the ‘Robber Barons’: A Trial Balance,” pp. 2849 Google Scholar.

23 See the penetrating treatment by Barnard, Chester I., The Dilemmas of Leadership in the Democratic Process (Princeton, 1939)Google Scholar. One is tempted to ask whether these dilemmas are “abnormal” or whether they are not virtues of democracy.

24 Physique and Character (Sprott, W. J. H. trans., from the 2d rev. ed.; New York, 1931)Google Scholar.

25 Lebensformen (Halle, 1924)Google Scholar.

26 (Chicago, 1930). One of the significant virtues of Lasswell's work is that he has consistently viewed the leadership phenomenon in terms of its power and policy implications and in terms of a broad context of an empirical political theory.

27 Power and Personality (New York, 1948), p. 20 Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., p. 21.

29 See the forthcoming volume by my colleague, David Riesman, on the theme of politics and character structure in America.

30 The relational concept of leadership was elaborated some time ago by sociologists, notably Max Weber, Robert Michels, Georg Simmel and C. H. Cooley. See Knickerbocker, Irving, “Leadership: A Conception and Some Implications,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 4, pp. 2340 (Summer, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Stogdill, Ralph M., “Personal Factors Associated with Leadership: A Survey of the Literature,” Journal of Psychology, Vol. 25, p. 66 (Jan., 1948)Google ScholarPubMed.

32 The term is used by Redl, loc. cit.

33 Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, 1902), p. 294 Google Scholar. Chester I. Barnard, in addition to his contributions in other works cited, carefully analyzes this relational aspect of leadership in his chapter on “The Nature of Leadership,” in Organization and Management (Cambridge, 1948)Google Scholar.

34 See her Leadership and Isolation (New York, 1943)Google Scholar and her Leadership—A Dynamic Re-definition,” Journal of Educational Sociology, Vol. 17, pp. 431–33 (Mar., 1944)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an interesting application of these methods to discover “political leadership,” see the note by Loomis, Charles P., Ensminger, Douglas and Woolley, Jane, “Neighborhoods and Communities in County Planning,” Rural Sociology, Vol. 6, pp. 339–41 (Dec., 1941)Google Scholar; also Murphy, Albert J., “A Study of the Leadership Process,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 6, pp. 674–87 (Oct., 1941)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Jennings, , Leadership and Isolation, p. 204 Google Scholar. See also Pigors, op. cit., p. 16.

36 U. S. Office of Strategic Services, Assessment of Men; Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Service (New York, 1948)Google Scholar.

37 It should be emphasized that such a conception of politics entails no value presuppositions as to the inferiority of the public. It is not elitism. On the contrary, such an approach recognizes the vital and sustained role of the public in political direction.

38 It may be somewhat paradoxical to our notions that political influence is directly correlated with the degree of organization of interests, but if the relatively isolated are identified with the “white collar” floating vote, their isolation makes them most influential politically.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.