Good democratic leadership : on prudence and judgment in modern democracies [First edition.] 9780199683840, 0199683840

Table of contents :
Good democratic leadership / John Kane and Haig Patapan --
Populist resentment, elitist arrogance : two challenges to good democratic leadership / William A. Galston --
The tangled relationship of democracy, leadership, and justice in urban America : a view from Richmond / Thad Williamson --
When leaders are not good : exploring bad leadership in liberal democracies across time and space / Ludger Helms --
Civil society and good democratic leadership / Nannerl O. Keohane --
Democratic leadership and civil education / Bruce Miroff --
Emancipators' dilemmas : democratic leadership and the politics of equal rights / Rogers M. Smith --
Judgement and democratic leadership / Ian Shapiro --
The institutional approach to political leadership / Robert Elgie --
Good democratic leadership in foreign affairs : an elite-centered approach / Elizabeth N. Saunders --
Leadership judgement in economic affairs / John Kane --
Democratic leadership and the problem of future generations / Kenneth Ruscio --
Patriotic leadership in democracy / Haig Patapan.

Citation preview

Good Democratic Leadership

Good Democratic Leadership On Prudence and Judgment in Modern Democracies Edited by John Kane and Haig Patapan

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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © the several contributors 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013958186 ISBN 978–0–19–968384–0 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Contents

List of Contributors 

1. Good Democratic Leadership  John Kane and Haig Patapan

vii 1

2. Populist Resentment, Elitist Arrogance: Two Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership  William A. Galston

15

3. The Tangled Relationship of Democracy, Leadership, and Justice in Urban America: A View from Richmond  Thad Williamson

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4. When Leaders Are Not Good: Exploring Bad Leadership in Liberal Democracies across Time and Space  Ludger Helms

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5. Civil Society and Good Democratic Leadership  Nannerl O. Keohane

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6. Democratic Leadership and Civic Education  Bruce Miroff

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7. Emancipators’ Dilemmas: Democratic Leadership and the Politics of Equal Rights  Rogers M. Smith

109

8. Judgment and Democratic Leadership  Ian Shapiro

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9. The Institutional Approach to Political Leadership  Robert Elgie

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10. Good Democratic Leadership in Foreign Affairs: An Elite-Centered Approach  Elizabeth N. Saunders 11. Leadership Judgment in Economic Affairs  John Kane

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Contents

12. Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Future Generations  Kenneth Ruscio

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13. Patriotic Leadership in Democracy  Haig Patapan

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Index 

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List of Contributors

Elgie, Robert, Professor of Politics, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Dublin. Galston, William A., Senior Fellow and Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, Brookings Institution, Washington DC. Helms, Ludger, Professor and Chair of Comparative Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck. Kane, John, Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Brisbane. Keohane, Nannerl O., Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton. Miroff, Bruce, Professor of Politics and Collins Fellow, Department of Political Science, State University of New York, Albany, NY. Patapan, Haig, Director, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Brisbane. Ruscio, Kenneth, Professor of Politics and University President, Washington and Lee University, Lexington. Saunders, Elizabeth N., Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington DC. Shapiro, Ian, Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven. Smith, Rogers M., Professor of Politics, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Williamson, Thad, Associate Professor, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond.

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1 Good Democratic Leadership John Kane and Haig Patapan

This book is a contribution to the study of democratic leadership, an important but relatively neglected area of leadership studies.1 We first explored the subject in Dispersed Democratic Leadership (Kane, Patapan, and ’t Hart 2009), which investigated the democratic tendency to disperse leadership throughout society and the implications of this for democratic governance. Then in The Democratic Leader (Kane and Patapan 2012) we examined the unique challenges that democratic leaders face because of democracy’s core animating principle, sovereignty of the people, which necessitates them acting as specifically representative leaders who must daily exercise sovereignty on the people’s behalf. We argued that the combination of sovereign power and representative role creates a permanent tension in democracies that imposes onerous demands on leaders that must nevertheless be sustained and managed if genuinely democratic authority is to be safeguarded. In this final book of the trilogy we confront the perennial hopes of democratic citizens for good leadership and address the question of how such leadership may be fostered and secured in modern democracies. Each contributor takes up an important aspect of this question to see whether and to what extent democracy may be said to support good leadership. In this introductory chapter we will first reflect on the meaning and nature of modern democracy by focusing specifically on its historical amalgamation with liberalism. We then examine the notion of practical reason or judgment on the assumption that good leadership must depend crucially on a capacity for good judgment. We contrast classical conceptions of judgment with modern ones to argue that modern theorists effectively “democratized” judgment in a way that caused its reduction to two mutually incompatible conceptions: amoral, self-interested calculation on the one side; and the application of 1

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strict moral imperatives on the other. We claim that, if good leadership is to be properly understood, we need to return to a more unified account of judgment in which interests and ethics are not necessarily opposed. We then outline five major themes this book seeks to explore, namely: the definition or meaning of good democratic leadership; the question of the education of leaders and of citizens; the conditions required to make democratic leadership effective; the importance of institutions and their influence on leadership performance; and, finally, some enduring challenges to securing good leadership in democracies.

Democracy and Liberalism Modern democracies share many common features, though their specific histories, cultures, and traditions differ greatly. General definitions of democracy usually focus on institutions, such as a foundational constitution, the entrenchment of rule of law, representation based on one-person-one-vote and regular, free, and fair elections. Democracies are also defined in terms of what they protect and secure, notably freedom of speech, the rights of minorities, and human rights. More broadly, there is the sense of democracy as the political system that recognizes the dignity and equal political authority of each person.2 The important thing to note for our purposes, however, is that modern democratic regimes embody two distinct principles, the liberal and the democratic, which impose different demands on leaders. In terms of historical origins, democracy is certainly much older than liberalism, tracing its sources to the distant past, most famously to ancient Greece where democracy was the regime in which the “demos” or people ruled. Though of more recent provenance, liberalism, with its theoretical architecture elaborated in sixteenth-century Europe, precedes the democratic revolutions initiated by the French Revolution that subsequently washed across the modern world.3 Though liberalism could be made compatible with democratic government (as our modern forms prove), the central principle of democracy was arguably at odds with that of liberalism. The extreme modern form of the democratic principle, developed by the French political philosopher Rousseau in his famous The Social Contract (1978), alleged that the people’s sovereign will should be untrammelled by constitutions, rules, and laws, whether divine or natural. This presented a stark contrast with the core principle of liberalism, which posited individual rights and freedoms as both the source of government authority and the measure of that authority’s proper limits. In liberal thought the people’s will must always be subject to constitutive and constitutional or legal constraints that seek to protect natural (later, human) rights. 2

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When we speak of contemporary democracies, therefore, we are in fact referring to an historical amalgam of popular sovereignty and liberalism, each of which endorses a certain suspicion of leadership, though for different reasons. Liberalism is perennially wary of executive government because it suspects that leaders will inevitably seek power that may threaten individual liberties. Democracies may sometimes endorse powerful leaders—hence the perennial fear that they will lapse into demagogic populism—but democrats also typically fear that leaders will subvert the regime by favoring rule by an elite few. These different ways in which democracy and liberalism regard rule present overlapping but distinct challenges to leadership, and thus are important in understanding what we mean by good leadership in a modern democracy. In general we may say that liberalism forces leaders to act always within the confining constraints of law (constitutional and otherwise), while democracy places them under the necessity of a permanent and pervasive accountability to the public. The combination of democratic and liberal suspicion has resulted in the imposition of an extraordinary web of constraints on democratic leaders that requires a peculiarly alert and circumspect form of judgment to negotiate with any success. Before addressing that, however, we must consider the meaning of judgment, and note its radical diminishment in modern political thought.

Leadership and Judgment Leadership studies have, until quite recently, suffered some neglect in political science, although the role and significance of leading individuals in politics are themes of long lineage. Even a cursory glance at classic works—Plato’s Republic, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Aristotle’s Politics and Ethics, Cicero’s On Duties and Offices, Plutarch’s Lives, the pious admonitions of Augustine’s Confessions, Renaissance “mirrors of princes” like Erasmus’ famous The Education of the Christian Prince and the provocatively modern and innovative The Prince of Machiavelli—reveals an extended meditation on what makes a good leader. The discipline of history, too, before it aspired to be a science, was conceived as the study of the political actions of those who exercised power and authority, and considered essential for the education of good leaders. Central to all such literature was the issue of leadership judgment. One of the most influential strands of classical thought relating to this was Aristotle’s discussion in his Ethics of phronesis (usually translated as prudence or judgment). This he located within a wide range of human cognition— from thought itself (dianoia), to wisdom (sophia), understanding or sense (nous), cleverness (deinos) and perception (aesthesis)—though judgment was 3

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the preeminent political virtue. Good judgment (which was to be distinguished from poiesis, the knowledge of how to make things) comprehended both virtue of character and the exercise of sound reasoning, and it required practice and maturity for its development. Though Aristotle thought we may meditate in private on the nature and meaning of judgment, he contended that good judgment could be discerned only in practice, when someone acts decisively within a context of immediate and particular demands and constraints.4 This Aristotelian understanding of judgment did not fare well, however, in the early modern world. Influential thinkers, intent on liberating human thought from scholasticism (which had made Aristotelian philosophy the handmaiden of theology), produced a much diminished version of Aristotle’s account of judgment. Later currents of thought went even further in seeking to limit, or in some cases deny altogether, the significance of what we now call individual “agency.” Under a prevailing preoccupation with the systemic economic, historical, or material forces that shape politics, individual practical judgment became a matter of minor significance or even irrelevance. Contemporary leadership studies might therefore be seen as, in an important sense, an attempt to recover individual judgment from this historical occlusion. There remains, however, a significant obstacle to retrieving a comprehensive account of judgment of the Aristotelian kind in our modern world. The capacity to judge well was, for Aristotle, a practical and ethical virtue acquired over time, one to be nurtured and developed in political life both by citizens and those in office. Yet because this judgment is a matter of character, ability, and experience, it cannot be supposed to be possessed by everyone to the same extent. This would seem to raise the problem of how a political system may ensure that its leaders are among those who possess the quality of judgment the polity needs. Yet a more serious obstacle is presented by regimes founded on a principle of fundamental equality, which may have serious difficulty in acknowledging or deferring to the supposedly superior judgment of the relatively few. The strong egalitarian strain in modern political thought tried to meet this challenge by democratizing judgment, which is to say by claiming that everyone possesses good judgment. In doing so, however, it split the unified Aristotelian conception into two mutually exclusive parts. In Aristotelian judgment, a person with practical wisdom was assumed to act for the best in a way that did not divide, nor even distinguish between, what we now call “ethics” and “interests.” The modern movement, however, reduced judgment on the one hand to an instrumental calculation of selfish interests (upon which one will inevitably act) and, on the other, to a recognition of selfless moral imperatives (upon which one ought, ideally, to act). The consequences of this double reduction are still evident in contemporary political thought and practice. 4

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One of the seminal thinkers in the first reduction was Hobbes, who repudiated claims to superior judgment by saying: “A plain husband-man is more Prudent in affaires of his own house, then a Privy Counseller in the affaires of another man” (Hobbes 1968: 138). All of us, according to Hobbes, possess sound judgment in relation to our own welfare. In fact prudent judgment for Hobbes turns out to be nothing more than a calculation or chain of reasoning (admittedly pursued with variable celerity, depending on the individual) that determines how I can gain what I desire. This democratization of judgment led ultimately to the shallows of modern utilitarianism and the positivist’s dead-end of rational choice theory, or the narrow, egoistic bargaining of game theory. Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, defeated the inegalitarianism of Aristotelian judgment by arguing that the most important judgments were moral ones, and these were within reach of all. Like Hobbes, Kant interpreted prudence as an instrumental virtue serving self-interest, but argued that its requirements were always veiled in impenetrable obscurity so that “much prudence is required to adapt the practical rule founded on it to the ends of life, even tolerably, by making proper exceptions.” By contrast, the moral law defining duty was accessible even to the “commonest unpractised understanding.” For Kant, the concept of duty “in its complete purity is incomparably simpler, clearer and more natural and easily comprehensible to everyone than any motive derived from, combined with, or influenced by happiness, for motives involving happiness always require a great deal of resourcefulness and deliberation” (cited in Beiner 1984: 64–65). Kant’s democratization of judgment thus severed moral duty from broader practical judgments in a manner that made their reconciliation almost inconceivable, placing an intolerable burden on political leaders expected to effect such a reconciliation in their actions. High moral demands for ethical leadership inevitably produced an idealism that was often oblivious to or disdainful of “grubby” political judgment. The attempt to democratize good judgment by making it general thus led in two contradictory directions, producing the radical bifurcation of attitude characteristic of our age: on the one hand, judgment is treated as, at best, amoral calculation; on the other it is taken as the discernment and pursuit of moral duty, oblivious of consequences. Methodological cynicism confronts unworldly idealism in a perpetual, irresolvable stand-off. Any study of good leadership must find a way of binding together what modernism has thus rent asunder, comprehending political judgment as transcending a simplistic choice between selfish calculation and ethical action. Such a binding requires that we regard good judgment as a holistic faculty that can be nurtured and developed through exercise. We may also learn from studies of exemplary leadership, though equally but contrarily instructive may be cases where leaders have shown poor judgment. 5

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In either case, any lessons learned will depend on a sound appreciation of the specific context of demands and constraints leaders face when exercising judgment. A focus on judgment and agency makes individual character central, but capacities of character have meaning only within specific contexts of decision and action. Making sense of the actions and thoughts of leaders demands a clear understanding of the contingent historical circumstances that gives meaning to their acts of leadership, making those acts determinative, for better or worse, without ever being imagined to be predetermined.

Democratic Leadership Themes Specific contexts inevitably include particular historical circumstances, institutions, and offices, and the variable constraints and opportunities these impose on what may be assessed as either feasible or impossible.5 In this book we are concerned with specifically democratic contexts which, while showing commonalities across countries, are also variable due to such different institutional arrangements and histories. It is worth stating that we take it for granted that leadership matters in a democracy, whatever its institutional form. Yet we also observe that leaders occupy an always ambivalent place in democracies. This may seem surprising since, if we take leadership to be the exercise of prudent judgment for the sake of the common good, democracy would seem on the face of it to provide an ideal context. It is, after all, the most inclusive of regimes, valuing open and transparent government and allowing extensive deliberation, the very conditions, we might imagine, for permitting good judgment and fostering good leadership. If we presume that democracy is the best form of government, surely we should expect it to produce the best type of leadership. And yet we know that democratic peoples are often deeply disappointed in their leaders, whatever hopes they may entertain for them initially. Indeed it has been argued that the features of a democracy that make it distinctively democratic also make it the regime least favorably disposed toward good leadership. Democratic citizens might prefer to believe that democracy will in general nurture, encourage, and sustain good judgment, but the heads of authoritarian regimes typically claim otherwise, pointing to the fickleness, messiness, and short-termism of democratic politics to argue that these provide infertile ground for wise judgment. We have argued elsewhere that the ever-questionable legitimacy of leaders in democracies, the strict and comprehensive institutional limits placed on leadership discretion, and the constant need to seek a mandate through political speech and electoral cycles make the democratic leadership role uniquely difficult and challenging (Kane and Patapan 2012). 6

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The research program we have set here, therefore, is to investigate whether democracy can be considered conducive to good leadership judgment or whether, contrarily, it tends to inhibit it. Each contribution in this book addresses in subtle and nuanced terms this seminal issue. Despite the rich variety of themes and approaches exhibited, each essay deals in different ways and to varying extents with one or more of five significant, interlocking themes. These are: how to define good democratic leadership; the importance of education of both leaders and citizens; the issue of leadership effectiveness; institutional influences on leadership; and some specific and enduring challenges to good democratic leadership. Let us briefly introduce each in turn.

Defining Good Democratic Leadership All the contributors to this collection consider what good democratic leadership might mean, both ideally and in practice. Several note its intrinsic difficulty. William Galston (Chapter 2) observes that leadership is generally distinguished from simple command by the fact that leaders must of necessity, through speech and example, persuade followers to follow with more or less willingness. In democratic contexts the ability to craft persuasive speech is obviously central, but rhetoric will be popularly judged as empty unless backed by meaningful action that is seen to align with it. Consistency of speech and action is, however, more difficult to achieve than might be thought, precisely because of what Galston calls “the psychology of democracy,” which includes: a leveling tendency; suspicion of power, authority, and hierarchy; mistrust of representatives; and a demand for complete transparency and accountability. These attitudes tempt leaders to flatter rather than to be frank, to evade or conceal difficult but necessary choices rather than face public outrage, and to make promises that cannot be met. Galston argues that democratic psychology thus produces a tension with leadership that can deform the polity, but that good leadership is not therefore in principle incompatible with democracy. It demands, however, a specific (and perhaps uncommon) virtue in democratic leaders, namely “democratic humility: the belief that the legitimacy of your power ultimately depends on the will of the people and not just on your own merit.” This is a question that recurs in Thad Williamson’s fine-grained study of democratic leadership in the challenging local politics of Richmond, Virginia (Chapter 3). Williamson gives us compelling portraits of three mayors with three very different styles of leadership, not all of whom display Galston’s democratic humility. His paper also touches on several of our emerging themes, especially effectiveness and institutions, as he asks us to consider the tensions between the demand for effectiveness and what might be considered a model of democratic leadership that emphasizes participation, deliberation, 7

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and the distribution of power and authority. The perhaps disturbing lesson is that even a talented and instinctively democratic leader, lacking institutional control and authority, inevitably fails to deal with the city’s deep structural problems, while “strong” leaders who attempt to centralize and utilize institutional power suffer a democratic backlash leading to stalemate. The chapter is also instructive on what makes for good democratic leadership in such difficult circumstances. Ludger Helms (Chapter 4) takes the negative road to the question by considering what bad democratic leadership looks like. In confronting the contrary issue of defining “badness” he notes how the cultural and institutional restrictions of liberal democracies generally prevent the worst types of badness—­ oppression, violence, murder. Democratic citizens more often identify bad leadership with ineffectiveness or inefficiency rather than with unethical behavior. Helms performs a comparative survey seeking patterns of bad leadership across democracies but finds none that are compelling. Bad leadership, it seems, can occur anywhere at any time and, moreover, is suspected by citizens of being more prevalent now than formerly. Helms notes that the already difficult conditions for providing effective, authentic, and responsible public leadership in democracies have become radically worse since the efflorescence of “an increasingly hostile, complex and fragmented media environment.” The lesson seems to be that, while democracies are effective in institutionally minimizing certain types of bad leadership, they have no clear way of normatively ensuring or promoting good leadership.

Democratic Leadership and Education Helms believes that to promote good leadership smart institutions and a firm commitment to good democratic leadership among both citizens and leaders have to come together. It is a statement of necessary mutuality that echoes arguments by other contributors to this volume, especially those who address leadership and education. As noted above, much of the classical treatment of leadership focused specifically on the education of leaders, but in the democratic context this theme must also encompass the possible educative role of leaders with respect to democratic citizens. Thus Nannerl Keohane (Chapter 5) reflects on citizen engagement in civic associations as an important means for providing an education in specifically democratic forms of leadership and citizenship. Addressing the inevitable tensions afflicting leadership in a political system in which “the people” are supposed to rule, either in person or through representatives, she draws on Aristotle’s conception of political rule as equal citizens learning to rule and be ruled in turn, and Tocqueville’s impressions of American civil associations as intermediaries between state and citizen. Through participation in the best of 8

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these associations, Keohane argues, citizens gain practical skills while developing self-confidence and a sense of mutual respect. They learn what it means to govern through contest, compromise, and the formation of effective alliances, in the process honing their faculties of political judgment. Leadership in civic society thus becomes (or can become) a “school for democratic leadership”—­which leads to concern about the health of democratic culture if, as Robert Putnam has observed, these associations are in decline. Bruce Miroff (Chapter 6) is also concerned with citizen capacities and virtues but approaches them from the perspective of political leaders and their responsibility to educate citizens. Does good democratic leadership, he asks, necessarily include such responsibility? Clearly, continuous communication is necessary between leaders and citizens in a democracy, but such communication, Miroff argues, can take any of three forms: instrumental (simple and sometimes manipulative communication suited to a minimalist democracy in which leaders compete for the electoral support of an essentially passive citizenry); civic republican (the most self-consciously educative form, aimed at transcending self-interested motives and creating an active, deliberative, self-governing citizen body committed to the common good); and populist mobilization (which assumes an adversarial view in which citizens must be mobilized to protect their rights against powerful domestic forces that distort democracy and make a mockery of any supposed common good). Miroff notes that leaders may employ each of these modes of communication on different occasions. Unusually, he has a particularly good word to say for the educative effects of the conflictual politics of populist mobilization. He takes seriously the scepticism of those who question the long-range effectiveness of any attempts of leaders to educate, but concludes that historic democratic transformations usually feature a symbiosis between leadership vision and the heightened commitment of followers. Thus for Miroff: “Civic education that illuminates the field of power and calls citizens to take a stand in an ongoing political struggle remains one of the hallmarks of good democratic leadership.”

Democratic Leadership and Effectiveness That good leadership must be measured, at least in part, by its apparent effectiveness in achieving goals is an assumption that informs all of the chapters assembled here. In two, however, it is explicitly central. Rogers Smith’s (­Chapter 7) contribution on emancipatory movements in America looks at the effectiveness or otherwise of historical leadership attempts to promote a progressive agenda in American politics. His instructive study is the informal alliance between Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery activists of his day, which led ultimately to the end of slavery in the United States. This was, to 9

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say the least, a very awkward and contentious alliance, but Smith’s point is that that was precisely its virtue. At issue was the question of how far and how fast forces of progress might go before the forces of reaction and resistance brought matters to a halt and further entrenched the status quo. The Lincoln–abolitionist alliance represented an effective division of labor in which the impatient activists stirred up reform ardor at crucial moments while the more conservative, but sympathetic and politically adept, leader leveraged governmental power to the common end as circumstances permitted. It was a pattern that subsequent reformers tried to repeat but with less success due to a combination of poor choices, unfavorable circumstances, or the lack of a leader of Lincoln’s acuity, at least until the alliance of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson that brought about the outlawing of racial segregation. Smith’s essay reveals how difficult good democratic leadership (defined in terms of effectiveness) can be, and how dependent it is on crucial political alliances. The same point is made by Ian Shapiro (Chapter 8), who examines the qualities required of good leaders—tactical and strategic judgment, empathy, moral judgment, a good deal of luck—but also notes the importance of courage. He demonstrates the latter point by examining the long and difficult negotiations between F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela that led to the new democratic South Africa. The unlikelihood of this alliance holding under the pressure of mutual mistrust and the spoiling maneuvers of extremists on either side meant that the leaders had to take a strategically hopeful but very risky stance. The positive outcome achieved was a tribute to the courage and leadership shown by both men but never a foregone conclusion, a point demonstrated by a comparison with the cases of Northern Irish and Palestinian– Israeli negotiations. Lastly, Shapiro notes that democracy depends absolutely on leaders relinquishing their hold on power when the time comes. “For much of human history,” he notes, “the most powerful have prevailed until their hold on power began to atrophy. . . . The democratic experiment appeals to the idea that a world in which no one can dominate in that way is better for all concerned.”

Democratic Leadership and Institutions As Helms notes, democratic institutions with their legally entrenched array of limitations and constraints are generally efficacious in controlling and moderating the worst excesses of unlimited leadership, but can in no way guarantee good leadership. Indeed the very dense web of legal restrictions that liberal democracy endlessly spins can often be seen as an obstacle to effective leadership, which must by its nature be afforded some discretionary space. Yet there is a wider question about the relative influence of different 10

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types of liberal democratic institutional arrangement on the capacities of leadership. These are addressed specifically here by Robert Elgie (Chapter 9). Elgie writes that, in the institutionalist approach to leadership, there has long been the theoretical assumption that parliamentary systems are more likely to generate better leadership outcomes than presidential ones, but surprisingly, he notes, empirical research fails to support this. Elgie’s chapter, which amounts to a cogent critique of reductionist institutionalist approaches, shows how poorly institutionalists have handled the problems of equifinality (where different starting points can lead to identical outcomes) and multifinality (where similar starting points lead to quite different outcomes). He illustrates his argument by using the debate about the relative impact of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential regimes on democratic performance, concluding that we must be “very careful drawing conclusions about the implications of institutional analysis for good and bad leadership.” Political leadership is shaped by multiple institutions, while factors of individual personality and particular circumstances will always make the institutionalist approach essentially probabilistic at best. Elgie nevertheless holds out the hope that a suitably reformed and more complex institutionalism will make an important contribution to reducing the uncertainties of political analysis and establishing an agenda for good leadership.

Enduring Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership The remaining four chapters in our volume each examine a different enduring challenge to good democratic leadership, specifically in the conduct of foreign policy, in economic management, in securing intergenerational justice, and in negotiating the perils of modern patriotism. Elizabeth Saunders (Chapter 10) notes the decisive importance of good leadership in foreign policy, given the security stakes involved. She also observes that leaders often have a more significant impact on foreign than domestic policy, while citizens are generally quite uninformed on foreign issues. Her question, then, is how democracies may choose leaders who will perform well in this arena. Her answer is that this must be a field in which an elite-centric account of democracy holds sway, because it is among various elite actors and groups that foreign policy issues are debated and studied. Elites therefore will be in the best position to judge among leaders, good and bad. Yet elites are not monolithic, being generally divided among themselves while also remaining within the orbit of public accountability and public education. They must play a central moderating role between leadership and citizenry, especially as leadership in foreign policy implies independent, timely, level-headed strategic judgment in the name of the national interest, sometimes possibly in defiance of prevailing popular sentiment. 11

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She concludes that, “While imperfect, this system can insulate the leader enough to permit him significant autonomy on foreign affairs, while an elite audience serves as the voters’ first line of defense if he steps outside the range of acceptable policies.” John Kane (Chapter 11) tackles the problem of leadership management of the economy, which in commercial democracies, is absolutely central to citizen concerns and to leaders’ electoral survival. He takes a sobering view of the odds against good leadership judgment in this field because leaders are the essential hinge between economy and democratic polity, and face the problem of satisfying the sometimes conflicting demands of both. Being generally non-economists they must rely in their judgment on the advice of economists or economic “players” whose theories may be skewed by ideology and vested interests. The overbearing influence of commercial interests in political processes is also perennially problematic, an issue that took on greater significance during the recent crisis when large financial firms were treated as not only too big to fail but too big to jail, therefore above the law, because their collapse would irreparably damage the global economy. The very openness of democracy, Kane argues, seems to have resulted in an inadvertent transfer of power to non-accountable corporations against whom democratic leaders, with their ever fragile and contingent authority, find it very difficult to mount an effective challenge. Yet at critical historical points democratic leaders have managed to respond effectively to these challenges and may have to do so again if severe crises recur. Kenneth Ruscio (Chapter 12) examines another, perhaps even more intractable issue for democratic leaders, namely the problem of intergenerational justice. Our democratic political systems, says Ruscio, enable us to capture benefits for ourselves and transfer the costs to others, most notably to future generations. Current structures and assumptions exacerbate this problem rather than relieving it. Thus in an era when policy questions with a long time horizon are becoming more prevalent and pressing, Ruscio suggests it is time to offer a new normative argument to leaders and citizens, one that transcends normal calculations of interest. By considering what the current generation has inherited from the sacrifices of generations past, he argues, we may admit our obligations to, and need to sacrifice for, those that will come after us. Our task, he concludes, is to do as James Madison and even Adam Smith have done before us, which is to appeal to the “better angels of our nature.” Finally, Haig Patapan (Chapter 13) considers what he calls the challenge of modern patriotism to good democratic leadership. It is naturally demanded of democratic leaders that they act patriotically in putting the interests of their own nation and state above those of all others, yet democratic procedures and ideals are, of their nature, universal and thus transcend the 12

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parochial demands of patriotism. This seems to present potential policy dilemmas for democratic leaders. Patapan explores the issue theoretically by examining the nature of modern patriotism, contrasting the classical political conception of love of one’s own country with the Hobbesian innovation of modern constitutionalism, and then the modern nationalism that developed in reaction to the coolness of Hobbes’s constitutional patriotism. He argues that these three forms did not simply supersede one another but continue to coexist in contemporary politics. Democratic leaders thus must confront a modern politics of patriotism where at any one time three powerful contending notions of patriotism—traditional, modern, and nationalistic— vie for authority, with perplexing results that he illustrates with the example of illegal immigration in the United States. This patriotic challenge to good leadership presents a problem, he argues, that democratic leaders must perpetually negotiate but cannot resolve.

Concluding Comment These summaries can only hint at the richness and depth of the scholarship presented in these chapters, but we believe that our five themes provide an important starting point for understanding good democratic leadership. The nature of democratic leadership and its relation to judgment are topics that have received insufficient attention from contemporary scholars of political science. We would like to see that deficiency corrected, and hope that the current contributions will be a stimulus for others to engage in a broader and deeper conversation on good democratic leadership and its prospects for the future.

Notes 1. Research for this project was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, in collaboration with the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University. We are pleased to acknowledge the participants of a 2013 Symposium held at Yale University where these chapters were first presented, as well as the able editorial assistance of Dr Daniela di Piramo. 2. See, for example, Democracy Index ; Polity Data ; Human Development Index . 3. On the ‘waves of democracy’ see Huntington (1991). 4. See especially the discussion of judgment in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6. 5. The recent scholarship on followership shows the importance of this aspect of context: see, for example, Kellerman (2008).

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Bibliography Beiner, Ronald 1984, Political Judgment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Hobbes, Thomas [1651] 1968, Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson (ed.), Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. Huntington, Samuel 1991, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Kane, John, Patapan, Haig and ‘t Hart, Paul (eds) 2009, Dispersed Democratic Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits Its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kellerman, Barbara 2008, Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques [1762] 1978, On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Discourse on Political Economy, R. Masters (ed.), trans. J. Masters, St Martin’s Press, New York.

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2 Populist Resentment, Elitist Arrogance: Two Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership William A. Galston

Good democratic leadership honors two principles—legitimacy and capability. The principle of legitimacy asserts that all rightful political power rests, directly or indirectly, on public authorization. (James Madison termed this the “republican principle.” ) The principle of capability asserts that leaders should possess the ensemble of knowledge, skill, and character needed to do their job well in the circumstances within which they must act. A democratic process for selecting leaders is well ordered to the extent that it enables the people to authorize leaders with the requisite characteristics. Good democratic leaders meet both tests; the willingness of those with knowledge, skill, and character to honor the people’s right to choose their leaders is what I call democratic humility. This schematic account suggests that good democratic leadership is subject to two opposed deformations. On one side stands populism, in which the principle of legitimacy trumps capability. The moral and civic quality of citizens is held to imply that all citizens are equally capable of governing. The practical expression of this distortion is the use of the lot to choose leaders. On the other side stands elitism, in which capability trumps legitimacy: the superior ability to govern is taken to imply the right to govern. At the end of this road lies the seizure of power, irrespective of what the people may want. Between populism and elitism stands good democratic leadership—men and women with the relevant capacities who have also developed democratic humility. These capacities include the ability to understand and articulate the public culture of democratic community; to do what is required to maximize 15

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persuasion and popular consent; to time key decisions and actions so as to seize moments of opportunity; and to maintain moral balance in times of national emergency.

Democratic Leadership and Human Excellence Everywhere and always, political communities need good leaders. It does not follow that all forms of political organization are equally hospitable to the leadership they need. There is a perennial worry that democracy and leadership are fundamentally at odds. I shall argue that while there is no contradiction between leadership and democratic principles, there is certainly a tension between leadership and the psychology of democracy. Some of this tension is productive, but much of it is not. Taken too far, the passions and emotions characteristic of democracy become a syndrome that weakens democracy. We may wonder whether the excellences of leadership are everywhere and always the same. In Politics (1984: III, 4), Aristotle famously argues that the virtues of citizens are relative to the regime, which means that good citizens are not necessarily good human beings. But what about leaders? Aristotle seems to suggest that the virtues of good rulers are the same as the virtues of good men, which are the same in all times and circumstances. If that were so, there would be nothing distinctive about democratic leadership. But the matter is more complicated. Near the beginning of Politics, Aristotle grounds politics in the human capacity for speech, and he goes on to argue that political leadership is qualitatively different from other kinds of rule in that it is “over free and equal persons” (1984, 43: I.2, I.7). Politics involves a relationship among human beings who are not in principle rightly subject to either coercion or command. The core of political rule is persuasion—the ability to induce agreement about what should be done to preserve and improve the community. On the eve of Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration, outgoing president Harry Truman is said to have remarked that Ike “will say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ and nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the army” (cited in Singh 2003: 128). Although Truman failed to grasp how much of Eisenhower’s success as supreme commander of the allied forces had rested on his powers of conciliation through persuasion, he was right about the underlying principle: the essence of politics is coordination of wills through persuasion rather than through unchallenged commands and unquestioning obedience. Whether good leadership is always and everywhere the same depends on whether the capacity for persuasion is the same in all political circumstances. To clarify this issue, we must turn to Rhetoric, in which Aristotle ­identifies three sources of persuasion—character, emotion, and argument. 16

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On inspection, all three prove to be relative in different ways to the political context in which one is operating. In the first place, certain kinds of character traits will commend speakers to their audience in particular contexts but not elsewhere. As Aristotle puts it, “We ought to be acquainted with the characters of each form of government; for in reference to each, the character most likely to persuade must be that which is characteristic of it” (Aristotle 1967: 89). While certain traits—such as probity in financial matters and devotion to the common good—are universally prized in politics, others are more regime-specific. The latter are traits that promote a regime’s distinctive ends. If the end of democracy is liberty, then democratic citizens will prize traits seen as defending liberty. (From a democratic perspective, it would be hard to improve on “Give me liberty or give me death.”) In an Aristotelian spirit, we can add that while some valued traits promote a regime’s ends, others reflect and honor its core beliefs. So if equal opportunity and upward mobility are prized, as they are in the United States, then some who started with nothing and took advantage of the chance to “work her way up” will be regarded as possessing admirable traits of character—grit and determination, among others. As American history repeatedly shows, these traits commend themselves to democratic electorates and to their representatives. (No doubt Sonia Sotomayor’s inspiring rise from obscurity eased her confirmation as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.) Similarly, there are passions and emotions more characteristic of democratic polities than others. For example, people who prize liberty will tend to be on their guard against those who might deprive them of it if given the chance, and those who wield power are in a position to do just that. So democracy and suspicion of authority tend to go together. Another example: if the equal freedom of democratic citizens leads them to regard themselves as possessing equal worth and merit, then they will resent individuals seen as “giving themselves airs”—that is, as claiming to be better than others. Populist resentment is an enduring staple of democratic politics. To avoid resentment, democratic leaders who are to the manor born must display an unfeigned common touch, treating their fellow citizens (and others) as their social equals. Franklin Roosevelt, who came from an aristocratic family, successfully conveyed his commitment to democratic equality, once serving hot dogs to the King and Queen of England at a Hyde Park picnic, a decision the New York Times treated as front-page news.1 A third example: as Plato was perhaps the first to observe, the democratic preference for liberty tends to generate a certain mildness toward, and tolerance of, varying ways of life. The desire to live just as one desires softens antipathy to those who live differently but do not impede one’s own choices. Live and let live is a perennial democratic sentiment to which would-be leaders can appeal. 17

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Finally, the content of premises that are generally accepted as bases of public argument will vary in accordance with political context. For example, claims erected on the foundation of individual rights are more powerful in the United States than in most other nations—even other advanced democracies. Each country possesses a distinctive public culture—beliefs that amalgamate principle, shared history, and distinctive ethnicities.

Leadership is Consistent with Democratic Principles but not with Democratic Psychology Is there a fundamental tension between leadership and the democratic principle of popular sovereignty? In a path-breaking book, John Kane and Haig Patapan argue that there is. Democracy rests on the principle of equality, which “affords democrats no completely satisfying way of justifying leadership roles” (2012). The reason is that: supporters of democracy who believe in the necessity of leadership “must reconcile this with the belief that none among equals has any innate or inherent right to rule over others” (2012). The Kane/Patapan thesis rests on a syllogism that is implied rather than stated. It runs like this: Premise 1: The justification of leadership requires the belief that some individuals have an innate or inherent right to rule over others. Premise 2: Principled democrats reject the idea that anyone has such a right. Conclusion: Democrats who understand their creed must believe that leadership cannot be justified in principle. To the extent that democrats feel the need for leadership in practice, they run up against a fundamental tension than can at best be managed but can never be eliminated. It is clear, I think, that the second premise is an accurate statement of a basic democratic commitment. But the syllogism fails because neither democratic principles nor the nature of leadership require us to accept the first premise. Democrats can embrace leadership as legitimate when it comes into being through popular authorization and as appropriate when it serves democratic purposes. A democratic people can constitute leadership for instrumental ­reasons—because certain individuals have the capacities that the situation requires—without affirming that those individuals have a right to rule, simply by virtue of those capacities. Not even the singularly right person to lead a democracy has the right to lead it—unless the people have vested him or her with the power to do so. In democracies, the capacity to lead does not by itself confer a right to lead. 18

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There may of course be prudential reasons for preferring some individuals over others to fill specific positions. In the same way that we seek a skilled plumber to fix a leak, we want able generals to conduct a war, and superior politicians to shape policy, because they know how to do something that promotes our good, as we understand that good. The people would be wise, then, to choose the ablest politicians as their leaders, and their leaders would be wise to select the best generals to command their forces. But in a democracy, generals do not legitimately lead unless the people’s representatives have authorized them to do so. Individual ability is relevant, but legitimacy is dispositive, and democratic legitimacy comes only through public consent. The people’s representatives may err, of course, and choose leaders who prove unequal to their task. President Lincoln promoted and then dismissed many generals before finding a few who could get the job done. As Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall did the same thing during World War II. The people have the right to make mistakes, but only their decisions can confer legitimacy. There is no conflict—in principle—between democratic equality and leadership. Moral equality—I have my own life to lead, and my interests count no more and no less than yours—is consistent with inequality of talents in every walk of life, including politics. Moral equality is the basis of popular sovereignty, which James Madison called the republican principle—a form of government that “derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.” This principle is the core of democratic legitimacy. Consistent with legitimacy so understood, the people may authorize whatever institutions they choose, including institutions of leadership, with the proviso that they may revise or revoke such authorization as they see fit. That said, well designed democratic institutions endeavor to narrow the gap between the authorization to lead and capacity to lead well. Odd as it may sound, elections may be understood as an example of this effort. While they reflect the public’s will, they are also designed to select individuals with the requisite talent and character to discharge the duties of public office. As Aristotle observed, a lottery is the most purely democratic way of selecting public officials; elections have an aristocratic tendency (1984: IV, 9). A ­ merica’s founding generation was well aware of this tendency, and celebrated it. Defending the proposed Constitution’s means of selecting the president, Alexander Hamilton declared in Federalist 68 that it would afford a “moral certainty” that the office would seldom fall to any man “who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications” (The Federalist Papers 1961: 414). Indeed, he continued, “there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue.” In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. . . . May we not even say that that form of government is best, which provides the most 19

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effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?” This, he argued, was the genius of our constitution order, “to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudoaristoi, the separation of the wheat from the chaff.” As a general matter (though not in every case), we can rely on the people to make discriminating judgments, to “elect the really good and wise” (Mason 1965: 385). Although selecting leaders by lot is more consistent with anti-elitist sentiments, I am unaware of any modern democracy that has used this procedure for offices of any significance. William F. Buckley once remarked that he would rather be governed by the first four hundred people listed in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, but this represented a judgment on the deficiencies of Harvard rather than the merits of the lot. Some small towns have resorted to randomizing devices such as coin tosses to break tie votes for local offices, but invariably not much is at stake in such choices. Even in America, the people recognize that elections allow them to make comparative judgments about qualifications for office. The candidates may be equal in the sight of God and the law while differing in their capacity to fill positions of responsibility.

The Populist Challenge to Good Democratic Leadership Leadership comes into conflict, not with the principle of democracy, but with the psychology of democracy. One aspect of this psychology is populism. This stance—a complex of sentiments and beliefs—includes at least the following: • leveling—the belief that common sense trumps expertise and that ordinary citizens are better suited to make decisions than are the experts; • animus against hierarchy—an instinctive bridling against taking orders from anyone; • suspicion of power as inherently corrupt and self-dealing; • fear of discretionary authority as unaccountable and prone to abuse; • mistrust of distance between the people and those chosen to represent them and with it, the desire for officials they can see and judge directly; • relatedly, mistrust of anything less than full transparency; • and finally, the demand for constant, as opposed to episodic, explanation and accountability. Kane and Patapan are right to see this populist syndrome as at odds with the exercise of leadership. Carried too far, it is at odds with the people’s own interests, as they themselves understand their interests. They are also right to 20

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call our attention to the difference between the classical conception of democracy and the modern understanding of liberalism. In the latter, there are principled limits to the scope of public power, and populist suspicion focuses primarily on the threats to liberty that emerge when government overreaches. In the former, the focus is not on the scope of public power but rather on hierarchical relations among citizens. As Kane and Patapan put it, “Democracy is at root a revolt against the rank ordering of society. . . . The leveling instinct of democracy is principally directed against the arrogance of inherited or entrenched power” (2012a). As a liberal democracy, governance in America incurs both kinds of populist suspicion. The people resent individuals who visibly regard themselves as superior to their fellow citizens, but they also fear government that expands its power in a way that the people regard as a threat to liberty. During the Obama administration, these two kinds of populism have merged: opponents of the administration see a dangerous growth in the scope of government, driven by the belief that a handful of elected or appointed officials can make better decisions for the people than the people can make for themselves. (For the adversaries of President Obama’s health care reform, the boards of experts it establishes and empowers represent the distilled essence of this mindset.) Some of this populism represents a backlash against the pretensions of bureaucratic elites; some of it reflects the historical DNA of America’s distinctive suspicion of government power; much of it is a byproduct of representation, which is the only way democracy can function at all in the context of what Madison called the extended republic. To be sure, there is more than one kind of representation. The Burkean view—the representative as trustee who pursues the common good as he or she sees it, without regard to constituents’ views—is greatly admired in theory but typically avoided in practice. In contemporary democracies, voters can see what their representatives are doing, and their tolerance for independent judgment is limited. At the other extreme, voters’ desire for representatives identical to themselves is bound to be frustrated. Members of democratic legislatures must deal with a myriad of issues of which their constituents know little or nothing, and they must balance competing loyalties to their electorate, their party, and their country. We are left with an inescapable social reality: whenever the people do not rule themselves directly, some individuals (agents) are asked to carry out the wishes of others (principals). But the interests of agents and principals diverge, a fact that has given rise to an extensive literature. Throughout history, landowners have sought managers who would faithfully execute their directives, and they have often been disappointed. The Bible is filled with stories of patriarchs who charge their household managers with sensitive missions. Sometimes the stories end well, sometimes not. Citizens would be foolish to 21

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assume that their representatives will advance their interests just because they have been sent to Washington and state capitals to do so. There is a second pervasive social fact that gives rise to suspicion: it is impossible to write laws, regulations, and rules to cover every eventuality. For that reason, no system of government can do without discretionary authority. Democracies use statutes and regulatory procedures to delimit the sphere of authorized discretion before the fact, and legislative oversight and elections to judge its use after the fact. They cannot hope to eliminate it altogether. That unattainable goal drives much of contemporary American politics, however. The understandable desire to ensure that no one is subject to the arbitrary will of another gives rise to an ever-more elaborate system of rules, regulations, and review procedures. The result is not to eliminate discretion, but rather to tie major institutions in knots, making them less and less able to make needed judgments and to do the people’s business. It is Americans’ fear of discretionary authority that fuels the endless expansion of the bureaucracy they despise. Up to a point, populism has its uses. As Kane and Patapan observe, mistrust of leadership can constitute a barrier against tyranny, supplementing constitutional restraints. But populism often overshoots this mark, undermining the leaders and institutions the people need to effectuate their choices and promote their welfare. Kane and Patapan adduce a remarkable quote from Henry Clay: “The pervading principle of our system of government—of all free government—is not merely the possibility, but the absolute certainty of infidelity and treachery” (Kane and Patapan 2012b). Clay was a great leader, but he went far beyond the more nuanced views of James Madison, who surely understood the principles of our system better than most. The architect of checks and balances argued in Federalist 55 that As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among us for self-government (The Federalist Papers 1961: 346).

This balanced judgment illuminates the difference between proper democratic caution and the populist culture of suspicion. The fear of corruption and tyranny can go so far as to undermine self-government. The point of democratic elections is to find people who are worthy of the people’s trust. When the people lose their balance and succumb to unalloyed mistrust, democracy loses its capacity to serve their interests. 22

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The Elitist Challenge to Good Democratic Leadership The experience of democratic life can produce, as well, a stance diametrically opposed to populist resentment—namely, elitist arrogance. It is natural for people of unusual ability to believe that their merits entitle them to positions of leadership, and to a measure of deference. They may ask themselves why those of lesser merit should be able to confer or withhold what belongs by right to those with greater political capacities, and they may come to resent what they experience as the stultifying, even demeaning, processes of popular consent. Shakespeare presents us with a perfect example of such a man. Returning in triumph after his victory over the Volscians, the Roman nobleman and warrior Coriolanus is on the verge of being named consul. Now that the Senate has given its consent, custom demands that the candidate present himself to the commoners and request their support. When he meets the people, they ask him why he has come. “Mine own desert,” he replies. The people are astonished and displeased; this is not the stance of supplication they expected. Coriolanus then asks them the price of the consulship. “The price is, to ask it kindly,” replies one. The proud Coriolanus utters—but almost chokes on—the required words. After the citizens have taken their leave, he bursts forth in an angry soliloquy: “Better it is to die, better to starve, than crave the hire which first we do deserve.”2 As the action of the play reveals, this passion is a threat to the civic order. In a youthful speech on “The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions,” Abraham Lincoln cautioned against complacency that the Constitution, established for half a century, was secure. “Men of ambition and talents,” he declared, “will . . . continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them.” Such men belong to “the family of the lion” and the “tribe of the eagle.” Their drive for the unfettered exercise of their gifts, and for the distinction that only great deeds can bring, will lead them to trample established institutions, “whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.” The question is how this drive can be kept within democratic bounds. Lincoln’s answer: only “a reverence for the constitution and laws” can channel the ambitions of great men so as to fortify, rather than undermine, republican government.3 General Douglas MacArthur may well have been America’s Coriolanus. A gifted and charismatic military leader and a statesman who orchestrated Japan’s immediate post-war reconstruction, MacArthur’s belief in his own merits led him to challenge the principle of civilian control over the military. At the height of the Korean War, he sent a letter to the House Minority Leader disagreeing with President Harry Truman’s effort to avoid a wider war with 23

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China, and his public statements undermined Truman’s diplomacy. In April 1951, Truman relieved him of command, replacing him with General Matthew Ridgeway, who knew MacArthur as well as anyone did. Ridgeway professed the deepest respect, for his “abilities, for his courage and for his tactical brilliance . . . for his leadership, his quick mind and his unusual skill at going straight to the point of any subject and illuminating it. . . . He was . . . a truly great military man, a great statesman, and a gallant leader.” Ridgeway was anything but blind to MacArthur’s flaws, however, noting “his tendency to cultivate the isolation that genius seems to require, until it became a sort of insulation . . . ; the headstrong quality . . . that sometimes led him to persist in a cause in defiance of all logic; [and] a faith in his own judgment . . . that finally led him close to insubordination.” If MacArthur had pursued the presidency, as he was widely expected to do in 1952 after his triumphant return to the United States, his character flaws could have posed a threat to the constitutional order.4 One might think that while populism is a deformation internal to democracy, elitism is an external threat. But matters are not so simple. In practice, there is often a tension between government by the people and government for the people. Although the people will their wellbeing as an end, they are not always wise—or even coherent—about the means to that end. So talented and public-spirited individuals who genuinely want to promote the public interest can end up longing for a form of leadership that is not regularly accountable to the people. The mirror-image of the populism that disfigures today’s politics in America is a growing doubt, expressed more in private than in public, about the capacity of the people to govern themselves—especially when the challenge is to endure short-term pain as the price of long-term gain.

The Skills and Virtues of Good Democratic Leaders Good democratic leaders, I have argued, combine capability and legitimacy: they have the attributes needed to exercise power wisely within, while respecting the ongoing need for public authorization. In this concluding section I argue that this distinctive ensemble helps us understand the specific skills and virtues of democratic leaders. Good democratic leadership requires specific skills, many of which reflect the need to obtain and sustain public support. To begin, democratic leaders must understand, and be able to articulate, the public culture of their community. In so doing, they invite the people to unite around the fundamentals of their civic identity. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, drawing as it did on America’s biblical and constitutional heritage, was a classic of that genre. So was Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” address. And so, in a 24

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different vein, was Ronald Reagan’s acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican convention. He summoned up the Mayflower Compact, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, even Tom Paine. Invoking “family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom,” Reagan implored the American people to “renew our compact of freedom . . . for the sake of this, our beloved and blessed land.” He defined this “new beginning” as a commitment to “care for the needy; to teach our children the values and virtues handed down to us by our families; to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them [and] to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative, a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.”5 Reagan’s deep patriotism impressed even those whom he did not persuade and helped lay the foundation for an effective presidency. Another key requirement of democratic leadership is the capacity to understand what is required in particular circumstances to maximize persuasion and popular consent. In the months leading up to the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board, Earl Warren displayed this capacity in ample measure. By 1952, five major school segregation cases had reached the Court, which decided to hear them collectively. Meeting to decide the case, the justices soon realized that they were badly divided. Unable to reach a resolution by the end of the 1952–1953 term, they decided to rehear the case in December of 1953. In the interim, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died, and Governor Earl Warren of California was confirmed as his replacement. Warren quickly concluded that unless the Court achieved unanimity, a decision declaring school segregation unconstitutional would not achieve the requisite degree of public acceptance. Over the next six months, he worked patiently to bring about that result, adopting the recommendation of Justice Robert Jackson to delay taking formal votes until the issues were thoroughly explored and debated. This process enabled the justices to identify areas in which all could agree. On May 14, 1954, the Chief Justice was able to announce a unanimous decision outlawing school segregation.6 This is not to say that Brown v. Board evoked the same unity among the people that it had within the Court. Its legitimacy was bitterly contested, especially but not only in the South. Nonetheless, the judgment of most historians is that the Court’s unanimity added moral force to its conclusions. The decision brought together nine justices with very different backgrounds, views on the issue, and jurisprudential tendencies. The Court spoke in the name of the nation, not an ideological faction, and its voice enjoyed a greater degree of trust and deference than it would otherwise have received. We will never know, of course, what would have happened if the case had been d­ecided by the 5–4 margin that has become so familiar today. Still, Earl W ­ arren’s achievement stands as an example of democratic leadership in action. 25

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Timing is vital to successful leadership. Act too early, and conditions are not ripe; too late, and the momentum has ebbed. As Brutus famously proclaimed in Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”7 Knowing which way the tide is running, and whether it is strong enough, is one of the most difficult judgments any leader is called upon to make. Brutus’s reasoning was wise, as far as it went: “Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe; the enemy increaseth every day; we, at the height, are ready to decline.”8 Absolutely and relatively, he argued, we will never be stronger. But “never be stronger” is one thing, “strong enough” quite another; in the event, Brutus was unable to prevail at Philippi. This was the question Abraham Lincoln faced as he wrestled with the timing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Abolitionists were pressuring him to free all the slaves, while northern Democrats and the loyal border states pushed hard in the other direction. The available evidence suggested that a majority of the public was opposed. On the other hand, the longer he waited, the greater the chance that Britain and France would recognize the Confederacy, dealing a severe blow to Union prospects. To complicate matters further, Lincoln believed that he had no peacetime authority under the Constitution; emancipation could be justified (if at all) only as an exercise of his powers as commander-inchief. But resting his case on military necessity meant that slaves could be freed only in states (or portions of states) under Confederate control. So conceived, the Emancipation Proclamation would free slaves over whom Lincoln did not exercise control while leaving those he did control in servitude—an irony his Abolitionist critics repeatedly underscored. Lincoln navigated his way carefully through these shoals. He began by discussing the matter with his cabinet in the summer of 1862, arguing that the Proclamation had to be seen as an act of strength rather than desperation. Union successes at Antietam met that condition, enabling Lincoln to move forward in two stages. In September 1862, he announced his intention to emancipate the slaves in all areas of the Confederacy not under Union control as of January 1, 1863. As he feared, even this modest first step sparked a fierce political reaction and became a campaign issue. Democrats gained 28 House seats in the mid-term election of 1862, and the governorship of New York as well—a serious reverse, but not a death-knell either for congressional Republicans or the Lincoln administration. The Proclamation itself, issued as promised on January 1, 1863, not only shored up his standing among radical Republicans but persuaded Britain and France, both of whom had already abolished slavery, not to recognize the Confederacy—a major turning point in the war.9 In retrospect, the evidence suggests that Lincoln’s sense of timing was correct. If he had moved earlier and more precipitately, the negative response 26

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would probably have been even greater, and opposition Democrats might well have gained enough power in 1862 to challenge Republican war policies. If he had waited much longer, international developments could have strengthened the South enough to produce a protracted stalemate and rising support for peace talks in the North. As it was, the Democrats drafted a platform calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities, and Lincoln’s reelection victory over George McClellan hung in the balance until the fall of 1864, when Union military successes shifted public opinion in his favor. I move now from the skills democratic leadership requires to the virtues that safeguard it from going astray. A core virtue of good democratic leadership is what I call democratic humility: the belief that the legitimacy of your power ultimately depends on the will of the people and not just on your own merit. It is easier to state this proposition than to practice it. During the confirmation process for senior positions in the executive branch and the judiciary, even the most outstanding nominees are instructed to flatter the representatives of the people, to answer—gravely and with respect—even their most uninformed questions, and to treat even their most trivial utterances as pearls of wisdom. Candidates for high elective office find themselves pressured to evade what they know to be the real choices and to make promises they cannot keep. Many officials privately believe—even if they will not publicly state—that sound public policy requires a substantial degree of insulation from public scrutiny and judgment. Lincoln thought that only a carefully cultivated reverence for the Constitution—and the principle of human equality at its base—could save us from anti-democratic sentiments. Madison believed that the chastening effects of elections—the requirement to seek public authorization—would habituate us to respect republican norms (Federalist 57). Both were right; both understood the centrality of democratic humility to the kind of leadership that preserves and strengthens the institutions of self-government. The tension between leadership and democratic humility comes to a head in moments of civic danger. Statesmanship is a particular kind of leadership displayed in particular circumstances. It is an ensemble of qualities that enable its possessors to preserve regimes against profound challenges or to improve them in fundamental ways. Times that call only for routine governance do not permit the exercise of statesmanship, which can be displayed only in extreme situations—founding, war, economic collapse, deep civic division. Accordingly, ambitious leaders in tranquil times sometimes yearn for less orderly circumstances in which they can distinguish themselves. But if leaders prove unequal to such circumstances, as did James Buchanan in the 1850s and Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, they win not glory but ignominy. The measures needed to preserve democracies against grave dangers do not always pass the test of democratic legitimacy. Soon after the start of the Civil 27

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War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. He based his justification on what might be called democratic consequentialism: suspending habeas corpus, a cornerstone of Anglo-American jurisprudence, was necessary if the remainder of the rule of law was to be preserved. He acted not to undermine the Constitution, but rather to fulfill his oath to preserve, protect, and defend it. He did not act with tyrannical intent, but he acted as someone with that intent would have, and his enemies charged him with tyranny. Democratic peoples—especially Americans—respond strongly to moral narratives that cleanly distinguish between the forces of good and evil. They have a harder time coming to grips with moral complexity and ambiguity. Private and public morality sometimes diverge. The norms of foreign policy and war are not congruent with those of domestic affairs. And virtues of the private household do not always map neatly onto the public household. For example, most economists believe that poorly timed public thrift—austerity—can make a bad economic situation worse. But most people have a hard time understanding why it can be right to spend more than one is taking in—especially if the public deficit is used to finance current consumption. While many parents grasp the rationale of going into debt to finance a college education, they would be loath to co-sign loans for fancy cars and flat-screen TVs. President Obama faced—or thought he faced—this kind of problem early in his administration. The steep economic plunge generated pressure to humiliate and punish the financial leaders the people held responsible for the housing collapse. In the administration’s view, this demand raised two problems. First, responsibility for the financial meltdown was broadly shared, with many institutions and individuals (including improvident borrowers as well as reckless lenders) contributing to the disaster. Second, with the global financial system tottering, a frontal attack on financial leaders could precipitate a complete collapse. So the administration shored up the banks, incurring the public’s wrath. Few financial leaders faced trial, and none of any significance went to jail. The clash between the moral narrative and the felt imperatives of public policy could not have been sharper.

The Ultimate Test of Democratic Leadership I have saved for last the most needful and paradoxical attribute of democratic leadership—namely, the willingness to eschew or surrender power in the name of a cause that one is unwilling to compromise. Democratic politics at its best is the use of public authorized power to advance the common good. Would-be leaders, then, can fail in two ways: they may be unable to obtain public support for their agenda, or they may win support by advocating only 28

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what the people want to hear. While modern survey research has raised the assessment of public beliefs to a high art, the temptation to pander to them is a perennial weakness of democratic politics, as even a cursory reading of Plato’s Gorgias makes clear. On the other hand, principled aspirants cannot hope to win power by saying exactly what they believe in the bluntest possible terms. For example, while FDR’s desire to support Britain’s struggle against Nazi Germany was completely justified, he might well have lost his 1940 reelection campaign if he had been completely candid about it. So he equivocated. When Wendell Willkie, the Republican presidential nominee, claimed that a vote for Roosevelt meant war in 1941, Roosevelt countered with a flat promise to the contrary— “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars”—deliberately omitting the qualifying phrase in the Democratic platform, “except in case of attack.” When one of his speechwriters asked about the omission, FDR replied, “Of course we’ll fight if we’re attacked. If someone attacks us, then it isn’t a foreign war, is it?”10 This mental reservation allowed Roosevelt to pretend that he wasn’t trying to mislead the people, which of course he was. On a deeper level, though, one can offer a defense—moral as well as democratic—­of Roosevelt’s strategy. He knew that Americans would fight if attacked, even if they would turn against someone who said so in advance of the attack, and he believed that he was the best man to lead America in the great war that would ensue. So he stayed as close to the truth as the requirements of democratic politics would permit. Still, campaign utterances have consequences. What many took to be a promise to keep the United States out of war made it more difficult for FDR to mobilize public support for the lendlease program, without which Britain might have collapsed before Pearl Harbor made American participation inevitable. While Franklin Roosevelt was a man of sincere convictions, it is not clear what political risks he was willing to run in their defense. John McCain, by contrast, was willing to jeopardize his career to adhere to his principles. Frustrated by his primary defeat to George W. Bush in 2000, his desire to run and win in 2008 was palpable. At the same time, he believed that the national interest required a new approach to immigration policy, which he advocated with great force. This stance greatly dismayed most Republicans, members of Congress as well as rank and file. McCain, who had begun his quest for his party’s nomination as the acknowledged frontrunner, found that his support had all but evaporated by the summer of 2007. His lonely but successful effort to bring his candidacy back from the dead is one of the most remarkable chapters in the annals of modern American politics. This suggests that Plato’s judgment of democratic publics was too harsh. Yes, the people do not welcome being told what they do not want to hear. At the same time, they cannot help admiring individuals who come before them 29

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with strong convictions about their community’s best interests. Candor fosters trust, and a reputation for trustworthiness is one of the most valuable assets a democratic politician can acquire. To be successful, democratic leaders must continually judge how far they can go before candor arouses opposition that overwhelms the admiration it evokes.

Notes 1. For a vivid account, see Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, “The Royal Visit: June 7–12, 1939,” retrieved at . 2. Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 3, retrieved at . 3. Abraham Lincoln, 1838, “Lyceum Address,” retrieved at . 4. For the Ridgeway quotes and other details, see “Douglas MacArthur” at . 5. Ronald Reagan, 1980, “Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention,” July 17, retrieved at . 6. For a concise narrative, see < http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-vboard>. 7. Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3, retrieved at . 8. Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3. 9. Lincoln, Abraham 1863, “Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, retrieved at . 10. For parallel accounts of this episode, see Rauch (1950: 267) and Reynolds (2001: 101).

Bibliography Aristotle 1967, ‘Art’ of Rhetoric, trans. J. H. Freese, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Aristotle 1984, Politics, trans. Lord Carnes, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leaders: How Democracy Defines, Empowers, & Limits its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mason, Alpheus 1965, Free Government in the Making, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, New York.

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Populist Resentment, Elitist Arrogance Rauch, Basil 1950, Roosevelt from Munich to Pearl Harbor, Creative Age Press, New York. Reynolds, David 2001, From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt’s America and the Origins of the Second World War, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago. Rossiter, Clinton (ed.) 1961, The Federalist Papers, Penguin Books, New York. Singh, Robert 2003, American Government and Politics: A Concise Introduction, SAGE, Thousand Oaks.

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3 The Tangled Relationship of Democracy, Leadership, and Justice in Urban America: A View from Richmond Thad Williamson

Nineteenth-century political theorists such as Tocqueville (1835) and Mill (1861) invested great importance in the locality as a site of both democratic engagement and what we might term “leader development.” Contemporary republican theorists such as Stephen Elkin (2006) and Richard Dagger (1997) have renewed attention both to the importance of local democratic practice for larger order democratic systems as well as the practical dysfunctions and shortcomings of actually existing urban politics in the United States. For politics in complex local settings to be a productive enterprise, by the basic standards of solving community problems and improving the quality of life of the community, leaders must emerge capable of articulating and advancing plausible conceptions of the public interest that have a reasonable chance of attracting broad support. Likewise, citizens must be able to discern which leaders are motivated by a concern for the public interest, as opposed to being demagogues, shills for interest groups, cogs in a political machine, or plain old grafters. Even at the local level, most politicians can shake a good hand and make a reasonably convincing first impression: it is therefore necessary to look beneath the surface. But for the moderately attentive citizen, the motivations and skills of leaders typically will reveal themselves over time in a variety of ways: responsiveness to constituents, capacity to absorb information and deliberate intelligently about a range of issues, capacity to articulate and advance a substantive agenda. The ideal public-minded urban politician has all these qualities, but in practice an excellent record of constituent service and ability to deliver the goods to a particular district will often trump 32

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shortcomings in other areas. Conversely, the putative Burkean representative with great talent in deliberation will nonetheless have a short political career without a strong record of responsiveness to at least some of his or her constituents as well as some capacity to produce concrete deliverables, from street repairs to job opportunities. This is the inescapable practical world of transactional politics from which would-be urban leaders can never pretend to escape. As Elkin and other scholars have observed, there are many obstacles to the realization of a public-interest oriented politics in contemporary American cities. One problem is the threat of old fashioned corruption—transactional politics run amok—a problem likely to get more severe in bigger cities where more money is at stake in the workings of city government. Another potential problem is the phenomenon of urban political machines, in which a small number of actors gain effective control of a city’s entire political apparatus and insulate themselves in power indefinitely. A third problem, stressed heavily by Elkin and other urban regime theorists, is the political inequality that results from the economic imperatives facing most cities. Because cities in the American system are perpetually locked into competition with one another for badly needed investments and jobs, business occupies a privileged position in city policymaking, with public officials compelled both to avoid offending existing employers and to recruit new employers on generous terms. Downtown land owners and developers also have a vested interest in urban economic development and are not shy about making these interests known to elected officials, many of whom receive generous campaign funding from real estate and related local business interests. Finally, there is the political inequality that results from the sheer social and economic inequalities characteristic of cities. Cities are the place where the rich and poor are more likely to live side by side, cheek by jowl, a phenomenon that is surely preferable to the most plausible alternative (the completely impoverished central city, see Rae 2011). But severe social and economic inequalities, especially when they intersect (as they usually do) with racial and ethnic differences, also create serious challenges for local civic cultures, and a potential minefield for urban politicians. In previous work, following Elkin’s lead, I have recommended structural and policy strategies aimed at improving the conditions of urban politics so as to reduce local political inequalities and strengthen public interest and pro-egalitarian politics (Williamson, Imbroscio, and Alperovitz 2002). The primary purpose of this chapter is to consider the city—specifically a city—as it is, and ask whether and how effective democratic leadership can be practiced in the context of structurally challenged cities. I do so by considering the efforts of three very different kinds of urban leaders in wrestling with a severely challenged city. While each leader considered is distinctive, the 33

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accounts below should be read not as three independent case studies, but rather part of one ongoing story about a community coming to terms with different conceptions of effective urban leadership.

Richmond, Virginia: Setting and Historical Context The setting for this chapter is Richmond, Virginia, a city of approximately 210,000 people that is at the center of a metropolitan area containing 1.3 ­million persons. The capital of Virginia (and former capital of the Confederacy), Richmond was also a crucial site in the civil rights struggles of the mid-­twentieth century, both a bastion of traditionalist white conservatism and a leading center of black political mobilization. In the 1950s and 1960s middle-class blacks engaged in impressive voter mobilization efforts via the Richmond Crusade for Voters, allowing blacks to influence city politics as the swing vote in contested elections (Hayter 2010). By the early 1960s, African Americans were getting elected to City Council on a regular basis, although whites firmly held the reins of political power in the city. Alarmed by demographic trends tending toward the creation of a majority-black city, in the late 1960s these white elites brokered a deal to annex a practically all-white portion of Chesterfield County adjoining the city, temporarily adding nearly 47,000 whites to the city and preserving a white voting majority—just in time for the council elections of 1970. A subsequent federal lawsuit charging that Richmond had pursued annexation for racially discriminatory political purposes proved successful. As remedy, the federal government—having suspended city elections for a period of seven years—ordered the city to create a system of single-member council districts in place of the prevailing at large system so as to essentially guarantee significant African American representation on City Council (with the mayor, as per past practice, chosen by council members from among themselves). By the time elections took place in 1977, white flight in response to the desegregation of city schools had largely canceled out the temporary increase in the white population resulting from the Chesterfield annexation, and the city had in effect a majority-black electorate. City voters in 1977 elected the first ever majority-black City Council (five of nine members), which in turn selected (in a 5–4 vote on racial lines) lawyer Henry L. Marsh as the city’s first black mayor (Moeser and Dennis 1982; Silver 1984). That victory for the civil rights movement in Richmond came at a heavy cost. First, by the end of the 1970s the Commonwealth of Virginia essentially placed a moratorium on further annexations by cities of adjoining counties, in part or in whole. Richmond became a city permanently landlocked within its 62 square mile area. Second, the city and counties—themselves completely 34

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separate, non-overlapping entities under Virginia’s unique “independent cities” structure of local government—maintained separate school systems. A federal court order to merge the majority-black Richmond school system with those in neighboring, majority-white Chesterfield and Henrico Counties, thereby creating a regional system of desegregated schools, was reversed on appeal in the early 1970s (Lassiter 2006; Ryan 2010). Consequently, Marsh and the majority-black council inherited not so much a hollow prize as a steadily decaying ship. Richmond in the final quarter of the twentieth century was a textbook case of a declining, majority-black city with high rates of poverty, surrounded by more affluent, predominantly white suburbs. Much of the city’s white corporate and media establishment was openly hostile to Marsh, particularly when the majority-black council tried to set an independent course by dismissing city manager William Leidinger, a Caucasian with strong ties to the business community, in 1978. The redistricting process of 1980, however, provided the white business community with an unexpected opening. The redistricting plan favored by Marsh left the most outspoken and radical member of council, Willie Dell, politically vulnerable in the relatively well-off third district. School principal Roy West, a socially conservative African American, put together a coalition of whites and middle-class African Americans and succeeded in defeating Dell in 1982. In a stunning turn of events, West was elected mayor on July 1, 1982 with the support of the four white council members and his own vote, turning Marsh out of office. While West continued Marsh’s emphasis on aggressive affirmative action in city contracts to increase opportunities for black contractors, the bulk of his policies reflected the priorities of the white business community (Hayter 2010). West remained as mayor for six years, then was succeeded by four consecutive relatively unsuccessful mayors, including one mayor (Leonidas Young) who was later indicted and convicted for illegal activities while in office. Between 1988 and 1998, Richmond had ten years of weak or dysfunctional mayoral leadership, at a time when violent crime was skyrocketing in the city, poverty becoming more entrenched, and the city’s manufacturing base slowly eroding. Criticism of the performance of City Council, the various mayors, and City Manager Robert Bobb (an African American) from the local black press was often intense. Academic critics like the African American urban studies professor Avon Drake of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) regularly faulted the city leadership for tending primarily to the concerns of middle-class black constituents (i.e., affirmative action, minority contracting) rather than tackling the problems of the city’s poor. Other prominent analysts faulted the city’s political structure and the lack of a mayor accountable via election to the entire city population (Drake and Holsworth 1996). Without an adequate leadership structure, the city had no hope of 35

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developing and sustaining a comprehensive strategy to address the city’s structural problems, particularly regarding poverty and education. Finally, county leaders and much of the white business community looked on in disdain at what they regarded as an amateurish City Council and dysfunctional city government. Not all whites stepped away from engagement with the city during the 1990s, however. Following a scathing report on the Richmond region by outside consultant James Crupi in 1993 that reserved its strongest criticism for the white business community, some local business leaders, particularly grocery magnate James Ukrop, engaged in a deliberate strategy to influence city politics through candidate recruitment and campaign funding. Significantly, what was sometimes called the “Ukrop machine” did not support candidates on a racialized basis; but Ukrop et al. tended to support African American candidates perceived as “responsible” rather than rabble-rousers given to vocal “anti-white” diatribes. The election of African American David Hicks to the position of Commonwealth’s Attorney in 1993 with significant white elite support represented a watershed in Richmond’s racial politics. At the same time, a new creature, hitherto almost unknown, began to emerge in Richmond in the 1990s: the white liberal politician.

Leadership Study 1: The Rise and Rise of Tim Klaine The preceding short history of Richmond provides essential context for understanding both the leadership challenges in the city and for assessing the significance of the kinds of democratic leadership that have emerged in Richmond over the past 15 to 20 years. The first example is that of Tim Kaine, a Harvard educated lawyer first elected to City Council in 1994, out of the relatively affluent, predominantly white second district. Kaine placed a commitment to racial justice at the center of his public identity: he was a practicing civil rights lawyer specializing in fair housing law, and he and his wife attended a predominantly African American church. Kaine articulated a critique of the regional status quo that mirrored those offered by mainstream black leaders in the city, and he also showed sympathy with the desire of more radical black leaders to acknowledge and where possible symbolically atone for Richmond’s deeply racist past. At the same time, Kaine did not come out of nowhere: he married into an influential Virginia political family, the Holtons, and became the son-in-law of former governor Linwood Holton. Anne Holton, Kaine’s wife, famously helped desegregate Richmond city public schools in 1970 when Gov. Holton chose to send his own children to Richmond schools at a time when many whites were making plans to move out of the city. Kaine thus brought to the table an unusual 36

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degree of credibility and good will in both the white and African American community in Richmond. Kaine states that this mission motivated his entry into city politics: “I never thought I’d be in politics. But I noticed as I was practicing law, I’d have to go to City Council meetings on occasion for a client, I noticed that the City Council would often divide racially on votes back in the early 1990s. . . . My perception of the citizenry is they were not that racially divided, but I thought the leadership still was” (Author interview with Kaine 2010). Kaine mounted a bi-racial coalition to unseat one-term incumbent Ben Warthen in the second district in the 1994 council elections, with quiet support from Ukrop and African American developer Neverett Eggleston and an endorsement from the Crusade for Voters, the still influential black political organization. Kaine’s first move upon taking office was to draft a new code of conduct for the council in hopes of setting a more professional tone at public meetings. He then focused on developing an expertise in city budgetary issues in his first term, and also championed pro-business initiatives such as streamlining the city’s business licensing procedures and cutting business fees. Kaine’s perceived competence made him a possible candidate for mayor in 1996, but Kaine chose not to press his claim. There was no such reticence in 1998, and Kaine became the second white mayor since the reorganization of city government in 1977 and the first to be backed by a majority of the black members of council. While some black leaders in the city insisted the city should have a black mayor, the Richmond Free Press, the influential weekly black-owned paper in the city, spoke for mainstream black opinion when endorsing Kaine as the best-qualified candidate for the mayor’s job. Kaine served as mayor for just over three years, and remained broadly popular. Kaine took a risk early in his term by pushing through the hiring of Calvin Jamison, a junior level executive at Ethyl Corporation, as city manager in fall 1998. This move sparked serious controversy, since Jamison (an African American) was a newcomer to city politics and lacked formal training in public administration and management. In practice, close observers believed that the Kaine–Jamison partnership functioned well because Kaine took on expanded responsibility and acted to some extent as a “strong mayor,” drawing on his mastery of the details of city government. City Council was also credited with being more functional and cooperative under Kaine’s leadership. While Kaine was mayor, the city established the Slave Trail Commission to officially recognize and physically commemorate the city’s painful history with slavery, and established an innovative community development program, “Neighborhoods in Bloom,” that successfully revitalized several urban neighborhoods by concentrating available community development funds into select pockets. Kaine also, within months of taking office, in his role as lawyer, won a historic lawsuit filed by the local 37

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organization Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) against Nationwide Insurance for racially discriminatory home loan practices in the Richmond area. (This ruling was overturned on appeal by the Virginia Supreme Court, before Nationwide finally settled with HOME for US$17.5 million in 2000). The city’s homicide rate also began falling markedly during Kaine’s tenure, and never again returned to the levels of the mid-1990s. Kaine had far less success as mayor in tackling regional inequalities in transportation and education. In his initial bid for office in 1994, Kaine had flatly said that a Richmond isolated from the suburbs was not a viable structure, but by the end of that decade prospects of structural change toward some form of regional governance model were as dim as ever. Indeed, Kaine soon reached the same conclusion reached by many others who have trod the path of local Richmond politics—that most of the fundamental obstacles to the city’s progress could only be addressed effectively at the state level. Kaine left the mayor’s office on September 10, 2001 and that fall was elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. He then was elected Governor in 2005 and was widely described as the most liberal governor in the state’s history. Obstructionist Republican opposition limited his legislative achievements as governor, but Kaine remained personally popular. After a stint as head of the Democratic National Committee and a very brief hiatus from formal politics, Kaine was elected United States Senator in November 2012, convincingly defeating another former governor (and senator) George Allen. To date, Kaine has yet to lose a competitive election. Is the rise of Tim Kaine a democratic leadership success story? In one sense, it clearly is. First, it shows that a highly intelligent person with strong social justice commitments can on occasion thrive within a flawed political system. Here the contribution of the urban context is key. To become viable even as a citywide leader in Richmond required Kaine to be deeply engaged across racial lines, to be skilled in navigating the question of race both interpersonally and politically, and to be skilled in discussing problems in ways legible to both white and black audiences. Kaine’s strategy was not to attempt to manipulate the politics of race, but to cast himself wholeheartedly as a champion for the dispossessed and a friend of excluded African Americans, while at the same time bluntly stating that he would not let his own race hold him back from trying to win black votes and black support. At the same time, his mastery of the mechanics of city government assured his credibility among business-minded white voters. Political success in Richmond thus required a unique and admirable set of civic skills and commitments that Kaine possessed. Conversely, Kaine also probably needed the urban context to become successful as a politician while maintaining integrity with his moral commitments. Kaine’s commitment to social justice and racial reconciliation would not have made him a viable or attractive candidate for office in a suburban 38

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area—indeed, had Kaine lived in the suburbs while conducting civil rights work in the city, his civil rights activity would likely have been seen as a negative by most white voters in the Richmond suburbs. The city of Richmond provided a challenging environment but also the only kind of environment in which Kaine might have thrived. On the other hand, while Kaine’s successes as a democratic leader allowed him to climb successfully into the statewide political arena, his mayoral tenure did not fundamentally alter the city’s relative position or address its structural problems. Marginal gains in some areas were made, but poverty in the city remained entrenched, schools continued to be perceived as substandard, and the city’s population stagnated. Kaine’s own view of his tenure echoed that of many other observers: the mayor’s office in the council/manager system was simply too weak to have any likelihood of impacting the city’s structural problems. Indeed, before exiting the scene Kaine spent considerable time as mayor attempting (unsuccessfully) to advance proposals for political reform and a directly elected mayor. Ironically, perhaps the largest contribution Kaine made to institutional change was leaving office. In Kaine’s absence, public confidence in both City Council and local government again plummeted. Legal problems encountered by multiple council members in the early 2000s as well as revelations of embezzled funds by a City Hall employee again painted the city in an unflattering light. Wholesale political reform of the city’s institutions was put on the table by an unusual coalition of Thomas Bliley, the last white mayor under the pre-1977 system, and Doug Wilder, the former Virginia governor and longtime Richmond resident. Bliley and Wilder devised a proposal to establish a directly elected mayor in the City of Richmond in place of the council/manager system. The bill made it through the legislature and was overwhelmingly endorsed by city voters in 2003, setting the stage for direct elections of Richmond’s mayor in November 2004.

Leadership Study 2: Wilder as Mayor To few people’s surprise, once the new government structure for the city was approved, Doug Wilder, who had previously denied interest in the position, announced he would run for mayor against the incumbent Rudy McCollum and two other opponents. Wilder is one of the most extraordinary and complex figures in the past half century of American politics, and a signature personality in modern Virginia history; this chapter cannot begin to do justice to Wilder’s record or persona. The most important background knowledge about the arc of Wilder’s political career, however, can be summarized as follows: Wilder, a Richmond native and grandson of slaves, was a Korean War 39

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veteran and a self-made lawyer, having worked his way through Virginia Union University and then Howard Law School. He was elected to the State Senate in 1969 in a special election, and over time consolidated his position as one of the most influential figures in that body. Despite the magnitude of this accomplishment—Wilder was the first black elected to the Virginia state senate in the twentieth century—he always held a complicated relationship with Richmond’s mainstream civil rights organizations, banking on their support in his statewide efforts but making it very clear that they would not control his agenda. Wilder also carried a long-standing personal and political rivalry with Henry Marsh, his former law school roommate, a schism that has helped define Richmond politics from the 1970s to the present day. Marsh, as City Council member, mayor, and later state senator, has remained a stalwart champion of a progressive civil rights agenda throughout his political career (which continues to this day). Wilder, in contrast, has been far less predictable, partly because of his ambition for statewide office and his desire both to show himself to be personally independent of the Democratic Party and to distance himself from the adamant liberalism of national black political figures like Jesse Jackson (Baker 1989). By the mid-1980s Wilder had attracted many critics who charged him with placing personal ambition over commitment to any cause or group, but the sheer magnitude of Wilder’s political accomplishments in the 1980s—election as the state’s first black lieutenant governor in 1985, and as the nation’s first elected black governor in 1989— allowed him to brush those critics aside. Wilder remained an influential voice in Richmond and Virginia politics after his gubernatorial term expired in 1994, but after an aborted run for United States Senate as an independent in 1994, he did not attempt to win elected office until 2004, partly because of his deeply frayed relationship with the state Democratic Party. Even in 2004, however, the bulk of Richmond voters saw Wilder as a vastly more substantial figure than anyone in the (post Kaine) City Council, and many saw him as carrying a political clout that made him an ideal first “strong mayor” for Richmond. Wilder sailed into office in the November 2004 election with nearly 80 per cent of the vote and a seeming mandate to inaugurate dramatic changes in the city. But what kinds of changes? Some advocates of the new political system imagined that Wilder might act as a strong advocate for the city in dealings with the suburban counties and the state, and be able to forge new regional agreements on key issues such as transportation, economic development, possibly even public education. Instead Wilder took a different path, focused on consolidating the position of the mayor, seemingly against all comers: the white business community, the city bureaucracy, the City Council, and the School Board. Wilder challenged the corporate community by demanding renegotiation of what he perceived as a sweetheart deal subsidizing the city’s 40

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new downtown performing arts complex, a major priority of corporate leaders. Strong Wilder supporters in the African American community cheered when Wilder pointedly said Jim Ukrop “doesn’t own, nor will he own or buy me” (Redmon 2005). Likewise, Wilder generally won applause for his efforts to rationalize and improve accountability in the city bureaucracy, sending the message to division managers that they no longer had nine “mayors” but one mayor to report to. Skirmishes with other branches of government soon became the central theme of Wilder’s mayoral tenure. Wilder and the City Council engaged in a protracted series of legal battles concerning the extent of Wilder’s authority. One prominent conflict involved Wilder’s attempt to fire the council’s legislative staff; at one point, 54 council-hired staffers were handed pink slips and told to reapply for their jobs. One staff member who refused to reapply was in fact fired. The remaining staff eventually kept their jobs after the state court ruled against Wilder, but conflicts of this nature soon led to a poisonous atmosphere inside City Hall, where the mayor (office second floor, just outside council chambers) and the council (offices on third floor) work in close proximity. Far more damaging to Wilder’s standing in the public eye was his clash with the School Board and its spectacular denouement in September 2007. From the moment he became mayor, Wilder had a frosty relationship with Superintendent Deborah Jewell-Sherman. Jewell-Sherman had strong support from the School Board and was widely credited with raising test scores and academic achievement in the system, but Wilder was never a fan. In the summer of 2007 he accepted a public letter from over two dozen leading Richmond business leaders calling for the elected School Board to be abolished and replaced with an appointed School Board, a move that backfired in the court of public opinion. Constitutionally unable to dictate choice of a superintendent, Wilder instead turned to administrative levers to apply pressure on the schools. For over two years, Wilder sought to move School Board’s offices out of City Hall to space in another building three and a half miles away, over the School Board’s objections. Finally, on Friday September 21, 2007 Wilder ordered the forcible eviction of the School Board. While police blocked off City Hall and adjacent streets, moving trucks and movers showed up en masse to begin removing School Board desks, furniture, and file cabinets (including sensitive student records) from six floors of offices. The eviction began after hours on a Friday evening and continued until just before midnight when a cease-and-desist order was issued by a local judge in response to an injunction filed by Wilder’s longtime rival Senator Henry Marsh, acting as legal representative of the School Board. Community backlash to Wilder’s power play was overwhelmingly harsh. And yet, there was a logic to Wilder’s strategy not reducible to sheer ego or megalomania. Education is clearly one of the fundamental issues facing 41

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American central cities, and educational quality is one of the key barometers a city (and its mayor) is going to be judged upon. It’s not surprising that the mayor of a city with an effective high school graduation rate of just 70 per cent would wish to exert more control over the School Board. In Wilder’s case, however, the aggressiveness of the methods overshadowed consideration of the worthiness of the goals. Citizens in Richmond wanted a “strong” mayor, but not a perceived bully. Despite these high-profile setbacks, Wilder entered 2008 sounding like a mayor seeking reelection. Alongside his blow-ups he had several clear or perceived successes to point to: a sharp reduction in homicides under the popular police chief Rodney Monroe, the appointment of an unusually bold and charismatic city planning director Rachel Flynn who had galvanized citizens (particularly middle-class whites) in support of an ambitious new downtown master plan (Williamson 2011), and securing a US$300 million line of credit to underwrite infrastructure improvements and the construction of several new schools. In his January State of the City address, Wilder laid out his achievements in front of a largely supportive audience at City Hall. Over the next three months, however, several high-profile credible politicians, including veteran state delegate Dwight Jones, made clear their intentions to run for mayor in the fall. The shoe dropped in May when Monroe, now more popular than the mayor himself, announced his departure for Charlotte, NC to become police chief there. Shortly after that announcement, Wilder declared he would not seek reelection but would instead bring his remarkable political career to a close at the end of 2008. Wilder’s term thus showed both the usefulness and the limitations of a political identity staked on strong personality and independent politics. Wilder was an eloquent, charming, and often persuasive speaker, with skills honed from many years in the State Senate jousting with segregationists and skeptics. The elder Wilder projected the image of the courtly Virginia patrician. Within the African American community, Wilder clearly identified with the upwardly mobile middle-class and openly shared in the moral critique of the inner city black poor articulated famously by Bill Cosby in the early 2000s. Yet, no one could claim Wilder was in the back pocket of the white business community. In this sense, Wilder as mayor was a leader whose viability depended far less on natural alliance with a mass voter base than on his accumulated personal clout. Wilder refused to be slighted by anyone, did not want to be put into the position of owing anything to anyone, and did not want to be accountable to any particular group. These characteristics, honed in the incredible journey of moving from the East End of Richmond to becoming a black governor in a majority-white, conservative leaning state, might have been great assets if placed in service of a clear urban policy agenda. While not unconcerned with or ignorant of 42

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public policy, Wilder was a pragmatist who viewed policy first and foremost through political lenses. Wilder made not any particular policy goal but definition and assertion of the mayor’s role in the new system his overriding aim; but by the end of his term few citizens believed Wilder was asserting power for the sake of future mayors or in order to help forge a better political system, as opposed simply for the sake of asserting his own ego. In the end, it turned out that Richmonders did not like or want that kind of strong mayor; Wilder’s inability to convince the public that his various assertions of power served a larger, rationally defensible goal led to a spectacular collapse in his political standing. Bluntly put, Wilder overplayed his hand and failed to strike, or even attempt to strike, the right balance between confrontational and cooperative approaches to constructive change. The mayoral race in the summer and fall of 2008 featured three major candidates, each of whom explicitly distanced themselves from Wilder. Bill Pantele, the white City Council President and Tim Kaine’s successor in the influential second district seat, had strong business support and was widely admired both for his command of city issues and for standing up to brazen personal attacks at Wilder’s hands. Pantele ran on an agenda of competent city government and effective economic development. Dwight C. Jones, longtime pastor of a prominent African American Southside Baptist church and state delegate, and a former chair of the city School Board, was perceived as the inheritor of Henry Marsh’s political base; he ran on a moderate social justice platform, emphasizing poverty reduction. Robert Grey, a prominent and accomplished black lawyer, ran with strong backing from influential downtown law firms. These backers saw Grey as a better and more appealing version of Wilder—a quasi-patrician African American with credibility in both the white and black community, but with far humbler and more thoughtful affect. A fourth declared candidate, Wilder’s own former top political adviser Paul Goldman (a white New Yorker), dropped out prior to the election and endorsed Jones. Grey stayed in the race but never gained traction among a broad base of voters. This left Pantele to run against Jones in what was essentially a twoman race. The tone of the race was cordial, and both men were careful not to make race an explicit issue. Nonetheless, support for the two candidates was clearly driven by race, as the subsequent vote would show. Under Richmond’s directly elected mayor law, to be elected, candidates must carry five of nine council districts; the popular vote as such is irrelevant. This provision was put in place out of fear that high turnout in the well-educated, predominantly white West End of the city would overwhelm voter turnout in the poorer, less educated, heavily African American East End, in which many adults cannot vote due to Virginia’s restrictions on ex-felons voting, leading to a mayor not reflective of or acceptable to the majority of residents. 43

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On Election Day, Pantele carried the first, second, and fourth districts, all predominantly white, with ease. As expected, Jones carried the predominantly black sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth districts by wide margins, bolstered by the historically large turnout in support of Barack Obama. The expected battleground was the fifth district, the city’s most racially diverse district, where Pantele had concentrated much of his effort. Jones carried the district with a plurality of 43 per cent, and also rode Obama’s coattails to a narrow victory in the third district, where Pantele had been expected to win. Citywide, Jones won 39 per cent of the vote, compared to 33 per cent for Pantele and 21 per cent for Grey. Dwight Jones took office in January 2009 taking pains to ally himself as closely as possible with the most popular man in ­Richmond—Barack Obama—and to distance himself from Wilder’s tactics. Jones pledged to forge a much more productive relationship with City Council and to prioritize the needs of low-income residents.

Leadership Study 3: Ends and Means—Poverty Reduction and the Building of a Jones “Machine” In sheer political terms, what Dwight Jones has accomplished since January 2009 is remarkable. Jones was elected with less than 40 per cent of the vote in 2008, but by January 2013 prominent local political commentators were speaking persuasively of the Jones political “machine” (Williams 2013). Consider these political achievements: • Jones was re-elected in 2012 facing only token opposition from a political newcomer, businessman Mike Ryan, whom no one viewed as ­credible. Jones won all but two precincts (and all nine council districts) citywide and 73.5 per cent of the overall vote. Though there was significant public criticism of Jones on a variety of issues in spring 2012, no established challenger emerged. Bruce Tyler, the first district Councilman and Jones’ most effective critic, toyed with a run but judged he would not be able to overcome the Obama effect. Bill Pantele was rumored to consider a run, but declined, instead endorsing Jones. While word on the street had it that there were donors who might be willing to underwrite a serious challenger to Jones, none judged it worth their while. Ryan did submit last-minute forms to get his name on the ballot, and ran a largely self-funded campaign. The 25 per cent of the vote Ryan won can be best interpreted as a protest vote. • Freed from the need to campaign for himself, Jones impacted council elections with endorsements of challengers Jon Baliles and Parker Agelasto in the first and fifth districts, who successfully ousted his persistent critics Tyler and Marty Jewell. 44

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• Even more spectacularly, seven new members (of nine) to the School Board were elected, including the mayor’s son Rev. Derik E. Jones and his Deputy Chief of Staff Jeffrey Bourne. Bourne was elected School Board chair in January 2013. Jones had clashed with the old School Board in the spring of 2012 over budget issues and had gone so far as to appoint in effect a shadow school advisory board to make recommendations on budget cuts and operational reforms. • Also in 2012, Jones installed his handpicked choice to head the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority (RRHA), landlord for the city’s large public housing population; at the same time, Bourne, the new School Board chair, took a job as a government relations liaison with RRHA. In short, Jones has succeeded where Wilder failed, in consolidating not only his own political position but the reach of the mayor’s office into other key public bodies in the city—the City Council, School Board, the public housing authority. Hence the talk of a Jones “machine”—understood here not as a Tammany Hall-type operation, but more colloquially as a concerted political effort to gain influence on all levers of government. Given some of the details of Jones’ first term, particularly the common perception that Jones was too quiet, that the administration too slow to act, and too bumbling when it did act, this result is somewhat surprising. (Jones’ principal first term accomplishment was gaining approval for construction of a new city jail to replace the badly outdated and dangerously overcrowded existing facility.) In a low-key way, Jones and his team have systematically gone about trying to build the basis for an effective executive-driven local governance structure. Two questions, however, present themselves. First, to what end is the machine being directed, and does the end justify the means? Second, what long-term risks does that development of an effective political machine in Richmond carry? Jones of course does not use words like “machine” to describe his administration, but he has made it clear that poverty reduction is his overriding policy imperative. In particular, he wants to make the successful redevelopment of one or more of the six major public housing communities in Richmond as well as sharply improved school outcomes his major legacy. (Jones grew up poor in a mixed income neighborhood in Philadelphia before coming to Richmond to attend college, and he speaks with passion and conviction about the need to provide poor children positive models of success.) To that end, in spring 2011 he appointed an Anti-Poverty Commission of nearly 50 business leaders, civic leaders, academics, elected officials, activists, and others to devise a systemic strategy for poverty reduction in the city. After several delays, the 130-page final report was released in January 2013. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the commission, chair of one of the six working 45

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groups, and primary author of the commission’s final report, and have continued to collaborate with the Jones administration on implementation strategies.) In his magisterial tome, City: Urbanism and Its End, Douglas Rae describes the formation of a similar anti-poverty commission in New Haven in the early 1980s, in which he was a leading figure (Rae 2003). Rae concludes that that commission’s work had no tangible impact on low-income people. Instead, the best intentions of local politicians were typically overwhelmed by larger structural forces making cities less and less governable. This may prove eventually to be true in Richmond, but there are also glaring weaknesses in the city and region that could be corrected: total lack of an effective regional transit system, extreme concentration of poverty in public housing communities, and lack of an effective workforce development and training system. To achieve movement on those priorities in turn requires a coherent, integrated policy approach by the different oars of local government, steering in more or less the same direction. After all, the city of Richmond is structurally disadvantaged: no overlap with the suburban counties, no room to grow by annexation, no meaningful transit connection to the suburbs, deliberate concentration of public housing and thereby poverty in the city, a racially segregated metropolitan school system given the Sisyphean task of educating a student population that is nearly 80 per cent low-income, denied from claiming additional powers (i.e., innovative economic development strategies) not specifically granted in the city charter, punished by an irrational state school funding formula that measures wealth not poverty, and constrained in its tax base by the large amount of publicly owned real estate that is non-taxable. In addition, the city operates in the context of a state legislature that because of gerrymandering is significantly more conservative than the state’s current electorate and generally indifferent at best to urban interests. To move policy in a meaningful direction in this context, a mayor must use every lever he or she can possibly grab hold of, given that so many other institutional forces are beyond one’s control. Here, then, is one of democratic leadership’s unavoidable tensions. If meaningful poverty reduction is to be achieved (26 per cent of Richmond’s population and 40 per cent of its children are below the federal poverty line), a strategic approach that simultaneously tackles education, workforce development, transportation, economic development, and housing must be applied. But a fragmented polity that invests the powers of initiative, persuasion, and administration in the mayor’s office, legislative power in the council, responsibility for and authority over schools in an elected School Board, responsibility for public housing in a quasi-independent public authority over which the city has only indirect control, public transportation in yet another public authority, and so forth, is going to have great difficulty in 46

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coalescing around a coherent agenda. Each of these institutional bases is likely to be jealous of its own prerogatives, making sustained policy progress difficult. Hence, a mayor successfully gaining sufficient influence over each of these institutions so as to make coherent policy could plausibly be seen not as a violation of democracy, but as a brilliant exercise of leadership so as to advance the interests of the poor as well as the public interest writ large. Likewise, one might extend the logic further and return to the question Wilder briefly raised before being shot down in the court of public opinion: Is a democratically elected School Board really in the best interests of lowincome children? After all, we might posit that the education of poor children is such a difficult and urgent task that it should be handled by people who know what they are doing, who are informed by the most recent expert literature and by the experience of other urban school systems, and not by elected amateurs. On this view, the Millian benefits of participation and developing the capacities of the population through opportunities to exercise governance is a privilege that can only be extended to reasonably successful, high functioning communities in which the capacity of local schools to educate children is not in reasonable doubt. In places where it is, effectiveness should trump democracy. Jones has not taken that view, at least out loud. Instead, he has worked within the parameters of the existing institutions to gain influence over the elected school board via elections and some hardball politics. But that hardball politics raise another troubling dilemma for local democratic leadership: What happens when political machines get too effective, and are able to effectively punish enemies at the ballot box, not necessarily to the benefit of the polity as a whole? In Richmond, the establishment of four-year City Council terms (beginning in 2008) and the movement of municipal elections to November to coincide with presidential elections has reversed a long-­standing trend of declining turnout in municipal elections. But this also means that many low-information voters are turning out and influencing local elections. Such voters commonly follow a party line, following instructions on sample ballots provided outside polling places by the local Democratic Party. Hence, whoever wins the endorsements of the Richmond City Democratic Committee has a massive advantage in contested School Board and City Council races, especially in the majority-black districts. While the committee has some autonomy, Dwight Jones and allies undeniably exercise considerable influence over who gains endorsements and hence a prized spot on the sample ballot. In 2012, these endorsements played a key role in newcomers ­Parker Agelasto and Mamie Taylor ousting fifth district incumbents Marty Jewell and Maurice Henderson in the council and School Board races, respectively. Both Jewell and Henderson had (in quite different ways) expressed vocal criticism of the mayor earlier in 2012. 47

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This is the political hardball involved in constructing an effective regime or machine. Partisans of good government and of deliberative processes involving an exchange of views and questioning of proposals—the kinds of processes likely to lead to civic virtue, on the Tocquevillian-type account—have reason for regret if a mayor’s allies can remove all his serious critics from City Council, even when those critics are highly qualified and knowledgeable. Yet the Jones administration, in my judgment, had and has strong and defensible reasons for wanting to build a stronger, mayor-driven regime, given its laudable policy goals and given the fragmentation and dysfunction characteristic of local government in Richmond. Further, Jones has gone about this work through legitimate channels while generally avoiding overt displays of ego of the kind that alienated Wilder as mayor from residents. And, if one accepts the desirability of a stronger regime, one must also admit that politics is the indispensable tool by which that regime must be built; and that sometimes politics is about rewarding friends and punishing critics and enemies, not about assembling the best qualified and most deliberatively skilled group of representatives.

Conclusion: Implications of the Richmond Story for Urban Democratic Leadership Where then does this leave us in terms of the initial concerns of this chapter? We began with an optimistic account of city politics as a hospitable, perhaps indispensable location for teaching civic virtue and for training and educating leaders. Implicit in this chapter is also the notion that urban politics is one of the natural places we might want to go if our concern is to advance social justice and improve the circumstances of the least well-off in our central cities. But these motivations are often in tension with one another, not so much in theory as in practice. The injustices evident in cities—injustices that belong to the society as a whole but which cities are asked disproportionately to deal with—seem to cry out for effective and immediate action. Hence the demand for leadership, for a driving force capable of mobilizing the levers of local government and ideally the community as a whole toward concerted action. Richmond has had experience with talented leaders inhabiting an office too weak to be effective (Tim Kaine), and then after political reform experience with a leader who pushed the boundaries of the mayor’s power so far it provoked a backlash (Doug Wilder). Under Dwight Jones and possibly subsequent leaders, Richmond is testing whether a stronger office and a systematic effort to influence and coordinate the levers of power can lead to tangible policy results—and in the process finding that vigorous leadership is often in tension with other democratic values. To demand high standards of 48

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democratic deliberation, that every voice be at the table, and that the integrity of different branches of government not be subsumed to a powerful executive, is to potentially slow, dampen, or even deny the ability of energetic leadership to play its mobilizing function and enact effective policies in a timely way. Hence the wisdom of Kane and Patapan’s argument that democracy and leadership are in inherent tension (Kane and Patapan 2012). That tension is at the very heart of urban politics in the United States. That tension could be mitigated, certainly, if cities were not home to high levels of poverty and joblessness, and in Richmond’s case, if the structural disadvantages inherited from the resistance to the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s could be rectified. If the wellbeing and life chances of low-income children growing up in our urban centers were not literally at stake in the actions of city governments, we could more comfortably judge that the benefits of democratic participation and deliberative engagement decisively outweigh the benefits of an assertive urban leadership. In the city as it actually is, we have no such assurances; when confronted with this tension and judging which way to go (toward more assertive leadership or more participatory democracy), there are no firm principles to fall back on, only informed hunches and gambles on the future.

Bibliography Baker, Donald 1989, Wilder: Hold Fast to Dreams, Seven Locks Press, Cabin John. Dagger, Richard 1997, Civic Virtues, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Drake, Avon and Holsworth, Robert 1996, Affirmative Action and the Stalled Quest for Black Progress, University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Elkin, Stephen 2006, Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Theory After Madison, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Hayter, Julian 2010, “We’ve been overcome: Black voter mobilization and white resistance in Richmond, Virginia, 1954–1985,” unpublished PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Virginia. Kaine, Tim 2010, Interview with Thad Williamson and Lucas Hakkenberg. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits Its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lassiter, Matthew 2006, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Mill, John Stuart 1998 [1861], “Considerations on Representative Government,” in On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Moeser, John and Dennis, Rutledge M. 1982, The Politics of Annexation: Oligarchic Power in a Southern City, Schenkman Publishing, Cambridge. Rae, Douglas 2003, City: Urbanism and Its End, Yale University Press, New Haven.

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Thad Williamson Rae, Douglas 2011, “Two cheers for very unequal incomes: Towards social justice in central cities,” in Clarissa Hayward and Todd Swanstrom (eds), Justice and the American Metropolis, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 104–124. Redmon, Jeremy 2005, “Wilder blasts council, Ukrop—Mayor hints that cuts city council dealt his office may not stick,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 25. Ryan, James 2010, Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Silver, Christopher 1984, Twentieth-Century Richmond: Planning, Politics and Race, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Tocqueville, Alexis de 2003[1835, 1840], Democracy in America, Penguin Classics, New York. Williams, Michael Paul 2013, “There looks to be a power behind the school board,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 4. Williamson, Thad 2011, “Justice, the public sector, and cities: Relegitimating the activist state,” in Clarissa Hayward and Todd Swanstrom (eds), Justice and the American Metropolis, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 177–200. Williamson, Thad, Imbroscio, David and Alperovitz, Gar 2002, Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era, Routledge, New York.

Additional Sources This chapter is informed by ongoing extensive research in the archives of the Richmond Times-Dispatch (daily), Richmond Free Press (weekly), and Style Weekly, examination of election and Census data, as well as formal interviews with over 60 community and political leaders in Richmond conducted between 2010 and 2012. Except in the case of direct quotations, I do not provide citations to specific historical events in this essay but these are available upon request. I also am indebted to many discussions about Richmond politics with my colleagues at the University of Richmond, Amy Howard, Julian Hayter, and John Moeser, and to many informal discussions about politics and policy in Richmond with fellow members of the Mayor’s Advisory Commission on Redistricting (2011) and the Mayor’s Anti-­Poverty Commission (2013). I also thank former University of Richmond student Lucas Hakkenberg for extensive involvement in conducting interviews and supplementary research for this project, and current student Ben Panko for further research assistance. Finally, I wish to thank the editors, respondent Elizabeth Saunders, and all participants in the Yale Symposium on Good Democratic Leadership for helpful comments and vigorous discussion of an earlier version of this chapter.

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4 When Leaders Are Not Good: Exploring Bad Leadership in Liberal Democracies across Time and Space Ludger Helms

This chapter seeks to contribute to understanding good democratic political leadership by focusing on the darker side of leadership. There would appear to be good reason for doing so: as John Kane and Haig Patapan rightly observe, “there is hardly a problem or conflict anywhere in the world whose cause is not attributed, at least in part, to poor leadership” (2012: 13). While this may seem justified to varying degrees, there is no denying that leadership—both good and bad—does indeed matter in terms of the overall wellbeing of a given regime, and the relations between different regimes. To the extent that individual leaders in many of the liberal democracies have become more central within the political decision-making process,1 many contemporary democratic regimes “are particularly sensitive to a damage that poor or failing leaders may inflict” (Pakulski and Körösényi 2011: 153). Thus, even if the natural ambition of most leadership scholars tends to center on improving the leadership performance in democratic regimes, this endeavor is doomed to fail if we willfully ignore bad leadership (see ­Kellerman 2012: 194). As the study of bad leadership devotes systematic attention to what went wrong, and why, it provides us not only with a set of more realistic criteria of good leadership, it also offers important clues as to how to avoid at least some of the mistakes that tend to undermine the prospect of good democratic leadership. Whereas the very foundation of modern constitutional government in the late eighteenth century was strongly driven by the aim to shackle potentially bad leaders, studying bad leadership marks a fairly recently established subfield of leadership research. From a classic point of view that dominated in 51

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particular the American leadership literature for many decades, “bad leadership” would almost appear to mark an oxymoron. Those political actors who apparently failed to bring about real change for the better on the basis of peaceful mobilization of followers and supporters would be denied the title of “leader,” and instead be classified as mere “power-wielders” using force rather than persuasion to get their way (Burns 1978: 2–28), or “managers” just administrating while shunning critical decisions and lacking any value-based mission (Selznick 1957: 4, 135). This reductionist understanding of leadership has more recently been overcome, in particular by the pioneering work of senior scholars with a broad international and multidisciplinary readership, such as Barbara Kellerman (2004) and Jean Lipman-Blumen (2005). Here, the focus is firmly on manifestations of leadership that deserve to be described as “poor,” “bad,” or “toxic.” Yet, while most work in this vein examines leadership in the wider context of democratic regimes, studies focusing specifically on bad political leadership (see, for example, Helms 2012a; Abbott 2013) are clearly outnumbered by those dealing with different forms of bad leadership in business organizations (see, for example, Finkelstein 2003; Schyns and Hansbrough 2010; Hunter et al. 2011). These latter contributions are by no means irrelevant to research on bad leadership in politics, as there are indeed “overlapping similarities among instances of leadership” in fundamentally different contexts (Keohane 2010: 10), but a deeper understanding of bad political leadership in democratic systems can nevertheless only be gained through a closer analysis of the more specific conditions of democratic political leadership. The next section of this chapter addresses the contested question of how to define bad leadership in politics, or more specifically in the context of established liberal democracies. The following section offers some observations concerning the empirical patterns of bad leadership within the family of the major liberal democracies with a focus on political chief executives, that is, presidents and prime ministers. The third and final section seeks to shed some light on what political science has to contribute to slow or avoid bad political leadership in democratic regimes.

Dimensions of Bad Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies This is not the place to review all the carefully defined sub-categories of bad leadership as put forward by Barbara Kellerman in her seminal study of 2004. At the heart of Kellerman’s complex conceptualization of bad leadership is the important distinction between ineffective leadership and unethical leadership (2004: 32–37). Obviously, leaders are not necessarily bad on both of Kellerman’s counts: ineffective decision makers do not have to be bad in 52

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terms of ethical standards. But even when leaders are both immoral and ineffective, this is unlikely to amount to a worst-case scenario—if only because their own ineffectiveness will stand in the way of establishing and operating a smoothly running regime of evil power. Both ineffective and unethical leadership are likely to be shaped by a leader’s personality and character. But while ineffectiveness may be caused by a wealth of other factors, unethical leadership invariably reflects the personal character of the leader in charge.2 Not all kinds of immoral behavior of a leader mark important defining components of unethical political leadership, though. While private misbehavior of a leader may be in tension with more demanding notions of truly good leadership that expect leaders to serve as moral role models, it does not necessarily preclude responsible public leadership behavior. Many scholars make a distinction between private and public morality which allows political leaders to be considered good leaders even if their behavior in private life (such as, for example, as husbands or fathers) includes certain moral flaws (see Kennedy, Hoxie, and Repland 2000).3 While bad leadership in terms of unethical leadership is apparently not unknown in liberal democracies, the worst forms of bad leadership within that category, which include oppression, violence, or even murder, cannot be found in any truly liberal democracy. This can mainly be attributed to the institutions of liberal democracy. Alongside other institutional safeguards against potentially bad leaders that center on various forms of separation of powers including judicial review, democratic regimes provide particular devices that allow voters to control their leaders by democratic means. Voting leaders out of office stands out as the single most important genuinely democratic weapon against poor and bad leadership. That possibility also distinguishes the nature of elections in democratic and non-democratic regimes, and marks the genuinely democratic element of a given election (see Powell 2010: 228). However, in liberal democracies voting leaders and their administrations out of office every four to five years is not the only means of democratic leadership control. All democratic regimes have established means to dismiss elected leaders between elections. While presidential regimes reserved the older principle of legal responsibility of elected officials (impeachment), parliamentary regimes introduced the principle of parliamentary responsibility of the executive, which allows a majority of parliamentarians to oust the government for political reasons by a vote of no-confidence.4 Viewed from the perspective of principal-agent theory, in controlling the political executive between elections the parliament serves as the agent of the voters who remain the chief principal within the democratic chain of delegation (see Strøm 2000). Moreover, all liberal democracies have established complex rules and procedures for selecting and recruiting candidates for legislative and executive office (see Norris 1997; Davis 1998), which are designed to 53

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prevent at least the most unsuitable candidates from winning political office in the first place. That constitutional democracies do not tolerate blatantly unconstitutional forms of leadership does not mean that all leadership activities within that type of regime correspond closely to the norms of good democratic leadership. In particular, informalization, the development of practices outside or beyond the realm of formal institutions and procedures, has been widely identified as a serious challenge to good governance. However, not all kinds of informalization are in conflict with the norms of the constitution or the more general standards of good democratic governance. Many informal institutions—­prominently defined by Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky as “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels”—complement or substitute for, rather than challenge or compete with, the existing formal institutions (Helmke and Levitsky 2004: 727–730). While one of the typical features of informal leadership and governance is a low degree of openness and transparency, transparency cannot meaningfully be considered a value in itself. To be sure, in a representative democracy a decent amount of transparency of political decision-making is necessary to enable citizens to assign responsibility, to judge political actors, and to hold them accountable through elections (Mulgan 2003: 41–47).5 However, there can be no doubt that unlimited transparency of decision-making processes produces significant costs in terms of effectiveness and the overall quality of decision-making with no significant gain. Seasoned observers of political decision-making in different parliamentary regimes have long identified the non-public proceedings in the legislative committees of some parliaments as a crucial factor in explaining comparative advantages in the quality of legislation (see King 2001: 95). In many parliamentary democracies, especially the informal institutions of party and coalition governance have been considered to violate the norms of cabinet government. While such regimes may indeed be criticized for constraining the room for maneuver of individual ministers, their performance in terms of transparency does not compare unfavorably with classic models of cabinet government, a defining feature of which has always been decision-­ making behind closed doors. The more typical manifestations of bad leadership in consolidated liberal democracies are those that are often alternatively referred to as poor leadership. Such forms of bad leadership are not necessarily confined to manifestations of ineffective leadership, though. Several other variants of bad leadership can be identified: to begin with, leaders can be inefficient. Inefficient leaders may eventually accomplish their goals but will have to devote many, and possibly too many, resources to resolving a particular issue, and usually at the expense of other items on their agenda. Resources available to political 54

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leaders in high electoral offices, such as presidents and prime ministers, include time and money, but also public recognition and trust, and not least electoral support. Public recognition and trust constitute two elements, among others, that are essential for creating political legitimacy, whereas electoral support is both a resource and an indicator of the amount of legitimacy a leader enjoys.6 Instead of, or alongside, being ineffective and/or inefficient in pursuing their agendas, leaders may lack any ambitious policy agenda at all. Some would-be presidents and prime ministers may reach out for the office mainly for the related conveniences, such as money and prestige, rather than to initiate any substantive policy change. This is not, however, necessarily true of any incumbent falling into this category. In particular, conservative leaders in the more narrow sense of the term who are essentially committed to preserving the political status quo have been criticized for a lack of leadership in terms of substantive policy change. Among more recent United States presidents, the domestic presidency of George Bush Sr. has been described as this kind of a “guardianship presidency” (see Mervin 1996). Going back on core promises of the electoral campaign marks another important component of bad leadership by virtually any standard of democratic political leadership. Thinking about campaign promises and electoral mandates also brings up the issue of how much responsiveness to changing public preferences between elections should be reasonably expected from a leader. It remains difficult to dismiss Giovanni Sartori’s determined contention that too much responsiveness undermines the possibility of leadership and, in particular, of responsible leadership more specifically (Sartori 1987: 70). There are two related but distinct problems here: for one thing, a large amount of short-term responsiveness of a leader may also have negative consequences in terms of effectiveness of his or her administration’s policies. As Jeffrey Cohen writing on the United States has argued, “the cost of short-term presidential responsiveness to public opinion is that presidents must cede some control over the substance of public policy to the public. This may mean that the policies that result may be less effective than they could have been had the president controlled their construction” (Cohen 1997: 15). Second, wherever and whenever the preferences of the majority of voters are marked by strong “presentism,” as is to be expected in most contexts, too much responsiveness of a leader may also mean ignoring or violating the legitimate interests of future generations, which could meaningfully be classified as a serious form of bad leadership in terms of unethical leadership (see Ruscio in this volume).7 In terms of public policies, a more general notion of bad leadership, which is often conceptualized as bad governance (see, for example, Osborne 2004), can be said to exist where a leader leaves his or her country in worse shape 55

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than it was in before the beginning of his or her tenure. Assessments at this level are likely to be strongly influenced by the political convictions of the observer. However, some indicators, such as a steep rise in public debt or crime and violence, rising unemployment, or growing international isolation, would seem likely to be acknowledged as reasonable indicators of bad leadership by almost any observer. In practice, this criterion of bad leadership may be closely linked to ineffectiveness and/or inefficiency. A leader who leaves his or her country in worse shape may have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to engage in effective political problem-solving. In any case, leaders may find their options seriously limited by the legacies and inheritances left to them by the previous administration (see Rose 1990; Rockman 2008). There are obvious problems in defining more specific criteria of good political leadership, and bad leadership for that matter, as even within the family of established liberal democracies incumbents tend to face starkly differing institutional and cultural contexts. As Joseph Nye has noted (2008: 119), “a virtuous character in some cultures would not seem so in another.” Where communities design their own institutions, as is usual for free societies, political institutions are likely to embody a community’s cultural norms and values. Thus, in polities with strongly power-concentrating institutions, such as found in the United Kingdom or France, good leadership is more likely to be associated with vigorous leadership, whereas in “consensus democracies” (see Lijphart 2012: Chapter 3), such as Belgium or Switzerland, good leaders are rather considered to be good at bringing about viable compromises. This also defines the basic parameters for what is likely to be seen as bad leadership in different contexts: a prime minister committed to a policy of “no U-turns” and little compromise is unlikely to be a successful leader in the systemic context of a consensus democracy, whereas a committed consensus-seeker in majoritarian democracies runs the risk of being considered a wimp and an “underachiever.” Another important question relates to the evolutionary dynamics in the perception of good and bad leadership. There are two starkly contrasting views to be found in the more recent literature: the first one, presented by Jan Pakulski and András Körösényi, points to the increasing relevance of strong leaders and finds growing support for this in different contemporary democratic societies: “Unlike a generation or two ago, today no democratically inclined citizen would be embarrassed to call for firm leadership, or expect such firm leadership from candidates for the top public office. These popular expectations of firm leadership are already widespread in democratic polities. Similarly, political disaffection of voters is often reflected in charges of ‘weak’ or ‘lame’ leadership” (2011: 7–8). Other scholars have argued in the opposite direction. In their recent major study on democratic leaders and leadership, John Kane and Haig Patapan 56

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contend that “democratic leadership is not, or not usually, of the heroic kind” (2012: 171). Their position is shared by a growing number of contributions to the leadership literature that consider forms of “shared leadership” or “postheroic leadership” to mark the most suitable forms of leadership in contemporary democracies (see Crevani, Lindgren, and Packendorff 2007). From this perspective, a leader seeking to develop the image of a natural born hero who operates on a different level is more likely than in the past to be seen as a bad democratic leader. What this suggests is that, ultimately, both good and bad leadership are to some considerable extent in the eye of the beholder. There can be no doubt, however, that overall the expectations of democratic politicians and leaders have risen over time (Dalton 2004: 199), and that providing democratic leadership has become significantly more difficult and demanding. Arguably the most apparent challenge that contemporary leaders face in the “new media age” relates to the radically transformed conditions of providing effective, authentic, and responsible public leadership within an increasingly hostile, complex, and fragmented media environment (Helms 2012b). These mediarelated challenges have come to be accompanied by a wealth of additional pressures and constraints that have effectively put public political leadership by presidents and prime ministers in a permanent crisis mode (see Boin et al. 2005; Lodge and Wegrich 2012).

Patterns of Bad Leadership Given the different requirements of good leadership in culturally and institutionally diverse democratic regimes, it is immensely difficult to identify any more general patterns of bad leadership. Until more detailed findings from comparative research become available, it seems useful to look at some of those aspects that have traditionally been considered to play a role in shaping the performance of political leaders.8 To begin with, there is no clear-cut relationship between bad leadership and gender—at least if the criteria introduced above are considered valid.9 While it is difficult to find any convincing evidence in support of the “great women” hypothesis (for a careful and substantive critique see Pittinsky, Bacon, and Welle 2007), there is also no counter evidence that would suggest that, under equal circumstances, male presidents and prime ministers do significantly better than female holders of the premiership or presidency. Within the major established Western democracies that form part of the G8 group, female presidents and prime ministers have not been weaker, less dominant, or more short-lived in their tenure than their male counterparts. The unimpressive performances of Kim Campbell, Canadian prime minister in 1993, 57

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and Édith Cresson, French prime minister from 1992 to 1993, are outweighed by the exceptional amount of resilience, tenacity, and determination of the as yet only other female heads of government from the G8 countries Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel. And while there is little empirical research on gender and leadership in terms of ethics and morality, scattered evidence suggests that women leaders are (perceived as being) more honest and less corrupt than their male counterparts, which also explains why the public tends to look to female leaders after major scandals (see Campus 2013: 47–48; Sykes 2014). Attempts to explain frequent manifestations of poor leadership and bad governance in terms of the party affiliation of incumbents would appear to be no less questionable—also but not only because assessments are likely to be influenced heavily by the party leanings of the observers. There are obvious methodological problems with using ratings of presidents and prime ministers from different countries for comparative assessments of empirical patterns of poor leadership.10 These caveats notwithstanding, certain patterns can be distinguished: for example, of the four usually worst ranked United States presidents of the post-war period (George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford) three have been Republicans (despite the equal share of Republicans and Democrats occupying the White House in the post-Roosevelt period). In the United Kingdom, according to the most recent poll among more than 100 academic observers (Theakston and Gill 2011: 70), four of the five worst ranked post-war prime ministers have been from the Conservative Party (Anthony Eden, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, and John Major), which is remarkable even though there have been eight Conservative and only five Labour post-war prime ministers as of early 2013.11 While most rankings in these two countries are topped by a Democratic president (Franklin D. Roosevelt) or a Labour prime minister (Clement Attlee), many other Republican or Conservative leaders score highly. In several other countries, such as France, Italy, and Germany, some conservative leaders such as Charles de Gaulle, Alcide De Gasperi, or Konrad Adenauer are considered to be iconic. Thus, on the basis of the various rankings of political chief executives of the post-war period in different countries, it is fair to say that good and bad leaders have come from different parties, and that there is no apparent correlation between bad leadership on the one hand, and party on the other. Perhaps more remarkable, there also seems to be no clear-cut relationship between the length and breadth of a candidate’s previous political experience and his or her performance in the office of president or prime minister. It is, especially, not at all clear that more experience significantly reduces the danger of poor or bad leadership. Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically, some cases suggest that there may indeed be a close relationship between the extended experience of candidates within the executive branch and a disappointing performance as chief executive. Among British prime ministers, 58

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Anthony Eden and Gordon Brown stand out as prominent underperformers, even though—or perhaps precisely because—they were the long-standing heirs apparent of their respective predecessors (Winston Churchill and Tony Blair; see Peele 2012; Helms 2005: Chapters 3 and 6). A similar case is that of ­German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard who succeeded Konrad Adenauer, the Federal Republic’s “founding chancellor,” after having served as minister of economics for 14 years and as vice chancellor for six years (see Helms 2012c: 114–116). Other examples can be found both within and beyond the group of G8 countries: a blatant case in point is William McMahon, who became Australian prime minister in 1971 after serving more than 20 years as a cabinet minister, and who is widely considered to be Australia’s worst prime minister ever. Julia Gillard provides another Australian example of a respected and skillful deputy prime minister (2007–2010) who turned into a weak and much ridiculed prime minister (2010–2013). For all the difference that separates the position of deputy prime minister in parliamentary regimes and the office of vice-president in the United States, it is worth noting that extended “apprenticeships” of presidential candidates in Washington have been of mixed value, too. Of the five post-war presidents with previous experience as vice president (Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush)12 only two, Truman and Johnson, are generally ranked among the best third of all American presidents (and if one excludes Truman, who held the vice presidency for less than three months, the average score for former vice presidents is even lower). For some presidential scholars, holding the office of governor provides more valuable experience in terms of a political apprenticeship for the Oval Office, but the empirical evidence in support of this contention is similarly modest: Ronald Reagan stands out as a popular and successful president with experience as governor of the largest state in the United States. However, both Jimmy Carter and, notably, George W. Bush, were governors, and both are widely seen as weak or poor rather than eminently successful presidents.13 In most ranking lists Bill Clinton, who had also been governor before winning the presidency, is positioned somewhere in between. Bush’s case is also interesting because it defies the popular assumption that poor or bad leadership tends to be closely related with short tenures. Even after the reelection of Barack Obama in November 2012, Bush was one of only five out of 12 post-war presidents elected for two full terms (although Harry Truman served nearly two full terms having been elevated to the presidency following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt). Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, and, as of early 2013, Obama are regularly ranked among the better half of all post-war presidents. The correlation between performance and the length of tenure of an incumbent is even stronger in parliamentary democracies because they do not have fixed tenures of their chief 59

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executives, and are prone to experience the abrupt ending of seemingly stable governments. Many of the weakest prime ministers spent only a short time in office; many of them also moved into office between two elections rather than in the immediate aftermath of their respective party’s election victory. However, in many countries the institutional rules of parliamentary government have been shaped and partly transformed by the parties. Their powerful gatekeeper function has allowed even tepid candidates, and prime ministers who failed to impress the public, to win and keep high executive office for an extended period of time. Other things being equal this is true in particular of parliamentary regimes with coalition governments. Much recent research, particularly on presidential leadership in the United States, suggests that since the 1980s campaigning and governing have become much more similar to one another, or more specifically, that presidential leadership has turned into a “permanent campaign” (Ornstein and Mann 2000; Doherty 2012). According to the popular “presidentialization thesis,” which contends that politics in parliamentary democracies has come to resemble politics in presidential democracies (see Poguntke and Webb 2005), a campaign-­like leadership style is no longer a defining feature only of presidential systems. However, this is not to say that the qualifications for successful campaigning and good leadership are necessarily closely related to each other. As John Kane and Haig Patapan have noted, “when all is said and done, the only real test that democratic leaders have to pass is the electoral one, and it is not inevitable that those who succeed will be paragons of leadership” (2012: 35). In fact, under certain circumstances there may be even an inverse relationship in which special skills in public campaigning and self-­ presentation are used for compensating for the lack of more immediately leadership-related skills (see Pakulski and Körösényi 2011: 153). Arguably the most impressive and clear-cut case in point in the contemporary history of political leadership is that of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi proved masterly in drumming up suitable public support to win the office of prime minister several times, though any comparative assessment has to take into account that he did so as the owner of a multi-media empire—a case for which no full equivalent can be found in any other Western democracy (see Fabbrini 2011). The policy record of the various Berlusconi governments, in particular but not only in terms of public debt, deserves to be characterized as a disaster. During the more than eight years of his successive tenures combined (1994–1995, 2001–2005, 2005–2006, and 2008–2011) cronyism, clientelism, and corruption reached levels unprecedented even by Italian standards. Pressing economic challenges were constantly ignored and urgent reforms shelved. But Berlusconi’s legacy to Italian politics amounts to more than that: his offensive way of dealing with his political opponents and their supporters left the country deeply divided, and 60

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his constant and open attempts at undermining the country’s political and judicial institutions can be considered an attack on the very foundations of liberal democracy. All this was accompanied by a wealth of apparent “dysfunctional personal characteristics,” as highlighted by Jean Lipman-Blumen (2005: 21–22)—such as amorality, arrogance, and a lack of integrity—that make Berlusconi a particularly blatant case of a bad leader (see Allum 2011; Fabbrini 2013). The recent history of political leadership in the West offers other examples of poor leadership in terms of ineffective problem-solving that were not accompanied by questionable personal characteristics of the office-holder and constant violations of the key norms of good democratic governance. In fact, there have been leaders that, for all we know, were driven by the best intentions and were still conspicuously bad leaders in terms of effectiveness—­ and because of rather than despite their high moral standards and internal reservations about power politics. A lack of interest in, and feeling for, the operative dimensions of politics can undermine the realization of a leader’s ideas and agendas in the harshly realistic world of politics. Among American presidents, Jimmy Carter would appear to represent the single most important example (Hargrove 1988), but more recently George H. W. Bush has also been identified as a type of leader in domestic politics who was driven by a deep commitment to principle and pursuit of the public interest but failed to properly communicate his policies to the public (see Himmelfarb and Perotti 2004). As both Barbara Kellerman and Jean Lipman-Blumen have suggested, it is also possible to identify highly problematic aspects in the leadership performance of otherwise widely respected leaders. Just like good leadership, bad leadership is a matter of degree. As Stuart McAnulla (2011) has recently demonstrated, it is certainly possible to identify a number of “toxic” elements in the leadership of Tony Blair, whose overall performance as British prime minister from 1997 until 2007 has earned him the place as Britain’s third most successful post-war prime minister in a recent ranking among academic experts (see Theakston and Gill 2011). According to McAnulla, the problematic aspects of Blair’s leadership included, among others, “attempts to placate and to protect elites before evaluating arguments,” “to mislead or to misdiagnose important problems,” and “to stifle constructive criticism” (2011: 253). In terms of public leadership and leadership rhetoric, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been very much an outright opposite of Blair (as well as of her “Blairite” predecessor Gerhard Schröder), which has not saved her from harsh criticism. Whereas Blair on many occasions used passionate public speeches to garner support among party fellows, MPs, and in particular the public at large, Merkel often seemed unwilling, or perhaps unable, to publicly explain and justify even the key decisions of her government. Observers 61

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criticized her for operating some sort of a “silent paternalism,” which was apparently driven by the belief that decisions a leader makes to the best of his or her knowledge, or in the best interest of the polity (as he or she defines it), simply do not require much explanation or justification (Kurbjuweit 2011). As the observations above demonstrate, it remains immensely difficult to identify any clear-cut patterns of bad leadership, especially when viewed from a comparative perspective. Many media comments suggest that bad leadership is everywhere, and that we are possibly witnessing little less than a historical decay in democratic leadership. Given the apparent satisfaction with some contemporary democratic leaders, this would appear to be an exaggeration that is both irresponsible and dangerous as it may undermine public trust in even the most capable of our leaders. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement, and political science should be keen to contribute its fair share to improving democratic political leadership.

Fighting Bad Leadership A first major aim should be seen in defining reasonable standards of good leadership, as this volume seeks to, and get them across to those holding high political leadership positions. This should amount to more than good advice to leaders in the style, if not the content, of a modern and democratic version of Machiavelli’s Il Principe (see, for example, Lord 2003). Acquiring strategic expertise is one thing, developing a deeper understanding of ethics in leadership among leaders another. If good democratic leadership is the goal, academic cures of leadership failure have to address the various forms of bad leadership, including ineffective leadership as well as morally bad leadership. It is of course easy to overestimate the possible effects of such teaching exercises. Apart from the more general limits to learning in politics as a means of improving systematically,14 many bad leaders would be neither able nor willing to learn the lessons of avoiding bad leadership, in particular when this is likely to conflict with their preeminent goals, including the defense of their power status. Positive effects are more likely to materialize where those participating in the exercise of bad leadership and bad governance may be not fully aware that they are doing anything wrong, as has been shown to be the case for lower rank administrators in complex organizations pursuing evil agendas (Adams and Balfour 2009; Reed 2012: 188). In democratic regimes that take the role of the people as the system’s ultimate sovereign seriously, there can be no effective check to bad leadership without a prominent role of the citizens (usually conceptualized as followers in traditional contributions to the leadership literature). This is a key theme in Jean Lipman-Blumen’s (2005) seminal analysis of toxic leaders and 62

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leadership. Toxic leaders, who could be categorized as a special kind of bad leaders, attract followers with illusionary promises. “They play on their followers’ concerns, which they claim only they can handle” (2005: 237). In order to withstand the special appeal of toxic leaders, citizens have to overcome their anxieties that lead them into the arms of these kinds of leaders and seek to build up sufficient mental strength which allows them to face the uncertainties of human life that no leader, even the best one, can save them from (2005: 238–242). Third, assessments of the close relationship between institutions and patterns of leadership (see Helms 2014) suggest there is good reason to believe in the power of institutions and the value of institutional engineering. Other things being equal, it would appear considerably easier to devise institutions able to constrain bad leaders and prevent the worst forms of bad leadership than institutions that actively facilitate and foster good leadership. Recent contributions to studying bad leadership are right to point out the centrality of institutions in facilitating or constraining unwelcome forms of leadership (see Heppell 2011: 245; see also Harlen 2011: 326–327). The impact of institutions on leadership starts with the institutional rules for selecting and recruiting candidates for leadership positions. In light of some of the observations presented above, it is difficult, however, to establish what criteria should guide the selection and recruitment of would-be leaders. Is an extended body of experience in a similar position really an asset? Is there not perhaps a greater benefit of recruiting outsiders that bring fresh perspectives and energy to a powerful office? This is not a subject to be explored by those with a special interest in bad leadership. Indeed, there is a long-­standing debate, mainly between American and European scholars, over how much previous political experience of a prospective president or prime minister is desirable (see Rasmussen 1986: 23; Wilson 1996: 156–157). Term limits for the holders of high executive office are also recurrently considered as a possible device for avoiding extended tenures of bad leaders (see Lipman-Blumen 2005: 213–214). However, even in the United States, which has substantive experience with term limits at different levels of the political system, there is no conclusive empirical evidence with regard to avoiding or limiting bad leadership. The example of the extended presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945), which has been made impossible to be repeated by the Twenty-second Amendment enacted in 1951, leaves room for suggesting that term limits may serve as an unwelcome check on exceptionally gifted leaders.15 Echoing to some extent the exceptional Roosevelt experience, other two-term presidents, such as Reagan or Clinton, left office on a high note, as well. In both presidential democracies and parliamentary democracies, the latter of which have known neither fixed-term tenures nor term limits for executive leaders, term limits may well be considered a problematic 63

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institutional check on the democratic will of the people. However, at least in such parliamentary democracies in which the structure of the party system effectively deprives the citizens the possibility of voting leaders out of office (see above), term limits could make some change for the better. While each presidency or premiership deserves a balanced assessment of its own, and there is always the possibility that leaders improve over time, it would still appear fair to say that it is more likely that leaders holding powerful offices for more than, say, ten years tend to become over-confident or detached, and are more rather than less likely to lose judgment and perspective. A more radical institutional weapon against leaders that citizens feel are not doing a good job is the recall. By a recall, citizens can remove the holder of an electoral office from this very office. Slightly different forms of recall (elections or referendums) are in operation, for example, in 19 of the states in the United States and in six of 26 Swiss cantons; several other countries, including Venezuela and the Philippines, have provisions for recall at the national level. In the United Kingdom, the 2010 Liberal Democrat/­Conservative coalition agreement stated that it would introduce a recall provision (see Coleman and Johnston 2011: 12). The most powerful arguments in favor of this instrument are obvious: recall not only allows the electorate to remove elected representatives who fail to perform their role to a satisfactory standard before the end of the regular term, it may also encourage elected representatives to meet certain minimum standards of behavior (Coleman and Johnston 2011: 7). Recent research on the possible impact of recall suggests, however, that the positive effects of this instrument tend to be overrated. As Matt Qvortrup notes, “there is some (limited) evidence that the recall has improved trust in government in the United States and to a degree in British Columbia. But overall the recall has — paradoxically — tended to strengthen politicians who win recall elections” (2011: 161).16 As these observations suggest, there is no easy way to stop, slow, or avoid bad leadership. Smart institutions and a firm commitment to good democratic leadership among both citizens and leaders have to come together. Even under the most favorable conditions, fighting bad leadership is bound to remain an exceptionally difficult task, as bad leadership is a moving target with many different facets and aspects.

Notes 1. This is the central theme of many contributions that have been presented under the heading of “presidentialization”; see in particular Poguntke and Webb (2005). 2. For an instructive discussion of the problems relating to judging the character of political leaders see Pfiffner (2004).

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Exploring Bad Leadership in Liberal Democracies 3. A related question concerns the relationship between means and outcomes. Mildly bad means are widely acknowledged to be justifiable by good outcomes, but there are no universally accepted standards defining how much “badness” exactly should be tolerated in order to secure good outcomes (Nye 2008: 114–120). 4. For a fascinating historical analysis of the dynamics leading to the gradual replacement of legal responsibility by genuinely political responsibility of ministers, see von Beyme (2000). 5. In many of the contemporary advanced democracies there is a feeling among citizens of being entitled to full access to any kind of information that has reached completely new dimensions in the age of WikiLeaks (see Hood 2011; Sifry 2011). 6. For all the volatility of electoral support to be observed within any democratic regime, there are strikingly different patterns of electoral support between different types of regimes. In parliamentary democracies, governments tend to incur electoral costs of governing, that is, their electoral support tends to melt away gradually, from election to election. By contrast, in many presidential regimes, re-elected presidents enjoy considerably greater electoral support than when first voted into office. (Obama’s re-election result of 2012 marks an exception to the rule among United States post-war presidents.) At the same time mid-term elections in presidential systems are infamous for punishing the holder of the presidency, and with regard to this latter aspect Obama’s experience (as of early 2013) has been firmly in line with that of previous presidents. 7. Needless to say, a different pattern—with voters having long-term preferences and leaders focusing on short-term goals—is possible, but not very likely. Even though elected leaders in representative democracies perform under distinctive time constraints, “sustainability issues” are most likely to be advanced by responsible leaders. 8. Some of the observations presented below draw on previous research by an international team of scholars on political leadership in the G8 countries (United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and Japan); see Helms (2012a). 9. Many feminist scholars tend to consider the whole mainstream debate about good leadership, and bad leadership for that matter, as totally misconceived as, in their view, women leaders are (often unconsciously) judged on the basis of masculine criteria, see Sjoberg (2014). 10. The most obvious methodological problem is that such ranking lists were originally designed to identify not the worst but the best leaders. Ranking lists can of course be read bottom-up (instead of top-down), though it is not quite certain whether the results would be identical if respondents were specifically asked to rank leaders according to obvious weaknesses or failures. 11. Similar patterns seem to prevail in Canada and Australia, where in various surveys prime ministers from right and center-right parties were also clearly overrepresented among the lower ranked office holders; see . See also Strangio, ‘t Hart and Walter (2013). 12. Nixon’s vice presidency, ending eight years before his winning the presidency in 1969, was obviously not a major legacy to be dealt with.

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Ludger Helms 13. Most scholars and the public tend to judge the George W. Bush presidency a spectacular failure—one of the poorest American presidents ever, and the worst one of the post-war period. A substantive assessment of different aspects of the Bush presidency, including policies and politics, is offered by Campbell, Rockman, and Rudalevige (2008). More specifically, Bush has also been identified as one of the most prominent “toxic leaders” of our time, see Lipman-Blumen (2009). 14. As Hugh Heclo has recently remarked, “to view politics as learning is not to assume anyone is getting smarter. What is being learned may make us or the institutional systems we inhabit more stupid” (Heclo 2009: 28). 15. Recent research on legislative term limits in the United States also suggests that this device tends to produce many unwelcome side-effects such as quality losses in public legislation (see Farmer 2007; Kurtz, Cain, and Niemi 2007). 16. Recent political chief executives who survived a recall election include Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (2004) and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, ­United States (2012).

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Exploring Bad Leadership in Liberal Democracies Davis, James W. 1998, Leadership Selection in Six Western Democracies, Greenwood Press, Westport. Doherty, Brendan J. 2012, The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence. Fabbrini, Sergio 2011, “When media and politics overlap: Inferences from the Italian case,” Government and Opposition, 46(3): 345–364. Fabbrini, Sergio 2013, “The rise and fall of Silvio Berlusconi: Personalization of politics and its limits,” Comparative European Politics, March, 11(2): 153–171. Farmer, Rick 2007, Legislating without Experience: Case Studies in State Legislative Term Limits, Lexington, Lanham. Finkelstein, Sydney 2003, Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes, Portfolio Trade, New York. Hargrove, Erwin C. 1988, Jimmy Carter as President: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge. Harlen, Christine Margerum 2011, “Does the concept of toxicity travel?,” Representation, 47(3): 319–330. Heclo, Hugh 2009, “Politics as learning,” in Gary King, Kay L. Schlozman and ­Norman H. Nie (eds), The Future of Political Science: 100 Perspectives, Routledge, New York, 28. Helmke, Gretchen and Levitsky, Steven 2004, “Informal institutions and comparative politics: A research agenda,” Perspectives on Politics, 2(4): 725–740. Helms, Ludger 2005, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors: Executive Leadership in Western Democracies, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Helms, Ludger (ed.) 2012a, Poor Leadership and Bad Governance: Reassessing Presidents and Prime Ministers in North America, Europe and Japan, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. Helms, Ludger 2012b, “Democratic political leadership in the new media age: A farewell to excellence?,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14(4): 651–670. Helms, Ludger 2012c, “Revisiting the German Chancellorship: Leadership weakness and democratic autocracy in the Federal Republic,” in Ludger Helms (ed.), Poor Leadership and Bad Governance: Reassessing Presidents and Prime Ministers in North America, Europe and Japan, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 110–129. Helms, Ludger 2014, “Institutional analysis,” in R. A. W. Rhodes and Paul ‘t Hart (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Heppell, Timothy 2011, “Toxic leadership: Applying the Lipman–Blumen model to political leadership,” Representation 47(3): 241–249. Himmelfarb, Richard and Perotti, Rosanna (eds) 2004, Principle over Politics? The Domestic Policy of George H. W. Bush Presidency, Praeger, Westport. Hood, Christopher 2011, “From FOI world to WikiLeaks world: A new chapter in the transparency story,” Governance, 24(4): 635–638. Hunter, Samuel T., Tate, Brian W., Dzieweczynski, Jessica L. and Bedell-Avers, Katrina E. 2011, “Leaders make mistakes: A multilevel consideration of why,” The Leadership Quarterly, 22(2): 239–258. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers, and Limits its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Ludger Helms Kellerman, Barbara 2004, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Kellerman, Barbara 2012, The End of Leadership, Harper One, New York. Kennedy, Moorhead, Hoxie, Richard G. and Repland, Brenda (eds) 2000, The Moral Authority of Government. Essays to Commemorate the Centennial of the National Institute of Social Sciences, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. Keohane, Nannerl 2010, Thinking about Leadership, Princeton University Press, Princeton. King, Anthony 2001, “Parliaments in the modern world: What are they for?,” in Christiane Eisenberg (ed.), Parliamentary Cultures: British and German Perspectives, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier, 90–97. Kurbjuweit, Dirk 2011, “Ein unterzuckertes Land: Die politische Kommunikation Angela Merkels ist ein Desaster,” Der Spiegel, July, 18, 24–25. Kurtz, Karl T., Cain, Bruce E. and Niemi, Richard G. (eds) 2007, Institutional Change in American Politics: The Case of Term Limits, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Lijphart, Arend 2012, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, 2nd edn, Yale University Press, New Haven. Lipman-Blumen, Jean 2005, The Allure of Toxic Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lipman-Blumen, Jean 2009, “Bush: Perhaps the most toxic leader of our time,” Huffington Post, January 16, retrieved at . Lodge, Martin and Wegrich, Kai (eds) 2012, Executive Politics in Times of Crisis, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Lord, Carnes 2003, The Modern Prince: What Leaders Need to Know Now, Yale University Press, New Haven. McAnulla, Stuart 2011, “Post–political poisons? Evaluating the ‘toxic’ dimensions of Tony Blair’s leadership,” Representation, 47(3): 251–263. Mervin, David 1996, George Bush and the Guardianship Presidency, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Mulgan, Richard 2003, Holding Power to Account: Accountability in Modern Democracies, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Norris, Pippa (ed.) 1997, Passages to Powers: Legislative Recruitment in Advanced Democracies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Nye, Joseph S. 2008, The Powers to Lead, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Ornstein, Norman J. and Mann, Thomas E. (eds) 2000, The Permanent Campaign and its Future, AEI Press, Washington DC. Osborne, Evan 2004, “Measuring bad governance,” Cato Journal, 23(3): 403–422. Pakulski, Jan and Körösényi, András 2011, Toward Leader Democracy, Anthem Press, London. Peele, Gillian 2012, “The United Kingdom: Prime ministerial leadership and the challenge of governance,” in Ludger Helms (ed.), Poor Leadership and Bad Governance: Reassessing Presidents and Prime Ministers in North America, Europe and Japan, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 64–86.

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Exploring Bad Leadership in Liberal Democracies Pfiffner, James 2004, The Character Factor: How We Judge America’s Presidents, Texas A & M University Press, College Station. Pittinsky, Todd L., Bacon, Laura M. and Welle, Brian 2007, “The great women theory of leadership? Perils of positive stereotypes and precarious pedestals,” in Barbara Kellerman and Deborah L. Rhode (eds), Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 93–125. Poguntke, Thomas and Webb, Paul (eds) 2005, The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Powell Jr., G. Bingham 2010, “Consequences of elections,” in Lawrence LeDuc, ­Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris (eds), Comparing Democracies 3: Elections and Voting in the 21st Century, SAGE, London, 225–242. Qvortrup, Matt 2011, “Hasta la vista: A comparative institutionalist analysis of the recall,” Representation, 47(2): 161–170. Rasmussen, Jorgen 1986, “Executive and legislative roles,” in Richard Hodder-­Williams and James Ceaser (eds), Politics in Britain and the United States: Comparative Perspectives, Duke University Press, Durham, 1–27. Reed, George E. 2012, “Leading questions: Leadership, ethics, and administrative evil,” Leadership, 8(2): 187–198. Rockman, Bert A. 2008, “The legacy of the George W. Bush presidency —A revolutionary presidency?,” in Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman and Andrew Rudalevige (eds), The George W. Bush Legacy, Congressional Quarterly Press, Washington DC, 325–348. Rose, Richard 1990, “Inheritance before choice in public policy,” Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2(2): 263–291. Sartori, Giovanni 1987, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, Chatham House Publishers, Chatham. Schyns, Birgit and Hansbrough, Tiffany (eds) 2010, When Leadership Goes Wrong: Destructive Leadership, Mistakes and Ethical Failures, Information Age Publications, Greenwich. Selznick, Philip 1957, Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, University of California Press, Berkeley. Sifry, Micah L. 2011, WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, Yale University Press, New Haven. Sjoberg, Laura 2014, “Feminism,” in R. A. W. Rhodes and Paul ‘t Hart (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Strangio, Paul, ‘t Hart, Paul and Walter, James (eds) 2013, Understanding Prime Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Strøm, Kaare 2000, “Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies,” European Journal of Political Research, 37(3): 261–289. Sykes, Patricia 2014, “Does gender matter?,” in R. A. W. Rhodes and Paul ‘t Hart (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Theakston, Kevin and Gill, Mark 2011, “The postwar premiership league,” The Political Quarterly, January/March, 82(1): 67–80. Wilson, Frank L. 1996, Concepts and Issues in Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Comparative Analysis, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River.

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5 Civil Society and Good Democratic Leadership Nannerl O. Keohane1

On West 87th Street in Manhattan, a community flower garden is tucked between two apartment buildings. On the gate to the garden are two notices: a Constitution, and a list of the Administrative Committee for the program. The Administrative Committee makes decisions about the use of the garden and convenes the annual General Assembly of all the users. The day after I first saw these postings I watched Barack Obama’s second inauguration as president of the United States. Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) introduced the ceremony by commenting on this long tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, some of the most momentous power in the world, without force or coups or insurrections. He described the purpose of the event as the “sacred but cautious entrusting of power.” These two anecdotes may seem to have little in common (beyond the fact that both involve New Yorkers). The purpose of this chapter is to show how they are interconnected, and how these interconnections might help us recognize and foster good democratic leadership. The argument is largely cast in normative terms—thinking about what should be the case for leadership in a democracy. But I identify some potential obstacles to putting these ideas into practice. The essay, therefore, has something of the tenor of Rawls’s concept of a “realistic utopia” (1999: 6–11).2 The basic claim of this chapter is that the practice of leadership in civil society is an important characteristic of an effective democracy. Even if few citizens can participate directly in making or executing laws, opportunities for leadership in a thriving civil society can enable citizens to engage in a version of what Aristotle called “ruling and being ruled in turn.” Such leadership teaches people democratic skills, so that they can gain both a sense of efficacy and a fuller appreciation of how large-scale politics works. Such experiences 70

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can also hone the faculty of judgment, which is essential both for leadership in civil society and for evaluating the performance of political leaders. Although valid objections can be offered to some aspects of these claims, the major point is that those who want to create or sustain a flourishing democracy should value and seek to promote leadership in civil society.

How Do We Define “Good Democratic Leadership”? None of the key words in this discussion has an obvious definition that all readers would immediately supply. As many writers about leadership have observed, there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders or scholars of leadership. In Thinking about Leadership, I offer the following definition: “Leaders determine or clarify goals for a group of individuals and bring t­ ogether the energies of members of that group to accomplish those goals” (Keohane 2010: 23). This interpretation is deliberately broad in its scope, encompassing informal leadership as well as highly visible office-holders. “Democracy” has a similarly protean character; it is one of the examples used by W. B. Gallie (1955–1956) in developing the notion of “essentially contested concepts.” The term usually refers to a government in which sovereignty resides with the citizens as a whole. Other definitions emphasize popular participation in determining policies that affect the community. Yet holding ultimate authority and making policy decisions on a regular basis are obviously not the same things. A “good leader” can be morally admirable, committed to doing beneficial work for his followers rather than advancing his own narrow self-interest. Or the term can refer to a leader who is effective and competent, whatever goals she is pursuing. Since these two meanings of “good” have different implications for the community, it is important to be clear about our intentions in analyzing any specific instance of democratic leadership.3

Who “Leads” in a Democracy? As we rediscovered in the 2012 presidential election in the United States, the exercise of popular sovereignty through the electoral process is a very significant component of our form of government. The principle “one person, one vote” prevailed despite multiple concerns that it might be undermined in practice. But large groups of people rarely decide specific political issues. As Seymour Martin Lipset put it, “democracy in the sense of a system of decision-­ making in which all members or citizens play an active role in the continuous process is inherently impossible.” The public as a whole exercises ultimate 71

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sovereignty in a democracy, and the participatory role of citizens can be quite important; but it does not make sense to describe what most citizens do as “leadership” (1962: 34). Some particular individuals, in each democracy, are engaged in this distinctive activity. There are at least three reasons why “the people” cannot lead or govern on a daily basis. In the first place, there are too many of us, certainly in the modern nation-states where we now live. E. E. Schattschneider noted that when you turn from monarchy to democracy, “the shift from the ‘one’ to the ‘many’ is not merely a change in the number of people participating in power but a change in the way the power is exercised.” The key to this transition, he points out, is in solving problems of “leadership, organization, alternatives, and systems of responsibility and confidence” (1960: 135, 137).4 Thus he describes the citizens of a democracy as “the semi-sovereign people.” It is not surprising that (as John Kane and Haig Patapan point out, 2012: 5), there is a persistent “tension or ambiguity in democracies as to who is truly sovereign, the people or the leader.” Modern technology has made it possible for millions of citizens to reach a decision through online voting; but they cannot by this method deliberate together and suggest alternatives to what is before them. The people can be organized for deliberation in small groups, an increasingly prominent feature of governments from Brazil or the Bronx to small villages in China (Fung and Olin Wright 2003). State, regional, and city governments in many countries are turning to deliberative groups to test opinion and make some decisions, including the popular practice of deliberative budgeting. Neighborhood organizations in several cities function as building blocks of democracy with direct participation by citizens (Thomson 2001). But in order to make decisions or take action, deliberative assemblies and neighborhood groups need organization, options proposed, and implementation of decisions, which are all aspects of leadership. The second reason “the people” cannot govern directly is that everyone has other things beside political participation that they need and want to do. Citizens have their families, their work, culture, religion, art, and other dimensions of a full human life. Most citizens spend most of their time in non-political pursuits—growing food, engaging in trade or commerce, caring for their families, preaching, teaching, healing. Even in a democracy, participation in public affairs is only one part of human life, and a relatively minor one for most citizens. Thus we need designated officers to do the daily business of governing as part of this overall division of labor. Setting public agendas, settling disputes, making and implementing decisions is for some individuals for some period their job, their assigned role. When these individuals are engaged in the business of governing, their fellow citizens are not “ruling” except in the most 72

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abstract sense. Theorists have pointed out that citizens can nonetheless exercise effective control through what Philip Pettit (1999) calls the “editorial power” of the people in a representative democracy. But however valuable this oversight may be both to the political system and the individuals involved, it is not the same as exercising leadership. This leads to the third reason why “the people” as a whole cannot govern. Those citizens who spend time in leadership often develop distinctive skills through exercising their responsibilities. It is not that governing is an especially mysterious craft but that like any other specialized activity there are better and worse ways of doing it. Making good decisions depends, in part, on talent; it depends to some extent on luck. But training and experience are also crucial. Success in leadership is usually connected with knowing enough about the dimensions of a problem, the character of a political community, the costs and benefits of different decisions, to make a good decision rather than one that is flawed because of lack of such “expertise.” Thus the factors that explain why “the people” as a whole cannot govern include the size of the populace, the pressure of other occupations, and the value of expertise based in experience of leadership. Therefore most democracies establish a constitutional framework that provides for the selection of a few citizens to carry on the daily work of governing while others go about their business. In practice, these officers are the citizens who actually lead.

An Alternative Way of Thinking about the Role of Citizens in a Democracy Unlike other familiar forms of government, in a democracy there are no “­subjects”—there are only citizens. At any given time, some of these citizens are (temporarily) leading and others—the majority—are not; but all of us are citizens. So the familiar trope of rulers and subjects doesn’t work in a democracy. How else can we think about this political relationship? Since the eighteenth century, the most common solution is that the people govern through their representatives. In her classic work on The Concept of Representation, Hanna Pitkin (1972: 84, 191) discussed the practical difficulties with direct democracy and noted that “representation is introduced as the best approximation” of full citizen participation (see also Beerbohm 2012: 168–171). Proxy participation has several merits, and opponents of direct democracy have long argued that it is a superior mode of governing; but it is not the same as the individual having an opportunity to engage in “ruling.” If democracy is to be something more than a formal legitimating device for designating rulers, it requires a kind of collaboration among all citizens, an awareness of their shared responsibilities in the polity. 73

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Another way to think about the relationship among democratic citizens was suggested by Aristotle in Politics: ruling and being ruled in turn.5 None of us should be only a follower, never a leader; nor should any of us always lead. In Aristotle’s discussion, each of us takes a turn in office as adult citizens, knowing that we will before long give up this role of ruler and return to the ranks of those who are ruled. As young citizens we are aware that this is our political obligation and opportunity, and we learn how to rule in part from the experience of being a good follower. I believe that our democracies would be healthier if more of us ran for office, served on commissions, or acted politically in some other capacity. But how can this goal be realized in contemporary democracies, given the difficulties we have already identified with popular rule? Even if such a system were technically feasible, there is little chance of our adopting such explicit measures for “ruling and being ruled in turn.” Our habits and cultural attitudes are so firmly set toward what we call our “private lives” that it is unrealistic to think about requiring each of us to do our turn in some official role in the mayor’s office or the state capital or Washington DC. In what other ways, then, can we exemplify Aristotle’s principle of “ruling and being ruled in turn?” This is where the community garden, with its constitution and its board of directors, becomes relevant to our discussion.

Civil and Political Associations At least since the time of Tocqueville, social scientists have understood that associations within the state are important to the strength and resilience of a polity. This chapter will develop that idea in the direction suggested by Aristotle’s Politics. Tocqueville’s amused astonishment at the proclivity of Americans for founding associations is a well known aspect of Democracy in America. As he put it: “Americans of all ages, conditions and all dispositions constantly unite together. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations to which all belong but also a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very specialized” (2003: 596). Tocqueville notes that these associations do the same kind of work as the government in France and the noble lord in England, in a more resilient and democratic fashion. He explicitly remarks that these citizens exercise a kind of “power”: when individuals “have taken up an opinion or an idea they wish to promote in society, they seek each other out and unite together once they have made contact. From that moment, they are no longer isolated but have become a power seen from afar whose activities serve as an example and whose words are heeded” (2003: 599).6 74

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Almost two centuries later, another perceptive observer of American practices and mores, Robert Putnam, asserted that “the ingenuity of Americans in creating organizations knows no bounds.” Putnam (2000: 48) listed 2,380 groups with some “national visibility,” including the Grand United Order of Antelopes and the Aaron Burr Society.7 “Civil society” is the name given to this aspect of a human community. Other possible labels include the “independent sector,” and the “third sector” (see O’Connell 1999; Van Til 2000). In most discussions, civil society is explicitly distinguished from politics (and the economy). As John Ehrenberg (1999: 235) puts it, “the most productive use of the term is to describe the social relations and the structures that lie between the state and the market.” Many civic associations in our country have political dimensions; thus the distinction between politics (or economics) and civil society is not as clearcut as some analysts would suggest. Conservatives see organizations in civil society as crucial alternatives to political involvement, a potential brake on the excesses of “big government,” a robust private alternative that keeps governments from misbehaving. Progressives often note the “dark sides” of such associations, with lobbies for everything from guns and casinos to charity and education, distorting the work of governance in the direction of (sometimes noxious) private interests. In their influential discussion of civic activism, Verba, Schlozman and Brady emphasize “the embeddedness of political activity in the non-political institutions of civil society,” and note that “participation in these spheres is in many ways a politicizing experience” (1995: 40). In some instances—the National Rifle Association (NRA) is a prime example—an association formed to advance the interests of enthusiasts of a particular sport or hobby becomes a major political interest group. In other cases—the Tea Party comes to mind—a specifically political organization draws its strength from the involvement of individuals who have honed their skills as leaders and activists in various kinds of civic associations (Skocpol and Williamson 2012: 42, 198–201). Unions are based in the economic realm; their primary role is to represent the interests of their members in negotiations with management. Their attempts at political influence are another important part of their raison d’etre. Yet they also bring members together for social activities and take care of those who meet with bad luck (Galston and Levine 1998: 33). I suggest that we might think of the constituent elements of “civil society” in a democracy along a continuum ranging from the largest (some of which are deliberately involved in politics and often have economic dimensions) to those which involve only a few dozen people and rarely attempt to exercise any influence in politics. The specifics of this proposed spectrum can easily be contested; my point is to provide a working definition of the range of groups I have in mind. 75

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In American society today, one end of the spectrum includes national professional associations such as those of lawyers or physicians who come together to share disciplinary interests and ideas, yet whose organizations— the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association—play active roles in the political process. There are also very large organizations such as the NRA, the unions, the American Association of Retired People or the Sierra Club, which provide significant non-political benefits for their members but are heavily engaged in lobbying. Next along the spectrum are formal institutions such as universities or foundations which have some economic role and may occasionally lobby representatives for their organizational interests, but are primarily dedicated to non-profit, non-political activities. Then we find organizations like the Girl Scouts, the NAACP, Kiwanis, or Rotary, designed primarily to provide benefits for their members and opportunities for fellowship. They often work in chapters or local groups but are linked through the larger organization. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship are primarily experienced as local organizations and gathering places, but are also brought together through modes of governance such as dioceses. The Junior League, Little League baseball, and hundreds of other organizations fall somewhere in the next part of the spectrum. Finally there are local groups like the 87th Street community garden, with no specific connections to any larger organizational structure and almost no political activity. These groups exist for the small-scale enjoyment of their designated activities by members of the group—with the side benefit that the flowers enhance the view for passersby. None of us is likely to approve of the purposes and goals of every group that qualifies for inclusion on this list. As Ben Barber puts it, “We may not like the goals or autocratic structure of, say, a religious cult or the Ku Klux Klan or a Montana military unit, but as volunteer membership groups these must surely be included in a neutral conception of civil society—or so a consistent sociologist would argue.” For the purposes of his own argument, Barber opts for a “less than neutral” definition that brings in only organizations that are “at least nominally or potentially democratic and open” (1998: 52–53). It is indeed tempting to exclude from our discussion civic associations that do not accord with democratic values. However, Barber’s approach obscures the wide range of civic associations and precludes a full discussion of their costs and benefits to our society. Tocqueville asserted that “civil associations . . . pave the way for political associations,” and in turn, “political associations develop and improve in some strange way civil associations” (2003: 604). His interest was primarily the latter part of this assertion, the ways in which political associations teach men to unite and show them how to achieve their goals. He left unexplored 76

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a further avenue—how civil associations may stand in for political associations in vigorous participation. This dimension is the one I will explore. Civic associations are neither solely a brake on government nor a potential obstacle to achieving the common good; civil society is also a significant component of governance in a democracy. The institutions of civil society, the various layers of government in a federal system, and the entrepreneurial energy of market-based activities—including specific firms and corporations as well as commercial and industrial associations—all help define what governance in a democracy means in practice. Against this background, my central claim will be that leadership in civic associations—even in something as minor as a block-long community garden—embodies a form of the Aristotelian principle.

Leadership in Civil Society Observers of civic participation from Tocqueville to the present have been notably silent on the role of leadership in the organizations they describe. “Leadership” seldom appears in the indices of books on civic associations. Yet there are significant differences between being a card-carrying member of a group and occasionally attending meetings on the one hand, and accepting a position of leadership in that organization. Taking this latter step means you now have larger responsibilities for the group. In American civic associations, from community gardens through universities, religious synods, unions, national associations of stamp collectors, or environmental activists, some members of the group make decisions, set priorities, and provide leadership for others.8 As officers and delegates, they represent members of their organization in larger contexts, and communicate the lessons of their experience back to the other members of their local associations (Skocpol 1999b: 66). Through engaging in these several aspects of leadership, citizens learn valuable lessons about what it means to “rule” that prepare them to be better citizens in several ways. Ideally, the activities of civic associations teach people designated as ­leaders of the group how to engage the participation of others, make the case for a good cause, work toward compromise, settle conflicts, overcome opposition, and win allies. These experiences give citizen leaders a better sense of what their political representatives actually do, and what it means to govern. These citizens are therefore better prepared both to perform their own political duties, through voting for and influencing their representatives, and to assess and evaluate the performance of those officials. Through these activities, citizen leaders gain not only a firmer knowledge of how politics works but also a sense of efficacy and increased self-­confidence. They are more likely to respect other citizens whose leadership in the 77

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association has been important to its success. This increased self-confidence and respect for the contributions of others make them more effective members of the polity and helps strengthen the democracy. In all these ways, leadership in civil society is a school for democratic leadership. Leadership in a civic association will motivate some of these citizens to run for public office, as a member of a school board or a city council. Through addressing their chosen cause in a civil association, they have identified issues that they care about and seen that a successful resolution of these issues often depends on political measures. In the Industrial Areas Foundation, for example, underprivileged citizens are deliberately trained for leadership within the group. This experience is then transferred directly to the realm of politics through lobbying and sometimes running for office.9 Leadership in civic associations can also provide a focus for the human desire to govern oneself. Contemporary protests in societies around the world (including those in the Middle East) provide evidence that many people want to participate in making decisions that affect their lives. Leading in a community garden association is not a full substitute for leadership in politics, by any means; but it can provide a channel for the partial satisfaction of this need. The experience of leading successfully in an association dedicated to something that you care about, in the company of your peers, can be exceptionally rewarding to an individual. Finally, to develop Tocqueville’s insight, these associations become a kind of “power” within the democracy. In an authoritarian or oligarchic government, such power centers are often regarded as potential centers of rebellion or dissent.10 But as social scientists have long observed, having smaller power centers within a democratic government can strengthen the constitutional framework. In France, as Tocqueville knew well, a flower garden in the midst of a major city would surely have been managed by the government. It is a mark of strength for American democracy that a community flower garden is governed by those who use it, with minimal involvement by the municipal authorities. This increases the stock of “public goods” that make society more vibrant, and frees municipal officers to concentrate on other things. Leadership in civil society directly addresses each of the three factors listed in the first section of this essay that explain why “the people” cannot rule. Establishing smaller-scale organizations that involve fewer individuals than the political units, and creating many such organizations, helps overcome the problem of the size of the populace. This makes it possible for more citizens to participate in governance. Since the whole point of civic associations is to allow people to come together around shared interests, these organizations gather their energies and raison d’être from the goals that can draw citizens away from political 78

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activity. Thus these associations address the second problem I identified at the outset—that individuals have many personal and private interests and obligations that compete with political participation—by turning it into an advantage. These interests become the reason for participation rather than an obstacle thereto. The lack of expertise that makes it inefficient for citizens to participate directly in governance on a daily basis is no problem here. We develop expertise by participation in a cause we already understand, through achieving goals in a sphere we know enough about to have become involved in the first place. And this expertise, insofar as it includes learning how to lead, is also transferable back to the public realm.

Judgment as a Mental Faculty One of the most important ways in which leadership in civil society prepares individuals to be better citizens, and potentially better public servants, is by honing the faculty of judgment. For both leaders and followers, as Beiner and Nedelsky point out, “the idea of a democracy presupposes an account of political judgment, for without an understanding of how human beings are capable of making reasoned judgments about a shared public world, it would remain mysterious how one could conceive the very notion of a democratic citizen” (2001: vii). How does this distinctive capacity work, and why is leadership in civil society valuable in honing it? In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle distinguishes “practical wisdom [phronesis]” from “theoretical wisdom” and links it directly with political acumen. He regards the exercise of this faculty as neither a science nor an art, but a way of approaching deliberation and action that is especially relevant for political leadership.11 Here and in Politics, Aristotle insists that this faculty is engaged only in practice, and cannot be developed by observation alone. As Ronald Beiner points out, “in judgments about political relationships, that is judgments relating to the form of association among men, a quality of intensified responsibility is at work that is not present” when we merely observe the performance of others (1983: 139).12 Judgment, in the understanding of Hannah Arendt and Immanuel Kant, also involves an “enlarged mentality,” being able to put yourself into someone else’s position, deliberately broadening your perspective (Arendt 1982: 4). In Thinking about Leadership, drawing on insights offered by political theorists from Aristotle to Arendt and contemporary social scientists, I define judgment “as a distinctive mental capacity or skill, a way of approaching deliberation and decisionmaking that combines experience, intuition, and intelligence” (Keohane 2010: 91). The several dimensions of judgment—making decisions, 79

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practical problem-solving, learning how to adopt the standpoint of another individual, developing a degree of detachment from your own emotions and those of others—are clearly relevant to leadership in civic associations. These skills can be honed in a small organization just as they can in a demanding public office, and the lessons one learns are often transferable to more complex situations. As Leslie Paul Thiele points out in his analysis of the faculty of judgment, “Experience remains the fountainhead of judgment as a result of its implicit and affective components” (2006: 15). There is no substitute for having learned to judge better through experience. The specific problems one faces in leading one’s neighbors in a community flower garden do not map directly onto the demands of being a senator or cabinet secretary. But the skills one acquires—building coalitions, making compromises, articulating goals, developing the capacity to speculate shrewdly about the motives of other participants—are all surely relevant to “higher office.” And the practice of developing and applying judgment in less demanding contexts is the most effective kind of preparation for judging successfully in higher office, often better than abstract training, as a way of honing native skills and talents. The intensified responsibility and enlarged mentality of a good leader in any context bring into play factors of judgment different from those involved when you follow another’s leadership. These aspects of judgment are also relevant to citizens choosing their representatives and assessing their performance. If you have never led at a local level, you will not know what leadership involves. You may give priority to qualities in candidates that are unrelated to the work of leadership, qualities like celebrity or status, rather than looking for evidence of the capacity to make good decisions. Citizens without leadership experience may also expect a degree of perfection or transparency in their representatives that has little to do with governance in practice. If citizens have had to struggle with recalcitrant stakeholders, cajole others into action, and accept compromises in leading a civil association, they can more readily empathize with the work of their representatives. They are more likely to understand, in Max Weber’s words, that “Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards” (1958: 128). When Aristotle discusses “ruling and being ruled in turn” he makes clear that the two kinds of skills are different, even though they are related as participatory roles in political association: “Ruler and ruled have indeed different excellences; but the fact remains that the good citizen must possess the knowledge and the capacity requisite for ruling and being ruled, and the excellence of a citizen may be defined as consisting in ‘a knowledge of rule over free men from both points of view’.”13 This quote from the Politics captures the essence of my argument: citizens in a democracy should have the experience of ruling or leading as well as following. Good followers need to develop a set of skills discussed by Aristotle and by 80

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Barbara Kellerman in her study of Followership (2008). But the skills citizens need in order to lead are different. The experience of leading makes it possible for them to understand from the inside what leadership involves. They will be better placed to choose and judge their leaders, and potentially become leaders themselves in more prominent positions.

Potential Challenges to These Claims One of the less salutary aspects of civil society is that small groups can attract cranks or zealots. Morris Fiorina admits to being one of those “curmudgeons [who] have suggested that civic engagement may not necessarily be a good thing” and could even have negative consequences for social welfare. He argues that “the transition to a more participatory democracy increasingly has put politics in the hands of unrepresentative participators” (1999: 396, 409). Participatory processes can be hijacked by extremists who care enough about an issue to invest the time, money, and energy it takes to sway decisions in the direction they prefer. Having passion for your cause can be a valuable spur to leadership; organizations cannot easily be sustained by lukewarm involvement. But there must be moderation and perspective also, as Weber pointed out (1958: 115). Zealotry is not easily compatible with good judgment or compromise. It’s not just that civic associations attract people who are zealous about their cause; the causes themselves may be antithetical to the principles on which our democracy is founded. John Ehrenberg cites the history of American segregation, including organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, as evidence for his claim that “civil society can just as easily impede democracy as advance it” (1999: 236). Another difficulty with my argument is that the types of civic associations that involve direct participation by individuals on a local level are less common today than in the past. Theda Skocpol points out that in the past few decades, traditional voluntary old line associations have become less common, and the federated membership associations that previously dominated American civil society have been replaced by “massive social movements,” thus fashioning “a very new civic universe” in our country. These associations are “relatively centralized and professionally led,” and their purposes are primarily advocacy rather than participatory (1999a: 463, 471).14 They rely on direct mail and marketing techniques rather than widespread involvement, and offer little scope for leadership by members. Even in the membership associations that remain active, fewer of us appear to be interested in leadership. In Bowling Alone Bob Putnam shows that holding office in civil associations has been declining in recent decades, along with 81

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other measures of civic participation and social capital. Measuring relative change in civil society in the United States from 1973 to 1994, he asked respondents whether you have “served as an officer of some club or organization” (2000: 42–45). The percentage decline in this metric in those two decades is at the very top of his list: 42 per cent fewer people held office in a club or organization in 1994 compared with 1972. This equals the decline in the number of those who have worked for a political party and is larger than any other indicator. Thus, at least based on Putnam’s findings from the late twentieth century, people are generally not choosing to lead in civil associations despite the professed psychological rewards. This statistic supports the view that most people would rather let other folks do the heavy lifting of organizational leadership. If citizens don’t want to govern themselves, even as members of the board of a small garden next to their condo, this limited form of “ruling” will not contribute significantly to good democratic leadership. Ken Thomson’s list of reasons members of neighborhood associations choose to reduce their participation is relevant here: they include “frustration from lack of progress, energy and effort involved,” and “interpersonal conflict.” On the other hand, the reasons Thomson’s respondents give for increased participation attest to the benefits of leadership for the individual as well as the community. These reasons include providing useful service, gaining an increased sense of responsibility and helpfulness, increased political influence, status, or prestige (2001: 87). Yet a distaste for controversy and conflict may mean that exposure to leadership in a small group causes some citizens to be less interested in leading than they were before. According to John Hibbing and Elizabeth TheissMorse, there is significant distaste for politics in the United States. Our citizens prefer what these authors call “stealth democracy” to any form of direct participation (2002: 1–14, 183–208). When ordinary folks see what making the sausage of political decisions involves—cajoling people, settling conflicts, reaching compromises, arguing vociferously for what you believe—they find such activities off-putting rather than bracing. And paradoxically, if their organizations do succeed in accomplishing local goals, this may make them feel less empathy with political leaders, as they ask “Look what we did! Why can’t those bozos in Washington do the same?” (2002: 186). When leaders feel that they are carrying a disproportionate responsibility for sustaining an organization, they may experience burnout and withdraw their involvement. On the other hand, if the same people continue in office indefinitely this frustrates the need for new, responsive, and vigorous leadership to bring a fresh perspective to the organization, and makes it harder to achieve the goal of giving members a chance to engage in leadership (­Thomson 2001: 67–70). More generally, Michels’s “law of oligarchy” applies to any kind 82

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of organization. Those who are chosen as leaders in civic associations may develop a sense of being an “elite” and lose touch with the needs and desires of other members. They may perpetuate themselves in power and find ways to make themselves indispensable. As Grant McConnell (1966: 122–123) asked: “If private associations themselves should be undemocratic, as the Michelian thesis would seem to assert, how can they be essential to democracy?” This raises a key question: do organizations need to be internally democratic for their leaders to become better democratic citizens and potential leaders? I would argue that democracy in the strongest sense is not a necessary requirement. Our polity shows many oligarchical features in its leadership. It would be unreasonable to expect smaller associations to be more fully “democratic” than the polity itself in their selection of leaders and decisionmaking in order to train leaders for the country. But organizations that teach disdain for non-members and involve autocratic decision-making by a few will not provide a good climate for learning how to lead in a democracy. Final objection: I have claimed that one of the most important aspects of leadership in civic associations is that it hones the faculty of judgment. Yet perhaps I overstate the scope and importance of judgment as a factor in good leadership. Contemporary behavioral psychology has shown how flawed most of our judgments are, by identifying the factors that lead to snap decisions, the importance of priming, and the fundamental irrationality of our decisions, often shaped by totally irrelevant factors (Thiele 2006: 163–200). Kenneth R. Hammond has summed up this position by noting that “most students of judgment and decision making now regard the situation as ‘bleak’: human judgment, they believe, has been clearly demonstrated to be i­ rrational, badly flawed, and generally not only wrong but overconfident; in a word, untrustworthy” (2000: 59).15 Most of the research on which such conclusions are based has been conducted by psychologists and behavioral economists, and little of it has concerned any arena of political decision-making or leadership. But we cannot rule out the obvious implication: perhaps our judgment as leaders in any context is equally flawed. These challenges remind us that we need to balance our normative claims about democracy with a dose of healthy realism. Yet there are also reasons why we should give full recognition to the contributions of civic associations to good democratic leadership, and work for public policies that support such leadership.

Where Do We Go from Here? One especially pressing reason for promoting leadership in civil society is this: the decline in the numbers of citizens engaged in such activities may 83

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well have contributed to the increasingly polarized, strident, and uncompromising tone of our national politics these days. There are many reasons for this distressing development, of course; structural features of our electoral and legislative systems are clearly responsible for many of the problems we now face. But the decline in civic leadership could be part of the explanation also. Leadership in a civic association requires us to engage in the same kinds of activities that are, on a larger scale, essential to good governance in Congress or the White House. Yet as Putnam demonstrates, fewer people in our polity are taking active leadership roles in local or membership associations these days. If political leaders have not had the opportunity to acquire skills of patience, trustworthiness, and good judgment by leading any kind of civic association, it stands to reason that they will be less comfortable with compromise, less tolerant of different views, and less able to lift their vision beyond their own principles and narrow goals, compared with citizens who have experienced this form of “ruling and being ruled in turn.” This hypothesis, of course, needs empirical validation. It is possible that despite the overall decline in civic activity, those citizens who choose to run for public office remain as likely as in the past to have taken on leadership roles in civic associations. If so, this would undermine my contention that a decline in civic leadership helps to account for contemporary political deadlock. But the proposition that too little experience in civic leadership has contributed to the deficiencies of political leadership at all levels is sufficiently plausible that it would be worth exploring.16 In his thought-provoking comparison of the disparate fates of two similar cities facing de-industrialization in recent decades—Allentown, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio—Sean Safford makes amply clear that the factor that explains Allentown’s relative success is the character and behavior of its civic elites. He argues persuasively that “Allentown’s economic resilience owes much to the fact that the social structure of its civic interactions connected key constituencies who needed to cooperate in the face of the region’s crisis. These networks were absent in Youngstown . . . [which] led to a lack of dialogue and interaction across salient divisions in that community” (2009: 9). He shows how local leaders of the large corporations in Allentown provide leadership within the city’s civic organizations and thus have “a forum in which to develop, enact, and reproduce community-oriented identities and values,” even though their economic interests do not intersect. These forms of service, he notes, “provide opportunities for engagement, the ability to interact, to have one’s voice heard and one’s identity as a citizen of a given community confirmed” (2009: 94, 149, see also 143–147). How can we help ensure that leadership in civic associations will continue to contribute to the quality of our public life? As Fiorina notes in concluding 84

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his negative analysis, “the only possibility is to go forward and raise various forms of civic engagement to levels where extreme voices are diluted” (1999: 414). And, I would add, devise strategies to increase participation and leadership, encourage more young people to join and lead organizations, and foster habits of civility throughout our society. Some of these goals can be achieved by good public policy. Experimentation is one of the best reasons to support civic associations. Such organizations “try out” policies and practices on community issues, and successful innovations can then be adopted by other associations and sometimes by the government as well.17 This works like the argument for federalism, in which each of the several states provides a laboratory for political development. If we implement some eminently doable, practical suggestions, we may see movement in civil society closer to the ideal. Federal, state, and local governments should encourage civic associations, both as schools for citizenship and as partners in democratic governance. This means making provisions for the self-organization of such bodies, setting limits on the legal liability of their officers, recognizing their contributions, and exercising self-denial with respect to interference. As Benjamin Barber (1998: 75, 205–208) notes, strategic zoning and permitting can increase the number of appealing and accessible public spaces, which will also encourage association and involvement. Retrofitting suburban malls, for example, to make them more inviting sites for gatherings and activities, could add welcoming common spaces to areas designed primarily for shopping and dining. All of us should encourage leadership in young people, giving them ample opportunities to lead in their own spheres. John Gardner argues persuasively that “If we could produce a very large number of elementary and high school children who had been well trained to accept responsibility in group activity (the first step toward leadership); if we could produce substantial numbers of late adolescents who had been helped to understand and experience leadership in their youth organizations, churches, and schools,” we would be in a much better position to anticipate leadership “in all segments and all levels of our society,” including politics (1990: 162, 168).18 Such leadership experiences prepare these citizens to be better followers, better judges of their leaders, and, potentially, better leaders themselves in the public sphere. And as more of us are engaged in such civic leadership, our democracy will benefit in multiple ways. The distance from a civic meeting in a suburban mall, a high school student government, or the community garden on W. 87th St. to the Oval Office is, by most measures, enormous: in the weight of power, the dignity of office, the impact of decisions, the scope of responsibility, the numbers of lives profoundly affected. But these disparities should not blind us to the ways in 85

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which leadership is the common theme and the shared need. In each case, leadership supports the living together in pursuit of shared goals that overcomes our differences and disagreements and makes it possible for us to achieve community. Good democratic leadership involves not just the performance of men and women in positions of high office, but the work of all those individuals engaged in grassroots decision-making about issues that are important in our lives. As we citizens participate in the periodic “sacred but cautious entrusting of power” to our high-level representatives, we can be prepared by our own experience to collaborate in this relationship of trust more effectively. Civil society and the polity at every level are connected through the crucial importance of leadership.

Notes 1. I am glad to acknowledge several colleagues who made valuable suggestions for this essay: Robert Putnam, Robert Keohane, Rogers M. Smith, Stanley Katz, Ian Shapiro, Jane Mansbridge, Steven Macedo, James H. Read, Barbara Kellerman, Haig Patapan, John Kane, and other participants in the Yale seminar on “Good Democratic Leadership.” 2. Stears (2010) explicitly writes in this same vein. 3. Joseph S. Nye Jr (2008), chapter 5, has a helpful discussion of “good” and “bad” leadership. 4. Italics in the original. 5. Aristotle (1962a, Book III, Chapter 4, 1277a—b: 110–112; Book VII, Chapter 14: 315–317). 6. Italics added. 7. In Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993) Putnam’s analysis of “the civic community” in Italy provides the template for all subsequent discussions of this concept. 8. Gardner’s classic work On Leadership (1990) emphasizes the distinctive importance of “dispersed leadership” in all segments of American society, including civic associations. 9. See Osterman (2002: 24, 35–37, 52–55) and Stout (2010), chapters 1, 4, and 8. 10. The essays in Civil Society Activism under Authoritarian Rule (2013), edited by Francesco Cavatorta, offer some thought provoking perspectives on this complex question. 11. Aristotle (1962a, Book VI, Chapter 5: 153). 12. Italics added. See also Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment (2005). 13. Aristotle (1962b, Book III, Chapter 4, 1277a: 105), italics added. 14. In Private Power and American Democracy (1966: 127–128) Grant McConnell discussed “associations” in Washington consisting of small rooms occupied by a few officials far removed from the thousands of “members” who are subscribers to a cause. 15. Hammond summarizes the well-known findings of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

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Bibliography Arendt, Hannah 1982, “Postcriptum to thinking” in The Life of the Mind, vol. 1, included in Ronald Beiner (ed.), Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Aristotle 1962a, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. M. Ostwald, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis. Aristotle 1962b, Politics, E. Barker (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford. Barber, Benjamin 1998, A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong, Hill and Wang, New York. Beerbohm, Eric 2012, In Our Name: The Ethics of Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Beiner, Ronald 1983, Political Judgment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Beiner, Ronald and Nedelsky, Jennifer (eds) 2001, Judgment, Imagination and Politics: Themes from Kant and Arendt, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham. Cavatorta, Francesco (ed.) 2013, Civil Society Activism under Authoritarian Rule, Routledge, London. Clemens, Elisabeth S. 1999, “Organizational repertoires and institutional change: Women’s groups and the transformation of American politics, 1890–1920,” in Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (eds), Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 81–110. Ehrenberg, John 1999, Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea, New York University Press, New York. Fiorina, Morris P. 1999, “Extreme voices: The dark side of civic engagement,” in Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (eds), Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 395–426. Fung, Archon and Olin Wright, Eric (eds) 2003, Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, Verso, London. Gallie, W. B. 1955–1956, “Essentially contested concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56: 167–198. Galston, William and Levine, Peter 1998 “America’s civic condition: A glance at the evidence,” in E. J. Dionne Jr. (ed.), Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 30–36. Gardner, John 1990, On Leadership, Free Press, New York. Hammond, Kenneth R. 2000, “Coherence and correspondence theories in judgment and decision making,” in Terry Connolly, Hal R. Arkes and Kenneth Hammond (eds), Judgment and Decision Making: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 53–65.

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Nannerl O. Keohane Hibbing, John R. and Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth 2002, Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs About How Government Should Work, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers, and Limits its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kellerman, Barbara 2008, Followership, Harvard Business Press, Boston. Keohane, Nannerl O. 2010, Thinking about Leadership, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Lipset, Seymour Martin 1962, “Introduction,” in Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, Collier Books, New York, 15–42. McConnell, Grant 1966, Private Power and American Democracy, Alfred Knopf, New York. Nye, Joseph S. Jr. 2008, The Powers to Lead, Oxford University Press, Oxford. O’Connell, Brian 1999, Civil Society: The Underpinnings of American Democracy, Tufts University/University Press of New England, Lebanon. Osterman, Paul 2002, Gathering Power: The Future of Progressive Politics in America, Beacon Press, Boston. Pettit, Philip 1999, “Republican freedom and contestatory democratization,” in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón (eds), Democracy’s Values, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 163–190. Pitkin, Hanna 1972, The Concept of Representation, University of California Press, Berkeley. Putnam, Robert D. 1993, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Putnam, Robert D. 2000, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, New York. Rawls, John 1999, The Law of Peoples, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Safford, Sean 2009, Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown: The Transformation of the Rust Belt, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1960, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of ­Democracy in America, Dryden Press, Fort Worth. Skocpol, Theda 1999a, “Advocates without members: The recent transformation of American civic life,” in Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (eds), Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 461–510. Skocpol, Theda 1999b “How Americans became civic,” in Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (eds), Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 27–80. Skocpol, Theda and Williamson, Vanessa 2012, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Stears, Marc 2010, Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Stout, Jeffrey 2010, Blessed are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Tetlock, Philip E. 2005, Expert Political Judgment, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

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Civil Society and Good Democratic Leadership Thiele, Leslie Paul 2006, The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Thomson, Ken 2001, From Neighborhood to Nation: The Democratic Foundations of Civil Society, Tufts University/University Press of New England, Hanover. Tocqueville, Alexis de 2003, Democracy in America, vol. 2, I Kramnick (ed.), Penguin, London. Van Til, Jon 2000, Growing Civil Society, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Verba, Sidney, Lehmann Schlozman, Kay and Brady, Henry E. 1995, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Weber, Max 1958, “Politics as a vocation,” in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, New York.

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6 Democratic Leadership and Civic Education Bruce Miroff

[T]he democratic theorist . . . was far away from the actual interests of human nature. He was absorbed by one interest: self-government. Mankind was interested in all kinds of other things, in order, in its rights, in prosperity, in sights and sounds and in not being bored . . . Because the art of successful self-government is not instinctive, men do not long desire self-government for its own sake. They desire it for the sake of results. Walter Lippmann 1922 The greatest duty of a statesman is to educate. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1932

Is responsibility for civic education an inherent dimension of good democratic leadership? If it entails the cultivation of civic capacities and virtues in the population of a democratic political order, is it both an essential and a viable objective for democratic leaders? To skeptics like Walter Lippmann, leaders must be judged by the intelligence and skill with which they handle the complex problems of a modern society rather than by the illusory pursuit of what democratic theorists demand of them. To the democratic faithful, like FDR, leaders must strive to do more than merely providing the services of the modern, positive state; they must seek to deliver on democracy’s highest promises. Disagreement over the value and viability of civic education is ancient. The ideals of Greek culture, Werner Jaeger wrote, revolved around paideia— the central role of civic education in “the creation of a higher type of man” (1965: xvii). In Gorgias, Plato rebuffed the Lippmanns of his day. When Socrates’ interlocutor, Callicles, put forward Pericles and several other past Athenian leaders as model statesmen, Socrates snorted that they had actually sought power by corrupting the citizenry with economic and military 90

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goodies: “They have glutted the state with harbors and dockyards and walls and tribute and rubbish of that sort . . .” The true test of statesmanship, Socrates insisted, was “to make us who are citizens as good as possible” (1960: 128, 135). Of course Plato was no democrat, but his call for civic virtue has frequently been incorporated into democratic traditions. Concern for cultivating republican citizens was a prominent feature of the “spirit of 76” in the United States. Even as Alexander Hamilton foreshadowed Walter Lippmann in arguing that citizens mostly care about efficient government, Thomas Jefferson emphasized the priority of “enlightening” the people. Much like Pericles in his celebrated funeral oration, Abraham Lincoln constructed his Gettysburg Address not only to honor fallen soldiers but to use their sacrifices as civic instruction on the meaning of democratic devotion. Although FDR’s New Deal is often characterized in terms of the benefits that it distributed through a welfare state, Roosevelt himself couched it as civic instruction on the moral as well as economic interdependencies of a modern society and the vitality of democracy itself in an age of dictatorship. However, the skeptics have never been vanquished, and with the explosion of quantitative methods in political science after World War II, they have obtained fresh fodder from survey research for their deflation of democratic hopes. Political events, too, have often validated the skeptics, as seemingly high-minded rhetoric of civic inspiration has been exposed as a cover for lower, self-serving motives. Alongside the revival of democratic idealism in various academic precincts since the 1960s, there has been a persistent undercurrent of doubt about whether the champions of civic education are once again fooling themselves. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the place of civic education in a consideration of good democratic leadership. As a scholar who shares something of both the hopes and the skepticism sketched above, I attend to both sides of the argument. But to examine leaders as civic educators, it is important to unpack a far from simple idea. It is possible to distinguish three alternative conceptions of the role of leadership in civic education: instrumental public communication, civic republican discourse, and populist mobilization. The first two of these elaborate, in a sense, on the positions of Callicles and Socrates. The third fuses elements of the first two—power and idealism— in an explosive democratic combination. In the initial part of the chapter, I lay out these three conceptions and point out their differences. A second section considers historical and contemporary cases from the American experience that shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of these alternative conceptions. In the final section, I turn to some recent empirical work on presidential communication that underscores the obstacles to civic education in the United States that confront even the leader best positioned to speak to the people. 91

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Reflecting my background as a student of politics in the United States, the three conceptions of leadership and civic education presented here have an American cast. Yet with suitable modifications, they may be applicable to other democratic systems with quite different political cultures, electoral processes, and institutional forms. In any democracy, leaders must determine how their public messages should address fundamental matters of self-interest, civic engagement, and social change.

Leadership and Civic Education Conceptions of the roles and responsibilities of democratic leaders for civic education are rooted in distinct conceptions of democracy itself. What I call instrumental public communication is the educative stance of leaders in a minimalist conception of democracy. What I call civic republican discourse is the educative stance of leaders in a conception of democracy focusing on a discursive search for the common good. Finally, what I call populist mobilization is the educative stance of leaders in a conception of an adversarial democracy featuring conflict and struggle, especially between the many and the few.

Instrumental Public Communication Minimalist conceptions of democracy place their emphasis on leaders rather than ordinary citizens. Self-government is defined as the representative acts of leaders chosen by a mostly passive citizenry. Since the expectations for citizen awareness and engagement are low, the responsibilities of democratic leaders for civic education are similarly modest. Leaders in a minimalist conception still need to cultivate public support, but their communication is instrumental in serving their personal influence rather than collective values. One might hesitate to label instrumental public communication as civic education at all. However, challenges from competitors for leadership positions compel instrumental communicators to justify their acts through arguments that may carry educative value. Moreover, one can find elements of instrumental public communication even in more genuinely educative models of leadership. Competitive elections are a centerpiece in the prominent minimalist conceptions of Joseph Schumpeter and Anthony Downs. Schumpeter famously wrote that “the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (1962: 269). The voters for whom would-be democratic leaders compete are not assumed to be either cognizant of or thoughtful about public affairs. Downs (1957) examined 92

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voters in a relatively anodyne manner, but Schumpeter did not conceal his contempt: “the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests” (1962: 262). Once having won elected office, leaders in the minimalist conception of democracy continue to need public favor. Support from the majority is a valuable resource in the competitive struggle between governmental officials. Even more of a concern is the loss of public support. Once a leader falls out of public favor, other democratic leaders are more likely to withdraw cooperation or go on the attack. Worst of all is the loss of legitimacy, whether due to highly unpopular policies, collective disasters such as a failing war effort, or a growing reputation for incompetence or duplicity. That ordinary citizens turn on a leader they earlier put into power is not, for the minimalist school, a sign of their awareness or engagement; it is more likely to reflect a simplistic tendency to direct blame at a readily available target once public fortunes suffer. Given the assumptions of minimalist democracy about leaders and citizens, when leaders speak to the public their motives are strictly instrumental. What is at stake in their mass communication is their own influence and legitimacy, not the level of public understanding. Presuming that civic capacities and civic virtues are modest at best, it does not make sense to waste effort on raising them. Rather, leaders’ communications appeal to the basic touchstones that move most people: desire for gain, fear of disorder, pride in the nation, or hostility toward its enemies. The rhetoric of instrumental communication must be as simple and undemanding as its intended audience. And if influence and legitimacy require a measure of deception or manipulation in mass communication, the logic of minimalist democracy is that “what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” Befitting a conception of democracy that draws so heavily from marketoriented economists such as Schumpeter and Downs, democratic leaders as instrumental communicators are often presumed to be as self-interested as their followers. However, instrumental communication in a democracy should not be reduced merely to self-serving behavior on the part of leaders. As the opening quote from Walter Lippmann suggests, citizens expect those they elect to strive for results that improve their lives, and to bring about these results leaders must gain and maintain political influence. Instrumental communication thus plays a necessary part in democratic leadership regardless of the motives of different types of leaders. Among minimalist democrats, Lippmann, who began with assumptions drawn from political psychology rather than economics, probed most deeply into the minds of leaders and citizens. Leaders, he argued, were hardly immune 93

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from stereotyped or distorted thinking. Nonetheless, in their capacity as agents they were brought into contact with some of the real features of their environment and could thus confront political issues with a degree of clarity and specificity. But for the ordinary citizen, a “bystander” (Lippmann 1993: 30–43) to whom public affairs “are for the most part invisible” (Lippmann 1965: 141–149), the political world could only be grasped through abstractions or symbols. For Lippmann, leaders alone deliberated on the course of the state; ordinary citizens could only say “yes” or “no” to what leaders presented to them. Democratic idealists who imagined it could be otherwise continued to make the same mistake: Lippmann commented sardonically in The Phantom Public (1927) that “education has furnished the thesis of the last chapter of every optimistic book on democracy written for one hundred and fifty years” (1993: 12).

Civic Republican Discourse While a minimalist conception of democracy is dubious about the prospects for civic education, for adherents to a civic republican conception, civic education is a foundational proposition. If democracy is to be by the people and not just for the people, the people’s innate capacity for self-government must be nurtured and developed. In addition, the qualities associated with ideals of citizenship are not restricted to political life, but shape moral and intellectual development across all of the spheres of a democratic society. Civic republican discourse is necessarily in conflict with the assumptions of minimalist democracy. Its proponents acknowledge the prevalence of narrow self-interest and public disengagement that minimalists have highlighted. Rather than conceding that these are realities which must be accepted, however, civic republicans regard them as distortions to democracy that must be combated through civic education. Of the three alternative conceptions of democracy considered in this chapter, the civic republican approach is most self-consciously educative in character, and so discourse is its hallmark. Civic education is a task for numerous instructors in schools and colleges, community organizations, religious institutions, and more. Yet the preeminent figures in civic education are likely to be political leaders. If they appeal to the selfish and the factional, they will drown out the efforts of non-political civic educators. If they speak instead of a higher democratic purpose, they magnify the impact of civic educators elsewhere. In the civic approach, the core value to be taught involves the res publica or commonwealth: the common good. Civic education raises citizens’ sights beyond self, ethnicity, group, occupation, or other particularistic identities to the common country they share. Civic educators call upon citizens to enlarge 94

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their sense of their interests to take in wider interdependencies, shared sympathies, and collective fates. Looking to the community in small and the nation in large, citizens in the civic republican conception recognize their responsibilities as well as their rights. They come to regard others less as competitors or adversaries than as fellow citizens engaged in the common enterprise of self-government. Discursive venues and practices are essential to contemporary conceptions of civic republicanism. Recent and largely academic ideas of “deliberative democracy” have become amalgamated with the ancient tradition of civic republicanism. Whereas older versions of civic republicanism stressed such social values as simplicity and frugality, and such public roles as that of the citizen-soldier, civic republican theorists now emphasize the centrality of deliberation. They contend that the meaning of citizenship is not clarified or expanded if citizens operate in political isolation, hearing political messages only through television and the Internet, and then making electoral choices in the privacy of the voting booth. For civic republican education to proceed in the fullest sense, citizens must come together for discussion, dialogue, and deliberation. It is through these discursive experiences that political learning can advance and public reasonableness can grow. It is through the same experiences that civic virtues of tolerance, mutual respect, and civility can be developed. In its origins, the civic republican conception presumed a significant degree of inequality among citizens. For Aristotle or for the American founders, only a minority were capable of genuine deliberation. Yet the historical process of democratization has transformed civic republican discourse so that it is now advanced through inclusive images of a conversation between equals. The earlier conception of civic discourse was more comfortable with the superior role of leaders. Today, civic republican advocates are uneasy about any elements of hierarchy, so the place of leadership in civic republican discourse is problematic. Leaders may inspire citizens to engage in self-government, they may even help to construct the venues for civic deliberation, but once the conversation starts there remains a danger that citizens will look to leaders for guidance rather than finding it themselves through their collective deliberations. In some contemporary forms of civic republicanism, the aim is to do away altogether with the distinction between leaders and followers. Michael ­Sandel (1996) counterposes civic republicanism to procedural liberalism, which is his version of minimalist democracy. In its assertion of individual rights over the practices of “deliberating with fellow citizens” (1996: 5), liberalism is indicted for undercutting Americans’ aspirations for self-government. Civic republicanism is his remedy for discontented and estranged American citizens who have lost contact with the common ground for their lives. Sandel 95

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wants Americans to recover an older American vision of the republic, in which citizens are taught “to deliberate well about the common good” and to develop “certain excellences—of character, judgment, and concern for the whole” (1996: 318). At the risk of shocking contemporary liberals, he advocates a “formative project” (1996: 6) to craft more republican souls. As proponents of formative projects in a more civic past, Sandel brings forward political and intellectual leaders—“Americans from Jefferson to Lincoln to Brandeis and Croly and Theodore Roosevelt . . .” (1996: 274). Yet in considering how civic republicanism might be revived today, he does not reflect upon the centrality of leadership to any recrudescence of a formative project. In Benjamin Barber’s version of civic republicanism, “strong democracy,” he makes “direct political participation—activity that is explicitly public” to be the “successful form of civic education for democracy” (1984: 235). This participation is above all discursive: “at the heart of strong democracy is talk” (1984: 173). The threat of leadership to Barber is that it will dominate this talk and overawe ordinary citizens. “On its face,” he writes, “leadership is opposed to participatory self-government” (1984: 238). Yet Barber acknowledges that even his “strong democracy” cannot completely dispense with leadership. He allows for “transitional leadership” that will pave the way to more participatory institutions, “natural leadership” that cannot be suppressed in conversations among equal citizens, “facilitating leadership” that keeps democratic talk flowing, and “moral leadership” that calls citizens to communal and national ideals (1984: 238–239). Yet these must be confined lest they return democracy to an elitist division of labor between leaders and followers: transitional leadership must “fade away,” facilitating leadership must be “politically neuter,” and moral leadership must be “exercised outside the political arena . . .” (1984: 239–241, emphasis in original).

Populist Mobilization Civic republican educators speak of the common good; populist mobilizing leadership calls followers to struggle and conflict. The conception of democracy as adversarial, especially involving the many against the few, is as old as the civic republican conception. Athenian democracy did not produce memorable theorists, but defenses of the adversarial conception can be traced back to Machiavelli’s republican histories of Rome and Florence, and its American lineage goes back to Jefferson, who wrote that while party names varied in different nations, at the bottom every free society was divided between democrats and aristocrats. Historian Lawrence Goodwyn (1978) used the phrase “populist moment” to depict the People’s Party of the 1880s and 1890s, but one can find populist moments throughout American democratic experience,

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typically on the left but more recently on the right. Among presidents, for example, there are populist moments in Jackson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Reagan, and the brand new incarnation of Obama. Populist mobilization is seldom viewed as a form of civic education. Indeed, it is more often seen as jeopardizing civic education because of its demagogic potential. Jeffrey Tulis has written that for America’s founders, “demagoguery, combined with majority tyranny, was regarded as the peculiar vice to which democracies were susceptible” (1987: 27–28). Yet if demagoguery as the incitement of popular passions in the service of self-aggrandizing leadership remains a possibility in a democratic society, the word is too often brandished as a catchpenny phrase for the political opponent one most dislikes. Some political thinkers have suggested that it is not even possible to separate demagoguery from democratic leadership. Max Weber wrote: “Since the time of the constitutional state, and definitely since democracy has been established, the ‘demagogue’ has been the typical political leader in the Occident. The distasteful flavor of the word must not make us forget that not Cleon but Pericles was the first to bear the name of demagogue” (cited in Gerth and Mills 1958: 96). Classical scholar M. I. Finley shared Weber’s perspective, observing that “demagogues were a structural element in the Athenian political system” and that “the term is equally applicable to all leaders” in Athens (1985: 69). A case can be made for populist mobilizing leadership as civic education, and I intend to say some kind words about a phenomenon that is often treated pejoratively. By contrast to the discursive focus of civic republicanism on public virtue, populist mobilization shifts the focus to issues of power. It aims to clarify for the many, often by dramatizing rhetoric, the deeper structures of economic, social, and political power that distort democracy. Populist civic education brings to the surface dimensions of hierarchy and privilege that are typically whitewashed or hidden. In the populist conception of democracy, the key problem is not that the many are speechless (unable to deliberate) but that they are powerless (unable to actualize the self-government that they have been told is theirs). For populist democrats, democracy is viewed as incomplete, unfinished, always at risk of slipping into oligarchy. And the battle against oligarchy cannot be confined to the political arena, since the roots of inequality lie in society, culture, and, above all, the economy. Like instrumental communication, but unlike civic republican discourse, populist mobilization appeals to self-interest. It does not ask followers to rise above self-interest and adopt the standpoint of the common good. However, unlike instrumental communication, populist mobilization frames self-­interest in terms of justice; it advances claims for the interests of those who have been unfairly marginalized or disadvantaged. From a populist perspective, there are two problems with the civic republican emphasis on the common good: it

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elides intractable disparities of power, and it remains too abstract and remote to connect to people’s lived experiences. By speaking to people about their own aspirations, troubles, and grievances, populist leaders make connections for followers between the personal and the political. Even as interest is mobilized by populist leadership, it is broadened and deepened. Populist mobilizing leadership holds out the promise of democratic change. Mobilization is the vehicle through which individuals who are politically weak become powerful through collective action. Collective action, however, is more than empowering; it is simultaneously enlightening. From the perspective of populist leadership, ordinary citizens are more engaged by direct action (electoral activism, petitioning, boycotts, protest demonstrations, and the like) than by the “talk” promoted by civic republicans. Engagement can lead to growth—to overcoming fears, developing a greater sense of competence and dignity, assuming public responsibilities, affirming new solidarities. Those who have participated in the great social movements of the last century in the United States—movements of workers, African Americans, and women, for example—frequently look back on their time in these movements as the most civic period of their lives. What about the divisiveness of populist struggle, the impetus to treat some fellow citizens as outside the pale of commonality, the invitation to incivility and anger? Populist mobilization is undoubtedly ruder than instrumental communication or civic republican discourse, more edged with tension and more productive of ill-feeling. A populist leader might concede all of this, yet point out, as did Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from the Birmingham jail, that civility too often papers over an unjust status quo. Moreover, even as populist mobilization fosters new divisions, it also makes new connections. Starting by mobilizing particularistic demands for justice, populist leadership teaches followers to enlarge the ambit of their interests to incorporate others who also suffer from a democratic deficiency. For a theoretical exposition of populist mobilizing leadership as civic education, consider James MacGregor Burns’s magnum opus, Leadership (1978). At first glance, it might seem odd to treat Burns as a proponent of populist leadership. Burns is certainly no democratic minimalist: his concept of “transactional leadership” makes instrumental forms of leadership not only mundane but inferior. Yet with his aim set high on the moral development of both leaders and followers, he would seem to share the civic republican persuasion. However, moral development is, for Burns, a product of political action more than political talk; it is not achievable merely through deliberation, reasoning, and unity. “Transforming leadership,” his most famous contribution to the literature on leadership, captures the educative effects of leaders intent on reformist or revolutionary change. Transforming leaders are mobilizers, and their vehicle is conflict. 98

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In Burns’s “transforming leadership,” “leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality” (1978: 20). While leadership and followership are twined together in a dynamic relationship, this relationship is initiated by leaders in the context of conflict. Burns writes: “Leadership as conceptualized here is grounded in the seedbed of conflict. Conflict is intrinsically compelling; it galvanizes, prods, motivates people” (1978: 38). Burns does not fear the divisiveness of populist conflict; on the contrary, he makes it a basic feature of the most impressive form of democratic leadership (1978: 453): The dynamo of political action, meaningful conflict, produces engaged leaders, who in turn generate more conflict among the people. Conflict relevant to popular aspirations is also the key democratizer of leadership. It causes leaders to expand the field of combat, to reach out for more followers, to search for allies. It organizes motives, sharpens popular demands, broadens and strengthens values.

Historical and Contemporary Cases Turning from theory to political practice, and focusing on leadership and civic education in the American democratic experience, it is not surprising that the three types of leadership often overlap. Instrumental public communication rarely reveals leaders’ quest for political influence in bald-faced terms. Collective values or populist ends are cited, although normally in a thin enough patina as to preclude much educational content. Conversely, civic republican speech or populist mobilization should not be expected to be devoid of a concern for leaders’ influence; civic education is not an exercise in self-sacrifice. Moreover, while the civic republican and populist types of leadership are distinct, individual leaders can shift from one type to the other at different times or deliberately blend them within a single text. Democratic leaders at all levels of politics, inside or outside of government, can assume the stance of the civic educator. However, if there is one place in American politics to which scholars (if not always citizens) look for educative leadership, it is no doubt the presidency. As the only federal official (not counting the vice president) elected by the entire nation, a president has the legitimacy to speak for the whole people. As the political leader who occupies the most visible position in American politics, a president has the capacity to speak to the whole people. Sometimes dubbed the pastor of America’s “civil religion,” a president is expected, at least on occasion, to expound for citizens upon the duties of their republican creed. Ceremonial occasions, particularly presidential inaugurations, invite civic republican discourse. For that reason, their lofty civic rhetoric is most in need of skeptical deconstruction. An obvious case in point is Richard Nixon’s first 99

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inaugural address. Coming at the zenith of the tumultuous sixties, Nixon’s most striking words in this speech were a plea for civility and dialogue: In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices (Nixon 1969).

Notoriously, Nixon proceeded in the White House to exacerbate resentments, especially over race, to promote political polarization in order to draw the larger half of the electorate into his base, and to construct a secret, unaccountable wing of the government in the name of a “silent majority.” An archetypal democratic minimalist, his disdain for ordinary citizens rivaled that of Schumpeter: in a post-presidential book, Leaders, he wrote: “To wish is passive; to will is active. Followers wish. Leaders will” (1982: 337). Skepticism comes up short, however, in an encounter with the fuller and deeper civic education offered by a handful of America’s greatest presidents at critical moments in which the public was most in need of instruction. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt stand out among presidents as exceptional teachers of the public. Both were savvy and tough power seekers, yet there is abundant evidence that both took seriously what FDR called the statesman’s duty to educate. Importantly for my purposes, civic education for Lincoln and Roosevelt entailed either civic republican discourse or populist mobilization, depending on time and circumstance. Among inaugural addresses, Lincoln’s second presents an unusually challenging form of civic republican discourse. Most inaugural addresses ask citizens to look up from their quotidian private affairs and aspire to a higher realm of civic virtue. Lincoln’s short speech asked Americans to look back at their history and inside themselves to confront civic “offenses.” The Civil War, he insisted, was Divine punishment of both North and South for the sin of slavery, for two and a half centuries of African Americans’ “unrequited toil” and “blood drawn with the lash” (cited in Fehrenbacher 1992: 450). On the eve of northern victory in the war, Lincoln offered not celebration but “humiliation” (1992: 451), as he put it in a letter to Thurlow Weed after the inauguration. Reaching back to the Puritan genre of the jeremiad, Lincoln’s conclusion to the speech pointed out the way to redemption for Americans— a call for a spirit of “charity” that is not among the hallowed values of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Because Lincoln is revered for his magnanimity, it is easy to overlook the forceful populist tropes of principled struggle that he sometimes employed.

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A case in point is his address at New York City’s Cooper Union in February 1860, which Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer (2004) calls “the speech that made [him] president.” In the conclusion to this lengthy address, Lincoln first appealed to his fellow Republicans to consider the path of conciliation and compromise with southerners: “Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can” (cited in Fehrenbacher 1992: 249). However, he next proceeded methodically to show that nothing could satisfy the South but “this only—cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right” (1992: 250). In the militant words with which he closed, Lincoln urged followers to resist the outrages of what their party called “the slave power” with their own mobilization of anti-­ slavery power: “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT” (1992: 251). Locating the causes of the Great Depression in the “mad chase for unearned riches” and hyper-individualism of the 1920s, Roosevelt naturally sprinkled his speeches about his New Deal with civic republican values. “I like that word ‘Commonwealth’,” he said on one presidential occasion. “All over this nation we are hewing out a Commonwealth” (cited in Miroff 2000: 245). The New Deal was portrayed in his discourse as simultaneously a modernist adaptation of the American national state and a recovery of ancestral civic ideals “known, but to some degree forgotten” (2000: 245) in the excesses of the immediate past. Roosevelt claimed to be even prouder of Americans’ civic appreciation of the New Deal than of his own initiatives in beginning the process of republican renewal: “Leadership I have tried to give, but the great and outstanding fact . . . has been the response—the wholehearted response— of America. As we have recaptured and rekindled our pioneering spirit, we have insisted that it shall always be a spirit of justice, a spirit of teamwork, a spirit of sacrifice, and, above all, a spirit of neighborliness” (2000: 245–246). However, as opposition to the New Deal mounted on the right, Roosevelt pivoted to the language of populist mobilization. If there is a quintessential populist text in presidential history, it is Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Drawing on the imagery of the American Revolution, FDR now depicted a commonwealth in grave danger and summoned his followers to take up the struggle against modern oppressors. “[I]t was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought” (cited in Rosenman, (ed.) 1969: 232), he

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observed. But the economic and technological developments that defined industrial America had allowed “economic royalists” to carve out “new dynasties” (1969: 232). Ordinary Americans still possessed their political rights, but they were no longer free in the economic sphere: “The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor—these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship” (1969: 233). In this class-divided nation, “the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic ­inequality” (1969: 233). In thunderous language that inevitably drew accusations of demagoguery, FDR threw down the gantlet: “These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power” (1969: 234). A similar pivot from civic republican to populist motifs is visible in Barack Obama (whether he deserves to be grouped with the likes of Lincoln and FDR remains to be seen). The celebrated passage in the speech that rocketed Obama to political stardom, his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston, was a vivid reminder of commonalities that contradicted the conventional wisdom about a politically, culturally, and racially divided nation. It was the stereotypes about polar oppositions, he argued, spread by self-interested nay-sayers and shallow commentators, that obscured for Americans their shared values and shared fate: There are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America . . . The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states . . . But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states . . . We are one people (Obama 2004).

This civic republican Obama seems genuine: from his law school and academic background he came to the presidency steeped in theories of civic republicanism and deliberative democracy, and his continuing search for bipartisanship and common ground during the first two and a half years of his presidency, to the mounting exasperation of his liberal supporters, was a signature feature of his political practices (see Kloppenberg 2011). Yet ferocious Republican opposition, propelling him to major political reversals in the elections of 2010 and the negotiations over the federal debt limit in 2011, finally drove him to go where FDR had gone in 1936. Speaking at Osawatomie, Kansas, in December 2011, after something of a push from the 102

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“Occupy” movements across urban America, Obama came out as a populist. Although the occasion for the speech was the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” address at Osawatomie, its language was as evocative of FDR as of TR. Obama’s imagery, tone, and policy prescriptions in the speech were characteristically milder than those of FDR, but the populist lesson was essentially the same. The nation had been plunged into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Obama argued, through the combination of “the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system” (Obama 2011). The crisis “claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people—innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag” (Obama 2011). Unabashed, the ideologues who championed a trickle-down economy of lower taxes on the rich and the deregulation of business continued to peddle their failed theory of growth. Obama connected the weakness of the American economy to its class biases. “Look at the statistics,” he lectured, pointing to data familiar to liberal critics but seldom discussed in the political mainstream. “In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1% has gone up by more than 25% to $1.2 million per year . . . And yet, over the last decade the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6%” (Obama 2011). The populist core of Obama’s educative purpose was to clarify, as FDR had done, how economic inequality threatened American democracy. The inequality documented in the statistics, at “a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Depression” (Obama 2011), was harmful across the board in a democratic society. The economic damage was readily apparent: “When middleclass families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom” (Obama 2011). The damage was no less to American political and moral life. Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them . . . But there’s an even more fundamental issue at stake. This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try (Obama 2011).

Discouraging Data Leaders speaking the language of civic republicanism or populist mobilization aspire to educate followers about their public responsibilities. But do the 103

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prospective pupils grasp and respond to their teachings? For that matter, do leaders whose objectives are instrumental win the mass support that boosts their influence through their efforts at public communication? The literature on the presidency is a good place to turn for evidence on the impact of leaders’ messages, both because the chief executive occupies the famed “bully pulpit” and attracts the largest audience, and because data on the public reception of presidential messages are far more extensive than for other types of leaders. Even a brief review of this literature paints a discouraging picture for theories of civic education. Most political scientists who study presidential communication operate on the premise of instrumentalism: contemporary presidents are seeking popular support as a means to advance their legislative or reelection goals, not to deepen public understanding as a goal in itself. Presidents themselves often express the belief that public support is their greatest potential resource, and that if they fall short of maximizing this resource it is because they have not yet figured out the right message. But presidency scholarship suggests that they are mistaken. In fact, George Edwards III writes, no matter how skilled presidents may be at the arts of communication, they “find it very difficult to move the public. Usually they fail” (2003: 238). The title of one of Edwards’s books sums up the findings of a whole body of political science research: On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit (2003). Survey research has long demonstrated that most American citizens do not pay a great deal of attention to politics. Asked about fundamental principles of American constitutionalism or the identity of current political leaders other than the president, citizens’ answers are often hazy or downright incorrect. This inattention is evident even in the case of the president—­ and even when citizens have heard or read what the president has said. President Reagan’s pollster, Richard Wirthlin, conducted surveys shortly after four of the president’s first term speeches, asking respondents who had watched these speeches on television or consulted media accounts to recall major points made by Reagan. Only 26 per cent, on average, answered that they could remember three or more points in the president’s remarks. That number hardly speaks to a substantial degree of learning (Edwards 2003: 207–208). Even those citizens who pay closer attention to presidents’ communications may not be open to the purport of their messages. Unlike students who ideally bring to the classroom open minds, the audience for presidential communication brings its predispositions, especially partisan loyalties. Evaluation of a president’s ideas and policies varies by partisanship, and the gulf between Democratic and Republican evaluations has grown dramatically wider in an age of polarization. Supporters of the opposition typically detect an alien ideology behind a president’s proposals to advance the common 104

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good. Supporters of the president’s party applaud the objectives announced in a speech, but this might be considered “preaching to the converted” rather than shaping new perspectives (Edwards 2003: 218–226). (Partisan divisions in audience responses are, to be sure, more of a problem for civic republican discourse. Populist mobilizing leadership accepts the reality of division; its aim is to turn passive followers into active ones.) Discourse that calls upon citizens to rise above narrow self-interest, heeding civic calls for responsibility and, sometimes, sacrifice for the common good, also may run afoul of what behavioral psychologists label “loss aversion.” Many members of the public, fearing losses more than hoping for gains, worry that leaders’ agendas might carry hidden costs for their wellbeing. When leaders bring forth complex programs in the name of change, opponents can have considerable success warning of potential hazards, real or imaginary (Edwards 2003: 227–228). The collapse of initial public approval for Clinton’s health care reform, Bush’s Social Security reform, and Obama’s health care overhaul is a potent reminder of how “loss aversion” favors the opposition to presidential leadership. By itself, the public audience poses several obstacles to presidential communication, whether designed for instrumental purposes or for broader civic teaching. The contemporary media environment compounds the difficulties of moving the public. For presidents today, media present a four-fold problem. First, media diversity reduces the centrality of presidential communication: with an array of viewing alternatives on cable TV and other delivery vehicles that offer visual content, the audience for presidential speeches has been diminished. When three national networks constituted most of what was available on television, more than half of the viewing audience tuned in to presidential addresses; according to data presented by Edwards (2003: 188–195), by the late 1990s, less than a third watched even the State of the Union address. Second, given growing competition among more diverse media, “soft news” about celebrities or human interest stories has grown at the expense of “hard news” about politics and government; excepting niche political shows or websites that generally draw small audiences, major news media devote less space to presidents and their activities than they did decades ago (Cohen 2008: 49–70). Third, the tone of media coverage of presidents has grown more negative: data presented by Cohen (2008: 89–106) show that compared to the tone of reporting about presidents like Eisenhower and Kennedy, today’s journalists are inclined to be less deferential and more skeptical. Fourth, a president’s opponents have become savvier about using the media to counter presidential messages: instead of presidents looming high above all other leaders as public communicators, today the public is exposed, as Jacobs and Shapiro write, to “dueling presentations” (2000: 121). 105

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Conclusion Theories that look to leaders as civic educators too seldom confront the kind of data just presented. Instrumental communicators tend to overestimate their capacity to sway their audiences. For presidents in particular, the data suggest that the “bully pulpit” is not the resource it is cracked up to be; even talented communicators in the White House, such as Reagan, Clinton, and Obama, have not noticeably boosted their influence through their public campaigns on behalf of priority policies. Civic republican leadership or populist mobilizing leadership also experience trouble in enlightening public audiences in light of the same obstacles. The quantitative data used in the empirical studies of public leadership primarily come from recent decades. Did would-be civic educators have it better in the past? Historical analyses of the public reception of leaders’ messages are necessarily imprecise, but a broad focus on the impact of even the greatest civic educators suggests a conclusion not dissimilar from that drawn from quantitative findings. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address chastised Americans, himself included, for their sin and offered redemption through the practices of charity. The decades following his assassination were dominated by heedless Gilded Age materialism in the North and Klan violence in the South. FDR mobilized his supporters to struggle against the “economic royalists” and advance the progressive agenda of the New Deal. His militant populism may have contributed to his landslide reelection in 1936, but the enemies he had denounced mobilized against him after the election and undercut support for the New Deal, as FDR suffered a string of stinging political defeats in his second term. Such “realist” debunking should not, however, be taken too far. Perhaps the standards for civic education are set too high. What, then, might be reasonable standards by which to measure good civic education by modern democratic leaders? A consideration of the theoretical conceptions and historical cases presented earlier suggests how we might develop some reasonable standards. For example, we might note how instrumental communication, especially in the context of leadership competition, can offer followers information and even inspiration regardless of the aims of the leaders. Moreover, we might look to the cumulative effects of leaders’ efforts at civic education rather than trying to find extensive mass learning after a single speech. Ordinary citizens may not attend to the substantive depths and complexities of rhetoric that fascinate scholars or engage political elites, but they may well take away the essence of what effective civic educators have tried to convey. If we examine how little FDR, Reagan, or Obama moved the dial of public support on behalf of their legislative programs, we encounter the limits of 106

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civic education. If we ask whether the public audience came to understand what leaders like these stood for, and what they wanted of citizens, the possibilities of civic education cannot be dismissed. And if we disaggregate the general audience and focus in on interest groups, social movements, or partisan activists, the educative impact of leaders’ public speeches on their more committed followers may be still more impressive. Although instrumental communication at times can contribute to good civic education, a fuller democratic education requires at least some episodes of civic republican discourse and populist mobilization. Civic republican discourse sometimes may operate as a facade for leaders’ instrumental objectives, but the very expectation of that discourse says something about its essential place in good democratic leadership. In a political culture subject to the conflicting tugs of individualism and community, with individualism more often possessing the upper hand, reminders of our civic selves are periodically required. The “better angels” of Lincoln’s First Inaugural address represent the moral standards of democracy that need to be firmly upheld in speech because they are so easily breached in practice. Imagine if you will a purely practical discourse of leadership in which unvarnished appeals to selfinterest or even prejudice were all there were. Even if democracy could survive under these conditions, it would be a shabby affair. Democracy also would be diminished without populist mobilizing leadership. A Schumpeter brand of democracy, with a few intelligent leaders at the top and a bewildered mass below, might sustain itself over time but would not be likely to alter the status quo. Leaders who hope to move their communities or country in a more democratic direction cannot overcome powerful forces of resistance without activated followers. Historic democratic transformations in America have almost always featured a symbiosis between the vision of leaders and the heightened commitment of followers. Civic education that illuminates the field of power and calls citizens to take a stand in an ongoing political struggle remains one of the hallmarks of good democratic leadership.

Bibliography Barber, Benjamin 1984, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age, University of California Press, Berkeley. Burns, James MacGregor 1978, Leadership, Harper & Row, New York. Cohen, Jeffrey 2008, The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Downs, Anthony 1957, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Harper and Row, New York. Edwards, George C. III 2003, On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit, Yale University Press, New Haven.

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Bruce Miroff Fehrenbacher, Don E. 1992, Lincoln: Selected Speeches and Writings, Vintage Books, New York. Finley, M. I. 1985, Democracy Ancient and Modern, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. Gerth, H. H. and Wright Mills, C. (eds) 1958, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, New York. Goodwyn, Lawrence 1978, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, Oxford University Press, New York. Holzer, Harold 2004, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President, Simon and Schuster, New York. Jacobs, Lawrence R. and Shapiro, Robert Y. 2000, Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Jaeger, Werner 1965, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, New York. Kloppenberg, James T. 2011, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Lippmann, Walter [1922] 1965, Public Opinion, The Free Press, New York. Lippmann, Walter [1927] 1993, The Phantom Public, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick. Miroff, Bruce 2000, Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, and Democrats, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence. Nixon, Richard M. 1969, “First inaugural address,” January 20, retrieved at . Nixon, Richard M. 1982. Leaders. Warner Books, New York. Obama, Barack 2004, “Speech at the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention,” July 27, retrieved at . Obama, Barack 2011, “Full text of Barack Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kansas,” December 6, retrieved at . Plato 1960, Gorgias, trans. W. Hamilton, Penguin Books, Baltimore. Rosenman, Samuel I. (ed.) 1969, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 5, Russell and Russell, New York. Sandel, Michael J. 1996, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1962, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 3rd edn, Harper Torchbooks, New York. Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987, The Rhetorical Presidency, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

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7 Emancipators’ Dilemmas: Democratic Leadership and the Politics of Equal Rights Rogers M. Smith

Introduction: Emancipators’ Dilemmas and Policy Alliances Abraham Lincoln presided over the greatest advance of human rights in United States history, the end of legal slavery. He did so in an environment profoundly shaped by radical abolitionists, white and black, who often opposed Lincoln and who never had more than an uneasy alliance with him. As democratic leaders, Lincoln and the radicals repeatedly faced difficult challenges of judging when to push each other and when to pull together. They succeeded sufficiently that later reform-minded presidents and radical advocates of change, including equal rights for African Americans and women, have invoked Lincoln and the abolitionists as inspiration for their efforts. But just what is the Lincoln/abolitionist model of how to win emancipatory rights, and how far have later presidents and activists been able to follow it successfully? By examining Lincoln’s relationship to the anti-slavery activists of his day and then considering the strategies of African Americans and women reformers in relation to presidents during the twentieth century, I suggest that, often, leading reformers sought to play the roles their anti-slavery predecessors did. But until the 1960s, they had limited success, in part because of unfavorable circumstances, in part because of their own questionable choices, and in part because they lacked Lincolns—more conservative but sympathetic, politically deft presidents whom they could pressure and with whom they could sometimes ally. The rare circumstances in which Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson came to work together for the historic outlawing of invidious racial discrimination only underline how both opportune conditions and skillful leadership are needed to overcome the “emancipators’ 109

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dilemmas” all these political actors have faced. The fact that no such partnership emerged to advance the goals of the modern women’s movement shows that there are other paths to reform—but its absence may also explain why progress toward gender equality has not gone further. To grasp the challenges faced by mainstream leaders and radical activists seeking emancipatory reforms, it is helpful to see them as two kinds of participants in what Desmond King and I call “policy alliances.” These are loose networks of social movement activists and more conventional party leaders and governmental officials who, for intrinsic or instrumental reasons, side with the activists on a major policy issue. Despite this common cause, the activist and mainstream alliance participants often differ greatly in their preferred tactics and ultimate aims (King and Smith 2011: 24–25). But partly for that reason, these two types of alliance members can make distinct contributions to their shared goals. Social movements can stir public opinion in reform directions, while mainstream leaders can leverage governmental power. Consequently, they have good reasons to work together; but cooperation is not easily achieved. Rational choice scholars depict barriers to cooperation as “prisoner’s dilemmas.” In these accounts prisoners can improve their prospects by cooperating with each other against the authorities. They may, however, not trust each other enough to forego the lesser but more certain opportunities for better treatment they can gain by betraying each other. Similarly, both mainstream leaders and radical activists face dilemmas that can impair cooperation. But their distinct political identities and interests mean that their specific dilemmas differ somewhat, unlike those of the interchangeable prisoners in rational choice examples. For mainstream politicians with reasons to join a reform alliance, the great dilemma is when and how far to back reforms, at the risk of seeming too radical in the public’s eyes to be politically viable, and when and how far to instead distance themselves from radical proposals, at the risk of failing to advance reform at all. For activist reformers, the great dilemma is when and how far to stress radical critiques, in order to keep their ultimate goals in view and retain the favor of their radical constituents, and when and how far to accept compromises that move conditions closer to those goals, while falling short and perhaps eroding their support. These dilemmas require democratic leaders to make three types of judgments. How well they do so is crucial to their success. First, politicians and activists must make hard decisions about what policy goals are worth advocating. Then, just as prisoners must guess how authorities will react to their decisions to confess or remain silent, politicians and activists must judge how the coalitions they lead and the general public will react to their policy choi­ ces. Finally, both types of leaders must gauge how far they can trust their 110

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alliance counterparts to play their roles effectively, by moving public opinion to support reform in the case of the activists, and by enacting policy reforms in the case of the government officials. Lincoln’s relationships with abolitionists like the former slave Frederick Douglass and Radical Republicans like Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner exemplify how both mainstream politicians and radicals operating in a reform alliance can confront these dilemmas and play their roles successfully, though not without great difficulties. Examples drawn from the next major era of American civil rights reform—African American leaders opposed to Jim Crow laws, including Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and A. Philip Randolph, and presidents wishing to be seen as reformers, including ­Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as women’s suffrage leaders like Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, Alice Paul, and Adella Hunt Logan in relation to TR and Wilson—indicate how far the examples of Lincoln and Douglass influenced these successors. These later cases show why the Lincoln–Douglass example is unusual, and why favorable contexts and wise choices by both activists and mainstream leaders are needed for a reform alliance to win major changes. Finally, I consider the fraught yet far more successful relationship of Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson, noting that both recognized how new conditions gave them the chance, if they played their roles skillfully, to make the Second Reconstruction more successful than the First.

The Lincoln–Douglass Example Abraham Lincoln was a prototypical reform-minded but mainstream politician. He professed a lifelong hatred of slavery and supported measures against it from early in his career; but he also long opposed abolitionism, believing slavery should be ended gradually, legally, and peacefully, with compensation for slaveholders and colonization for African Americans (Berwanger 1983: 27–34). After the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, however, Lincoln’s opposition to slavery became central to his political career. That law convinced him the country was moving toward making slavery perpetual, instead of putting it (or, as he preferred, keeping it) on the path to extinction. From that point on, Lincoln consistently urged that the nation must adopt measures that were likely to lead to the end of slavery, if only over time. And though Lincoln remained a more conservative and electorally credible figure than the abolitionists who sought immediate emancipation, over time he found himself in position first to proclaim the end of slavery in states in rebellion, then to preside over the adoption of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery throughout the land, and even to begin to work 111

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toward black suffrage (Berwanger 1983: 35–38; Oakes 2007: 51–86). As a result, many radicals who had expressed disgust with Lincoln’s tactics and goals came to praise him. To put these developments in terms of the model of American racial politics King and I have advanced, Lincoln became after 1854 a leader of the antislavery alliance, determined to contribute to slavery’s demise (King and Smith 2011: 40–50). Sidney Milkis and Daniel Tichenor have examined the tense relationships of presidents and social movement leaders as members of American racial reform alliances, focusing on Lincoln and the anti-slavery movement and Lyndon Johnson and the anti-segregation movement (Milkis and Tichenor 2011). Their analysis provides a template for the examples drawn from the intervening era they do not discuss that I consider here. Hans Trefousse (1969) called the abolitionists and their congressional Radical Republican allies Lincoln’s “vanguard for racial justice.” But tensions abounded: in his 1838 Lyceum speech, a young Lincoln warned that abolition should not be sought by lawless means. Even in his 1854 address attacking the Kansas–Nebraska Act, he upheld the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act that abolitionists denounced. In his First Inaugural Address, he reiterated his acceptance of the legality of slavery in the states where it existed, though he opposed its extension (Lincoln 1962: 11, 53, 138–139; Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 458). Lincoln waited until the bloody victory at Antietam to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and through December 1862 he urged Congress to support compensated emancipation and colonization of freed blacks (Lincoln 1962: 201, 211). Abolitionists and Radical Republicans assailed him for all these positions and more (Berwanger 1983: 27–38; Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 459–465). Yet abolitionists including William Lloyd ­Garrison and Douglass and Radical Republicans like Sumner also recognized that Lincoln’s rise provided opportunities to shift policies in an anti-slavery direction. They gave Lincoln support each time he acted toward that goal. Eventually most came to commend him as a statesman (Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 459, 461, 465–467). As James Oakes has detailed, far more than the purist Garrison, Frederick Douglass wrestled with the reformer’s dilemma of balancing the need to hold to his radical principles and the need to recognize “the importance of compromise, without which democratic politics would be impossible” (2007: 27–28). That is why, though Douglass urged abolitionists to “keep pounding the rock” and he often attacked Lincoln’s “vacillation, doubt, uncertainty and hesitation,” he also praised Lincoln when his criticisms bore fruit (Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 461, 465). For his part, though Lincoln defended his policies against abolitionist critics, he still saw them as assets in achieving anti-slavery goals. Lincoln’s friend Leonard Swett said Lincoln “believed from the first . . . that the agitation of 112

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Slavery would produce its overthrow” because he felt “an evil can’t stand discussion” (Oakes 2007: 83). Carl Schurz, Lincoln’s Ambassador to Spain, wrote that Lincoln “did not at all deprecate” demands for immediate emancipation, because he “welcomed everything that would prepare the public mind for the approaching development” (Trefousse 1969: 229). But as Oakes argues, Lincoln “knew just how far he could push the public mind” without losing credibility (Oakes 2007: 93). He realized he won the 1860 election with just under 40 per cent of the vote, and that he campaigned only on banning slavery in the territories, not total abolition (McPherson 1988: 232). Despite intense pressure from Radicals and abolitionists, Lincoln waited for a Union victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation because he thought it would gain more public acceptance if it appeared to be an act of strength, not weakness (Foner 1988: 1–2, 5–8; McPherson 1988: 505, 557–558). In fact, Oakes notes, often it “suited Lincoln’s purposes to have radicals like Douglass attacking him. It made the president appear more conservative than he actually was”—and again, he truly was more conservative than his radical critics, both in regard to means and, for a long time, the goal of a fully racially egalitarian America (2007: 93, 171). But Lincoln also realized that the radicals’ attacks on him cemented his image in the public mind as a moderate, increasing his appeal, even as their arguments shifted public opinion in ways that helped Lincoln to achieve radical goals. That, along with Douglass’s willingness to support him when he did take stronger actions and Lincoln’s real admiration for Douglass, explains why Lincoln came to treat Douglass as a friend, disregarding criticism and inviting him more than once to the White House (2007: xxi–xxii, 235). In these ways, radical reformers succeeded by means of an informal, contentious, but increasingly self-conscious alliance with a “Whig politician” who knew that in the end, he had to “side with the radicals” (Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 466; Trefousse 1969: 276). Their differences were real, but just for that reason, they were able to make distinct but reinforcing contributions to the anti-slavery cause. Indeed, it is hard to see how either part of this emancipatory alliance could have won without the other.

Anti-Segregation Reformers In light of the Lincoln–Douglass example of how mainstream leaders and radical activists can best confront emancipators’ dilemmas, we should ask whether similar successful alliances between activists and politicians can be found in later reform struggles—and if not, why not? My answer is that both African American and women’s rights advocates in the first half of the 113

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twentieth century sought to play similar partly oppositional, partly allied roles in relation to mainstream leaders, especially presidents. But in their contexts, they were often less able to pressure politicians; they also sometimes chose not to do so, placing perhaps excessive hopes in compromises; and they also were not lucky enough to have shrewd mainstream leaders so inclined to their cause. Consequently, though they made real contributions to human emancipation, they achieved less than their nineteenth-century predecessors, and less than their more fortunate and skillful successors ­Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. would win. The three most prominent African American leaders in the early twentieth century were Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois and Philip Randolph. Of these Randolph came closest to enacting the sort of role in relation to a more conservative but sympathetic mainstream leader, Franklin Roosevelt, which Douglass had played with Lincoln; and he arguably had the most impact. Yet that impact was still limited by the unfavorable political contexts in which Randolph labored, and by FDR’s caution about racial reforms that might jeopardize his New Deal coalition. Booker T. Washington exemplifies a reformer who publicly placed so much stress on the need for compromise that he failed to exert much pressure for change on the powerful mainstream leader with whom he formed a “partnership of convenience,” Theodore Roosevelt (Harlan 1983: 3). The Wizard of Tuskegee was complex. He seemed to accept the burgeoning Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement laws of the 1890s and early 1900s, but he secretly funded lawsuits to overturn them (Thornbrough 1961: 508; Harlan 1983: 246–247). Theodore Roosevelt, in turn, was a student and a promulgator of evolutionary doctrines of racial inequality—yet he was also an ardent Lincoln admirer who insisted that each individual, “whatever his color,” was entitled to “equality of treatment before the law” (Dyer 1980: 102–109; Gerstle 1999: 1282–1285; Roosevelt 1925). Roosevelt saw Washington as the rare black man who was truly exceptional. He consulted him on appointments, and he once had him to dinner at the White House, though TR, unlike Lincoln with Douglass, responded to Southern criticism by not repeating the invitation (Harlan 1983: viii, 3–6). Roosevelt did continue to use Washington as an adviser on personnel and racial matters, which conveyed to many African Americans that he had their interests at heart. Washington therefore might have been able to push Roosevelt to take action against the new laws that were imposing second class citizenship on most African Americans, violating the goals though not so plainly the text of the 14th Amendment. He never did so. Instead, during the 1890s Washington gave an “Abraham Lincoln Memorial Address” at Union League Club celebrations of Lincoln’s birthday (e.g., Washington 1896 and Washington 1899). Echoing the Gettysburg Address, Washington said: “it remains for us, 114

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the living, to finish the work that Lincoln left uncompleted.” But he stressed that the people “of the great and prosperous North still owe a serious and uncompleted duty to your less fortunate brothers of the white race South, who suffered and are still suffering the consequences of American slavery” (­Washington 1899; emphasis added). Washington excused the South for “staggering under the burden” of “preparing in education, politics, and economics, in a few short years,” former slaves who were “still ignorant . . . without the requisites for intelligent and independent citizenship” (Washington 1899). He urged northerners to use their “philanthropy and wealth” to support “industrial education” for blacks, like his Tuskegee Institute. And though he celebrated the “struggle of Abraham Lincoln up from the lowest poverty and ignorance to the highest usefulness,” his Lincoln was a Horatio Alger hero, not a model of strong political actions to secure equal rights (­Washington 1899). Similarly, Washington advised Roosevelt not to use Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, which provides for reduction of states’ representation in the House if they deny citizens voting rights, as a weapon against Jim Crow voting laws—contending that to do so might only suggest the laws were valid, if states paid the price (Thornbrough 1961: 507). The price of receiving the limited recognition Washington obtained from Roosevelt was that the nation’s most prominent African American never advanced the kinds of sharp public criticisms that Frederick Douglass so often directed against Lincoln. Whether or not Washington could have done more, his public stance did little to advance the reforms for which he secretly funded litigation. In 1912, Roosevelt agreed that the new Progressive Party supporting his quest to return to the presidency should be organized in the South on a whites only basis (Link 1947: 94–96). In 1913, Roosevelt wrote an effusive introduction for a party manifesto, The Progressive Movement, deeming its principles to be ­Lincoln’s—even though it promised that Progressives would not “force the political recognition of an inferior race upon an unwilling and superior people” (Duncan-Clark 1913: xiii, xv, 36). But if Washington enhanced Roosevelt’s credibility with blacks while failing to criticize TR’s countenancing of Jim Crow, other black leaders were more willing to advance blunt critiques. W. E. B. Du Bois, writing in 1913 as editor of the Crisis, the journal of the still new National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), blasted “the reactionary South and the acquiescent North” for supporting black disfranchisement, segregation, purely vocational education for blacks, anti-miscegenation laws, and efforts to drive blacks off their lands (Du Bois 1913: 128). He contended: “Abraham Lincoln began the emancipation of the Negro American. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proposes to 115

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complete it” (1913: 129). The NAACP would do so through struggles against much that Washington, Roosevelt, and others were accepting (1913: 129). But neither the Crisis nor the NAACP sparked debate over segregation and disfranchisement to the degree that the abolitionists had done. They had much less success in raising fears among northern whites about the political and economic power of segregationists, and about competition with segregated labor, than their predecessors had concerning the power of slave owners and competition with slave labor. And on the few occasions that Du Bois sought to establish direct alliances with mainstream political leaders to advance his goals, he neither acted skillfully nor found leaders with whom he could work. For a time Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison and also a founder of the NAACP, hoped that he might influence 1912 Democratic Party nominee Woodrow Wilson on racial matters. Villard’s paper, the New York Evening Post, supported Wilson as governor of New Jersey (Link 1947: 88). But when the Crisis reported in September 1912 that Wilson would veto legislation hostile to African American interests, Wilson demurred and asked the magazine to publish a more accurate statement of his views. Du Bois drafted one, but it included opposition to racial disfranchisement, so Wilson refused to approve it (Link 1947: 90–91). Wilson did promise he would favor “absolute fair dealing” for all races, and this was enough for Du Bois to endorse Wilson (1947: 92). This proved unwise: Wilson became the most ardent champion of segregation of any United States president (King 1995: 28–31). During World War I Du Bois initially criticized the Wilson administration for recruiting on a racially segregated basis, drawing him unwanted attention from the Justice Department (Rudwick 1958: 226; Ellis 1992: 105–106). But the Army’s Military Intelligence Branch offered Du Bois a commission as captain if he would convey the government’s views on the war to African ­Americans—an offer that tempted him (Rudwick 1958: 227; Lewis 2009: 363). In July 1918 he published an editorial exhorting his fellow black Americans, “Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our fellow white citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy” (Du Bois 1918: 111). Many black Americans were persuaded, throwing themselves into support for the war. More radical ones, including Philip Randolph, then editing the socialist journal the Messenger, disagreed (Pfeffer 1990: 9–10; Bynum 2010: 28, 90). Some accused Du Bois of opportunism; and many thought he squandered a chance to press for racial change at a time when the economic and military contributions of African Americans were sorely needed (Ellis 1992: 99–100; Klinkner and Smith 1999: 112–113). Perhaps the context was not truly so opportune, though women’s rights activists did make gains by taking advantage of World War I. At a minimum, 116

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during the war Du Bois did not provide the strong, consistent pressure for equal rights that Douglass had done during the Civil War, and that Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt were then doing. Instead his editorial split the ranks of African American activists, leaving wounds that long hampered collaborations (Ellis 1992: 119–120). Du Bois quickly returned to militancy at the war’s end, calling for black soldiers to “return fighting” for democracy in the United States. But his wartime accommodation, like his earlier support for Wilson, did not win him much support from mainstream leaders, and it is hard to see how it advanced black emancipation in any other way (Ellis 1992: 134; Klinkner and Smith 1999: 114). If Washington and Du Bois did not succeed in playing the partly pressuring, partly assisting roles in emancipatory alliances that Douglass had done, Philip Randolph came closer—though in a later era of American history that was more propitious, with a more sympathetic president, and with the bitter benefit of their examples. Randolph co-founded the Messenger in 1917 when he was 28, then organized and became president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) in 1925 (Pfeffer 1990: 9, 22). The first black union to win (limited) recognition from the American Federation of Labor, the Brotherhood organized employees of the Pullman Company, headed from 1897 to 1922 by Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln (Pfeffer 1990: 26–27; Bynum 2010: 136–138). Randolph often urged aggressive strategies that included threatening strikes and non-violent mass protests as means to combat ­America’s segregated institutions (Pfeffer 1990: 24–25, 58–65; Bynum 2010: 22–23, 110). Randolph had limited success during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two terms, when the president’s dependence on Southern Democrats and FDR’s own benign but paternalistic attitude toward African Americans provided few openings for effective alliances (Sitkoff 1971: 676–677). And unfavorable contexts were not the whole story: critics within the BSCP argued that Randolph was more talk than action, striking militant poses while hesitating to call actual strikes, because he feared losing credibility with mainstream leaders (Harris 1979: 303–309). But as American entry into World War II loomed in early 1941, Randolph acted boldly. He called for all African Americans to join in a March on Washington, ending at the Lincoln Memorial, to demand that Roosevelt issue “AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ABOLISHING DISCRIMINATIONS IN ALL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT, ARMY, NAVY, AIR CORPS AND NATIONAL DEFENSE JOBS” (Randolph 1941). Randolph felt strongly that African Americans’ support for the national government in WWI had not been rewarded—a view Du Bois now accepted (Lewis 2009: 630–632). So Randolph urged civil rights reformers to engage this time in a “Double V” campaign, seeking victory over racism at home as well as abroad (Sitkoff 1971: 662). 117

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Like Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, whom Randolph saw as personally antidiscrimination, perceived African Americans as unfortunates whose conditions should be improved, but via a “politics of gradualism” (Sitkoff 1971: 676–677). And though after 1938 the president sought to weaken the influence of the increasingly unreliable Southern Democrats in the New Deal coalition, they remained powerful enough that FDR let Southern assistants handle racial matters (Sitkoff 1971: 676; O’Reilly 1987: 15–16). Randolph seized the opportunity the war provided to push the president for more. When Randolph issued his official call for the march in May 1941, FDR dispatched his wife Eleanor, an ardent civil rights advocate, to meet with him. She and New York Mayor Fiorella La Guardia tried to persuade Randolph to call off the protest, claiming it would “get Negroes slaughtered” (O’Reilly 1995: 132, italics in original). But Randolph would not relent. It was not clear that Randolph could turn out the thousands of marchers he threatened, but Roosevelt decided he could not risk it. The White House began sending Randolph draft orders that he rejected as too weak, until he agreed to what FDR issued on June 25, 1941 as Executive Order 8802. It required that “there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin,” and it created a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to “receive and investigate complaints of discrimination” and take “steps to redress grievances” (Roosevelt 1941). Randolph then merely “postponed” the march while keeping alive the March on Washington Movement, because the order did not call for new legislation or end all segregation in the military, as he had demanded (­Bracey Jr. and Meier 1991: 16–17). Addressing the Policy Conference of the March on Washington in September 1942, Randolph insisted that slavery had not been abolished “because it was bad and unjust” but “because men fought, bled and died on the battlefield” to end it. Black Americans still had to “fight, sacrifice, suffer, go to jail, and if need be die” to win their rights (Randolph 1942). Even so, critics charged that Randolph should not have suspended the march for limited concessions, reviving concerns that despite his rhetoric, he was unwilling to exert persistent radical pressure. He insisted that the “March-onWashington Committee would have been placed in an untenable, absurd, and ridiculous position had it rejected its chief objective on the grounds that we didn’t get everything we wanted” (Bracey Jr. and Meier 1991: 17). In 1971 Harvard Sitkoff deemed EO 8802 “the single greatest Negro victory since the Civil War,” won “because of an uncompromising, independent ­all-black effort” (Sitkoff 1971: 679). But he also noted that thereafter, “the M ­ arch-on-Washington Movement slowly faded away,” while congressional ­Southerners ended the FEPC (Sitkoff 1971: 680; King and Smith 2011: 99–100). It still provided inspiration for state fair employment efforts and for many mass actions, up through 118

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the 1963 March on Washington that culminated in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with Randolph standing behind him (Pfeffer 1990: 170–175, 256; Chen 2007). Randolph’s insistence from World War I on that the United States must end job discrimination, reinforced in 1941 by his threat of mass protest at a time when a sympathetic but gradualist president feared disruption of the war effort, thus succeeded in gaining a major victory, if much less than African Americans needed. More than Washington or Du Bois, Randolph played the role in the anti-segregation alliance with Franklin Roosevelt that Douglass had with Lincoln—even if Randolph, still more than Douglass, struggled with the radical’s dilemma of when to push and when to compromise, and FDR, more than Lincoln, often faltered upon the politician’s dilemma of deciding when to take risks for reform causes. These examples affirm that the distinct dilemmas facing radical activists and mainstream leaders in a reform alliance can be overcome, but not without favorable circumstances and bold and skillful leadership by all involved. In the mid-1960s those factors were present, and the results were the landmark civil rights laws of 1964, 1965, and 1968. The favorable circumstances included Cold War pressures to end the international embarrassment of Jim Crow and the emotions stirred by the death of John F. Kennedy, a president who had in 1963 finally proposed a major civil rights bill (Klinkner and Smith 1999: 256–269; Kotz 2005: 8, 13, 62). His reformist successor was L ­ yndon Johnson, a Texas New Dealer and ex-segregationist who saw in civil rights a cause he believed to be morally right and also his way to make history, to “out-Roosevelt Roosevelt and out-Lincoln Lincoln” (Kotz 2005: 89; Milkis and Tichenor 2011: 471). The most effective of many great civil rights leaders was Martin Luther King Jr., who stirred the consciences of white Americans and whose tactics of non-violent protest often helped him bridge differences between traditional and radical racial activists (Kotz 2005: 118, 124). As Nick Kotz has shown, these two were “master political jugglers,” each “seeking radical change in the equities of social justice,” who for a time confronted emancipators’ dilemmas in ways worthy of Lincoln and Douglass (2005: xvii, 186). Five days after Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson urged Congress to make Kennedy’s civil rights bill the nation’s top domestic priority, recognizing that “the outpouring of admiration and affection for the late president had ­created a compelling opportunity for action” (Kotz 2005: 20, 33). In fall 1963, half of all Americans thought Kennedy was pushing too fast for integration, and only 11 per cent said he should do more. But after Kennedy’s death and ­Johnson’s speech, opposition to civil rights reform dropped to 30 per cent. By spring of 1964, 57 per cent of Americans expressed support for Johnson’s civil rights stance (Dallek 1998: 114). 119

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Johnson recognized that King was “a political leader who could help achieve their common goal of racial equality” through inspiring popular support and pressuring local and national leaders to act, as King had affirmed with the Birmingham, Alabama boycott of segregated businesses in spring 1963 (Kotz 2005: 20, 56–62, 178, 253). For King’s part, though he often issued passionate warnings of the need for change, he was willing to praise Johnson publicly and work with him privately whenever Johnson acted for civil rights (Kotz 2005: 33, 67, 96, 271). But their relationship was fraught. Johnson had to hold together “shaky coalitions of unlikely allies, even enemies,” including northern Democrats, liberal Republicans, and a few Southern Democrats. King perennially faced challenges from older civil rights leaders who preferred lobbying and litigation to protests, and especially from younger ones who felt King did not protest militantly enough (Kotz 2005: xvi, 55, 122–124, 197). Fearing loss of public support, Johnson often urged King to be a “team player” and refrain from public demonstrations, even the 1963 March on Washington. King often felt he had to keep non-violent civil disobedience against racial injustices in the headlines and on television (Kotz 2005: 64–67, 184–186, 238, 270). But from 1964 to 1966, the reformist president and the movement leader cooperated skillfully enough to win passage of the monumental 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. With their bond strengthened by the passage of the 1964 Act and King’s contributions to Johnson’s election victory that year, they especially worked together in 1965. LBJ even encouraged King to use protests to dramatize the need for new voting rights legislation, though he soon came to fear that the Selma, Alabama voting rights marches would bring violence and negative political repercussions (Dallek 1998; Kotz 2005: 252–253, 270). King went ahead, but he was careful not to criticize Johnson, and he aided the administration in the drafting and passage of the Voting Rights Act (Kotz 2005: 300). Both men were conscious of the Lincoln/Douglass examples. King, who invoked Douglass’s view of the possibilities for reform within American constitutionalism, liked to stress that Lincoln was labeled an “extremist,” though King also called Lincoln “a vacillating president” who had to be pressured to issue the Emancipation Proclamation (King 1991: 119, 279, 280, 297–298). In his great speech on March 15, 1965 urging Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act, Johnson noted that it was “more than 100 years ago that Abraham ­Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. The time of justice has now come” (Johnson 1965). The VRA proved extraordinarily effective. Initially, Johnson’s approval ratings soared; but within a year, the window of support for civil rights activism started closing. A 1966 Gallup poll indicated that 52 per cent of Americans thought Johnson was moving “too fast” 120

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on racial integration; a congressional survey showed 90 per cent opposed further civil rights laws (Dallek 1998: 323). When Johnson nonetheless introduced a fair housing bill and King protested slum housing in Chicago, both failed (Kotz 2005: 366, 369). King then began attacking Johnson on Vietnam, and Johnson angrily sought to discredit him, ending all collaboration (Kotz 2005: xix, 376–378). The president and civil rights leaders did persuade Congress to adopt a Fair Housing Act in 1968, with final action accelerated by King’s assassination (Kotz 2005: 415–420). This grim denouement symbolized how vital the policy alliance of the reformist president and movement leader had been to the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s, and how difficult it was to sustain cooperation amidst the fierce passions that emancipatory struggles stirred.

Feminist Reforms These lessons are reinforced when we turn to efforts to win equal rights for women. Early twentieth-century women’s suffrage leaders often played their alliance roles more skillfully than the era’s male African American leaders. They kept up pressure on national leaders who wanted their support, including Theodore Roosevelt and especially Woodrow Wilson. They did not relent during World War I but instead used it for their cause. And they won the 19th Amendment, a constitutional suffrage reform comparable to the 15th Amendment. To be sure, the anti-segregation activists’ agenda was broader and more complex than winning the vote. Though some women’s movement leaders sought similarly wide-ranging change, most rejected radically egalitarian ideologies in favor of politically palatable doctrines of gender difference. Many have criticized those choices as, again, compromises that hindered achieving sweeping reforms. During the next wave of feminist activism in the 1960s, women’s groups remained split over goals and strategies, and they had no leader who formed a close alliance with a reformist president. They still won important victories, while leaving much to be done. American feminists had stumbled in the late nineteenth century, splitting over state versus national avenues of change and over the scope of their egalitarian goals, with some white feminists turning to racist, nativist, and classist appeals (e.g., O’Neill 1986: 100–103). In those years, few women’s rights champions thought of any president as an ally (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 65). But the women’s movement gained new life in the Progressive era, with feminists arguing for their cause by invoking Lincoln. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) until 1915; her successor Carrie Chapman Catt; and Adella Hunt Logan, an African American women’s rights advocate, all championed the female vote 121

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by recalling the promise of government “of the people, by the people, for the people” in the Gettysburg Address (Shaw 1914: 94; Catt 1917; Hunt Logan 2005: 163–164). Alice Paul, who broke from the NAWSA in 1914 to found the more radically egalitarian National Woman’s Party, cited the Emancipation Proclamation to urge national action instead of state by state efforts (Adams and Keene 2007: 71). Although Theodore Roosevelt urged reinvigorated masculinity, and he did nothing for women’s rights as president, he ran in 1912 on a Progressive Party platform that endorsed women’s suffrage, with Jane Addams seconding his nomination (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 657). He did so out of desire to broaden his new party’s base and his conviction that women must be enlisted in helping the next generation of Americans develop the “manly virtues.” Even so, as Gary Gerstle argued, “Roosevelt never became a feminist, nor a believer in the fundamental equality of men and women. He supported suffrage because he believed that by enlisting women to cleanse politics of corruption and vice, it would ultimately strengthen men, enhancing their ability to pursue national virtue and glory” (1999: 1300). And after his 1912 defeat, Roosevelt ceased to be the power in mainstream politics that women’s rights leaders needed. They turned instead to Woodrow Wilson, even though his party did not endorse women’s suffrage in 1912 and he long insisted the issue should be dealt with by the states (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 657; Graham 1983–1984: 665). In publications, speeches, and demonstrations, women’s rights advocates pushed Wilson as president to support female suffrage more fully. In 1913 Alice Paul organized five thousand white robed suffragists to march on the White House (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 658; O’Neill 1986: 105). The next year Anna Howard Shaw published an article arguing that Wilson’s “writings on democracy contain, perhaps, the best arguments ever made in favor of equal suffrage. The only trouble is that the president did not apply his conclusions to women” (1914: 97). In 1914 and 1916, Paul’s new National Woman’s Party opposed all Democrats because of their refusal to endorse a national suffrage amendment (Graham 1983–1984: 666). Both the Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes and Wilson then came out in favor of women’s suffrage in 1916, and when the National Woman’s Party supported Hughes, Wilson appeared at the NAWSA’s convention and said he would “not quarrel” about “the method” of achieving the vote for women (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 661–662). But Wilson still did little, so feminists pushed harder as World War I ­escalated—a “golden opportunity that they were quick to seize” (O’Neill 1986: 105). Already in 1916, Carrie Catt argued that the loss of “the lives of men within the age of economic production” in Europe was creating pressure to grant “political liberty” to the women who took their places, forming 122

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an “oncoming wave of democracy” that would soon, with a “gigantic final conflict,” wash over the United States (Catt 1916). When America entered the war, the National Woman’s Party provoked a series of riots and arrests by picketing the White House, and Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months in prison, confined to a psychiatric ward (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 664; ­Graham 1983–1984: 667–676). As the Wilson administration reeled from the grim publicity, NAWSA leaders offered themselves as more cooperative partners, but only if the president worked for a national female suffrage amendment (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 665–666; O’Neill 1986: 106). In January 1918, Wilson agreed and began lobbying Congress (Graham 1983–1984: 678). On September 30, 1918, he went to the Senate to urge passage of the amendment as “necessary for the successful prosecution of the war and the successful realization of the objects for which this war is being fought” (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 668). Congressional passage still did not come until after the war, and Wilson had to exert personal influence to persuade state legislative leaders to ratify it. Even Alice Paul expressed her gratitude to the president she publicly denounced for so long (Lunardini and Knock 1981: 669, 671). But the fact that Wilson won the amendment in alliance with NAWSA leaders, not with Paul, proved limiting. Many of the NAWSA leaders continued to use rhetoric that divided middle-class white women from working-class women and, particularly, most African Americans (Yellin 1973: 366–367; Boris 1989–1990: 28–31). In contrast to Paul’s radical gender egalitarianism, many also defended the notion that female and male citizenship represented “a partnership with equal, but different responsibilities resting upon the two partners” (Catt 1916). As a result, after passage of the woman’s suffrage amendment, feminist reformers fragmented once again. The League of Women ­Voters, the successor to the NAWSA, rapidly lost members as even many suffragists refused to support Paul’s new Equal Rights Amendment (O’Neill 1986: 107–108). In sum, early twentieth-century women’s rights advocates were able to press even cautious, only mildly sympathetic national leaders, especially Woodrow Wilson, to support the enfranchisement of women through unrelenting criticism and promises that, if Wilson supported them, they would assist his war efforts. Within the ranks of the reformers, the radicalism of Alice Paul actually strengthened the capacities of moderate reformers to win the president’s trust and aid. To this extent, the activists in this policy alliance played their roles very effectively, and Wilson did his part in the end. Yet many argue that much more might have been achieved if leading reformers had demanded more, and if their presidential partner had deeper commitments to gender equality (Graham 1983–1984: 678–679; O’Neill 1986: 108–109). 123

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Though American women went on to add significant gains with the aid of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, those reforms came with little presidential leadership. They therefore fall largely outside the focus here. John Kennedy did establish a Commission on the Status of Women that brought to prominence a number of women leaders, including Pauli Murray, who went on to help found the National Organization of Women (Mayeri 2004: 764, 793, 820–821). But Kennedy took no strong actions in response to his commission before his life was cut short; and though later presidents have expressed support for initiatives like the Violence Against Women Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Ledbetter Equal Employment Act, and women’s rights to reproductive choice, none has prominently promoted these or other gender reforms, even to the limited degree that Wilson came to do (Smith 2012: 106–108). The modern women’s movement has also remained divided over whether to push for uniform legal treatment of the sexes or whether to favor protective legislation, affirmative action, or other forms of distinctive treatment (MacKinnon 1979: 101–213; Young 1990: 157–163, 178–189). Although in the early 1970s the Supreme Court recognized abortion rights and began giving laws discriminating against women heightened scrutiny, it did so with little executive prodding. Then the renewed push to adopt an Equal Rights Amendment, largely unaided by Presidents Nixon, Ford, or Carter, failed (Mansbridge 1986). The fact that important reforms occurred without much collaboration between the modern women’s movement and any president does indicate that there are paths to emancipation beyond those analyzed here. But the fact that these reforms have left many barriers to full gender equality still standing suggests that a lack of such alliances does not help reform causes.

Conclusion In the twentieth century, some African American and women’s rights activists sought to gain the sorts of alliances with presidents that Douglass had with Lincoln, while wrestling as Douglass did with how much to pressure and when to compromise. And presidents who wished to be seen as reformers often gave important support to racial and gender causes; though they rarely risked going, and rarely wanted to go, as far as activists wished. The limits of what these actors achieved were often partly traceable to uncongenial circumstances, but they also reflect the emancipators’ dilemmas facing democratic leaders. At times, reformers compromised too readily, out of fear of falling into political marginality, while few presidents were as willing to act boldly as Lincoln and Johnson. Yet the fact that the examples of 124

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Lincoln, Douglass, and others served to inform and inspire activists and presidents throughout the twentieth century suggests that the lessons of their experiences provide enduring insights into the politics and prospects of reform policy alliances. Although these examples are hard to follow, they are ones that belong to the ages.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Matt Clary for invaluable research assistance, to Matthew Holden and other participants in the 2013 Wepner Symposium at the University of Illinois-Springfield, and John Kane, Desmond King, Philip Klinkner, Haig Patapan, James Read, and Ian Shapiro for helpful comments.

Bibliography Adams, Katherine H. and Keene, Michael L. 2007, Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign, University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Berwanger, Eugene H. 1983, “Lincoln’s constitutional dilemma: Emancipation and black suffrage,” Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 5: 25–38. Boris, Eileen 1989–1990, “The power of motherhood: Black and white activist women redefine ‘political’,” Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, 2: 35–44. Bracey, John H. Jr. and Meier 1991, “Allies or adversaries? The NAACP, A. Philip Randolph and the 1941 March on Washington,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, August, 75(1): 1–17. Bynum, Cornelius L. 2010, A. Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights, University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Catt, Carrie Chapman 1916, “The Crisis,” Social Justice Speeches, retrieved at . Catt, Carrie Chapman 1917, “Address to the United States Congress,” Gifts of Speech, November, retrieved at . Chen, Anthony S. 2007, “The party of Lincoln and the politics of State Fair Employment Practices Legislation in the North, 1945–1964,” American Journal of Sociology, May, 112(6): 1713–1774. Dallek, Robert 1998, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961–1973, Oxford University Press, New York. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1913, “Emancipation,” Crisis, January, 5(3): 128–129. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1918, “Close Ranks,” Crisis, July, 16: 11. Duncan-Clark, Samuel J. 1913, The Progressive Movement: Its Principles and Its Programme, Small, Maynard and Company, Boston. Dyer, Thomas G. 1980, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge. Ellis, Mark 1992, “‘Closing ranks’ and ‘seeking honors’: W. E. B. Du Bois in World War I,” The Journal of American History, 79(1): 96–124.

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Rogers M. Smith Foner, Eric 1988, Reconstruction: American’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, Harper & Row, New York. Gerstle, Gary 1999, “Theodore Roosevelt and the divided character of American nationalism,” The Journal of American History, 86(3): 1280–1307. Graham, Sally Hunter 1983–1984, “Woodrow Wilson, Alice Paul, and the Woman Suffrage Movement,” Political Science Quarterly, 98(4): 665–679. Harlan, Louis R. 1983, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915, Oxford University Press, New York. Harris, William H. 1979, “A. Philip Randolph as a charismatic leader, 1925–1941,” The Journal of Negro History, 64(4): 301–315. Hunt Logan, Adella [1905] 2005, “Woman Suffrage,” in Dawn Keetley and John Pettegrew (eds), Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism, vol. 2, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 163–164. Johnson, Lyndon B. 1965, “We shall overcome,” March 15, retrieved at . King, Desmond S. 1995, Separate and Unequal: Black Americans and the US Federal Government, Oxford University Press, Oxford. King, Desmond S. and Smith, Rogers M. 2011. Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America, Princeton University Press, Princeton. King, Martin Luther Jr. 1991, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., J. M. Washington (ed.), HarperCollins, New York. Klinkner, Philip A. and Smith, Rogers M. 1999, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Kotz, Nick 2005, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Lewis, David Levering 2009, W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography, Holt Paperbacks, New York. Lincoln, Abraham 1962, Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches, Messages and Letters, H. T. Williams (ed.), Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Link, Arthur S. 1947, “The negro as a factor in the campaign of 1912,” The Journal of Negro History, 32(1): 81–99. Lunardini, Christine A. and Knock, Thomas J. 1981, “Woodrow Wilson and woman suffrage: A new look,” Political Science Quarterly, 95(4): 655–671. MacKinnon, Catherine A. 1979, Sexual Harassment of Working Women, Yale University Press, New Haven. Mansbridge, Jane J. 1986, Why We Lost the ERA, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mayeri, Serena 2004, “Constitutional choices: Legal feminism and the historical dynamics of change,” California Law Review, 92(3): 755–839. McPherson, James M. 1988, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, Oxford ­University Press, New York. Milkis, Sidney M. and Tichenor, Daniel J. 2011, “Reform’s mating dance: Presidents, social movements, and racial realignments,” Journal of Policy History, 23(4): 451–490. Oakes, James 2007, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Anti-slavery Politics, W. W. Norton & Co, New York.

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8 Judgment and Democratic Leadership Ian Shapiro

Leadership is easier to recognize than to define. This is partly, I think, because it is what Wittgenstein (1958) described as a family resemblance concept. It displays certain characteristic features but not a single defining one, and none of those features need always be present for leadership to be exercised. Moreover, democratic leaders often exhibit some traits in common with other effective leaders, but additional capacities are required if they are to be effective. These considerations might seem to militate against the possibility of any general theory of good democratic leadership. Perhaps, but it might be possible, nonetheless, to say something useful about how various leadership traits relate to each other, and what their relevance to good democratic leadership might be. Exploring that possibility is my goal here.

Leaders and Followers Leaders need followers. A large part of the measure of a leader’s success concerns whether she or he can inspire others to contribute to enterprises (perhaps even to the point of dying for them) when otherwise they would not. People might decide to follow a leader for various reasons. Common candidates include a charismatic personality, a reputation for trustworthiness, good managerial skills, and promises to defeat enemies or to deliver benefits. No doubt there are others. But a dictator who rules exclusively by intimidation is a leader in name only, and not a leader in a sense that will concern me here. Leaders must be able to inspire others. Pretty despicable people can be leaders by this test. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao count. Democrats they were not, but effective leaders they were. Leadership generally involves taking risks in the face of uncertainty. But one thing that distinguishes leadership from gambling concerns the allocation of 128

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the risks: leaders are people who demonstrate willingness, at least at some critical moments, to internalize the costs of potential failure while externalizing the benefits that will flow from success. They must be seen as willing to take personal risks for a larger cause. This is not to deny that leaders might be selfish. People’s motives for striving to lead vary. Some, at least, do so in search of adulation, glory, or some comparable prize. But they will not win the prize unless they are seen as willing to take risks on behalf of something larger than themselves. If they are concerned exclusively with self-promotion or enrichment, they will be seen as having corrupted the currency of leadership. Leadership is a status conferred by others, and it will not be forthcoming in that event.

Tactical and Strategic Judgment Leaders must be willing to take risks, but not any risks. Taking foolish risks is reckless, and reckless leaders will be diminished even if they manage to survive, for a time, in their leadership positions. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, Hitler’s decision to open an eastern front without having prevailed in the west, General Galtieri’s invasion of the Falklands, and George W. Bush’s attack on Iraq are instances of reckless decisions that diminished the stature of the leaders who made them. This means that successful leaders must have good judgment, and they also need luck. Luck is an inescapable factor because leaders must sometimes make choices in the face of genuine imponderables about evolving situations and the likely behavior of others. But luck should not be confused with uncertainty. Nothing in life is certain, and many choices are not imponderables in the sense that there is nothing plausible to say about the balance of risks and costs associated with them. If a peripheral interest is misconstrued as a vital one, or if, due to a preponderance of wishful thinking or a failure of due diligence, stronger opposition to a military action materializes than was anticipated, then the costs and risks were misjudged.1 When we describe a leader as reckless we mean that there were good reasons before the fact for not acting as he did and that, had he been more discerning, he would have heeded them. Leadership requires good judgment, but there are different kinds of judgment. The most straightforward is tactical judgment. Good tactical judgment involves seeing possibilities that others fail to see, or at least seeing them sooner than others do in ways that allow the taking of decisive advantage. Realizing that you can drive your divisions around the Maginot line, and doing it, is an instance of good tactical judgment (see Tooze 2008: 368–395). Tactical judgment involves imaginative shrewdness: the ability to think with 129

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greater dexterity than your adversaries. People with poor tactical judgment are unlikely to be effective leaders. Strategic judgment is a more complex element of leadership because it involves anticipating the choices that others will make in response to your actions, and adjusting your behavior accordingly. The decision to build the Maginot line was a poor strategic choice, because it involved a foreseeable failure to anticipate how others might respond to that decision (Hughes 1971: 200–201). But it was a comparatively straightforward strategic failure. Good strategic judgment generally involves anticipating multiple possible scenarios through numerous interactions and iterations, and continually modifying one’s choices in light of the decisions taken by others. It is the kind of skill that enables people to do well at chess.

The Role of Empathy Good strategic judgment involves the capacity to cope with complexity, but it also requires empathy. This is true in a leader’s relations with followers as well as with adversaries. You cannot know what will resonate with followers unless you understand what is important to them and can articulate it in a way that makes them believe that you share their commitment to it. Ronald Reagan’s “Shining City upon a Hill” speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention is a classic of political mobilization because it exhibited his perfect pitch on this front. The speech established that he understood what appealed to voters and, no less important, that he shared their hopes and values (Reagan 1984). This might have been the skill of a good actor at work, but the speech exuded authenticity. Authenticity matters not only because it endears the leader to his supporters, but also because, by convincing them that he shares their values, he can inspire confidence that he will act in their interests in circumstances when they cannot control what he does. It gives them reason to trust him. When Michael Dukakis said in 1988 that “This election is about competence, not ideology” this involved a failure of empathy because it revealed his tin ear for what mattered to voters (Dione Jr. 1988). It made him seem alien and disconnected; unlike them. Empathy can be just as vital for mobilizing supporters through fear as it is through hope, and some would‐be leaders are better at one than the other. Richard Nixon was awkward and aloof; he could never have resonated with voters in the aspirational way that came naturally to Ronald Reagan. But Nixon understood, and was able to connect with great authenticity, to their antipathies and fears. His baleful hostility to Eastern elites and the civil rights establishment was palpable, and it marked him as trustworthy to 130

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lower-middle-class white Americans whose world seemed to be changing in frightening ways. His Southern strategy capitalized brilliantly on their twin fears of economic insecurity and racial integration, building a Republican power base in the South that would reshape American politics for a generation (Phillips 1969). Leaders who have empathy for both the hopes and fears of followers can be especially effective—and sometimes dangerous. Empathy plays a different, but no less essential, role when leaders deal with adversaries. This can be especially important when the stakes are high and success depends on trust—most notably when leaders must negotiate settlements with historical antagonists in uncharted waters. Nelson Mandela was successful in negotiating a settlement with F. W. de Klerk in 1992 partly because he understood that de Klerk needed to assure his own supporters that the interim constitution, which would come into force before the first democratic elections in 1994, must include constitutionally mandated power sharing. That concession enabled de Klerk to win a referendum that was essential to his marginalizing the hard right in his own party, whose goal was to scuttle the negotiations. Mandela understood that de Klerk had to have this concession and gave it to him because he wanted de Klerk to succeed (Read and Shapiro 2014). It might be said that Mandela was not giving away much. After all, power sharing was not to survive in the final constitution. But when the interim constitution was adopted this eventual outcome could not be known; indeed de Klerk insisted in the referendum campaign that he would never give away constitutionally mandated power sharing. For all Mandela knew at the time, agreement on a final constitution might turn out to be impossible. Interim constitutions have dragged on for decades in other settings; perhaps it might have done so here as well. As things played out, Mandela’s concession was shrewd because it enabled de Klerk to bring his constituency with him and eventually get to a point where they would no longer need the power sharing umbilical cord. This was the same empathy that President Mandela would later display in facing down critics of his decision to allow the South African rugby team to keep its Springbok name and logo—dramatized in the film “Invictus.” His capacity for empathy told him that this symbolism would pay significant dividends in getting conservative Afrikaners to embrace the new South Africa.2 De Klerk also had an unusually discerning grasp of the role of empathy in strategic judgment. The referendum was important for him in calling the bluff of the hard right. During the preceding months he had lost a series of by‐elections as news of his not‐so‐secret negotiations with the ANC was leaked to the press. These by‐election results underscored Afrikaner anxiety that had followed the breakdown of roundtable negotiations (in which far right intransigence had played a significant role), and were accompanied by 131

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swirling rumors of an impending coup or a civil war to be instigated by Afrikaner militia groups. The country had no history of referenda but, following a particularly dramatic by‐election defeat in Potchefstroom, de Klerk announced that he would seek authorization to continue the negotiations in the referendum of all white voters. He won a “yes” by a two‐thirds majority and managed to get at least an absolute majority in every part of the country—­ including the Afrikaner heartland regions of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (Jung and Shapiro 1996: 198–201). In a subsequent interview I asked de Klerk why he had decided to call the referendum.3 He replied that his judgment was that people were expressing their fears and dissatisfactions in the by‐elections, but that when confronted squarely with the issue of the country’s future they would rise to the occasion and embrace the need for change. There was no polling data on the subject, so de Klerk was relying on his intuitive sense of what moved his compatriots and why. Had he been wrong he would have been finished politically. Having taken on the hard right and lost, he would quickly have been hounded out of the government and the National Party. That would have happened not least because of the way in which de Klerk went about calling the referendum. It was, he told me, the only unilateral decision of his presidency. He went on television and announced it without securing agreement from anyone in his Cabinet or in the National Party leadership. The reason, he said, was that they all would have opposed it; they would have been unwilling to take the risk that his judgment about the white electorate was accurate. Effective strategic leadership requires risk taking. These are calculated risks, not gambles, but what sets the people who can take them apart as leaders is the capacity to take such risks when they are called for—knowing that they might fail and knowing that the costs of failure might be catastrophic for them personally. De Klerk was taking a double risk here, both aspects of which were significant for his effectiveness. While there were good prospects for a settlement if de Klerk could reach an agreement with Mandela and his supporters within the ANC leadership, he was not strong enough to impose the new dispensation unilaterally. This meant that, in addition to the risk that he might have misread the temper of the white electorate when calling the referendum, he also risked oblivion if he won the referendum but then failed to secure an agreement with the ANC. Those who backed him would have been badly burned along with him. When de Klerk decided to call the March 1992 referendum and invest all his political capital in campaigning for a “yes” vote, he was doing more than taking on the Afrikaner hard right in a loser‐lose‐all fight in which there would be no second round. He was also giving Mandela what he needed to convince skeptics in the ANC that de Klerk could be trusted. The National 132

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Party government and the African National Congress had been through decades of bitter conflict in which countless numbers of people had been uprooted, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. There was little basis for trust between their leaders. De Klerk elected to swim into the middle of the Rubicon knowing that he lacked the strength to get to the other side on his own or to swim back to his own shore if it turned out that Mandela was not there with a lifeline to help him make it across. De Klerk not only faced down the standpatters in his own camp; he established his personal commitment to the goal Mandela was seeking by putting his own political future in the hands of the man that his government had imprisoned for 27 years. This credibility was bolstered because it was well known that Mandela had little personal regard for de Klerk. (When they were jointly awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, it was an open question until shortly before the ceremony whether Mandela would be willing to share the stage with de Klerk.) De Klerk’s grasp of what was required, and his willingness to take the necessary steps to achieve it, marked him as an impressive leader. We can get a sense of what might have occurred had he not been there by reflecting on what happened in the Israel–Palestine negotiations at the hands of Shimon Peres following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in November of 1995. Peres’s failure to call a snap election as soon as he replaced the fallen Rabin was surely one of the most consequential missed opportunities in the modern history of Middle East politics. The evidence suggests that it might well have served the same function as de Klerk’s March 1992 referendum. Public opinion on both sides favored a two‐state solution and the outrage at Rabin’s assassination had all but the most fanatical Israeli right on the defensive.4 True, many critical issues remained unresolved, but as the ambiguity around permanent power sharing during the South African referendum underscores, this does not mean that a workable settlement was unavailable. Indeed, in South Africa this ambiguity was essential to moving things forward. Had the South African negotiations fallen apart, many analysts would subsequently have said that the negotiations could not have succeeded because the whites would never have given up power sharing. Plausible as such arguments might have sounded, they would have been wrong. Negotiations themselves can shift conceptions of what is possible, which in turn changes what is possible. But if leaders lack either the requisite strategic judgment to see this when this possibility exists, or the appetite for risk needed to act on it when it does exist, then the opportunity will be lost. In the event, Peres missed his opportunity—tacking instead to the right. He permitted the assassination of Yahya Ayyash in January 1996, which further contributed to the cycle of violence and closures on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In addition, Peres responded to attacks from Southern Lebanon by bombing Lebanese refugee camps in Operation Grapes of Wrath. At the same 133

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time, the wave of suicide bombings in the spring of 1996 led Israelis to seek a firmer stance in negotiations.5 Likud was able to regroup while Peres alienated himself from Israeli supporters of the negotiations, as well as from Israeli Arabs. Palestinian radicals thus helped secure the victory of the Israeli right, and when elections were held in May of 1996, Peres lost. Incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had made no secret of his hostility to the Oslo accords on which the negotiations had been predicated. An increasingly desperate Yasser Arafat offered new concessions and Netanyahu temporized for a while under pressure from Washington, but he soon scuttled the process. The window of opportunity closed, as future Prime Minister Ehud Barak would discover to his cost four years later at Camp David. In the summer of 2000, President Clinton summoned Barak and Arafat to Camp David in hopes of brokering a Middle East settlement before he left office. Under strong pressure from President Clinton, Barak offered up concessions over East Jerusalem that his government had never endorsed in a vain attempt to secure an agreement. In such circumstances, as I have noted, you had better be able to deliver. Turning on your supporters requires an act of faith that your negotiating partner will compromise in the ways that you need him to, producing an agreement for which there will be a new constituency that is sufficiently robust that opponents on its flanks can be marginalized or co‐opted. Barak failed to secure an agreement, and in a matter of months he was toppled from the Labor Party leadership. Some might say that Barak had worse luck in his adversary than de Klerk had enjoyed in 1992, but this misses the reality that there were few grounds to believe that Arafat could accept what was being offered in 2000, and substantial grounds to believe that he would not (see Jung, Lust, and Shapiro 2011: 95–98, 107–114). Barak and President Clinton, who had pushed him to make the damaging concessions over east Jerusalem that he did offer, both displayed poor strategic judgment at Camp David. Apart from the matter of what Israelis would, by then, have been willing to accept, Clinton and Barak failed to grasp what Arafat needed to survive. True, what was being offered was not substantially different from a settlement that he had been willing to embrace in negotiations with Yitzhak Rabin in the mid-1990s, but the situation on the ground had changed substantially in the intervening years. Arafat’s earlier failure to secure a settlement with Rabin or Peres had decisively weakened him in Palestinian politics vis‐à‐vis Hamas, which had seized the symbols of Palestinian nationalism after 1995 when he had recognized Israel’s right to exist and moderated his demands in search of the agreement that was never to come. Years of humiliation at the hands of successive Likud governments and the declining popularity of his corrupt and inefficient Palestinian Authority meant that Arafat was in no position to deliver anything that Barak could accept by the summer of 2000. Clinton seemed to think that if he just twisted 134

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Arafat’s arm hard enough he would eventually cry “uncle!”—even though opinion polls revealed Palestinian support for what was being proposed to be virtually non‐existent.6 More discerning commentators at the time—such as former Secretary of State James Baker and the lead writers of The Economist— recognized that Arafat could not have accepted what was on offer and survived as leader of the PLO. Clinton’s posture in the 2000 Camp David negotiations reveals another truth about the judgment needed for good strategic leadership: it is less likely to emerge when the stakes are low, for a leader, than when they are high. True, had Clinton brokered a settlement it would have been the most significant accomplishment by an American president in the Middle East since Jimmy Carter had put together the first Camp David agreement between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1978. It would have conferred on Clinton the mantle of a statesman for the history books; in that sense there was a lot to gain. But the stakes were asymmetrical because there was little for him to lose. Failing to get a Middle East settlement has come with the territory for American presidents for decades. No one would blame Clinton if the parties couldn’t agree; he was placing a small bet on an unlikely outcome. Just because the downside risk was low for Clinton, he lacked the incentive to do the work to ensure, as best he could, that his judgment was sound. So he made foreseeable mistakes that were foreseen by others. This truth about incentives also escaped George W. Bush when he elected to listen to Ahmad Chalabi’s prediction, in the run up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, that American troops would be greeted in the streets of Baghdad as liberators and that it would be easy to create a functioning democracy there—in which Chalabi expected to play a leading (if not the leading) role. Chalabi was an expatriate living in London who had not been to Iraq during the previous 35 years. There were good reasons to doubt that his claims were well informed for that reason alone. The fact that Chalabi would not pay the price if he turned out to be wrong—he could go back to his comfortable expatriate life in London—should have made his prognostications doubly suspect to Bush and his advisers. It was poor strategic judgment on their part to rely so heavily on his claims. He was telling them what they wanted to hear, not what it made sense for them to believe (see Shapiro 2007: 3, 70, 112).

Moral Judgment Apart from tactical and strategic judgment, moral judgment is sometimes an important component of leadership. To display good moral judgment, a leader must be acting in a righteous cause. Regardless of his tactical and strategic skills, Hitler could never have gone down in history as a great leader because 135

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he lacked defensible moral judgment. Churchill made his share of tactical and strategic blunders during World War II. But he sealed his status as a moral leader in 1940 by rallying the British people to stand up to Hitler’s aggression in the face of daunting odds. He supplied compelling grounds for his conviction that it was the right thing to do even though the prospects of success were low. Mandela cemented his status as a moral leader in 1964. He ignored the advice of his defense lawyers who pleaded with him, following his conviction at the Rivonia treason trial, to show remorse in order to avoid the death penalty. Instead, he used his right to speak from the dock to attack the Apartheid state for its inhuman oppression, acknowledging that it might cost him his life and declaring that it was a price he was willing to pay (Mandela 1979: 665–666). Sometimes, as in that case, acts of moral courage cause adversaries to back down by appealing to some combination of their sense of what is right and their shame when confronted with the reality of flouting it. But there is no guarantee of that, and it is in the nature of moral leadership that it does not depend on a calculation of those probabilities. Socrates, Jesus, Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others who are typically seen as moral leaders are grouped together for this reason.

Democratic Leadership Effective democratic leadership requires a capacity related to those already mentioned, but different from them. This is the willingness to do what is best for the democratic order even when this clashes with one’s personal ambitions or partisan interests. For democracy to survive, incumbents who lose elections, but still control the instruments of coercion, must be willing to give up power. This is not much of an issue in a well-established democracy. When Al Gore faced the loss of the US presidency that he thought rightfully his in 2000, there was no plausible prospect that he would refuse to accept the outcome. But the same was not true of the hard fought election between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson two centuries earlier. Then there was no established culture of stepping down, and it was very much an open question whether the Federalists would turn over power as they in fact did (Dunn 2004). Because alternation in power is the lifeblood of democratic competition, leaders who give up power when they could hold onto it are democratic statesmen of the first order. Nelson Mandela could probably have remained president of South Africa if not for life certainly for a very considerable period of time. That he chose, in 1999, to step down after one term helped institutionalize a culture of democratic self‐restraint in the fledgling democracy. In 136

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2007, when President Thabo Mbeki began floating trial balloons about the possibility of changing the constitution so that he could run for a third term (for which the ANC had the requisite two-thirds majority in Parliament), Mandela’s example made it easier for Mbeki to be stopped. Ernesto Zedillo performed a comparable act of democratic leadership in the Mexican election of 2000 by publicly recognizing the election victory of his opponent, ­Vicente Fox, before midnight on election day once the outcome was no longer in doubt. This led to the first transfer of power in seven decades of Mexican politics. It brought lasting recognition of Zedillo as a democratic statesman, even though some in his Partido Revolucionario Institucional attacked him as a traitor (O’Neill 2013: 31–38; Shapiro 2011: 2–3). There are many valid analogies between political and economic competition, but markets are ultimately constrained by the political and legal systems in which they operate. This means that market competitors can fight as hard as they like, comfortable in the knowledge that there is a third party with both the capacity and the mandate to enforce the rules of the game. True, sometimes the self‐interested actions of exceedingly powerful market players can threaten the entire order, as happened during the financial crisis of 2008– 2009. Even in that case, however, it turned out that there were third parties to save the day when it truly mattered. In politics, in the last analysis there is nobody out there to constrain the players if they elect not to restrain themselves. For much of human history the most powerful have prevailed until their hold on power began to atrophy and someone managed to replace them, subduing potential competitors for a time. The democratic experiment appeals to the idea that a world in which no one can dominate in that way is better for all concerned. In principle it is always vulnerable to potential defectors. Democratic leadership is called for when defection becomes likely. Whether democratic leaders turn out to be available when they are needed is in the lap, if not of the gods, of the accidents of history.

Notes 1. For my account of how this sort of misjudgment played out in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, see Shapiro (2007: 22, 34–35, 60–65, 95–96). 2. The film is based on the 2009 book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson ­Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation. 3. Ian Shapiro, Interview with F. W. de Klerk, South Africa, Cape Town, December 9, 2003. 4. According to polls conducted by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC) at the University of Tel Aviv, the Oslo peace index of Israeli public opinion rose from 46.9 in October 1995 to 57.9 on November 8, immediately following Rabin’s assassination. The index remained at 58 at the end of November, dropping to 55.8 in December (Jung, Lust, and Shapiro 2011: 109).

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Bibliography Carlin, John 2009, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, Penguin Books, New York. Dione Jr., E. J. 1988, “The democrats in Atlanta,” The New York Times, July 22, retrieved at . Dunn, Susan 2004, Jefferson’s Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism, Houghton Mifflin, New York. Hughes, Judith M. 1971, To the Maginot Line: The Politics of French Military Preparation in the 1920s, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Jung, Courtney and Shapiro, Ian 1996, “South Africa’s negotiated transition: Democracy, opposition, and the new constitutional order,” in Ian Shapiro (ed.), Democracy’s Place, Cornell University Press, New York, 198–201. Jung, Courtney, Lust, Ellen and Shapiro, Ian 2011, “Problems and prospects for democratic settlements: South Africa as a model for the Middle East and Northern Ireland?,” in Ian Shapiro (ed.), The Real World of Democratic Theory, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 80–142. Mandela, Nelson 1979, “Address to the court before sentencing,” in J. Ayo Langley (ed.), Ideologies of Liberation in Black Africa, 1856–1970, Rex Collins, London. O’Neill, Shannon K. 2013, “Mexico,” in Isobel Coleman and Terra Lawson-Remer (eds), Pathways to Freedom: Political and Economic Lessons from Democratic Transitions, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 31–52. Phillips, Kevin 1969, The Emerging Republican Majority, Arlington House, New York. Read, James and Shapiro, Ian 2014, “Transforming power relationships: Leadership, risk, and hope,” American Political Science Review, 108(1): 40–53. Reagan, Ronald 1984, “Remarks accepting the Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Dallas,” Texas, August 23, retrieved at . Shapiro, Ian 2007, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Shapiro, Ian 2011, Real World of Democratic Theory, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Tooze, Adam 2008, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, New York, Penguin Books. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1958, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Blackwell, Oxford.

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9 The Institutional Approach to Political Leadership Robert Elgie

Institutions can have a profound impact on the quality of democratic political leadership. We are familiar with the differential effects of electoral systems and the basic trade-off between representation and governmental effectiveness. We are confident that presidentialism is more likely to be associated with lower levels of democracy than parliamentarism. Generally, we know that people respond to the incentives created by institutional rules. Institutionalism—­the study of the effects of political institutions—has helped to shape the research agenda over the last 30 years. The popularity of institutionalism is derived from its potential to identify theoretically grounded lawlike propositions that are empirically testable. In so doing, it provides the opportunity to identify which institutions are most likely to be associated with better or worse political outcomes. With this knowledge, we can shape institutions so as to generate the best possible outcomes. However, institutionalism is increasingly being challenged. The rise of ­anti-foundationalist approaches, such as constructivism and interpretivism, threatens the epistemological basis of institutionalism. Even within its own epistemological framework, the institutionalist project has been criticized. These criticisms include well-known claims that institutionalism is overly deterministic, that it can explain stability but is poor at explaining change, that institutions are chosen endogenously and, therefore, do not have their supposed exogenous effects, and so forth. This chapter, though, focuses on a different criticism, namely that institutionalism has failed to produce robust empirical results. For instance, while there are good theoretical reasons to support the claim that parliamentarism is more likely to generate better leadership outcomes than presidentialism, the empirical evidence to support this proposition is decidedly mixed. In other words, after nearly 30 years of 139

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intensive research and even when judged on its own terms, the results of empirical institutional analysis remain highly contested, perhaps casting doubt on the merits of this approach overall. We begin this chapter by outlining the fundamentals of an institutional approach to political leadership and highlighting some of the work that has been produced in this area over the last three decades. We then reiterate a fundamental weakness of empirical institutional analysis, namely the problem of equifinality and multifinality. This problem is the product of the reductionist way in which empirical institutionalist studies are normally conducted. In response, we propose a way forward for empirical institutionalist analysis. We suggest that an institutional approach to political leadership needs both to identify the full set of institutional variables that affect leadership outcomes and to specify not only the likely effect of each individual variable on such outcomes, but also the likely effect of the combination of institutional variables. Having done so, we could then begin to test whether or not there is empirical evidence to support these effects and on the basis of such evidence draw more robust conclusions about which institutional configurations promote good democratic leadership.

The Institutional Approach to Political Leadership There is now a large body of work that is consistent with the institutional approach to political leadership. This approach rests on three assumptions. The first is a permissive definition of political leadership. In the 1970s and 1980s those working within the behavioral tradition spent considerable time debating the concept of political leadership. This work generated hundreds of competing definitions (Burns 2010; Hah and Bartol 1983: 119–120; Rost 1991: 102). In many cases, the definition was central to the analysis. If a person was considered to have met the requirements set down in the definition, then s/he was a leader and had exercised leadership. Otherwise, s/he was not and had not. The institutional approach to leadership does not rest on any such requirements. This approach focuses on the actions of what Edinger (1975) calls positional leaders, usually presidents and prime ministers but also legislative leaders and leaders at the sub-national level, such as governors and mayors, as well. In this approach, these people exercise leadership simply by acting. The net result is that the institutional approach to political leadership is primarily defined by the subject of the study—a certain class of political actors—rather than by the object—what those actors do. Thus, Helms (2005: 3) considers executive leadership1 to be a subset of political leadership studies generally and defines it as the “forms of political leadership to be exerted by the office-holders in the executive branch of a given political 140

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system.” For his part, Elgie (1995: 4) operationalizes leadership as “the extent to which heads of state and heads of government . . . are able to determine the outcome of the decision-making process.” Here, what is meant by being “able to determine the outcome of the decision-making process” is never specified. This is because the exercise does not require it. The aim is to explain why executive office-holders behave in certain ways rather than to determine whether or not they are exercising political leadership on the basis of a checklist of definitional requirements. The second assumption is that institutions shape the behavior of political actors. This element is the sine qua non of any institutional approach. That said, the institutional approach to political leadership is almost universally situated in a broader interactionist framework. As Sheffer (1993: iv) puts it, “most scholars in this area agree that in addition to personal attributes, leadership is intimately related to the fabric of the leaders’ relevant societies, to social and political organizations, to established institutions, and to leaders’ relations with smaller and larger groups of followers.” Certainly, within this framework institutional factors are the primary explanatory variables of interest. However, the interactionist underpinning of the institutional approach to political leadership makes this particular manifestation of institutionalism relatively immune from the standard criticism of institutional determinism (Radaelli, Dente, and Dossi 2012). To put it another way, the institutional approach to political leadership operates almost always within an explicitly probabilistic universe. There is an assumption that institutions generate identifiable and regular incentives for executive actors to behave in certain ways. Even so, there is an essential contingency to the analysis. This contingency is shared both by those who prefer to derive their conclusions from a controlled statistical analysis and by those who prefer their leadership studies to be more descriptive. The former wish to avoid the ecological fallacy and, therefore, accept individual level deviation from general level institutional regularities. The latter wish to emphasize how institutional factors locate or structure executive power relations, but acknowledge the impact of idiosyncratic personality and local contextual factors. The third assumption is that institutional variation creates variation in executive leadership. Consistent with the second assumption, leadership is treated as the dependent variable. Thus, institutions explain executive behavior, but institutions are themselves observed to vary both across space and, less obviously, across time as well. The standard way of operationalizing the institutional approach to leadership is via a synchronous cross-sectional analysis. The variation in national-level institutions is shown to be responsible for different general patterns of executive leadership at that level. However, the interactionist framework also allows this approach to integrate both diachronic single country analysis and time series cross-sectional analysis. Contextual variables, such as economic crises, can be treated as exogenous events 141

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that challenge existing institutional equilibria. Such events create new institutional configurations, leading to new patterns of executive leadership. Thus, the interactionist framework not only saves the institutional approach from the problem of determinism, it can also rescue it from the equivalently standard criticism that institutionalism may be very good at explaining stability but less good at explaining change. The institutional approach to political leadership comprises a general but nonetheless systematic way of studying executive politics. A small sub-set of institutional analysis focuses specifically on political leadership. This work provides general institutional frameworks for studying political leadership (Elgie 1995; Helms 2005). Thus, relying on Peter Hall’s (1986) institutionalist approach, Elgie (1995: 205) argues that institutions are collections of rules, procedures, and standard operating practices that generate incentives for leaders to behave in certain ways. From this perspective, leadership takes place within a given environment, but institutions help to shape the leaders’ responses to that environment. Given institutions are relatively invariant over time; leaders operating within the same general environment exhibit repeated patterns of behavior, creating relatively stable patterns of political leadership. By identifying the key institutions within any given environment, it is possible to make generalizations about the likely practice of political leadership. So, France and Britain have very leader-centered processes. By contrast, Japan and pre-reform Italy had very party-centered leadership. In the United States and Germany, leadership was very much the product of multiple institutions competing for shared power. Thus, an institutional approach can help to identify very general cross-national patterns of political leadership. The institutional turn revolutionized the study of politics. It was attractive partly because it provided a way forward for post-behavioral positivist-­ centered scholarship, generating testable propositions of observed outcomes. It was also attractive partly because it offered additional explanatory tools for more qualitative historicist and sociological-based research. For sure, there have always been criticisms of institutionalism both from those who start from a different epistemological tradition and from those working within the institutionalist paradigm itself. However, the institutionalist project remains vibrant. So, what is the problem? The next section outlines the problem of equifinality and multifinality. This is a particular problem for positivist institutional scholarship and it challenges the research agenda in this domain.

The Problem of Equifinality and Multifinality The fundamental problem with the institutional approach to political leadership is a variant of the well-known many variables, small-n problem. The 142

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complexity of social life is such that outcomes require explanations based on the combination of multiple explanatory variables. The number of possible outcomes increases exponentially as each additional explanatory variable is included in the analysis (Scharpf 1997: Chapter 1). This leads to the problem of equifinality and multifinality. Equifinality refers to the situation where the same outcome can arise from different starting points. Multifinality is the situation where different outcomes can arise from the same starting point. Even though the causal effect of particular institutions may be very well specified and even if there is good empirical evidence to support the relationship between the institution and the hypothesized outcome, “since the systematic effects of omitted variables cannot be controlled for, the results obtained are of doubtful validity” (Scharpf 1997: 42). This is not merely a re-expression of the essentially probabilistic nature of institutional analysis; it is a statement about how much we can know about the world from the study of institutions and institutional interactions (Scharpf 1997: 43). In theory, we can know a lot. In practice, though, we can know much less. This means that we have to be very careful drawing conclusions about the implications of institutional analysis for good and bad leadership. We illustrate this point in relation to the debate about the relative impact of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential regimes on democratic performance (Shugart and Carey 1992; Cheibub 2007; Samuels and Shugart 2010; Elgie 2011). This is a quintessentially institutionalist debate. It is founded on the principle of institutional differentiation. Presidentialism is where there is a fixed-term directly elected president, where there is no prime minister or where the prime minister and cabinet are not collectively responsible to the legislature, and where the legislature serves for a fixed term. Parliamentarism is where there is either a monarch or an indirectly elected president, where the prime minister and cabinet are collectively responsible to the legislature, and, usually, where the legislature does not necessarily serve for a fixed term. Semi-presidentialism is where there is a fixed-term directly elected president, where the prime minister and cabinet are collectively responsible to the legislature, and, usually, where the legislature does not necessarily serve for a fixed term. Within semi-presidentialism, president-­parliamentarism is where the prime minister and cabinet are collectively responsible both to the legislature and to the president and premier-presidentialism is where the prime minister and cabinet are collectively responsible solely to the legislature. Thus, there is variation in the institutional variable of interest. There are also good theoretical reasons to suggest that institutional variation has an impact on leadership outcomes. For example, there is a ­long-standing argument about the pros and cons of presidentialism and parliamentarism. For example, Juan Linz (1990a, 1990b, 1994) identified a number of arguments against presidentialism. Among other matters, he was concerned with the 143

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“rigidity” of presidentialism (Linz 1994: 8–10). In presidential systems, the president serves for a fixed term and so does the legislature, meaning that the political process “becomes broken into discontinuous, rigidly determined periods without the possibility of continuous readjustments as political, social, and economic events might require” (Linz 1994: 8). The worry is that, in order to introduce some element of flexibility into the system, either the legislature may resort to impeaching the president, thus intensifying the crisis, or the president may use his/her powers to govern over and above the legislature, thereby threatening the rule of law. A further problem concerns the winnertakes-all/loser-loses-nothing nature of presidential elections (Linz 1994: 14–16). There is the fear that the unsuccessful candidates may call into question the conduct of the election and the legitimacy of the president’s mandate, encouraging their supporters to take to the streets and overturn the result, and democracy, by force. This judgment about presidentialism has been contested. For example, Mainwaring and Shugart (1997: 469) argue that Linz “understated the importance of differences among constitutional and institutional designs within the broad category of presidential systems and in doing so overstated the extent to which presidentialism is inherently flawed.” They argue that “providing the president with limited legislative power, encouraging the formation of parties that are reasonably disciplined in the legislature, and preventing extreme fragmentation of the party system enhance the viability of presidentialism” (1997: 469). In other words, the literature on presidentialism and parliamentarism has generated plenty of testable hypotheses relating to the institutional effects of the different systems.2 Finally, there are plenty of studies that examine whether or not there is empirical evidence to support the theoretical arguments. This is where the problem starts. In an early study, Stepan and Skach (1993) relied on descriptive statistics for non-OECD democracies in the period 1973 to 1989 to show that presidential systems were more likely to collapse than parliamentary democracies. By contrast, Power and Gasiorowski (1997: 137) using a similar method, but in relation to 56 third-world democracies from 1930 to 1995 found that presidential and parliamentary democracies had virtually identical breakdown rates. More recently, Kapstein and Converse (2008) have examined 123 democratizations in 88 countries between 1960 and 2004 and found that parliamentarism performs worse than presidentialism. In a largen statistical study of 135 democratic periods from 1800 to 2004, Maeda (2007) has found that initially presidential and parliamentary systems have a similar breakdown rate, but that over time presidential systems are more likely to collapse. By contrast, in another large-n study Cheibub (2007) has found that presidentialism per se is no more dangerous than parliamentarism, except if it is adopted after a period of military rule when it is more likely to collapse. 144

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Finally, Sing (2010) examined 85 democracies in the period 1946 to 2002 and found that when control variables were added presidential democracies were no more likely to collapse than parliamentary democracies. In short, there is no consensus as to whether or not the pros or cons of a particular regime are supported by the empirical evidence.3 Undoubtedly, the extreme variation in the findings is partly a result of the choice of method and whether or not the findings are based on in-depth qualitative case studies, descriptive statistics, or large-n controlled statistical analyses. Whatever the method, the findings also partly depend on how democracy is defined, the countries that are included in the study, and the time frame that is covered. More than that, even when the findings are the product of large-n controlled statistical analyses, the results vary as a function of the control variables that are included in the model and the estimation technique that is applied. In other words, the extreme variation in the findings is partly a function of the state of political science as a discipline. Even though there have been great methodological advances in recent years, individual writers are free to make fundamental research design choices. Consequently, as a function of data availability, time constraints, personal skills, and so on, even studies that are researching the same basic question will be based on quite different choices and such choices may lead writers to draw very different conclusions about the topic under investigation. The problem, though, is more profound. In this example, our variable of interest is the type of democratic regime, presidential, parliamentary, or semi-presidential. Let us assume that when investigating the effects of these regimes on democratic performance we were working to some agreed scientific standards whereby conclusions were drawn solely from large-n controlled statistical analyses, whereby democracy was an uncontested concept and, therefore, democratic survivals and collapses could be identified unequivocally, whereby the choice of time period was standard, and, therefore, the choice of cases was not open to question, whereby an optimal set of control variables was identified and a particular estimation technique was agreed, and so on. Let us further assume that there were no personality or contextual variables to distort the effect of institutions. Finally, let us assume that the results of the statistical analyses showed that presidentialism was likely to be significantly more dangerous for democracy than parliamentarism. Even under this hypothetical and unrealistic set of conditions, the model would still include some cases where presidential democracies had survived and others where they had collapsed. It would also include some cases where parliamentary democracies had survived and others where they had collapsed. As a result, we would not be able to say what would happen if country x were to adopt presidentialism, only what would be most likely to happen there. 145

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The probabilistic nature of the results even under such unlikely methodological conditions is a function of the problem of both equifinality and multifinality. From different starting points, presidentialism on the one hand and parliamentarism on the other, the same outcome will have occurred. That is to say, both presidential and parliamentary regimes have collapsed. Equally, from the same starting point, say presidentialism, different outcomes will have occurred. In other words, some presidential regimes have collapsed and others have survived. What this means is that even though we can distinguish between institutions, even though we can specify their causal effects, and even if we were to operate under extremely unrealistic conditions of scientific rigor, we would still be able to make only a general statement about the empirical effect of the institutional variation with which we are concerned. Thus, there is a gap between the law-like theoretical predictions of institutional analysis and the probabilistic results of empirical institutional studies. This gap undermines the institutionalist agenda. The problem of equifinality and multifinality occurs because in practice we operationalize institutional variation in a very reductionist manner. For example, we explore the effect of presidentialism versus parliamentarism, but the explanatory variable of interest is merely one institutional variable among many similar institutional variables. Other institutional factors interact with presidential and parliamentary institutions to help to determine the nature of political leadership. These factors might include the various constitutional powers of the president and prime minister, the organization and powers of the legislature, the electoral system, and so on. Any of these institutional factors can vary in their likely effect on leadership. Presidents can have many, few, or a balance of constitutional powers. Legislatures can be organizationally weak, strong, or mixed. Electoral systems can represent voter preferences proportionally or disproportionally, and so on for each institutional variable. Even under the conditions of extreme scientific rigor presented above, to understand the impact of presidential and parliamentary institutions on political leadership we would need to take account not just of a single institutional variable, but also of the interactions between this variable and the full set of institutional variables. If these variables were to covary systematically in ways that reinforced the effects of the basic institutional variable of interest, then we could discount them and focus solely on that variable. For example, let us assume that presidentialism is perilous because it generates personalized leadership that can be damaging for the rule of law in a way that risks the collapse of democracy. In this event, if presidentialism was always combined with institutions that reinforced this weakness, then we could focus solely on presidentialism. So, if presidentialism always occurred in countries where the president also had many constitutional powers, where 146

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the legislature was very weak, where there was a highly majoritarian system in which any presidential advantage in the electorate was translated into a supportive presidential majority in the legislature, and so on, then the basic problem of presidentialism would be reinforced at each stage. In principle, completely systematic covariation could eliminate the problems of equifinality and multifinality. However, institutions do not covary so systematically. Countries have a mix of institutions with varying effects. While some individual institutional effects may be mutually reinforcing, others will counteract each other. Political leadership will be the result of these multiple interactions. By focusing on a single institutional variable, we will still generate only probabilistic results even under highly artificial scientific standards. Let us illustrate the basic dilemma with reference to semi-presidentialism. First, let us take a case of multifinality. By definition, all premier-presidential countries have a directly elected president and a prime minister and cabinet that are collectively responsible solely to the legislature. Therefore, they have the same institutional starting point. However, within this sub-type of semipresidentialism we still observe huge institutional variation and very different leadership patterns. For example, Armenia has a relatively strong president, scoring 6 on a 0–9 scale of presidential powers (Siaroff 2003); a relatively weak parliament, registering 0.56 on a scale from 0–1 (Fish and Kroenig 2009); and a mixed plurality-proportional electoral system that has the potential to generate majorities that support the directly elected president. Overall, Armenia has consistently had a presidentialized form of premierpresidentialism. By contrast, Slovenia has a very weak president, recording a score of just 1 on Siaroff’s 9-point scale; a relatively strong parliament with a score of 0.75 on the Fish–Kroenig scale; and a highly proportional electoral system with only a 4 per cent threshold for representation. This combination of factors renders Slovenia’s president very weak and makes the prime minister the focus of leadership in a system that is nonetheless marked by multiparty coalition governments. For its part, Mongolia has a relatively strong president with a Siaroff score of 5; as well as a strong parliament with a Fish– Kroenig score of 0.85; and a mixed plurality-proportional electoral system that can generate single-party majorities. Mongolia has experienced periods of cohabitation where there has been conflict between the president and prime minister, as well as periods of single-party rule where the prime minister has been the dominant political actor. Thus, even by combining just four institutional variables we see three very different patterns of political leadership. It goes without saying that these patterns are the result of the combination of more than just these four variables, but even at this level of detail we witness the potential for multifinality. Second, let us take a case of equifinality. Again, by definition, premierpresidential and president-parliamentary sub-types of semi-presidentialism 147

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exhibit institutional variation. In the former the prime minister and cabinet are responsible solely to the legislature, whereas in the latter they are responsible jointly to the legislature and the president. Therefore, they have different institutional starting points. Premier-presidential Ireland has a weak president, recording a score of 3 on the Siaroff scale; a relatively strong parliament with a Fish–Kroenig score of 0.66; and a relatively proportional electoral system in which the coalition government in now is the norm. In Ireland, the head of government is the dominant political actor and, according to O’Malley’s (2007: 17) survey, prime ministerial influence scores 6.08, which is just below the mean for the 22 countries that he records. For its part, president-­parliamentary Austria also has a weak president with a Siaroff score of just 1; the legislature is also relatively strong with a Fish–Kroenig score of 0.72; and there is a proportional-like electoral system that has regularly generated coalition governments. In O’Malley’s survey, the Austrian prime minister scores 5.42, which is one of the weakest in the study but which is also not very far from either the mean or the Irish score. All told, and without repeating the caveats in the previous passage, we have two institutional starting points but a relatively similar pattern of political leadership in both countries. By focusing solely on the institutional variable of interest—the sub-type of semi-­presidentialism—we would expect different outcomes, but with the addition of other institutional variables we observe substantively the same outcome. Overall, institutional analysis is compelling because it promises to eliminate the probabilism associated with institutional effects on political outcomes. True, because political leadership is studied in an interactionist framework that includes personality factors and exogenous contextual factors, then an institutional approach to political leadership cannot eliminate all uncertainty. However, if we could specify institutions and their interactions carefully enough, then in theory we could completely eliminate the uncertainty related to institutions and drastically reduce the empirical uncertainty in the analysis as a whole. In practice, though, even if we discount the impact of personality and contextual factors, institutional analysis is imperfect because it is operationalized in a highly reductionist manner. For this reason, it generates only very general conclusions that are not only very sensitive to basic research design choices, but conclusions that are easily contestable because of the existence of often easily identifiable counter-examples. The gap between the huge potential of the institutional approach applied to political leadership and the empirical limitations of this approach in practice weakens its appeal. In this context, the temptation might be to give up on institutionalism altogether. However, we argue that, instead, we should work to refine and improve institutionalism. We sketch some options for the future direction of the institutional approach to political leadership in the next section. 148

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The Future of the Institutional Approach to Political Leadership The problem of equifinality and multifinality is the result of the reductionist application of the institutional approach to political leadership and the failure to account for the interaction of multiple institutional variables. Here, we identify three elements that help to address this problem. We suggest that a combination of these elements will help to advance the institutional approach and better identify good and bad leadership outcomes. The first element addresses the issue of institutional reductionism. Here, we draw upon work that has proposed a general framework for studying political leadership. Such frameworks include Cole (1994); Elgie (1995); Rhodes (1997); Gaffney (2003) and Poguntke and Webb (2007). For example, Cole (1994: 456) presents an interactionist framework for the study of political leadership. Within this framework, there are personality factors, such as the leader’s personal characteristics, including political and communication skills, as well as both political intelligence and personal attributes e.g., courage, ruthlessness, stamina. There are also contextual factors, such as the socio-economic equilibrium, cultural traditions, and the prestige of the nation in the international system. In addition, there are institutional or “positional” factors. Some of these variables are specified at an extreme level of abstraction, notably the reference to the “constitutional framework.” Interestingly, though, Cole’s list of institutional factors also makes specific reference to interactions within the executive, including ministers, other leadership contenders, and staffs, as well as interactions with other institutions, such as the bureaucracy, parliament, parties, and groups. Certainly, these interactions are not specified with any level of precision, but the theoretical logic behind the framework is consistent with a solution to the problem that was identified in the previous section. These frameworks have the advantage of emphasizing the need to incorporate multiple variables when explaining leadership outcomes. As they stand, though, none of the aforementioned frameworks specifies the set of institutional variables with either the necessary degree of comprehensiveness or specificity.4 However, it would be possible to devise an equivalent framework that does provide a more comprehensive list of institutional variables and that does specify them more fully. A further limitation is that they do not provide any theoretical expectations about the impact of any particular variable or about the interaction of any combination of variables. Thus, while the identification of a comprehensive list of institutional variables is a necessary condition for an institutional approach to the study of political leadership, it is not a sufficient condition. The second element is to identify the list of institutional variables with a greater degree of specificity. To do so, we turn to the recent literature about 149

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the executive or presidential toolbox (Raile, Pereira, and Power 2011; Chaisty, Cheeseman, and Power 2013). This work starts from the observation that in contrast to established theoretical expectations (Mainwaring 1993) presidents in Latin America and elsewhere have managed to build successful coalitions of support even in the supposedly difficult context of multiparty legislatures. To explain why they have managed to do so, this work identifies the particular set of tools that presidents have been able to call upon. This work examines the presidential use of such tools in the context of a wider set of variables and with reference to local factors, suggesting that the toolbox approach is essentially compatible with the broader interactionist frameworks identified previously. When examining the presidential toolbox, the authors explicitly assume that institutions affect political outcomes (Chaisty et al. 2013: 5). Thus, this approach is also compatible with an institutional approach to political leadership more specifically. What is more, this work also explicitly rejects institutional reductionism. Instead of emphasizing particular institutional factors, this work underlines the fact that presidents draw upon “multiple institutional tools” (Raile et al. 2011: 326). As Chaisty et al. (2013: 5) state: “rather than assume that a single institutional resource permits presidents to elicit multiparty support . . . we assume that presidents have access to a plurality of tools which can be used to incentivize coalition formation and legislative support.” This approach also makes it clear that the interaction of institutional variables helps to generate leadership outcomes (Raile et al. 2011: 325). Thus, the literature on the presidential toolbox is consistent with the general requirements of a mature institutional approach to the study of political leadership. The value added of the presidential toolbox approach lies in the specification of the institutional factors that are associated with leadership outcomes. For example, in their cross-national study Chaisty et al. (2013: 8) identify five “broad clusters” of presidential tools. They are: “agenda power (legislative powers awarded to the president, executive decree authority), budgetary prerogatives (control of public spending), cabinet management (distribution of portfolios to alliance members), partisan powers (influence of the president over one or more coalition parties), and informal institutions (a diverse residual category reflecting country-specific historical and cultural factors . . .)” (Chaisty et al. 2013: 8). While these clusters remain “broad,” the variables within each of them are specified with a somewhat greater degree of precision than the frameworks identified previously. Moreover, other work identifies some of these variables more clearly still. For instance, Raile et al. (2011: 325) emphasize the interaction of pork and coalition goods for the presidential management of potential partners in the legislature. Coalition goods include a party’s membership in the presidential cabinet. For Raile et al. (2011: 325), these are one-off sunk costs that form the basis of a deal. However, pork is 150

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distributed on an ongoing basis. The authors propose various ways in which these two variables may interact (2011: 326). Overall, the presidential toolbox approach has the potential to specify both the effect of individual institutional variables and the interactions between those variables. The third element is to identify such effects. Here, we draw upon the socalled strategic analysis of institutions that was pioneered in France. The origins of this approach can be found in the work of Maurice Duverger (Colliard 2010), but its mature expression can be found in the work of Jean-Luc Parodi and Olivier Duhamel (Parodi 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985; Duhamel 1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1987). The basic logic behind this analysis is the identification of the effect of the institutions under consideration, the analysis of the ways in which these institutional effects combine, and the identification of the outcomes that flow from them. For Parodi (1983: 999), this approach makes three assumptions: (1) Each institution has an a priori theoretical impact on political outcomes; (2) The impact of each institution must be situated in a more general institutional context, the other elements of which can either reinforce or counteract the original institutional effect; (3) A change in any of the elements of the institutional context will alter the impact of the original institutional outcome. Thus, this approach is based on the assumption that institutions have an impact on political outcomes. However, it avoids the problem of institutional reductionism by explicitly placing the impact of any given institution in a broader institutional context. Patterns of political leadership are the result of the specific combination of these different institutional effects. To illustrate this logic, let us take Parodi’s (1984) study of the Fifth French Republic. He wishes to explain the emergence of a particular pattern of political leadership after 1958, namely a majoritarian presidential system. To do so, he identifies five “founding” variables (1984: 630–631). They are: the twoballot majority electoral system for legislative elections; the president’s power to dissolve the legislature; the introduction of direct presidential elections; the president’s ability to call referendums; and the legislature’s ability to dismiss the government by way of a motion of censure. He then proceeds to analyze the individual effect of each of these institutions (1984: 631–637). For example, he argues that all else equal the direct election of the president is likely to lead to the autonomy of the executive; the bipolarization of the party system; the nationalization of electoral debate; the personalization of election campaigns; and the probability of conflict with other elected institutions. The next step is to analyze the combined effect of these institutions. He does so by pairwise combinations. For instance, when the type of electoral system for legislative elections is combined with the type of election of the president he identifies three different situations. When a majoritarian electoral system for the legislature is combined with the direct election of the 151

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president, then there is likely to be the greatest degree of presidentialization. When a majoritarian electoral system for the legislature is combined with the direct election of the president, then there is likely to be some degree of presidentialization. By contrast, when any type of electoral system is combined with an indirectly elected president, or, obviously, a system in which there is no president, then presidentialization is likely to be absent. Indeed, he goes further than that. Focusing solely on the first two scenarios, he identifies the effects of the type of electoral system on the different outcomes of the direct election of the president (1984: 640). So, Parodi hypothesizes that a majoritarian electoral system will lead only rarely to conflict between the president and other institutions, but to very severe conflict when it does occur. Conversely, he hypothesizes that a proportional electoral system will lead to more regular but less severe conflict. The Fifth Republic combines a majoritarian electoral system and direct presidential election. Therefore, we would expect to see rare but severe conflict between the president and other institutions. The experience of three periods of cohabitation from 1986–1988, 1993–1995, and 1997–2002 where there was considerable tension between the president and the prime minister/government provides basic empirical evidence to support Parodi’s theoretical analysis. The problems of equifinality and multifinality provide a real challenge to empirical institutional analysis. Nonetheless, existing institutional scholarship offers clues as to how these problems may be solved or at least mitigated. To do so, various elements of this scholarship need to be combined. The insight that multiple institutions affect the nature of political leadership is at the core of this exercise. This insight is consistent with the very general institutionalist accounts of political leadership that were identified in the first section of this chapter. The acknowledgement that the precise effects of these different institutions need to be specified very carefully is also core to this exercise. This aspect of the research agenda is consistent with the existing body of institutionalist work that has identified the specific effects of individual institutions. Crucially, though, the problems of equifinality and multifinality can only be properly addressed by understanding that outcomes are the result of the combined effects of many different institutional interactions. The strategic analysis of institutions is a useful heuristic tool in this regard. It shows the value of identifying institutional interactions systematically and provides the opportunity for more fine-grained predictions about the likely impact of institutional variation on leadership outcomes. In theory, these predictions are empirically testable. This combination of elements offers a way of generating more reliable conclusions about the effects of institutions on political outcomes. True, institutions operate within a broader interactionist framework that includes essentially unpredictable personality and contextual factors that add an essentially stochastic element to the 152

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analysis. Nonetheless, if this type of institutionalist approach was adopted, then the variance associated with institutional variables would at least be minimized.

Conclusion Over the last 30 years institutionalism has generated a vibrant research agenda. On the basis of this work, we are now much better placed to identify the effects of institutional rules and to make informed judgments about the consequences of those rules for the quality of political leadership. However, there is still a gap between the potential of this approach to generate theoretically rich, empirically testable propositions and the actual results that have been found. Aside from any foundational or theoretical critiques of institutionalism, the failure of institutional analysis to generate robust empirical results is problematic and threatens the credibility of the institutional approach generally. The absence of definitive empirical findings is caused by the reductionist way in which empirical institutional studies are carried out. The focus on the effect of a single institutional variable, such as presidentialism or parliamentarism, fails to account for the multiple interactions between many such variables. Consequently, even though we can make statements about different institutional effects, those statements often remain contestable and subject to readily available counter-examples. This situation does not weaken the theoretical promise of institutionalism, but it does weaken the practical application of institutionalist work. In this context, a mature institutionalist approach to political leadership requires the acknowledgement that the quality of political leadership is shaped by multiple institutions. It rests on the clear specification of those institutional variables and the identification both of the likely effect of individual variables, but also, and crucially, the effects of the different combinations of those variables. While the impact of personality and contextual factors will always render the institutional approach to political leadership essentially probabilistic, the comprehensive and coherent specification of multiple institutional interactions will minimize the variance associated with institutions themselves, thus offering the potential to generate more reliable accounts of politics generally and political leadership in particular. The obvious objection to this reworking of the institutional approach is that it will generate so many institutional scenarios that we will not have enough observations to test them. There are two ways to respond to this objection. The first is pragmatic. While we may have enough observations to test only a small sub-set of the different institutional combinations, if we can generate extremely robust empirical evidence for such a sub-set then by 153

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extrapolation we could reasonably conclude that the hypothesized effects in the unobserved cases would be likely to hold. The second response is more idealistic. The alternative to reworking the institutional approach to political leadership in this way is to give up on it altogether. Yet, to do so would be to let slip the basic advantage of institutional analysis. The strength of institutionalism is that it has the potential to reduce the uncertainty of political analysis and generate systematic accounts of political outcomes. In this chapter, we have sketched a basis for reworking the institutionalist approach in a way that could improve the reliability of the evidence that is used to support institutional arguments. If we can do so, then we will be much better placed to draw up an agenda for better democratic leadership. The rewards for doing so could be great indeed.

Notes 1. This term differs from Lodge and Wegrich’s (2012: 214) definition of “executive politics” as “the systematic study of the political factor within administrative or bureaucratic arrangements, and about the administrative factor in political life” and is concerned with a more restricted set of actors than the ones they identify. However, it shares with them the idea of a “concentration on a field of study” (Lodge and Wegrich 2012: 214), rather than on a particular type of behavior as constitutive of the term. 2. The same point also applies to the debate about the pros and cons of semi-­ presidentialism. See Elgie (2011: Chapter 2). 3. Again, the same point also applies to semi-presidentialism. For example, Moestrup (2007) finds that semi-presidential democracies are no more liable to collapse than presidential or parliamentary democracies. By contrast, Cheibub and Chernyk (2009) find that semi-presidential is no more or less problematic than other forms  of government. Elgie (2011) finds strong support for the argument that president-­parliamentarism is more dangerous for young democracies than premier-­ presidentialism. 4. Needless to say, none of these frameworks was constructed with the express aim of providing a solution to the many variables problem.

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The Institutional Approach to Political Leadership Cheibub, José Antonio 2007, Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Cheibub, José Antonio and Chernykh, Svitlana 2009, “Are semi-presidential constitutions bad for democratic performance?,” Constitutional Political Economy, 29(3–4): 202–229. Clemens, Clay and Paterson, William E. (eds) 1998, The Kohl Chancellorship, Frank Cass, London. Cole, Alistair 1994, François Mitterrand: A Study in Political Leadership, Routledge, London. Colliard, Jean-Claude 2010, “Un homme d’intuitions,” Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, 17(1): 13–21. Duhamel, Olivier 1985, “Les logiques cachés de la constitution de la Cinquième République?,” in Olivier Duhamel and Jean-Luc Parodi (eds), La Constitution de la Cinquième République, Presses de la FNSP, Paris, 11–23. Duhamel, Olivier 1986a, “Questions constitutionnelles pour l’après-mars 1986,” Projet, 198: 12–18. Duhamel, Olivier 1986b, “L’hypothèse de la contradiction des majorités en France,” in Maurice Duverger (ed.), Les régimes semi-présidentiels, PUF, Paris, 257–272. Duhamel, Olivier 1987, “Remarques sur la notion de régime semi-présidentiel,” in Droits, institutions et systèmes politiques. Melanges en hommage à Maurice Duverger, PUF, Paris, 581–590. Edinger, Lewis J. 1975, “Approaches to the comparative analysis of political leadership,” Comparative Politics, 7(2): 253–269. Elgie, Robert 1995, Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies, Palgrave, London. Elgie, Robert 2011, Semi-Presidentialism: Sub-types and Democratic Performance, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Fish, M. Steven and Kroenig, Matthew 2009, The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Gaffney, John 2003, “The French Fifth Republic as an opportunity structure: A neo– institutional and cultural approach to the study of leadership politics,” Political Studies, December, 51(4): 686–705. Hah, Chong-Do and Bartol, Frederick C. 1983, “Political leadership as a causative phenomenon: Some recent analyses,” World Politics, 36(1): 100–120. Hall, Peter 1986, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Helms, Ludger 2005, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors: Executive Leadership in Western Democracies, Palgrave, London. Hicken, Allen and Stoll, Heather 2013, “Are all presidents created equal? Presidential Powers and the shadow of presidential elections,” Comparative Political Studies, March, 46(3): 291–319. Kapstein, Ethan B. and Converse, Nathan 2008, The Fate of Young Democracies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Linz, Juan J. 1990a, “The perils of presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy, winter, 1(1): 51–69. Linz, Juan J. 1990b, “The virtues of parliamentarism,” Journal of Democracy, fall, 1(4): 84–91.

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Robert Elgie Linz, Juan J. 1994, “Presidential or parliamentary democracy: Does it make a difference?,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela (eds), The Failure of Presidential Democracy: Comparative Perspectives, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 3–87. Lodge, Martin and Wegrich, Kai 2012, “Public administration and executive politics: Perennial questions in changing contexts,” Public Policy and Administration, July, 27(3): 212–229. Maeda, Ko 2007, “Two modes of democratic breakdown: A competing risks analysis of democratic durability,” Journal of Politics, 72(4), 1129–1143. Mainwaring, Scott 1993, “Presidentialism, multipartism, and democracy—The difficult combination,” Comparative Political Studies, 26(2): 198–228. Mainwaring, Scott and Shugart, Matthew S. 1997, “Juan Linz, presidentialism, and democracy: A critical appraisal,” Comparative Politics, 29(4): 449–471. Moestrup, Sophia 2007, “Semi-Presidentialism in young democracies: Help or hindrance?,” in Robert Elgie and Sophia Moestrup (eds), Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe, Routledge, London, 30–55. O’Malley, Eoin 2007, “The power of prime ministers: Results of an expert survey,” International Political Science Review, 28(7): 7–27. Parodi, Jean-Luc 1980, “Effets et non-effets de l’élection présidentielle au suffrage universel direct,” Pouvoirs, 14: 5–14. Parodi, Jean-Luc 1983, “La Cinquième République à l’épreuve de la proportionnelle. Essai de prospective institutionnelle,” Revue française de science politique, 33(6): 987–1008. Parodi, Jean-Luc 1984, “Éléments constitutifs et combinatoires institutionnelles,” Revue française de science politique, 34(4): 628–647. Parodi, Jean-Luc 1985, “Imprévisible ou inéluctable, l’évolution de la Cinquième République?,” in Olivier Duhamel and Jean-Luc Parodi (eds), La Constitution de la Cinquième République, Presses de la FNSP, Paris, 24–43. Poguntke, Thomas and Webb, Paul (eds) 2007, The Presidentialization of Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Power, Timothy J. and Gasiorowski, Mark J. 1997, “Institutional design and democratic consolidation in the third world,” Comparative Political Studies, 30(2): 123–155. Radaelli, Claudio M., Dente, Bruno and Dossi, Samuele 2012, “Recasting institutionalism: Institutional analysis and public policy,” European Political Science, 11: 537–550. Raile, Eric D., Pereira, Carlos and Power, Timothy J. 2011, “The executive toolbox: Building legislative support in a multiparty presidential regime,” Political Research Quarterly, 64(2): 323–334. Rhodes, R. A. W. 1997, “‘Shackling the leader?’: Coherence, capacity and the hollow crown,” in Patrick Weller, Herman Bakvis and R. A. W. Rhodes (eds), The Hollow Crown: Countervailing Trends in Core Executives, Palgrave, London, 198–223. Rost, Joseph C. 1991, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, Praeger, New York. Samuels, David and Shugart, Matthew 2010, Presidents, Parties, Prime Ministers: A Framework for Analysis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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The Institutional Approach to Political Leadership Scharpf, Fritz W. 1997, Games People Play: Actor-Centred Institutionalism in Policy Research, Westview Press, Boulder. Sheffer, Gabriel 1993, “Introduction: In search of innovative leadership in world politics,” in Gabriel Sheffer (ed.), Innovative Leaders in International Politics, State of New York University Press, Albany, vii–xviii. Shugart, Matthew S. and Carey, John M. 1992, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Siaroff, Alan 2003, “Comparative presidencies: The inadequacy of the presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary distinction,” European Journal of Political Research, 42(3): 287–312. Sing, Ming 2010, “Explaining democratic survival globally (1946–2002),” Journal of Politics, 72(2): 438–455. Stepan, Alfred and Skach, Cindy 1993, “Constitutional frameworks and democratic consolidation: Parliamentarism versus presidentialism,” World Politics, 46(1): 1–22. Suleiman, Ezra N. 1980, “Presidential government in France,” in Richard Rose and Ezra N. Suleiman (eds), Presidents and Prime Ministers, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, 94–138.

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10 Good Democratic Leadership in Foreign Affairs: An Elite-Centered Approach Elizabeth N. Saunders

The search for good democratic leadership in foreign affairs involves a central irony. Leaders are more likely to have a significant impact on foreign policy than on domestic or economic policy (Wildavsky 1966), and thus it is particularly important to choose leaders who will perform well in the international arena. Yet voters in democracies, already ill-informed about many policy areas, are especially unlikely to be knowledgeable about international relations or to prioritize foreign policy when selecting leaders. How, then, can democracies identify and foster good leadership in foreign affairs? This chapter explores the problem of good leadership in foreign affairs by examining the trade-off between the role of public opinion and mass political participation, on the one hand, and elite leadership, on the other. I begin by exploring the theoretical and empirical question of who makes foreign policy in a democracy, providing a descriptive account that emphasizes the role of elites. I then turn to the normative implications of the argument, exploring how the limitations of mass political participation empower elites to make bold choices in the name of the public good, but also come with risks. From a theoretical and empirical perspective, I argue that understanding the problem of good leadership in foreign policy requires a focus on elites, even in a democratic setting. Scholars of mass political behavior, particularly in the American context, have long stressed that the public takes its cues on many issues, including foreign policy, from elites, who therefore play a critical role in leading and shaping public opinion. In many, if not most, instances, the public’s role is to set the outer boundaries of policy, leaving democratic leaders significant autonomy on foreign policy as long as they do not run afoul of other elites. This elite-centric account is at odds with prevailing voter-­ driven theories of how democracies operate in the international system, 158

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because it suggests elites are often the primary domestic audience for foreign policy decisions, and that elites have more leverage than the mass public to shape policy choices and to hold leaders accountable. From a normative perspective, it is perhaps less appealing to focus squarely on elites, rather than the mass public. But this chapter argues that an elitecentered approach is consistent with some “minimalist” conceptions of democracy in political theory. Though such arguments are familiar in other corners of political science, they are less often explored in international relations scholarship. The framework presented here, while elite-centric, represents a middle ground between the elite-driven story of early realists and more recent, voter-driven accounts of democratic international relations. Domestic politics still matters significantly for understanding international relations—but even in democracies, much of the relevant domestic politics happens at the elite level. I also argue that an elite-driven foreign policy can foster good leadership, though such an outcome is not guaranteed. A crucial initial question, of course, is what good leadership means in the context of foreign policy, which encompasses both highly technocratic issues and also more exigent concerns such as external threats and the prospect of war that can provoke fear and other visceral reactions. As John Kane and Haig Patapan (2012: 7) argue in their study of democratic leadership, a good leader must “exercise sound judgement for the people’s welfare.” In foreign affairs, good leadership would seem to require the ability to make independent, strategic decisions in the name of the national interest, and to do so in a timely and level-headed fashion, possibly in defiance of prevailing or latent popular sentiment. At the same time, the national interest has been difficult to define objectively, and reasonable people—even different leaders—may disagree about what is best for the state (Saunders 2011). Competition and bargaining among reasonably well-informed foreign policy elites, with voters retaining an indirect but crucial role, is a useful—and democratic—way to manage debates over protecting the national interest. The chapter first addresses the descriptive problem of who actually shapes foreign policy in democracies. It then turns to the normative implications of an elite-centric account for good leadership in foreign affairs. As a threshold question, it considers whether such a model is compatible with democratic principles. After making the case that elite leadership of foreign policy is potentially democratic, I conclude that there are some advantages to go with the inevitable disadvantages of seeing foreign policy as fundamentally the domain of elites. Before proceeding, it is important to note two points about the chapter’s scope. First, it concentrates on the use of force, an area which should be well covered by the media and where we might expect the voting public in a 159

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democracy to play a particularly strong role. Second, the chapter focuses on the United States, not only for ease of exposition, but also because the literature on voting behavior is well developed in the American context. Furthermore, we would expect that if the public plays a direct role in holding leaders accountable anywhere, it should be in a relatively weak, decentralized system like the United States (Risse-Kappen 1991). These choices suggest avenues for future research beyond how the United States uses force.

Leadership, Democracy, and International Relations As Kane and Patapan (2012: 1) note, the actual practice of democratic leadership is woefully understudied. While this neglect of leadership is a blind spot in the study of democracy more generally, in the field of international relations, inattention to individual leadership has been quite deliberate. To understand the origins of this neglect, it is important to consider how international relations scholarship has conceptualized democracy, the role of leadership, and the balance between leaders and the mass public. For classical realists like Walter Lippmann (1922), George Kennan (1951), and Hans Morgenthau (Morgenthau and Thompson 1985), democracy was dangerous, because it allowed a fickle, emotional, and moralistic public too much influence over foreign policy. To counter this potentially dangerous influence, these realists prescribed elite leadership. As Morgenthau put it, “the government must realize that it is the leader and not the slave of public opinion . . . that it is the historic mission of the government to assert that leadership lest it be the demagogue who asserts it” (Morgenthau and ­Thompson 1985: 164). Elite leadership, however, largely meant the pursuit of a relatively objective national interest, with the public dutifully falling in line, leaving the role of leaders (and other elites) vague. The advent of structural realism, particularly as articulated by Kenneth Waltz, pushed domestic politics, including both democratic institutions and leadership, firmly into the background. Waltz’s Man, the State, and War (1959) explicitly dismissed “first-image” or individual level explanations for war, as well as “secondimage” explanations that focused on political institutions. Waltz argued in favor of focusing on the structure of the international system, leaving no role for leadership, democracy, or mass opinion. In the last few decades, however, domestic political explanations, especially those focusing on the role of democratic institutions, have enjoyed a resurgence in international relations theory. Though much of the focus has been on explaining why democracies do not fight each other (e.g., Russett 1993), scholars have also explored the intrinsic distinctiveness of democracies. In the prevailing view, democracies derive advantages in many areas of 160

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international life, including crisis bargaining and war fighting, from their accountability to the public. While the precise mechanisms of accountability vary across these accounts, voters usually play the key role in holding their leaders’ feet to the fire on election day (see, among others, Fearon 1994; Schultz 2001; Reiter and Stam 2002; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). Leaders hoping to remain in office must cater to the public’s wishes when making foreign policy decisions. The exploration of leadership, however, continued to lag; despite a recent revival of interest in the role of leaders, there remains relatively little work on how leadership functions in international relations generally, much less in the context of democratic foreign policy.1 Recently, however, scholars have used insights and concepts from comparative politics to expand our understanding of accountability and decisionmaking in authoritarian regimes (e.g., Weeks 2008), challenging the notion that democracies are distinctive in certain aspects of their international behavior. The voter-driven portrait of democracy in international relations, however, remains largely unchanged. Though the debate over democratic distinctiveness is by no means settled, the following section argues for a shift away from the mass public in thinking about democratic foreign policy. But the model retains an important, if secondary, role for voters. This approach, while elite-centric, thus differs from classical realist arguments in that it still sees an important role for domestic politics.

Democratic Foreign Policy: An Elite-Centered Approach Kane and Patapan (2012: Chapter 2) highlight the two paths democratic theorists typically take to resolve the problem of leadership in a democracy: either arguing in favor of a necessary elite from which good leaders are drawn, or emphasizing participatory democracy to overcome the dangerous effects of elitism. They persuasively argue that it is not possible or even desirable to resolve the tension between the necessity for elite leadership and the need for popular sovereignty and accountability. The requirement to toe this line is what makes leadership democratic. Arguably, however, the “democratic advantage” school in international relations has placed the emphasis on voters. But in the realm of foreign policy, there are theoretical reasons to question direct voter accountability mechanisms. In the American context, scholars of political behavior have long emphasized that voters do not know much about foreign policy (e.g., Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996: 82–89), and often interpret foreign policy issues or events through their political predispositions. The public tends to take its cues on foreign policy from elites. When elites are unified, the attentive public is likely to support the elite consensus, but when 161

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elites are divided, informed citizens also hold polarized views, taking their cues from the elites they support on partisan grounds (Zaller 1992; Berinsky 2009). Voters thus delegate the conduct of foreign policy to elites, who in turn lead mass opinion on foreign policy. Scholars such as John Zaller and Adam Berinsky have demonstrated that patterns of elite discourse, as transmitted through the media, shape public support even in wartime, in conflicts including World War II, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War, and the Iraq War. From the voters’ perspective, this delegation of foreign policy decision-making is useful, in large part because gathering information about political issues is costly and time consuming (Downs 1957). In addition to providing information, elite cues can also affect issue salience, or the importance voters place on an issue, for example by shaping the nature and volume of elite discourse reported by the media (Zaller 1992: 81). If the public takes its wartime cues from elites, then democratic leaders may not take public opinion directly into account when making foreign policy decisions, including decisions about whether and how to use force. Indeed, in the US context, there is a substantial body of evidence that presidents are not especially responsive to public opinion (see, for example, Canes-Wrone 2006; Jacobs and Shapiro 1999). Additionally, presidents have only rare success using the “bully pulpit” to change the public’s views (Edwards 2003). Yet political leaders frequently behave as if public opinion matters (Aldrich, ­Sullivan, and Borgida 1989: 123; Schultz 2001: 78). One possibility is that leaders try to anticipate and manage “latent” or future public opinion (Key 1961). But if leaders know that voters do not have well-formed preferences and are likely to take cues from elites, they also know that there is room to shape those cues, as well as events themselves. I argue for an elite-centered framework for understanding how democratic leaders manage public opinion indirectly. A complete discussion of the model is beyond the scope of this chapter, but I summarize it here, concentrating on the American presidency for purposes of exposition.2 In crafting foreign policy, the president ultimately cares about the electorate’s response, but since the attentive public is likely to take its cues from elites, presidents can largely shield themselves from electoral consequences by keeping elites on board or at least preventing elite dissent. This arrangement is also rational from the perspective of busy voters, who use elite cues as information shortcuts to make sense of a complex world. Voters want to know when things are going badly enough that they should be concerned; in this “fire alarm” model (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; Zaller 2003), the public waits for an elite cue, transmitted through the media, to alert them when it is time to pay attention.3 But if the president can keep other crucial elites on board or at least prevent them from going public with their criticism, then he can pursue his policy 162

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while keeping voters mainly in the background. The president has a variety of tools at his disposal to bargain with elites, with whom he “shares” power, as Richard Neustadt argues (1990: 29). But elite cooperation does not come without costs to the president. Some of these tools, such as political favors or threats, or side-payments on other issues, cost the president political capital but do not necessarily alter his policy choice. Most interestingly, however, the president may try to co-opt or retain the support of other elites by making changes to the final form or implementation of the policy decision, thereby accommodating the preferences of key elites. For example, the president may obtain the military’s backing for an operation by agreeing to fight the war a certain way. Elite bargaining may thus have crucial effects on policy outcomes, from the initiation of conflicts to military strategy. Such an argument suggests that mass public opinion will rarely have a direct effect on foreign policy, except in rare cases like a large, failing war or events that occur just prior to an election. In this view, the public retains the ultimate check, but usually remains in the background and delegates most foreign policy choices to elites. Thus it is bargaining among elites that largely determines the contours of foreign policy. The possibility of elite support and the threat of elite criticism are primary mechanisms for holding leaders accountable. Two additional points about this elite-centric model of foreign policy are important to note. First, the model is distinctive only if elites do not merely represent the wishes of the voters. But research has shown large and persistent gaps between elites and voters on foreign policy issues (see, for example, Page and Bouton 2006). Second, the president will be most concerned with elites who are likely to be the most effective cue-givers on foreign policy. In the context of the use of force in the United States, for example, three groups are likely to be of greatest (though by no means sole) concern to the president: members of Congress, high-ranking members of the bureaucracy such as cabinet officers and national security officials, and military leaders.4 Within these groups, the most newsworthy cues are those that are surprising or costly, such as support for the president from the opposition party in Congress (Baum and Groeling 2010: Chapter 2). Conversely, criticism from within the president’s own party, from within his administration (in the extreme, a resignation in protest), or from military leaders perceived to be close to the president is likely to be the most damaging. These arguments do not mean that public opinion does not matter. But the model sees the direct, forceful influence of public opinion on policy as rare. Consider the case of the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson’s fate in the 1968 election, often taken as a response to rising anti-war sentiment and protests. To be sure, Johnson pulled out of the race partly—though not solely—because he believed that Vietnam might ultimately doom his candidacy. Johnson was 163

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especially concerned, however, because a split on the war had emerged within his own party, despite a significant effort to prevent such a split and maintain the elite consensus on the war he had enjoyed for the initial escalation period (Dallek 1998: 519–530). In the New Hampshire primary, while antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy earned a stunning vote share, McCarthy voters in New Hampshire were more likely to be angry with Johnson for not doing enough in Vietnam, rather than for doing too much (Converse et al. 1969: 1092). In the case of the Iraq War, mass protests in Europe did little to stop the participation of democracies like Britain. In the United States, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, albeit narrowly, despite efforts to bring the war to the forefront of the campaign. In both Vietnam and Iraq, it took a relatively long time for public disapproval to break through, yielding leaders significant leeway to conduct military operations in the meantime. Thus the model suggests that leaders are initially responsive to elite rather than mass opinion. Furthermore, it implies that while domestic politics matters, much of the important domestic politics occurs within and among elite groups, rather than between elites and voters. Leaders’ inability to directly shape public opinion through the “bully pulpit” suggests that rhetorical persuasion of the masses is less important than persuasion of elites.

Is an Elite-Centric Foreign Policy Democratic? With the model thus briefly sketched, we can now turn to what an elite-­ centric focus means for good democratic leadership. Setting aside, for the moment, the theoretical and empirical merit of this model, two questions arise. The first is whether such a model—which gives the public an indirect role, but is overall elite-centric—is consistent with democratic principles. The second question is whether elite dominance of policymaking is conducive to “good” leadership in the context of foreign policy, especially the extent to which good leaders should be willing to make foreign policy independent of public opinion. I first briefly consider the question of elites and democratic principles, a subject impossible to explore fully here. But it is important to note that international relations scholars who draw on democratic theory have tended to focus on popular accountability, rather than elites, much less leadership. A prominent strand of theorizing relies on one of Kant’s arguments about democratic war making, namely that If . . . the consent of the citizens is required to decide whether or not war is to be declared, it is very natural that they will have great hesitation in embarking on so dangerous an enterprise. For this would mean calling down on themselves all the miseries of war. . . . But under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen, it is

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Even Kant, however, stresses that direct popular sovereignty is not the source of institutional constraints on leaders’ ability to make war. Kant distinguishes between republicanism, or a system of separated legislative and executive powers, and “despotism,” in which no such separation of power exists, equating direct democracy with the latter (1970: 101). Echoes of these concerns about direct democracy also informed the arguments for representative democracy in the Federalist (Nos. 9 and 10, Rossiter 1961). If popular sovereignty is not, then, the defining feature of democracies in the international arena, what then distinguishes democracies? Kant hints that it is really republics that are distinctive, with checks and balances presumably among elites, but he does not address leadership or the elite class from which it is drawn. Another line of argument focuses more clearly on elites. This school of democratic thought, which is not usually addressed by international relations scholars, has a long and varied history: as Kane and Patapan (2012: 14–19) summarize, theorists in this vein have tended to highlight the inevitability and even desirability of elite leadership in democracies. This strand of democratic theory also contains a strongly descriptive element, focusing on the reality of voter ignorance and elite dominance. One theorist whose approach to democracy seems particularly well suited to the problem of elite leadership in international relations is Joseph ­Schumpeter.5 In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter highlights general voter ignorance and apathy, arguing that “groups,” including politicians, are “able to fashion, within very wide limits, even to create the will of the people,” so that “what we are confronted with . . . is largely not a genuine but a manufactured will” (1942: 263). In place of a model that presumes individuals have preferences over issues and elect representatives who will follow those preferences, Schumpeter argues for defining democracy as “that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” People elect a government, which then makes decisions that in some sense shape the people’s notion of what they want, or at least what the options are. He argues that such a definition gives “proper recognition of the vital fact of leadership” (1942: 269–270). Ultimately, while the electorate retains the power to unseat the government at the polls, Schumpeter argues that these “spontaneous revulsions” are rare, and the public does not directly “control” government actions (1942: 272). In other words, the public’s role is vital but indirect, and elites shape policy and opinion. Contemporary scholarship on democracy, particularly in comparative politics, has partly taken up the Schumpeterian view, at least on one side of a 165

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long-running debate over whether democracy should be defined minimally and dichotomously (a state is or is not a democracy), or continuously (a state can be more or less democratic). Adam Przeworski and colleagues, for example, take a minimalist approach, defining democracy as “a system in which government offices are filled by contested elections” (Alvarez et al. 1996: 7). This definition, as they explicitly note, does not include accountability, responsiveness, representation, or participation. Instead it is the contestation of elections between at least some conflicting interests that is foundational (1996: 18–19). As Przeworski elaborates, a single common good is difficult to discern because individual and group interests often conflict (Przeworski 1999: 29). Furthermore, representation itself is a problematic concept, because voters are not fully informed and thus cannot use instruments like retrospective voting as effective tools for accountability (Przeworski 1999: 37–39; see also Przeworski, Stokes, and Manin 1999; Malloy nd). Przeworski argues that the mere prospect that control of government might alternate “may induce moderation while in office.” Leaders cannot stray too far in choosing policies, in this view, because to do so would provoke a “rebellion” by the other side (1999: 46).6 In a similar vein, James Fearon, recognizing that “elected officials can do an enormous amount of business entirely out of public view,” suggests that elections may help voters select rather than sanction leaders. Voters signal their preference for “good types,” incentivizing leaders to choose good policies but not necessarily subjecting them to the direct threat of electoral punishment for any given decision (Fearon 1999: 68; see also Malloy nd). From this perspective, then, the mechanisms that make government democratic involve elections, but not direct voter accountability. These arguments put the spotlight on elites as the key actors entrusted with policymaking, and as discussed below, even the selection of policymakers themselves. They suggest that elite leadership is intrinsic to democracy, rather than antithetical to it. One element generally missing in this line of democratic theory, however, is interaction among elites. As I have argued (and explore further below), such interactions, though not without risks, are an important part of democratic accountability on foreign policy, which is conducted largely out of public view.

Implications for Good Democratic Leadership in Foreign Policy Ultimately, we are interested in the problem of good leadership in foreign affairs: how can leaders be empowered to choose good policies that protect the state’s interests, simultaneously remaining true to democratic principles and operating without undue constraints from electoral or other short-term 166

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political concerns? These considerations are partly normative, but also must, of necessity, draw on the reality of how voters and elites behave (on this point, see also Moravcsik 2004: 343–344). To assess whether an elite-led foreign policy helps or hinders good leadership, it is useful to consider the influence of elites at three stages: the selection of foreign policy leaders; the process of holding those leaders accountable for their decisions; and the making of substantive policy choices with implications for democratic principles. As with any institutional arrangement, an elite-driven foreign policy apparatus comes with important trade-offs.

Selection First, the selection and recognition of good leadership is especially important given the autonomy leaders enjoy in foreign affairs. It falls to elites to scrutinize the records of would-be and incumbent foreign policy leaders and set the bar for what makes a candidate qualified on foreign policy. In the American context, recent scholarship suggests that at the presidential level, party insiders—­who are motivated by different interests than ordinary citizens— give endorsements that cumulatively select each party’s presidential nominee, in a process that takes place before voters are paying much attention (Cohen et al. 2008). One might extend the argument to suggest that party activists and insiders vet the potential leader on foreign policy grounds. The bar may be set low in terms of experience (as recently elected presidents with little to no experience on foreign policy illustrate), potentially leading to the selection of a leader ill-equipped to handle the state’s international challenges. Furthermore, groups with special interests—what Marty Cohen and colleagues (2008: 30) call “intense policy demanders” with preferences more extreme than voters—may exert powerful constraints on what policy positions a candidate, and ultimately the chief executive, espouses. On some issues, issue capture may result, leading to policies that benefit narrow interests (US policy toward Cuba may be such a case, for example). Still, these tendencies may be mitigated by the moderating effect of rotating governments, as Przeworski argues. Furthermore, many key foreign policy issues can be considered technocratic and without an obvious tie to an existing, cohesive group, and thus are less likely to lead to interest group capture. In addition to such structurally moderating effects, there are normative reasons to see some advantages to elite selection. On a basic level, the information gap between elites and voters suggests that putting vetting and selection in elite hands increases the chances of selecting a more informed, competent, and efficient decision-maker.7 In terms of the selection process, party insiders, particularly those close to or already in government and those with foreign policy expertise, have knowledge of the requirements of the 167

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office and the foreign policy climate. Such insiders will take special care when considering a candidate’s likely foreign policy trajectory, thus lowering (though not eliminating) the chances of picking someone obviously deficient. Another potential advantage of an elite selection process is that it is likely to keep the leadership candidates’ views within boundaries set by the country’s political traditions. Just as on broader issues, democratic elites tend to coalesce around several positions from which voters then choose, on foreign policy, leaders do not have infinitely varied views but instead usually align with a defined tradition. In the context of American presidents’ inclinations toward military intervention, for example, my own previous research has shown that presidents can be grouped into one of two categories, depending on their views about the nature of threats in the international environment and whether those threats arise from the internal order of other states (­Saunders 2011). Others have characterized American foreign policy traditions in different ways, but nonetheless emphasize that there are finite and established traditions from which leaders draw their foreign policy beliefs (e.g., Mead 2001; Nau 2013). These traditions have connections to public opinion because they are often tied to a particular party or region, and can be thought of as useful constraints that keep foreign policy within established limits. Even if foreign policy shifts between different traditions over time, these limits confer a measure of stability on foreign policy, making it more predictable and transparent to outsiders and increasing the likelihood that policy stays within the limits of what voters will tolerate. Choosing leaders from established traditions does not guarantee selecting a leader with good judgment. But it arguably increases the chances by constraining the options, in the sense of reducing the variance among the foreign policy positions of the various candidates, from what one could expect if candidates were drawn from a broader pool of non-elites or if the public were involved more directly in the vetting process. One need not see public opinion as necessarily dangerous or otherwise deleterious to good judgment to reach this conclusion. Rather, the theoretical and empirical reality suggests that the public will vary more widely than elites in its views, with many simply not acquiring sufficient knowledge to form firm opinions without an elite cue (resulting in more scattershot views), and others relying on predispositions. Narrowing the range of foreign policy orientations leaders consider, however, does run a significant risk: that of stagnant thinking or conformity. Some have argued that the Vietnam War, for example, was partly the product of a misguided collective agreement on both sides of the political spectrum that defending Vietnam was essential to the US containment strategy (see, for example, Gelb and Betts 1979). While such concerns cannot be eliminated,

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elite competition and regular democratic elections force leaders (and leadership candidates) to consider and articulate their foreign policy views on a regular basis. Furthermore, Walter Russell Mead (2001: 95) argues that the competition among the different traditions in American foreign policy is healthy and improves the overall quality of policy. In considering the normative implications of an elite-driven selection process, we must also consider the alternatives. Setting aside concerns about feasibility, one alternative is to put the process directly in the hands of voters, but they are unlikely to scrutinize a leader’s foreign policy record or to place much stock in it even if they do. The risk is less that voters will mistakenly judge the quality of a leader’s foreign policy record, but rather that the leader will be voted in or out on alternative grounds, as when George H. W. Bush was defeated when the US economy soured in 1992. While good leadership on foreign policy may not be frequently valued by voters, it may be appreciated by other elites. It is also useful to consider whether selection problems are any more acute in democracies than in authoritarian regimes. Some autocracies make military experience a de facto selection criterion for leaders, for example, but military experience does not necessarily imply good judgment. Autocracies also lack the built-in threat of circulation or rotation of elites, removing the moderating influence of elite competition. Once the chief executive is selected, he assumes primary responsibility for selecting the next echelon of foreign policy hands. Drawing from a pool of elites, especially those involved in foreign policy, raises the chances of selecting a more knowledgeable and experienced set of advisers. Yet here again there are trade-offs. The concern that other elites within the government support the chief executive’s policies and reflect his worldview suggests that leaders will choose like-minded officials for key foreign policy positions (Krasner 1972). Unity of purpose and a president’s comfort with his advisers can be advantageous, but a countervailing pressure is to get the highest quality advice possible, which in some cases may point to more diverse appointments or what Alexander George (1980) terms “multiple advocacy.” If potential elite dissent is a key mechanism of accountability, however, leaders may be less inclined to choose advisers with a different political or ideological outlook, resulting in more homogeneous advice. Yet no leader can eliminate the threat of dissent from within his ranks (and thus the possibility that advisers will pull the “fire alarm”). Even an adviser chosen for his similar views may disagree with the president on other issues or at a later time. Furthermore, the problem of “yes” men is likely to be even more significant in autocracies, where leaders fear not only the political repercussions of dissent from within the government but also the threat of a coup.

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Accountability Once leaders and their top foreign policy advisers are selected, what does an elite-centered model suggest for understanding the inevitable tension between good leadership and democratic accountability? I have argued that in foreign affairs, the balance tilts toward elite leadership, though voters retain the ultimate check. While many democratic theorists note the autonomy that the electorate’s rational ignorance affords leaders, they usually see voters’ ability to yank back the reigns of authority in periodic elections as the main (or only) constraint on leaders. A significant implication of an elitecentric model, however, is that elites are themselves agents of accountability, suggesting that it is possible for democratic principles to exert leverage over leaders even if elites are the primary foreign policy actors. A basic descriptive question concerns the audience to whom leaders are accountable. As Schumpeter and Przeworski suggest, if the masses do not know what they want—as seems particularly likely in the realm of foreign policy—it makes little sense to define good leadership in terms of responsiveness to popular wishes. But it is also problematic to return to the classical realist imperative to act in the national interest, since reasonable elites can disagree about the national interest itself. The elite-driven model, underpinned by the mass public’s delegation of authority, allows the leader significant room to make foreign policy as he sees fit, while holding him accountable, first to elites, and ultimately to voters. Insulation from voter scrutiny may enhance the prospect that leaders will take risks, both good and bad, because their electoral fortunes are unlikely to be directly tied to foreign policy. Normatively, a key feature is that leaders, who have significant information advantages, can act in ways they deem necessary for the state even if they fear the electorate’s anger, as long as they keep other elites on board. Of course, entrusting accountability on foreign policy to elites is not without downsides. Most obviously, leaders may make poor judgments, take bad risks, or make policies that voters ultimately deem unpalatable. In the latter case especially, decisions will take longer to correct because of the lag in voter attention. As discussed above, it took a significant length of time for popular opposition to have a direct effect on policy in Vietnam and Iraq. Leaders may also exploit their ability to bargain with other elites, for example by getting the opposition to support or at least tacitly acquiesce to the government’s policies even if it is a bad risk. This tendency is exacerbated at times of high threat or war, when, as Tocqueville (1969: 677) noted, state power becomes more centralized. The deference shown to George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War was one such instance. Yet the public might also be deferential to the leader’s judgment if voters played a more direct role in decision-­ making. More generally, the need to bargain with and accommodate other 170

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elites with access to the media—including those outside the legislature such as military leaders—goes some way toward alleviating these risks. Elite competition and a leader’s need to accommodate elite preferences may be a healthy way to ensure that alternative options are aired and considered. If elites disagree, the public is also likely to divide (Zaller 1992), and there may be good substantive reasons for these divisions. These arguments also suggest that leaving policymaking in the hands of elites need not lead to excessive politicizing of foreign affairs. Rather, elite competition, including partisan wrangling, is an intrinsic and possibly even healthy part of democratic foreign policy.

Substance Beyond selection and accountability, how do democratic principles and the substance of good leadership interact if foreign policy is largely controlled by elites? Even if the description of elite leadership is correct, is it normatively desirable or in any sense really democratic, especially if there is divergence between elite and mass opinion? Hamilton and Madison argued in the Federalist that representative democracy, with citizens electing representatives who then voted for laws, would protect against the dangers of majority rule and of “factions” (Nos. 9 and 10, Rossiter 1961). As Andrew Moravcsik (2004: 346) points out, delegation and insulation from direct popular control can also benefit diffuse majorities, such as those favoring free trade, that are often overpowered by narrower, organized interest groups. From the perspective of the model, a key consideration is that elites (like the public) are not a homogeneous group, but rather have diverse preferences and thus will compete over the policy outcome. This competition—within the boundaries set by voters—ensures that different perspectives will be represented while providing the benefits of insulation and delegation. There are also potential normative arguments for seeing voter delegation of key issues like foreign policy as compatible with democracy. Scholars of political behavior have shown that citizens can use cues and information shortcuts to make reasoned choices (e.g., Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Zaller 2003). If citizens can use limited information to hold their representatives accountable, full information is not a necessary condition for democratic accountability. Other democratic theorists, including Madison and Burke, have gone further, suggesting that it is preferable to delegate decision-making to elites since public opinion can be too impulsive or passionate, and thus easy prey for demagogues (Federalist Nos. 10 and 63, Rossiter 1961; Burke 1987). In the context of foreign policy and especially the use of force in the presence of an external threat or crisis, such arguments imply that elites are more likely to react in measured ways, rather than out of fear or emotion. Of course, the 171

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trade-off is that elites may harness a crisis for their own purposes and act against the public interest. But for proponents of representative democracy, at least, the moderating effect of delegation to elites is an important check on popular passions. A final normative consideration is how substantive norms related to specific foreign policy issues might constrain democratic leaders, limiting their ability to make decisions or even conduct wars in ways they deem necessary for the national interest. For example, some have argued that democracies are ill-equipped to conduct counterinsurgency wars, in part because public concerns about human rights render democratic leaders unwilling to use violent, coercive measures (Merom 2003).8 Here again, however, moving the spotlight from voters to elites has important consequences. With some exceptions, many aspects of warfighting remain out of public view. In the wake of 9/11, for example, the debate about torture had difficulty breaking through in the public debate, apart from major scandals like Abu Ghraib. Furthermore, to the extent that elites present a united front, the dynamics of public opinion suggest that the mass public will follow. During the Vietnam War, despite widespread devastation on the ground, the public remained largely supportive of government policy for several years, reflecting elite consensus (Zaller 1992: Chapter 6; Berinsky 2009: 111–118). It seems more likely that foreign policy elites, rather than the public, can raise questions of morality and restraint that will get the president’s attention. Whether such concerns actually arise is likely to be a function of the beliefs of the leader and his top advisers. Accounts of Barack Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya, for example, stress the influence of advisers who emphasized human rights concerns (see, for example, Cooper and Myers 2011). Again, entrusting elites to make judgments about the morality of foreign policy comes with risks, in this case either that policy will veer into moral territory incompatible with public wishes or democratic values, or, conversely, that the president will be unduly constrained by overly cautious advisers. But given voter inattention, debate and competition among informed elites may be the best available option for balancing moral and pragmatic concerns in foreign policy, and ensuring that gross violations do reach voters’ eyes and ears. Even if the normative advantages outlined here imply consistency with democratic principles, they by no means guarantee good outcomes. Schumpeter himself noted that the typical voter’s ignorance might, “at certain junctures . . . prove fatal to his nation” (1942: 262). There remains scope for leaders to manipulate the environment of elite cues so that they can pursue risky and poorly executed policies, as was arguably the case in Vietnam and Iraq. Especially for larger operations, the very insulation from public opinion that empowers leaders can become a liability in that it can take a long 172

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time for accountability mechanisms to kick in, first at the elite and later at the mass level. Yet from a theoretical and empirical perspective, the question is whether there is a realistic alternative to elite management of foreign policy, given that voters have good reasons to delegate foreign policy and increasing mass participation may not be possible. Even it if were feasible, however, there remains the normative question of whether more popular control of foreign policy would be desirable, or whether leadership that is somewhat insulated from public opinion is preferable, as advocates of representation suggest. The record of elite stewardship of foreign policy is by no means pristine. But there is no guarantee that even if more mass participation in policymaking were possible, the record would be significantly different. Thus the process of selecting and exercising good leadership in foreign affairs is, for better or for worse, largely in the hands of elites. Though not without risks, democratic institutions provide some incentives that enable the prospect of good leadership, or at least a healthy debate over options. Furthermore, delegation to elites, coupled with the threat that these elites will pull the “fire alarm,” allows leaders significant autonomy to conduct foreign policy while remaining mindful that voters lurk in the background.

Conclusion Tocqueville famously argued that “foreign policy does not require the use of any of the good qualities peculiar to democracy but does demand the cultivation of almost all those which it lacks” (Tocqueville 1969: 228–229). My argument in this chapter has been that democratic foreign policy is in the hands of a relatively small number of elites, and this arrangement can promote good democratic leadership in foreign affairs. Good leadership in foreign affairs requires the ability to think strategically, with a long-term time horizon that is ideally independent of electoral concerns and even short-term public opinion. Democratic elites are the proximate (indeed, sometimes the only) audience for a leader’s decisions and the primary agents for checking a leader’s excesses, holding a leader accountable, and indeed vetting his foreign policy credentials in the first place. Voters retain the ultimate check, but use it sparingly, in keeping with their interest in mostly ignoring the details of foreign policy unless they are alerted that circumstances warrant closer inspection. While imperfect, this system can insulate the leader enough to permit him significant autonomy on foreign affairs, while an elite audience serves as the voter’s first line of defense if he steps outside the range of acceptable policies. Even in democracies, then, good leadership is compatible with, though not guaranteed by, the insular world of foreign policy. 173

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Notes 1. Recent research that has revived the study of leadership in international relations includes Byman and Pollack (2001); Chiozza and Goemans (2011); Saunders (2011). 2. For a complete discussion of the model, see Saunders (nd). 3. John Zaller makes a similar argument that the public uses the media as a “burglar alarm” to monitor politicians without paying the costs of gathering information directly. See Zaller (2003). 4. For a more complete justification of these three groups’ salience, see Saunders (nd). 5. Theorists of democracy in international relations have not generally explored Schumpeter’s conception of democracy. One exception is the work of Michael Doyle, who draws on Schumpeter’s arguments about the pacifying tendencies of capitalism (1997: 241–48). Here I am less concerned with Schumpeter’s arguments about war and peace and more with his account of democracy and its implications for leadership and democratic foreign policy. 6. Przeworski focuses empirically on redistribution, but his argument could well apply to foreign policy. 7. Though expert knowledge is not a guarantee of good judgment. See Tetlock (2006). On the psychological dimensions of good judgment in foreign policy, see also ­Renshon and Larson (2003). 8. For the contrary empirical case that democracies fare no worse than autocracies in counterinsurgencies, see Lyall (2010).

Bibliography Aldrich, John H., Sullivan, John L. and Borgida, Eugene 1989, “Foreign affairs and issue voting: Do presidential candidates ‘waltz before a blind audience’?,” American Political Science Review, 83(1): 123–141. Alvarez, Mike, Cheibub, Jose Antonio, Limongi, Fernando and Przeworski, Adam 1996, “Classifying political regimes,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 31(2): 3–36. Baum, Matthew A. and Groeling, Tim J. 2010, War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Berinsky, Adam J. 2009, In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph M. and Morrow, James D. 2003, The Logic of Political Survival, MIT Press, Cambridge. Burke, Edmund 1987, Reflections on the Revolution in France, J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), ­Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis. Byman, Daniel and Pollack, Kenneth 2001, “Let us now praise great men: Bringing the statesman back in,” International Security, 25(4): 107–146. Canes-Wrone, Brandice 2006, Who Leads Whom? Presidents, Policy, and the Public, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

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Elizabeth N. Saunders McCubbins, Mathew D. and Schwartz, Thomas 1984, “Congressional oversight overlooked: Police patrols versus fire alarms,” American Journal of Political Science, 28(1): 165–179. Mead, Walter Russell 2001, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, Knopf, New York. Merom, Gil 2003, How Democracies Lose Small Wars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Moravcsik, Andrew 2004, “Is there a ‘democratic deficit’ in world politics? A framework for analysis,” Government and Opposition, 39(2): 336–363. Morgenthau, Hans J. and Thompson, Kenneth W. 1985, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York. Nau, Henry R. 2013, Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Neustadt, Richard E. 1990, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidency: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan, Free Press, New York. Page, Benjamin I. and Bouton, Marshall 2006, The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don’t Get, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Przeworski, Adam 1999, “Minimalist conception of democracy: A defense,” in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordon (eds), Democracy’s Value, Cambridge University Press, New York, 23–55. Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan and Manin, Bernard (eds) 1999, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Reiter, Dan and Stam, Allan C. 2002, Democracies at War, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Renshon, Stanley A. and Larson, Deborah Welch (eds) 2003, Good Judgment in Foreign Policy: Theory and Application, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham. Risse-Kappen, Thomas 1991, “Public opinion, domestic structure, and foreign policy in liberal democracies,” World Politics, 43(4): 479–512. Rossiter, Clinton (ed.) 1961, The Federalist Papers, Penguin Books, New York. Russett, Bruce M. 1993, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Saunders, Elizabeth N. 2011, Leaders at War: How Presidents Shape Military Interventions, Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Saunders, Elizabeth N. nd, “The electoral disconnection in US foreign policy,” working paper. Schultz, Kenneth A. 2001, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy, Cambridge University Press, New York. Schumpeter, Joseph 1942, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper Colophon Books, New York. Tetlock, Philip E. 2006, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Tocqueville, Alexis de 1969, Democracy in America, trans. G. Lawrence, Harper Perennial, New York.

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11 Leadership Judgment in Economic Affairs John Kane

Democratic leaders face extraordinary constraints and therefore must be many things—politically adept, legally aware, and constitutionally sensitive (Kane and Patapan 2012). They must also be—and be above all—good economic managers. Their survival depends on it. Though they inevitably take credit for the good times, by the same token they are blamed for the bad, as evidenced by the number around the world who lost office after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)—in Britain, Spain, Greece, France, Ireland, Holland, Portugal, Belgium, and Iceland. In the wake of the GFC, many commentators and business leaders lamented the lack of effective leadership to deal with it, especially once economic crisis begat political crisis in the form of street disturbances, the rise of parties of the extreme Left and Right, and heightened separatist sentiment (Economist 2011; Aslund 2011). Even the United States was said to be facing, not just a debt crisis, but a democracy crisis courtesy of its gridlocked political system (Hacker and Hathaway 2011). In fact the depth and extent of a once-inseveral-­generations crisis raised questions about the capacities of democratic leadership more generally. If current leadership responses were at issue, so also were the judgments of previous leaders whose actions and omissions surely helped create the conditions for the emergency. At the deepest level lay an uncomfortable question about whether democracy could ever really support the quality of judgment necessary to consistently meet the most basic demand of democratic people, economic prosperity and stability. I will argue that the leadership task of economic management is possible, as history has demonstrated, yet exceedingly difficult for at least five reasons that I will present below. Underlying these reasons, I claim, is the structurally critical but nevertheless anomalous position that the democratic leader must occupy, as the essential hinge linking a democratic polity with a liberal economy. In their democratic role, leaders are agents and representatives of the 178

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people, concerned first and foremost with safeguarding the people’s welfare; but as economic managers, leaders must be solicitous of an economic system whose fundamental principle is founded not in democratic theory but in liberalism. Liberal democratic leaders believe, of course, that ensuring a healthy economy is the surest way to fulfilling their democratic responsibilities, but in times of economic trouble the tensions within the historical marriage of liberalism and democracy become acutely apparent. Leaders find themselves with the dilemma of trying simultaneously to meet the conflicting demands of liberal economy and democratic polity. To understand the full dimensions of this role and its implications we must take a brief look at the context of modern history, in which initially liberal political systems adjusted to the pressures and demands of democratization. With this I begin.

Liberal Economy and Democratic Government All human societies are familiar with market exchange, usually at their peripheries. Our modern commercial civilization, however, has made the market the very center of its existence, so that the economic sphere is less its foundation than its beating heart. The seeds of this civilization were sown in Europe in the early modern period, producing developments that over time displaced, sometimes violently, the political and economic structures of the Old Regime. A commercial civilization demanded a mode of governance very different from the feudal and absolutist systems it dislodged, and found it under the ideological banner of liberalism. The liberal ideal, founded on the assumed natural rights of individuals to pursue their own ends without undue hindrance, manifested itself in the economic sphere as the right to pursue profitable enterprise to private advantage. Economic liberalism under the doctrine of laissez-faire emphasized particularly the freedom of entrepreneurs from the stifling regulations and interventions of government. Government’s role was both defined and limited by the liberal ideal: it must be large enough to safeguard individual rights but not so large that it would itself encroach upon them. In return for this minimalism, the liberal state was rewarded, especially after the growth of industrial capital, with the enhancement of national wealth and power. Liberal commercial regimes thus demanded limited government but not necessarily democratic government. Democracy traditionally meant sovereignty of the “people,” which in effect meant sovereignty of the unpropertied masses, a prospect that many propertied liberals viewed with suspicion or loathing. Yet the vast societal changes their own commercial and industrial 179

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developments wrought produced immense political pressures toward increasing democratization through repeated extensions of the franchise.1 This process was far from complete even in advanced Western countries when the first great era of globalization began in the nineteenth century. An international order emerged that was avowedly liberal (even if its liberalism was tainted by imperialism), presided over by the most powerful liberal nation of the day, Great Britain. Increasing volumes of trade and exchange created systematic links between national economies and thus a high degree of complex interdependence. To mitigate the dangers of such a complex system—­where an apparently rational action in one location may prove highly irrational for the whole—coordination was necessary. The nineteenthcentury liberal order managed the task of coordination by adopting the gold standard, whose remarkable reign was shattered only by World War I. It was once thought that the gold standard adjusted automatically to correct trade imbalances, but modern scholarship has indicated that it was in fact managed by intergovernmental agreement (De Cecco 1984; Redmond 1996). The point to note for present purposes, however, is that governments valued the gold standard because it prevented persistent imbalances and stabilized prices, not because of effects on growth or employment. The latter became particularly sensitive issues for government policy only in the more fully democratized polities of the twentieth century, with the advent of unions, labor parties, and universal suffrage (Cesarano 2006: 13). Governments elected on a broad franchise were necessarily beholden to the mass of people for their survival and therefore must have regard to their economic welfare. But such democratic imperatives had somehow to be aligned with the demands of wealthy owners and controllers of private businesses. The obvious answer was to support ever increasing economic growth, thus simultaneously satisfying the demands of business for profitability and those of the mass of people for income through regular employment. But democratic leaders had to rely on an economic system operating under liberal rules of laissez-faire, a system unfortunately prone to cycles of boom and bust, in the latter stage of which profitability fell and unemployment rose sharply. The issue came dramatically to a head during the Great Depression of the 1930s (Persson 2010: Chapter 10). With the onset of persistent unemployment, it appeared to some that German “Hitlerism” or Soviet communism had found surer ways of meeting the simultaneous demands of economic development and mass satisfaction than had liberal democracies. The tenor of the times suggested that the alternative to making a liberal economy work in the interests of all was a revolution of either Left or Right. In the United States Franklin Roosevelt, though called a “class traitor” by his own kind, responded by activating his “New Deal” government to meet democratic demands through regulation of business and 180

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finance, work programs, welfare, and large infrastructure projects. The titanic struggle of World War II and its Cold War aftermath—which first pitted Nazism against an alliance of democrats and Soviets, and then “capitalism” against “communism”—were, to a significant degree, a playing out of the question of how the dual demands of modern economic development and mass expectations might be best met. From this turbulent period, liberal democratic America emerged triumphant. American post-war leadership of the “Free World” was leadership of a generation chastened by Depression, who knew that a liberal free market economy was unstable, that unemployment could remain stubbornly high for a long time, and that government action could bring relief. It had witnessed the astonishing ability of a centrally directed war economy to mobilize production on a massive scale, as well as the planning achievements of state-led post-war recoveries of devastated nations in Europe and Japan. The economic lesson had been learnt that depressions are caused by the unregulated activities of finance and banking, and by international imbalances of trade and unstable international exchange rates that lead to mutually destructive currency wars. It was accepted that safety required the establishment of firm controls over currency rates (with foreign currencies pegged to the dollar and the dollar pegged to gold), capital movements, and conditions of trade, as exemplified in the Bretton Woods arrangements and institutions of 1944. Strong government planning and direction of investment, strict regulation, and the use of “Keynesian” fiscal measures and firm monetary policy to counter economic cycles provided the key to economic stability. The tension between liberal economy and democratic polity seemed solved by democratic leaders’ careful balancing of economic free enterprise with regulatory controls that enabled continuous growth and full employment while avoiding extreme cyclical downturns. In the post-war West the economic pie grew steadily bigger and incomes rose across the board.2 This modern solution to the ancient problem of reconciling the many with the few came undone, however, in the 1970s.3 American oversight of international trade faltered as domestic pressures forced President Nixon to float the dollar, leading to the official demise of the Bretton Woods system in 1973. In the same period the new phenomenon of “stagflation”—stagnant production combined with inflation—defied fiscal tinkering and undermined the socalled Keynesian consensus.4 Democratic leaders around the world, struggling to cope, turned once again to old laissez-faire policies, now rebranded “neoliberalism.” From the late 1970s, a consensus formed among parties of both Left and Right around the theory of George Stigler (1961), which held that good economic management required deregulation, or at the most “light-touch” regulation, allowing the enlightened self-interest of market 181

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participants to determine optimal distributional equilibria. It was a consensus congenial to a globally burgeoning financial industry. In the enthusiasm for deregulation, privatization, and “globalization,” the lessons of the Depression era were discarded, believed superseded by sophisticated methods of risk management.5 Democratic control of the neoliberal economy was no longer believed necessary. Indeed, the beneficent power of free markets to produce steady economic expansion became an article of ideological faith, permitting democratic leaders to argue that citizen welfare required removing impedimentary controls. If there were bumps along the way in the form of financial crises and sharp recessions, these were effectively ignored by governments and their regulatory agencies. In America in the first decade of the twenty-first century, cheap lending and rising debt were used by the Federal Reserve to end a recession and, afterwards, to engineer a boom in housing, causing rising prices that made average homeowners feel, however artificially, wealthy. So long as the neoliberal economy could be periodically reinflated in this manner, leaders could feel they were meeting democratic demands, even as the globalization of industry and labor saw domestic employment contract. The illusion was dispelled, finally, when the housing bubble fed a swelling market in mortgage-backed securities among financial institutions chasing higher returns, with ultimately disastrous consequences. With the onset of financial crisis and prolonged recession in the Western world, the conundrum of the democratic leader’s role in “economic management,” largely obscured by the boom, was cruelly exposed. Leaders were suddenly uncomfortably squeezed as they tried to plot a course between powerful economic actors and a disgruntled public who felt its demands during tough times were being unfairly relegated or ignored. The leadership challenge was to reassert control over wayward economic forces in such a way as to make them once more serve the people rather than dominate them. That challenge has not yet been satisfactorily met, and there are reasons to believe that it will not be any time soon. I want to present five of them here.

First: The Problem of Understanding Modern economies involve decentralized markets in which a myriad of agents with hugely different dimensions of power and influence—­households, businesses, financial institutions—make repeated decisions about employment, income, consumption, investment, and borrowing often under conditions of considerable uncertainty. A leader with management responsibility for this complex system would seem to have to be an economist.

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Yet democratic leaders are not typically economists. A sampling of those with some plausible responsibility for negotiating the shoals of the GFC reveals only British Prime Minister David Cameron and Pedro Coelho of Portugal with some academic familiarity with economics. The rest present an odd assortment of professional training and experience: Barack Obama (law and community organizing); Angela Merkel, Germany (physical chemist); François Hollande, France (administration and auditing); before him Nicolas Sarkozy (business and family law); Mariano Rajoy, Spain (law and civil service); prior to him José Zapatéro (constitutional law); Brian Lenihan, Irish finance minister at height of crisis (barrister); Enda Kennedy, Taoiseach of Ireland (primary school teacher); Elio Di Rupo, Belgium (chemist); Geir ­Hilmar Haarde, Iceland (international relations); and Geir’s successor ­Johanna Siguroardottir (a flight attendant). Even people with serious business experience tend to be rarities among democratic leaders (for worse or perhaps better if one thinks of Silvio Berlusconi). Commentators expressed relief when economist Mario Draghi (“Super Mario”) became head of the European Central Bank (Anderson 2011), and again when economist Mario Monti became prime minister of Italy and chose to govern with a technocratic cabinet of unelected officials (Donadio and Povoledo 2011). It seemed democracy was the problem, not the solution for the crisis. But if leaders are not themselves economists, the solution is surely to secure the advice of able people who are. Does this work?

Second: The Problem of Advisers Democratic leaders are undoubtedly crucially dependent on economic advisers, but the quality of the advice they receive was cast into severe doubt by the GFC. Economists as a class were variously indicted for not predicting it, for helping to cause it, and for not knowing how to address it. There are of course economists and economists. The dominant “neoclassical” school, which uses mathematically deductive reasoning from parsimonious, axiomatic but strictly unrealistic assumptions, would seem singularly ill-equipped to advise on policy—although its confidence in “general equilibrium” informed the prevailing belief that markets, left to their own devices, tended virtuously toward stable outcomes that allocate resources efficiently. On the other hand, inductivist economists, concerned with real world trends rather than elegant models, performed little better in the lead up to crisis because, despite large datasets, they assumed that the future would be much like the (immediate) past—helping to fuel the belief that prices going up would never come down. In fact the differences between neoclassicists and

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inductivists hardly mattered as the good times rolled, since they were in de facto alliance over deregulatory policies. Democratic leaders of all parties were, for their part, happy to believe the economists had discovered the philosopher’s stone ensuring permanent growth and prosperity. But to whom were shocked leaders to turn when disaster loomed, and when what had recently counted as economic “knowledge” seemed discredited?6 In these circumstances, the question of whose advice to take became a vital matter of leadership judgment. The Obama–Biden team provides a case in point. Neither Obama nor Joe Biden ever pretended to economic expertise, and a month before the 2008 election they were excited by the hope that former Clinton treasury secretary, Bob Rubin, might serve Obama in the same position. At that moment, the New York Times and other papers were lambasting Rubin for his extravagant compensation from Citigroup which, under his supervision, had sold masses of sub-prime mortgages to unsuspecting investors and was even then negotiating with the Bush administration for a huge taxpayer-funded bailout. When Obama belatedly realized Rubin’s toxic status, he turned exclusively to former protégés and associates of Rubin, putting Timothy Geithner into Treasury and appointing Lawrence Summers director of the National Economic Council (substantially preserving the team put in by the Bush administration). Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve who had endorsed Obama’s candidacy, was marginalized as an adviser allegedly because he was too strong an advocate for financial reform (Kuttner 2010). This choice ensnared Obama in the classic democratic leadership dilemma of trying to serve the people (Main Street) by helping those who seemed to have harmed them (Wall Street).7 Geithner convinced Obama that the strategy of generous bailout schemes for financial institutions, without imposing stringent reform conditions, had prevented a far greater disaster. He overrode objections from congresspeople, liberals, and libertarians pressing for criminal prosecutions of fraudsters, and of economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman who believed the opportunity should be seized for root-and-branch financial reform to guard against future risk. Geithner may or may not have been right, but his strategy could not easily be explained or justified to an angry, hurting American public. Obama began to understand the depth of the populist backlash only after Scott Brown’s shock Massachusetts victory in the 2010 election following Ted Kennedy’s death, when he suddenly felt the need to present an anti-bank front to the public. But it was impossible for Obama simultaneously to coddle bankers and convincingly to portray anger at them on the public’s behalf, at least without a believable story of why coddling was both unpalatable and unfortunately necessary (a story he never really attempted). 184

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The dilemma over whose advice to heed could also be seen in the opposing recommendations for how to manage economic recovery. Economists advocating deficit spending claimed that replacing stalled private demand with government-induced demand, even at the cost of inducing possible inflation and incurring long-term debt, would prevent a decline from painful recession into catastrophic depression (Krugman 2012). Advocates of “austerity” believed that a painful period of “deleveraging” was unavoidable after an unsustainable borrowing binge, which meant a policy of sound money, balanced budgets, and a collective tightening of the belt until the economy returned to sober conditions that allowed solid growth (Reinhart, Reinhart, and Rogoff 2012). This disagreement was expressed in the divergent policies of national leaders. In February 2009 Obama launched a multi-billion stimulus package and later applauded Britain’s then Prime Minister Gordon Brown for injecting stimulus money to prevent a collapse of the British banking system. Brown urged other Group-of-20 nations to do the same, and some did, but Brown’s actions caused a split within the G20 along the stimulus—austerity axis, as well as provoking negative reaction from the European Central Bank (Fidley, Slater and Cowley 2009). Eventually, many nations would pursue the austerity option, including Britain itself after Cameron’s coalition came to power in 2010. In the United States the issue was fought out among Obama advisers, with Summers and Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, defending more stimulus spending but opposed by Geithner who steered Obama toward deficit reduction policies (Goldfarb 2011). Such disagreements dramatize the alternative futures that hang on the issue of who gains the leader’s ear at critical moments, which may be as much a matter of personal politics as of estimations of expertise. In the Obama administration, Romer, a professor of economics and expert on the causes and recovery from the Great Depression, proved no match for Geithner, who Obama liked and tended to defer to (Alter 2010: Chapter 10).

Third: The Problem of Short-Termism The short-termism of democratic governments—sometimes termed “democracy’s myopia” (Bührs 2012)—is the basis of perennial critique (see Ruscio, this volume). The control of executive power through fixed or limited terms and electoral processes, along with competition for office among political opponents, is one of the central features of democratic governance. Yet electoral concerns can obviously cause leaders to focus on policies with immediate pay-offs at the cost of ignoring, or even subverting, prudent long-term measures. In economic matters, short-termism has been implicated as one of 185

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the factors that make democracies, according to some statistical evidence, more prone to financial crises than non-democracies (Lipscy 2011). Democracies have sometimes recognized and tried to address this problem by structurally insulating certain policy fields through institutional or even constitutional entrenchment, thus putting them beyond the reach of everyday politics. This has been particularly so in relation to the economy, whose boom and bust cycles were often attributed to leaders using fiscal and monetary policy to artificially pump up markets for short-term electoral advantage, leading to an inevitable painful contraction shortly thereafter. Under pressure from double-digit inflation of the 1970s and 1980s, democratic governments accepted the necessity of removing monetary policy from the political leader’s purview by granting statutory discretion to central bankers to act as lender of last resort in crises and to manage interest rates according to strictly “non-political,” economic criteria—typically, controlling inflation, preserving the value of the currency, and maintaining employment. The GFC, however, raised doubts as to whether this long-term, self-­sacrificial act by democratic leaders had brought the blessings anticipated, and about whether delegation of authority to technocrats transgressed democratic legitimacy. Legitimacy is ostensibly safeguarded by central bank governors being appointed by democratic executives and legislatures, given clearly defined statutory powers and limitations, and made subject to periodic ­accountability. Yet insofar as insulation from political influence is genuine, the way is inevitably open to influence by other interested parties. It is not a negligible fact that the chief offices and boards of central banks are typically occupied by people from the same financial sector that the bank is responsible for regulating. Nor is it insignificant that, in the period leading up to the crisis, central banks kept a weather eye on moderating consumer price inflation but were indifferent to asset price inflation. As Whitehead (2010: 52) writes: “Politically insulated monetary authorities proved too indulgent toward private financial interests, granting them lax regulation and endless room for credit creation during booms, and open-ended access to cheap public funds during busts.” When laxity led to crisis and to a consequent dramatic expansion of central bank responsibilities, the quality and value of the banks’ independent status came seriously under scrutiny. Conducting massive bailout operations that significantly redistribute public monies and undertaking apparently limitless monetary experiments with “quantitative easing” are major macroeconomic policy actions that can hardly be described as purely technical and non-­ political. Stiglitz, observing that countries with non-independent central banks had fared better during the crisis than those with, commented: “There is no such thing as truly independent institutions. All public institutions are accountable, and the only question is to whom” (cited in Kawa 2013). The 186

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implication was that, in a democracy, they should be accountable to democratic representatives, not financiers, but this merely presented in acute form the dilemma of democratic leadership. It may be true that elected leaders generally cannot be trusted not to manipulate the economy for short-term political gain, but the current institutional remedy for short-termism has fared little better in the way of long-term management and, in addition, seems to have fundamentally anti-democratic implications. In fact the problem of democratic short-termism did not disappear with the institution of central bank responsibility but was merely disguised. The consensus on deregulation certainly permitted central banks to run monetary policies that encouraged massive expansion of debt and consequent asset inflation, but this was done with the complaisance of democratic leaders. So long as the artificial prosperity produced by asset inflation appeared, at least in the short-term, to benefit ordinary citizens, leaders from Greece to Ireland to Iceland to the United States and places in between had little political incentive to do what ideological conviction instructed them was anyway misguided to do, namely take a close critical look at regulators’ activities and ensure that whatever regulatory standards remained were being strictly enforced. When free market rationality proved false, democratic leaders found themselves in a quandary, caught between the dissonant voices of deficit spenders (short-termers) and austerity advocates (long-termers). There was an inevitable moral dimension to this disagreement, with deficit spenders emphasizing the need to avoid unnecessary suffering among the least advantaged, and austerity advocates stressing the moral hazard of rewarding a history of profligate behavior with unmerited relief.8 Either way, democratic leaders were faced with an unenviable choice.

Fourth: The Problem of Diffused Power Even if the first three problems affecting judgment were resolved—say, by an economically literate leader with excellent advisers determined to implement sound long-term policies even at the cost of short-term pain—the leader’s task would nonetheless be complicated by the “openness” of democratic systems. A democratic leader is never simply the leader whose will predominates, for democracy disperses leadership broadly throughout society (Kane, Patapan, and ’t Hart 2009). Political leaders are inherently subject to complex and contradictory pressures from opposition parties, sectional interests, and opinion groups. They are obliged to suffer carping criticism from opposition parties, even as they try to overcome the blocking tactics such parties employ using the institutional levers available to them. They must also resist or accommodate 187

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demands by civil groups for “special” and/or “just” treatment (special interests always being claimed as just either on grounds of plain equity or on claims of general public benefits flowing from their protection). The varying influence of these pressure groups, especially when amplified by the efforts of expensive professional lobbyists, has a perennial potential to sway and distort leadership judgment.9 Money is inevitably central to a political system based on commerce, and the power of money to influence processes, shape agendas, and capture lawmakers can hardly be dismissed: thus the frequent critiques of “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism” (deHaven 2012) or of corporate “rent seeking” (Stiglitz 2012). Yet the problem may be larger and more systemic than simply the influence of monied interests on politics-as-normal. No doubt Wall Street and European banks have powerful means to defend their interests against unwelcome regulatory moves by democratic leaders—including relentless lobbying, the circulation of “revolving-door” elites imbued with bankers’ values, and straightforward monetary contributions to lawmakers, political parties, or politicians. But the GFC suggested that the capture of politics by the financial sector was not simply venal and potentially reversible but structural, thanks to what has been called the “financialization” of the capitalist economy (Palley 2008).10 With the financial tail wagging the economic dog, the core task for democratic leaders would seem to be to displace usurping financiers and turn them back into useful servants of industry. It is far from clear leaders have the capacity and will to do this, especially since democratic politics is now so deeply enmeshed with financial interests. The immense and effective pushback over recent years by the financial sector in the United States (aided by sympathetic congresspeople and officials within central regulatory agencies) against politicians and government regulators seriously attempting to reform institutions and forestall fraud testifies to the democratic weakness (Connaughton 2012; Barofsky 2012; Bair 2012). Such weakness was worrying, given the unprecedented scandals thrown up by the crisis. Large bank manipulation of Libor rates, for example, (labeled by one commentator “the crime of the century,” Scheer 2012)11 revealed that nefarious practices were not confined to “rogue elements” within financial institutions but involved the very top levels of management. At least in the Libor case, investigations occurred resulting in large fines imposed on major institutions, executive dismissals, and some criminal investigations. In contrast, criminal investigations of fraud in the circumstances leading up to the GFC (which undoubtedly occurred on a large scale) were never pursued except in the very minor instances. The tolerance of illegal, not just imprudent, financial practices suggested finance had gained a status somewhere beyond the rule of law. The cases of Standard Chartered and HSBC, two giant British banks convicted of money laundering on behalf of “rogue states” like Iran and, in the HSBC case, 188

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for illicit connections with Cuba and Latin American drug cartels, seemed to confirm the fact. Though given substantial fines, no criminal prosecutions were pursued because the banks were deemed, not only too big to fail, but too big to jail on the grounds that they might collapse as a result of prosecutions, irreparably damaging the global economy (Economist 2012a). Some were tempted to conclude that the openness of democracy has resulted, not just in a diffusion but in a transfer of power, or what a former chief economist of the IMF called “a quiet coup” by a financial oligarchy (Johnson 2009). It appeared at the very least that finance had attained a position of such centrality and significance as to be able to hold governments significantly hostage to their needs and desires. How likely is it, then, that democratic leaders, with their ever fragile and contingent authority, can mount an effective challenge?

Fifth: The Problem of International Coordination The international dimension adds a last layer of complexity for the democratic leader. A global economic order is one in which, at least in intention, competitive forces are productively contained within a cooperative order that benefits all. If leaders’ judgments and decisions do not significantly align with the interests and expectations of a variety of international constituencies, they risk descent into the vicious forms of competition that characterized the lead up to the Great Depression. The strong interlinkage of economies in the modern globalizing era means that the effects of particular policies cannot be contained within a single country, and domestic responses to crisis will have effects on the whole system. Thus attempts to re-regulate banks in the wake of the GFC (such as, for example, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010) were inevitably made problematic by the fact that the dangerously big banks are global entities, and domestic Acts necessarily stop at the national border. Any adequate response has to be one coordinated between several or many countries, yet effective coordination requires leadership that can accommodate domestic pressures while transcending them for the greater good, which is far from easy. Democratic leaders are inevitably torn between responding to politically urgent domestic demands, which may stress policies offensive to international audiences, and acting to secure international objectives which, whatever their long-term benefits, seem contrary to immediate demands at home. This requires leadership judgment of the most difficult and sensitive kind. International agreements, moreover, have no authority to enforce, only to recommend (for example, on adequate capital ratios for international banks relative to assessed risk), and recommendations are 189

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liable to be watered down or overridden by governments under the sway of domestic imperatives. The initial recommendations are anyway seldom likely to be very robust given the difficulties of reaching agreement among all parties, as the three rounds of the Basel Accords on international bank supervision demonstrate. The 1988 accords were very weak and required strengthening through a new set of long drawn out negotiations over Basel II, which in fact did not provide much improvement. Basel II, negotiated under the reigning ideology of industry self-regulation, established high standards on capital requirements but left it to banks themselves to interpret and enforce them, setting off an international race to the bottom on capital levels. It was a strategy whose inadequacy was devastatingly exposed by the shocks of 2008 (Bair 2012: Chapter 2). Significantly, Basel II permitted European banks to hold sovereign debt at a zero risk weight, encouraging them to amass US$3 trillion worth of bonds from Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy with insufficient capital to absorb probable losses. The 2010–2011 Basel III round, undertaken in the context of ongoing crisis, undoubtedly had a heightened incentive to establish credibly stronger standards and eventually did so, but not without strong and persistent resistance from the representatives of France, Germany, and Japan (whose governments are even closer to their banks than other Western nations; Bair 2012: Chapter 22; Pagliari 2013). This division among nations was evident not only over revised regulations but, as noted above, over spending or austerity responses to the GFC itself. In the first stages of the crisis, however, Germany was the principal hold-out, arguing that it had no responsibility to correct a failure Germans had no hand in causing. There was some Schadenfreude in the German attitude because Americans had, for decades, been preaching to them the virtues of unregulated markets in contradistinction to Germany’s traditional corporatism. Germans clearly savored the irony that the GFC apparently had its origins in the lax regulatory regimes of the United States itself. Yet the crisis was as much European as American. The existence of a common currency, the euro, had caused European interest rates to converge, meaning that underdeveloped countries (the so-called PIIGS—Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) whose borrowing costs had previously been very high could now borrow cheaply, which they duly did to fund a massive spending spree. As noted, European banks sank funds into the government bonds of these over-­indebted countries believing them secured by implicit EU guarantees. German and French banks especially had also invested heavily in the high-yield American mortgage-backed securities whose failure was the trigger rather than the cause of the meltdown.12 As general deleveraging began, the PIIGS became uncertain to meet their interest payments and the GFC morphed into a European sovereign debt crisis. 190

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This was a crisis for all the Eurozone countries, for the euro currency and, at the broadest level, for the entire post-World War II experiment of building a Europe in which the devastating wars of the twentieth century could not recur. In the absence of political or fiscal union, the creation of a common currency was always a questionable enterprise and its flaws, masked during times of solid growth, were exposed by the crisis. Countries saddled with debts they could neither repay nor easily refinance had strictly limited options, either to break from the euro or to default on their debts (in either case with uncertain and undoubtedly unpleasant consequences for everyone), or otherwise to plead for help from the IMF, their European partners, and the ECB. Help came in the form of various cobbled together rescue packages geared mostly toward saving French, German, and other European banks sitting on mountains of bad debt. The bailouts and restructurings were conditional on austerity demands that seemed, by depressing growth, to exacerbate the problem in poorer nations rather than to assist recovery, leading to political turmoil and demands for further bailouts. The sovereign debt crisis dramatically exposed the latent national fissures in the supposed union of Europe. If retrieval required positive leadership, as it clearly did, then responsibility naturally fell to the relatively powerful rather than to supplicants, which ultimately meant Germany with its powerhouse economy and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, with her venerable finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble.13 The rub was that the Germans were very reluctant to play a leadership role, despite Merkel’s repeated declaration that “If the euro fails, Europe fails” (Wright 2012: 23). The hard choice Germany faced was whether to strengthen the existing eurozone by engineering a firmer economic union or to try to restructure it, perhaps by allowing the Mediterranean countries to exit. The latter course held dangers of “contagion” that were difficult to contemplate, but the former was deeply unpalatable to Germans in general, and certainly to the Bundesbank. In essence, securing the eurozone required some form of closer union that permitted perpetual cross-subsidization of individual units—in other words, transfers from wealthier to poorer countries, an idea Germans resolutely resisted. When, in December 2010, Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Italy’s finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, proposed the creation of “E-bonds” issued by a European debt agency at the behest of individual European countries and guaranteed by the EU as a whole, German officials responded furiously that Europe would not become a “transfer union” (Atkins, Peele, and Chaffin 2010). Before the EU summit of 2012, Merkel declared “there will be no collectivization of debt in the European Union for as long as I live,” pleasing her junior conservative coalition partners who vehemently oppose transfer payments (Heilbrunn 2012). Within Germany, the transfer option was generally portrayed as one of thrifty Germans being forced to give handouts 191

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to indigent Greeks and other wastrels; in the Southern countries Merkel was portrayed as a resurgent Nazi set once again on conquering Europe, this time using the power of finance rather than the gun. In truth, however, German leaders, caught between what they regarded as equally impossible choices, simply bumbled on from one temporary palliative to another, sometimes in concert with, sometimes in conflict with, Mario Draghi at the ECB (Economist 2012b). The question was, in an economically multipolar world apparently desperately in need of judicious and able leadership that could act with systemic effect, where was such leadership to be found?

Leadership and Economic Judgment Milton Friedman once remarked: “There is wide agreement about the major goals of economic policy: high employment, stable prices, and rapid growth. There is less agreement that these goals are mutually compatible or, among those who regard them as incompatible, about the terms at which they can and should be substituted for one another” (cited in Cesarano 2006: 13). The difficult task of the democratic leader is somehow to make them compatible. As noted, the goals of high employment and growth were introduced, not as necessary components of a liberal commercial economy but as, first, a democratic demand (employment) and, second, the means to fulfilling that demand (growth). The democratic tensions inevitably induced by an economic system that tends to promote material inequality were, after World War II, largely addressed by growing the pie so there was enough, through regular remunerative employment, and increasingly more, by virtue of growth, for everyone. But sustaining this required extensive government regulation as well as fiscal and monetary action, and this post-war management formula broke down in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Hope was then placed in the rational self-correcting qualities of a deregulated neoliberal economy to sustain growth, a strategy that withdrew protection from national working classes and inaugurated an interesting experiment to see whether democratic demands could still be fulfilled, or if not fulfilled at least safely contained, within a fully competitive, globalized economy whose intrinsic political (as opposed to purely economic) aims were never clearly specified. The onset of the GFC threw this hope into disarray. Democratic leaders thereafter have confronted a long-term challenge to reknit liberal economies and democratic polities. I have expounded five reasons to question their capacity to make the judgments necessary either for their own domestic economies or, cooperatively, to address the systemic issues facing a global economy. Indeed governments and central banks around the 192

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world have descended into unprecedentedly expansive monetary policies that worryingly recall the competitive currency devaluations and destructive beggar-­thy-neighbor policies of the Depression era, while the United States seems no longer in a position to impose new, effective controls, even had it the will to do so. Obama watched the European crisis unfold, fearful that it would drag a still fragile American economy back into recession yet unable, apart from exhorting European leaders to resolve matters, to do much about it. If the GFC had demonstrated that deregulated international finance combined with deregulated domestic finance was a recipe for disaster, it also seemed to demonstrate that the coordinated leadership necessary to effectively address the crisis and to lay out the conditions for long-term health and stability did not exist. True, the Group-of-20 financial forum had been upgraded to a meeting of the executive leaders of the 20 countries involved (and the IMF upgraded as its executive arm) to provide crucial direction on fundamental issues. But the G20 process, after a vigorous start, soon got bogged down as the immediate crisis faded, baffled by the often incompatible interests of its members none of whom were powerful enough to force agreement, not even the United States (Thirlwell 2013).14 And yet the GFC appeared to demonstrate that a liberal economy, left to its own devices, is destructive, not only of democratic hopes, but of itself, and that in fact it needs the kind of harness that democratic leaders, in their wiser moments, have been inclined to fashion. Having stepped up to the challenge in the past, we must hope they can do so again, their minds concentrated and wills stiffened perhaps by renewed crisis. If and when they do, they will undoubtedly need a renewed vision of a modern liberal economy and its capacity to sustain democratic expectations. During the Depression, John Maynard Keynes (1930) wrote, “to-day we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand. The result is that our possibilities of wealth may run to waste for a time — perhaps for a long time.” Having blundered again, we again need to better understand an economy that democratic leaders, by dint of their critical connective role, must struggle effectively to manage.

Notes 1. Needless to say, the process of democratization in Europe was immensely complex as well as highly contested. It has been the subject of considerable reinterpretation; see, for example, Tilly (2005) and Acemoglu and Robinson (2006). 2. Continuous growth, as Collins (2000) shows, was not invariably regarded in the United States as either desirable or possible, but after World War II the idea of “growthmanship” took solid hold.

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John Kane 3. It was an irony that John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971), which can be properly interpreted as a post-hoc philosophical justification of this solution (unequal distribution being justified only if it advantages the least well off), appeared just as fortune turned against it. 4. Fiscal stimulus through tax cuts or government spending was meant to sustain aggregate demand, and thus employment, during recessionary periods, while government tightening during upturns reduced demand and prevented damaging inflation. In stagflationary circumstances, however, fiscal stimulus to improve demand merely worsens inflation, while fiscal tightening to tackle inflation depresses production and employment. 5. Consider the (absurdly over-confident in hindsight) words of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in 2006: “banking organizations of all sizes have made substantial strides over the past two decades in their ability to measure and manage risks” (Bernanke 2006). It was a classic example of the belief that “this time is different” (Reinhart and Rogoff 2009)—until it isn’t. 6. Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, had asserted that the rational self-interest of financiers could be relied on to correct any anomalies or imbalances. After the GFC, he ruefully admitted to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he had “found a flaw” in his free market ideology (Grynbaum 2008). 7. Joshua Green (2010) observed: “The charge that the White House has coddled Wall Street isn’t just true — it was the key to the whole endeavor!” 8. The worst thing about a history of big government intervention in every aspect of social life, preached David Cameron to his Tory conference, was not the cost “though that’s bad enough. It is the steady erosion of (personal) responsibility” (Cameron 2009). 9. According to Sachs (2011: 112), lobbying spending in the United States is now around US$30 billion annually. 10. Financialization is defined as a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain predominant influence over economic policy and economic outcomes, with generally harmful effects (Palley 2008). 11. Libor stands for the London Interbank Offer Rate, the interest rate that leading London banks estimate would be charged when borrowing from other banks. Many institutional, credit card, and mortgage rates are set relative to it, with trillions of dollars worth of derivatives tied to it. Major banks were found to be overor under-stating their rates on submission either to profit from trades or give a false impression of their own credit-worthiness: see “The Wheatley Review of Libor” (Wheatley 2012). 12. Michael Lewis (2011: 67) records the reply of Greg Lippmann of Deutsche Bank to Vincent Daniel’s question regarding the sale of sub-prime bonds: “Whenever we’d ask him who was buying this crap,” said Vinny, “he always just said, ‘Düsseldorf’.” 13. Great Britain, as always, played a highly ambivalent role, with Cameron preaching to the continent while stubbornly resisting proposed European restrictions on banking that would adversely affect London’s financial institutions. Bowing to pressures within his own Tory party, he eventually promised a referendum on

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Leadership Judgment in Economic Affairs Europe if his party won the 2015 election, pleasing many Britons but upsetting European leaders (Volkery 2013). 14. In fact the United States used the G20 forum to try to press China into compliance with its wishes in order to correct its own trade imbalance, while offering no corresponding sacrifice on the American side (Rickards 2011: Chapter 7).

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John Kane Economist 2011, “Policy failure on a massive scale,” July 28, retrieved at . Economist 2012a, “Too big to jail,” December 15, retrieved at . Economist 2012b, “German reactions to Draghi’s bond-buying program: Visionary or self-appointed despot?” September 7, retrieved at . Fidley, Stephen, Slater, Joanna, and Cowley, Matthew 2009, “U.K.’s Brown denies G-20 stimulus split,” The Wall Street Journal, March 26, retrieved at . Goldfarb, Zachary A. 2011, “Geithner finds his footing,” Washington Post, June 8, retrieved at . Green, Joshua 2010, “Inside man,” The Atlantic, April, retrieved at . Grynbaum, Michael M. 2008, “Greenspan concedes error on regulation,” New York Times, October 24. Hacker, Andrew and Hathaway, Oona A. 2011, “Our unbalanced democracy,” New York Times, July 31, retrieved at . Heilbrunn, Jacob 2012, “All roads lead to Berlin,” The National Interest, October 24, retrieved at . Johnson, Simon 2009, “The quiet coup,” Atlantic Monthly, May, retrieved at . Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kane, John, Patapan, Haig, and ’t Hart, Paul 2009, Dispersed Democratic Leadership: Origins, Dynamics and Implications, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kawa, Lucas 2013, “Stiglitz: Central Bank independence is unnecessary and impossible,” Business Insider, January 4, retrieved at . Keynes, John Maynard 1930, “The great slump of 1930,” The Nation and Athenaeum, London, December 20, 27, retrieved at . Krugman, Paul 2012, End this Depression Now!, W. W. Norton & Co., New York. Kuttner, Robert 2010, “We’re in trouble when the radical is Paul Volcker,” Huffington Post, March 7, retrieved at . Lewis, Michael 2011, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, W. W. Norton & Co., New York. Lipscy, Phillip Y. 2011, “Democracy and financial crisis,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Political Economy Society, November 12, retrieved at . Pagliari, Stefano 2013, “Regulating finance: The political economy of unfinished reform,” After the Fall, World Politics Review Feature Report, August, 20: 10–15.

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Leadership Judgment in Economic Affairs Palley, Thomas 2008, “Financialisation: What it is and why it matters,” in Eckhard Hein, Torsten Niechoj, Peter Spahn, and Achim Truger (eds), Finance-led Capitalism? Macroeconomic Effects of Changes in the Financial Sector, Metropolis, Marburg, 29–60. Persson, Karl Gunnar 2010, An Economic History of Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Rawls, John 1971, A Theory of Justice, Belknap Press, Cambridge. Redmond, John 1996, “The gold standard between the wars,” in Stephen N. Broadberry and Nicholas F. R. Crafts (eds), Britain in the International Economy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 346–368. Reinhart, Carmen M. and Rogoff, Kenneth S. 2009, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Reinhart, Carmen M., Reinhart, Vincent R., and Rogoff, Kenneth S. 2012, “Debt overhangs: Past and present,” NBER Working Paper No. 18015, April, retrieved at . Rickards, James 2011, Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, Portfolio/ Penguin, New York. Sachs, Jeffrey 2011, The Price of Civilization, Random House, New York. Scheer, Robert 2012, “Libor: The crime of the century,” The Nation, July 6, retrieved at . Stigler, George 1961, “The economics of information,” Journal of Political Economy, June, 69(3): 213–225. Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2012, The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future, W. W. Norton, New York. Thirlwell, Mark 2013, “G–Hero or G–Zero: Economic governance after the crisis,” After the Fall, World Politics Review Feature Report, August, 20: 16–20. Tilly, Charles 2005, Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Volkery, Carsten 2013, “Referendum reactions: Cameron faces heat from continent,” Spiegel Online International, January 24, retrieved at . Wheatley, Martin 2012, “The Wheatley review of Libor: Final report,” HM Treasury, September, retrieved at . Whitehead, Laurence 2010, “The crash of ’08,” Journal of Democracy, January, 21(1): 45–56. Wright, Thomas 2012, “What if Europe fails?,” The Washington Quarterly, 35(3): 23–41.

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12 Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Future Generations Kenneth Ruscio

When the Virginia legislature convened its 2013 session one of the controversies was whether to lift the moratorium on uranium mining in the southwest portion of the state. The arguments were not surprising. Advocates spoke of the considerable benefits for the economically depressed region, the possibility of at least 1,000 new jobs, the growth of a company, and the spillover business in restaurants and service industries. Opponents feared exposure to uranium, the contamination of streams and rivers, and irreversible health impacts. Weighing the current benefits against future risk was at the heart of the dispute. It pitted those who wanted the immediate, tangible gains against those who worried about the long-term potential harm. One legislator, a prominent supporter of lifting the moratorium, was asked how he arrived at his own position, considering that buried tailings could remain toxic for hundreds of years. “I’m not going to be here,” he replied (Gabriel 2013: A19). Policy dilemmas that balance current and future costs and benefits are certainly not new for political leaders. In the early 1990s when I was serving as faculty member in Washington and Lee University’s politics department we welcomed to our campus the recently retired Minnesota congressman Bill Frenzel. Politicians on both sides of the aisle respected and admired Frenzel, a fiscally conservative Republican who saw the world in shades of gray rather than black and white. During his visit, we had a conversation that I have never forgotten. Discussing the paralysis that even then seemed to afflict our political system he revealed this closely held secret, which after all these years I paraphrase: “If you could get any representative behind closed doors and promise never to reveal what was said, almost to a person each would agree that the single most effective and desirable public policy in this day and age would be a 50 cents a gallon gasoline tax.” 198

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But of course, he confessed, the policy would never pass, despite what he and others knew would be the enormous beneficial impacts, ranging from deficit reduction, to reduced pollution, to less reliance on Middle Eastern authoritarian and terrorist-supporting states, to the incentives it would create for technological innovation—not to mention the fundamental argument from economists that so-called “externalities” need correction to achieve overall efficiency in the allocation of goods and services. The reason it would never pass is that the benefits of such a policy would be almost entirely in the future while the costs would be concentrated among those now living. Our political system was, then as now, incapable of dealing with problems if it meant sacrifice today and benefits later, even when those future benefits greatly exceeded the present costs. What was entirely rational from an economic and policy standpoint was entirely nonrational from a political standpoint (Diesing 1962). I mention the uranium mining case not to argue against lifting the moratorium and the Frenzel conversation not to make a case for the 50 cent gasoline tax. The case I want to make is more general, more difficult, more worrisome, and certainly more controversial since it calls into question some of our assumptions about our political system and its institutions—and our theories of democratic leadership. We are in the midst of a growing challenge to the capacity of our political system to address the most significant policy challenges of our day. Through technological advances and through the growing sophistication of our financial instruments, those of us living today can have a much greater impact, for better or worse, on the future than our ancestors did. The consequences of our actions have longer time horizons; the stakes are higher. But alongside this change is unchanging human nature, and a constitutional system devised to accommodate and channel that human nature, which drives us to capture benefits for ourselves and transfer the costs to others. Future generations are easy targets. And our political structures, far from being a corrective, feed the tendency. Economists of course have a way of “discounting future benefits.” A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. The debate is not whether to discount the future benefit but by how much, a technical matter usually reflected in the choice of the precise discount rate. But what if the political system is structured so that the future political benefits that accrue to a decision maker are essentially zero? “I’m not going to be here” is the cruder way of putting it. The problem is one that I believe is fundamental to the broader leadership dilemma of democracy. Kane and Patapan (2012) make a strong case that the tensions that exist in our theories of democratic leadership—particularly the tension between the need for leaders, which has an undemocratic ring to it, and the need for democratic participation, which tends to constrain the 199

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possibility of leadership—is less a dilemma and more a virtuous equilibrium. Our constitutional systems are efforts to navigate the tension, not resolve it, allowing for correctives in either direction, empowering leaders while holding them accountable, engaging citizens while allowing their leaders to channel their often irreconcilable preferences and interests into coherent policy. What if, however, the configuration of policy problems that have longtime horizons does not graft well onto the current system? What if those kinds of problems, which are becoming more prevalent and consequential, expose the soft spots of the tension in our democratic theories? While I am more confident in my attempt to identify the problem, I want to pose at least a tentative approach to resolving it. The resolution has a normative basis rather than a structural one. Because modern political science, at least when anchored in analysis of the American system, often looks to structural problems and therefore structural solutions—think of Mann and ­Ornstein’s (2012) recent insightful critique It’s Even Worse Than It Looks—a call for reexamining at least some of the system’s normative underpinnings will seem misplaced at best, unrealistic and fanciful at worst. Still, I believe we have to confront squarely a value-laden question, which is what do we owe to future generations? The verb is important. “Owe” implies an obligation, a duty, which further implies an ethical question, which further implies an ethical answer or at least an ethical analysis. The puzzle of what we owe to future generations is not new, and I will later call upon some writers who have provided a foundation for us. But what was once a question on the margins of political, ethical, and moral thought is now moving to the center. I want to give it a hard push. A few years ago, I stumbled across a book on the history of the Renaissance. It’s not my field, and John Hale (1993), the author, although richly famous among scholars of European history, was unknown to me. But his book was a goldmine. One of the lessons I tucked away was an understanding of how civility arose as a virtue in modern society. As commerce and trade increased across the continent of Europe and beyond, citizens of one nation-state came into contact with citizens of other nation-states. There were no laws to govern the transactions and no institutions to facilitate them. The relationships were personal and required instead a level of trust, and that trust was engendered by a heightened sense of civility. The more civil you were, the easier to do business with others and gain their trust. In other words, alongside the development of social and political institutions was the development of a particular virtue. As the environmental writer Aldo Leopold asserted in a different context, “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections and convictions” (2013: 177). I want to argue for thinking of our present circumstances in a similar way. As our political and 200

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economic institutions evolve, how do we also develop a heightened sensitivity to the idea of intergenerational justice? My analysis proceeds in three parts: why our current structures and our assumptions about how leaders work within them are unlikely to guide us to solutions; why policy questions with long time horizons are becoming more prevalent and pressing; and why normative arguments—for leaders as well as citizens—may offer one avenue of resolution.

Our Standard Theory Back when my wife and I could still be considered a young married couple, we decided it was time to buy our first car together. Of course, this was also a chance to prove to my wife she had married a shrewd and crafty husband who could handle the challenges of the economic marketplace. I still remember the sticker price on this brand new car—US$8,800—which is an indication of how far we have come from being a young married couple. On the way to the dealership, to calm her financial worries about such a staggering commitment, I assured her we could afford US$8,400, and that’s what we would get the car for. So it comes down to the moment we all know, when she and I sat at the desk across from the salesman for the hard negotiation, this in the pre-­Internet day of far less information on invoices and “MSRPs.” To pre-empt him, I declared he “could put me in this car today for US$8000” and I had a check in my pocket for that amount. My wife turned to me and said, “No, you said US$8400.” In the end, perhaps out of pity, the salesman, after the usual back room pretend haggling with the sales manager, let us have it for US$8400, along with floor mats at no charge. The moral of the story is this. Apart from the mild blow to my ego, we left the dealership happy with our purchase; and the dealer, I am quite sure, was happy with the sale. (So happy he may still be laughing.) This was a mutually beneficial transaction with everyone acting out of self-interest—well, at least two out of three—and with no trust or altruism or virtue involved in any direct way. In other words, many good things happen in society when individuals pursue their self-interest. Such a depiction of how things get done in society—how micro decisions based on self-interest lead to desirable macro outcomes in the distribution of goods and services—has a lot of interesting theory behind it. None has proven more entertaining than Mandeville’s 1705 Fable of the Bees, a classic of the Enlightenment period. In verse, he wrote metaphorically of a hive of bees, each individual playing its own selfish role, blissfully unaware that it came 201

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together in a perfectly functioning large system. Indeed the existence of the system depended upon the aggressiveness of individuals. In his words: Thus every part was full of vice / Yet the whole mass a paradise . . . / The root of evil Avarice / That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful Vice / Was a slave to prodigality / That noble sin; whilst luxury / Emply’d a million of the poor / And odious pride a million more / Envy it self, and Vanity / Were Ministers of Industry . . . / Then leave complaints: Fools only strive / To make a great an honest hive / T’ enjoy the worlds’ conveniences / Be famed in war, yet live in ease / Without great vices, is a vain / Eutopia seated in the brain. / Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live / Whilst we the benefits receive. (­Mandeville 1995 [1705]: 242–254).

For Mandeville private vice—selfishness, fraud, luxury, pride, vanity—creates public virtue, or as Adam Smith later famously put it: “Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want . . . It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-love. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages” (1976: 26–27). The beauty of this logic, for it truly is elegant, crept into social and political thinking well beyond that of commerce and economics. Consider James Madison’s writings in The Federalist Papers about the newly proposed constitutional system in what was then the not-so-United States. To make the case for a political system that could actually accomplish something, as opposed to the chaos created by the Articles of Confederation, but at the same time to make the case that the new system would not leave power unchecked, Madison argued that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition” (Hamilton cited in Kramnick 1987: 319). The problem that government had to solve was the problem of faction. You could not destroy factions, unless you wanted to forsake liberty. But neither could you let one of them gain control of government (Hamilton cited in Kramnick 1987: 125). So the solution was to let factions, evil though they may be and as opposed to the public interest though they may be, thrive and flourish. Fight fire with fire. Or to mix my metaphors, establish a beehive of interest groups. The single-minded pursuit of one interest could be checked by equally powerful factions. We could engineer our way out of the problem by designing a system of government that turned private vice into public virtue. But for the moment note the risk of equating the skills of citizenship and politics with the skills of negotiating a car purchase. And note the risk of elevating the pursuit of political self-interest into something not merely accepted but invited. I will come back and rescue Madison and Smith from the box I have too simplistically put them in. Still, there is no denying that our 202

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assumptions about our political process rest heavily on a belief that individuals seek in politics what they also seek in the economic marketplace, and that is simply to show a net plus on the scale of personal satisfaction. The late James Q. Wilson, a political scientist of modern times, put it in these terms. You can handicap any political controversy by analyzing who thinks they are going to gain and who thinks they might lose. The incentive for any elected official is to highlight the benefits for his constituents while hiding or transferring the costs to those he does not represent (Wilson and DiIulio 2012). In a perfectly functioning system that works just fine because those who might bear the costs will have their own representative to fight the same fight on their behalf. Presumably the public interest will emerge. But what if the costs can be passed on to those without representatives? Those, for example, who will live in the future? When the costs and benefits are separated by time, how can our system fairly make the decisions?

The Problems There are two major policy arenas that currently illustrate the problem. They may appear to be very different. One is public finance and the seeming inability of political leaders to fashion a long-term answer to what most agree has to be handled gradually and with some sacrifice along the way. The other is generally the environment, particularly climate change. Different though they may be in so many ways, they share a few key characteristics. Each involves long time horizons. Each has elements of uncertainty and risk. Each carries the potential for a catastrophic scenario, though the probability of the catastrophic scenario is the subject of much debate. And each has a critically important ethical question lurking in the midst of any analysis of possible solutions: namely, how much risk do we wish to transfer to citizens in the future? On the public finance problem, the complexities are daunting. There is a spider web of interconnected factors, including the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy, changing demographics, the growing inequality in our country, the structure of a tax code that taxes earnings rather than consumption, and of course the entire debate over the appropriate roles of the market and the state. But in other ways, the fundamental problem is not hard to grasp. I have two touchstones. One is the set point for taxes and expenditures. Over the last 40 years, through Democratic and Republican control, there has been a remarkably consistent level of taxation and government spending when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. For taxes, it has hovered around 18 per cent. For spending it has hovered around 21 per cent. The 203

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result has been a running annual deficit of around 2.5–3 per cent of GDP, which accumulates each year into a growing national debt. Troublesome as that is, many experts believe that those set points are poised for changes, as spending accelerates to meet the entitlements of an aging population and as we work our way out of a serious economic crisis through government intervention. At the same time, the tax set point seems to be drifting downward, in part because of the declining revenues resulting from the economic downturn and in part because “temporary” tax breaks have a way of becoming permanent. Although the economic dynamics of the credit bubble that burst upon so many individual consumers recently is different than the dynamics of government borrowing, the psychology of debt is not that much different. We look wistfully back upon a time when the notion of deferred gratification meant something, when we saved rather than borrowed to make our purchases. A less obvious marker is not the level of spending but the profile of spending. As entitlements and defense spending soak up more and more of government spending, the proportion of discretionary spending in other areas declines. Those other areas are ones better thought of as “investments” in the future—areas such as education, transportation, health, research and development. Not only are we saddling future generations with debt, we are spending less on those areas that have payoffs down the road (Friel 2009). On the environmental front, there are again a host of complexities. Unfortunately, the mix of politics and science has not made for a helpful context in which to sort out the complexity. The general tenets of global climate science and the impact of greenhouse gases are not, to be honest, much in question. No pun intended, there is way too much hot air being expelled on questions that matter little for the hard questions that have to be confronted. The magnitude of the impact and the prediction of the consequences are indeed uncertain, which means that policy options should be the subject of legitimate public debate. No public policy question will ever be settled by scientific certainty, or to put it another way, science alone can never provide the answer for public policy. Instead, we must make policy choices on the basis of risk, costs, benefits, and ethics, as well as scientific evidence. In any case, the problem of climate change has potentially far more consequences for the future than it does for us. In scale, it dwarfs any other set of actions in the history of the planet, with the exception of the threat posed by the use of nuclear weapons. That does not mean that we abandon completely our own present wellbeing. It does mean, though, that we should not ignore the effects that our own actions will visit upon the future. I note one other characteristic shared by problems with long time horizons, such as global climate change and public finance. And that is the temptation in the midst of uncertainty to find comfort in whatever evidence there may 204

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be for the easy way out. On the public finance side, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, long ago brought by his own admission a shady character to Washington. Her name was “Rosy Scenario,” and she has been employed by every administration since. It’s her job to construct a plausible story about the future that doesn’t sound so bad, and she has proven very good at it (Stockman 1987). On the global climate front, she is matched by the doubters who look out the window, see recordbreaking snowfalls, and conclude that “warming” is a myth perpetuated by alarmist scientists who want to destroy the American way of life. Neither is helpful to robust public debate and deciding among the difficult options confronting us. There is an argument that the fiscal challenge of budgeting and the environmental challenge of global warming are extraordinary, hardly typical, and simply a feature of a particular moment in history—challenges to be sure, but not characteristic of an enduring pattern and therefore not a foundation on which a critique of a system can be securely built. In earlier times, for example, public policy created a system of national parks, reserving land that otherwise would be exploited for short-term economic gain. We have Kyoto Protocols and bans on the use of ozone, which raise implications for global justice as well as intergenerational justice. And previous governments met long-term fiscal challenges through carefully structured social insurance programs, educational funding, tax reform, and infrastructure development, such as the interstate highway system. Sometimes the future does get its due. But the proposition I am advancing is that modern society has advanced technologically and made its financial instruments far more complicated in such a way that the consequences of our actions have much longer time horizons. The stakes are indeed higher and the capacity of our institutions to respond seems increasingly suspect.

Alternative Ways of Thinking through the Ethics of Intergenerational Justice If the policy dilemma is more acute than it has been in the past, the philosophical question of how to think about our obligations to the future is certainly not new. In 1789 Thomas Jefferson wrote one of his many classic letters to Madison from the comfortable quarters in Paris where he was serving as ambassador. Jefferson was in a typically ruminative mood, no doubt fostered by distance from the immediate problems back in the States. He posed a question for his fellow Virginian. Should we consider the proposition that the “earth belongs to the living,” and that it is given to them in trust with the stipulation that 205

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they pass it on to future generations free of obligations and debt? If the living used up the land or indulged in activity that would require payment later, then the earth would belong to the dead who have, in effect, taken it with them to their graves (Jefferson 1984: 959). In his letter back to Jefferson, Madison, the more practical politician, accepted the principle but cautioned against applying it too rigidly. After all, to fight the Revolution the colonies took on significant debt, but surely Jefferson could see the advantages the War for Independence brought for those now living. And surely Jefferson was not arguing that every generation could reject, if they wished, the laws and constitutions that others had so painstakingly provided for them. Madison revised the Jeffersonian proposition. He said there was a tacit intergenerational compact based on intergenerational trust. Those now living must acknowledge their own debt to those who came before and accept an obligation to those who will come afterwards (Madison 1999: 472–473). Though Madison didn’t reference Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament also writing around this time, he could have. “Society is a partnership,” Burke wrote, “not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born” (Burke cited in Burke and Paine 1973: 110). The idea of an intergenerational compact flows from Jefferson, the classic liberal, to Burke, the classic conservative. Jefferson erred on the side of letting the current generation decide too much on its own; Burke erred on the side of constraining them too much. Madison, in typical fashion, helped square the circle. The earth belongs to the living, to be sure, but the privilege carries with it a deep understanding of what others have sacrificed in the past and the commensurate obligation among the living to sacrifice in equal proportions for those in the future. We jump now from the time of the American Founding to recent times. John Rawls may be the most influential political philosopher of modern times. From the wealth of material he left us, I want to pick up one small piece—a thought exercise that is not without criticism but challenges us nonetheless. Imagine a society before any of the rules or laws have been written and before any of our political or economic institutions have been created. Imagine now that we ask the future members of that society to come together and fashion on a blank slate the rules and institutions that will govern this society. This is the now well-known “original position.” But Rawls went a step further. Imagine, he said, that all of these individuals have no idea what their status will be in the new society once they form it. They may be smart or not so smart; tall or short; male or female; black or white; artistic or athletic or none of the above. This, of course, is his “veil of ignorance.” So, in this original position and under the constraint of the veil 206

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of ignorance, what laws and principles would be crafted by these designers of political and economic society? His conclusion, again not without its critics, is that the rules, laws, and institutions would be designed to ensure, first and foremost, a system of justice based on fairness (Rawls 1971). So let us imagine even further, as Rawls also did in his later writings, that one of the veils of ignorance is not knowing which generation you would be in when the society is formed. You might be in the current generation; you might be in a much later generation. How then would you write the rules of intergenerational fairness? Rawls’ answer is something he called a “just savings” principle. But he fell back into the safe confines of theory, recognizing that the principle made sense but its enactment and its specifications were much harder to define (1996: 273). For our purposes, however, let’s consider intergenerational fairness another arrow in our quiver; and let’s thank Rawls for helping us find a way to consider this question not as if we were immersed in the current debate with our own particular interests to defend, but as detached observers seeking principles of fairness without respect to our immediate self-interest. One more arrow for our quiver. This is the concept of “moral constituents.” Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, two other contemporary political theorists, are my sources. They begin with some truisms for living a democratic life. One is that disagreement is inevitable. It is inevitable because free people do not always agree on values and do not always agree on how to translate values into public policy decisions. Another is that in the midst of this disagreement we have to rely on elected representatives to help us resolve those differences. Practically, we have to grant them some latitude to maneuver in the crucible of politics to deliberate, bargain, persuade, compromise, and decide. In the end, though, we hold them accountable. We legitimately insist upon explanations for why they have voted a certain way. But this premise, standing alone, cannot account for situations when the decisions of elected representatives have impacts on individuals other than those who elect them. Must representatives also explain their decisions to people who do not have the ability to hold them accountable but who are directly affected by their decisions? On the intergenerational question, when the policies of today have future impacts, one test for a representative is to imagine how he would justify a decision to the descendants of his current constituents. They become “moral constituents” entitled to some consideration in our decisions (Gutmann and Thompson 1996: 145). My purpose in introducing these ways of thinking about intergenerational policy was—obviously I’m quite sure—not to create a unifying theory. Rather, I want first and foremost to explore ways of thinking about intergenerational trust and obligations. But I will draw one preliminary conclusion. 207

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The usual political calculus of modern liberal democracy cannot resolve the problems of policy questions with long time horizons, where the benefits and costs are separated by time. Private vice and public virtue have a different relationship for these kinds of problems. We have to resort not to calculations of interest but to considerations of duty and obligation and likely, therefore, to sacrifice. And lest we think this a completely far-fetched or even radical notion, let me fulfill my promise of rescuing Madison and Adam Smith from the unfair caricature I imposed upon them earlier. In the same set of The Federalist Papers, where Madison argued that ambition must be made to counteract ambition, he also wrote a few pages later, “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form” (Hamilton cited in Kramnick 1987: 339). And Adam Smith of “invisible hand” fame, later wrote, “To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature” (1982: 25). Far from despairing over the human prospect, Madison and Smith were well aware of the better angels of our nature, and were optimistic that we, as individuals, had the capacity to understand the meaning of a public interest as well as a private interest. The ethics of duty, the principle of self-sacrifice, and the language of obligation will have to intrude upon our decision-­making more forcefully than before. Just as the rise of civility helped us through the social, political, and economic transformations of an earlier age, so too will we have to craft an ethic of intergenerational justice to get us through this one, unless the legacy we wish to leave is that the earth belongs to the dead.

Conclusion: The Challenge for Democratic Leaders It may be, also, that the time has come for some movement away from a democratic leadership based so firmly on channeling unqualified self-interest through carefully engineered institutions. Do leaders have a responsibility— the word is meaningful in a normative sense—to be something other than mere reflections of those who elect them? Is there a deeper obligation to a public interest as something other than the arithmetic sum of the individual interests, and a public interest that extends across generations? The perspective taken in this discussion has admittedly been one framed by the tenets of liberal constitutional democracy defined as a system of limited government, individual rights, the rule of law, and autonomous individuals 208

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contractually granting bounded authority to those who govern in return for security and protection of their rights. Constructs such as sacrifice, piety, patriotism, loyalty, and obligation fit uneasily in that framework, and actions in the interest of others rather than the self are difficult to rationalize, at least in a political sense. Indeed, current critiques of contemporary democratic government seek to protect the ideal of democracy by laying some of its modern failings at the feet of liberalism. Might democracy in the twenty-first century be enhanced by forms of democratic engagement other than the pursuit of individual gain? A recent report by The Transatlantic Academy, for example, speaks worryingly of a modern “yawning democratic disconnect, a gap between citizens and those institutions at the national, regional, and transnational levels tasked to answer to the challenges of governance” (Benhabib et al. 2013: vii). The report holds forth the “promise of reimagined forms of accountability and collective democratic citizenship” (2013: 9). It may well be that the question of obligations to future generations tests the limits of liberal democratic theory, perhaps engendering appeals to a civic republican tradition, one more embracing of tradition, virtue, and commitments to community as well as individual rights and interests. In 1774, Edmund Burke, writer, theorist, and British politician, delivered a speech to the citizens who had just voted him into office. He offered a view of his new duties that seems quaint in the contemporary context. With forceful eloquence he distinguished between a representative who sees himself as merely a delegate of the electors, bowing to their will whatever it may be, and a representative who instead is a trustee, beholden to his conscience and judgment. Burke explained that of course the interests of the constituents should take precedence over his own, but “his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you; . . . and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” Burke went on to say, ““Government and Legislation,” are matters of reason and judgement, and not of inclination; and, what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one sett of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?” (1999: 11). Within our current context of democracy such sentiments sound undemocratic, on the one hand, and electorally suicidal on the other. And there’s little reassurance offered by Burke’s own subsequent political history, which led to his eventual move from the contested district of Bristol to what was then known as a safe district, where he was more able to pursue the trustee model without danger. But the appeal of the approach for raising rather than lowering the obligations of leaders is undeniable, and for also raising rather than lowering the democratic obligations of the electors, requiring them to think 209

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not only of themselves and their immediate concerns but also for what they owe to others, and for what Burke called in a different context, that intergenerational compact, the bond that frees current generations to benefit from the sacrifices of those who came before provided they sacrifice equally for those who must come later. As if to further make the point, Burke told his constituents that when in Parliament, he represented Bristol, to be sure, but also the nation; that when he sat with his fellow representatives he was part of a deliberative body responsible for ensuring the good of the nation and not simply one part. Today, the scope of responsibility, I am arguing, spans time as well as space. The responsibility of leaders is not just to the present but also to the future. Fitting that normative assertion into the current structures of our constitutional system is the most challenging dilemma for democratic leadership we face in the history that lies ahead.

Bibliography Benhabib, Seyla, Cameron, David et al. 2013, The Democratic Disconnect: Citizenship and Accountability in the Transatlantic Community, Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC. Burke, Edmund 1999, Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4, A New Imprint of the Payne Edition, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, retrieved at . Burke, Edmund and Paine, Thomas 1973, Reflections on the Revolution in France & the Rights of Man, Anchor Books, Garden City. Diesing, Paul 1962, Reason in Society: Five Types of Decisions and Their Social Conditions, University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Friel, Brian 2009, “Whose debt is it, anyway?,” National Journal Magazine (online journal), November 7, retrieved at . Gabriel, Trip 2013, “Rift widens over mining of uranium in Virginia,” New York Times, January 20, A19, retrieved at . Gutmann, Amy and Thompson, Dennis F. 1996, Democracy and Disagreement, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Hale, John 1993, Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, Simon & Schuster, New York. Jefferson, Thomas 1984, Thomas Jefferson: Writings, M. D. Peterson (ed.), Library of America, New York. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers, & Limits its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kramnick, Isaac (ed.) 1987, The Federalist Papers: James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, Penguin Books, London.

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Democratic Leadership and the Problem of Future Generations Leopold, Aldo 2013, A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation, C. Meine (ed.), Library of America, New York. Madison, James 1999, James Madison: Writings, J. Ravoke (ed.), Library of America, New York. Mandeville, B. 1995, [1705] “The fable of the bees,” in Isaac Kramnick (ed.), The Portable Enlightenment Reader, Penguin Books, New York, 242–254. Mann, Thomas E. and Ornstein, Norman J. 2012, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, Basic Books, New York. Rawls, John 1971, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Rawls, John 1996, Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, New York. Smith, Adam 1976, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Smith, Adam 1982, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. Raphael and A. Macife (eds), Liberty Fund, Indianapolis. Stockman, David A. 1987, The Triumph of Politics: The Inside Story of the Reagan Revolution, Avon Books, New York. Wilson, James Q. and DiIulio, John J. 2012, American Government: Institutions and Policies, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

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13 Patriotic Leadership in Democracy Haig Patapan

“By some unknown sweetness one’s native soil lures back everyone and does not allow them to forget it.” So writes Ovid (2005: I.3.35, 63), exiled far from home, never to return. Home has such a powerful hold over us that to be exiled or homeless—a stranger—seems the cruellest fate. If indeed “home is where the heart is,” then all political leaders must necessarily be home-­lovers or patriots who will know intimately every contour of their place, both physical and imaginary, and must have as their “second nature” the language, history, and traditions of their home. They will naturally be proud of their home and come to its defense without a second thought. Good democratic leadership therefore means preeminently patriotic leadership, a loyal and determined pursuit of what is good for my country, my people, and this democracy. Yet what it means to be a patriotic leader in practice appears more complicated. The question may seem clear-cut when there is present danger and the safety and security of the country takes unambiguous precedence over most other considerations. In other circumstances, however, it seems especially complicated, in large measure due to the diversity of contradictory opinions. For some our only focus should be patriotism, understood as love of country.1 Others, more critical of patriotism, favor a form of universalism or cosmopolitanism.2 For others still, there is an attempt to secure a middle ground between these two extremes, but in terms that redefine patria as constitution, or freedom, or compassion.3 Importantly, this entire discussion is overshadowed and shaped by the fear and danger of what one scholar has called the “blood brother” of patriotism, modern “nationalism.”4 There is, therefore, not only a deep ambiguity regarding the meaning and influence of patriotism, but importantly we are not sure what form of patriotism is required for democratic leadership. A deeper understanding of modern patriotism is therefore essential for good democratic leadership. 212

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In this chapter I argue that modern patriotism poses a formidable challenge to good democratic leadership. My core argument is that the modern democratic leader confronts a modern politics of patriotism where at any one time three powerful contending notions of patriotism—traditional patriotism, modern patriotism, and nationalism—vie for authority in contemporary politics, where any specific choice of one will expose the leader to potential objections from the others. Therefore the patriotic challenge to good leadership can never be resolved—it can only be managed.5 To understand the modern politics of patriotism and its challenge to good democratic leadership I start with what I will call traditional patriotism, as it is elaborated in Plato’s Republic. Plato’s assessment of patriotism is an especially useful starting point because it explains the source of patriotism in thumos or spiritedness, and thereby shows the limits on its ennoblement and therefore of political reform. This philosophical account of patriotism is then contrasted by the most ambitious modern philosophical experiment to  reconstitute patriotism—Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. Hobbes sees how glory-­seekers exploit patriotism for their own advantage. Tracing the problem to pride and honor, he proposes a new understanding of honor based on his political innovation of the idea of power, as well as the new artificial “state” that is designed to deny patriotism’s powerful hold on citizens. Hobbes’s experiment yields what I will call modern patriotism, which attempts to overcome the dangers and limitations of traditional patriotism, understood as love of country, by dislodging its source in the love of “land” and locating it in a constitutive contract or legal agreement and the novel cosmopolitan contractual entity of the “state.” Having outlined the nature of this experiment, I then evaluate its achievements by noting that its apparent success was to some extent tempered by the “coldness” of the state. Attempts to remedy this resulted in a new unintended form of modern patriotism denoted as nationalism, an amalgam of traditional and modern patriotism. Nationalism returned to a richer attachment that was particular and unique, but this time on more universal bases, such as language, tradition, “ethnos,” not restrained by land. The consequence for democratic leaders, I contend, is a confrontation with equally powerful yet contending notions of patriotism: traditional patriotism founded on land and country; a modern patriotism founded on constitutionalism; and nationalism, an innovation in modern patriotism that combines cosmopolitanism with traditional patriotism. I conclude with reflections on how the politics of patriotism limits good democratic leadership. Using recent American debates on illegal immigrants as a revealing example, I hope to show how good democratic leadership is constrained by a politics of patriotism that shadows policymaking and constantly brings into focus a more profound constitutive politics in modern democracies. 213

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Patriotism as Noble Lie “My country, right or wrong,” is the patriot’s call to duty and sacrifice, but always with the hope that my country be in the right. This tension between the good and what is one’s own is at the core of classic political philosophy and its understanding of patriotism. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates shows how our erotic longing for the good and the beautiful has to confront our sense of love of our own, which has its origin in our spiritedness (or thumos), the source of our powerful love of country. We will focus on Socrates’ joke about “philosophical dogs” to show how thumos explains the need for noble lies that Socrates claims are necessary even in the best city.6 In the Republic, Socrates, aided by Plato’s brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, examines the nature of justice by founding a beautiful or just city in speech (kallipolis). Having founded the city (and soon appropriated territory from neighbors) the founders confront the immediate practical need to have guardians to wage war and protect borders. They therefore require individuals who possess thumos or courage. But the need for this type of guardian soon raises a problem: what is to stop the guardians from being hostile to other guardians and citizens? Socrates seems to overcome this obstacle with his observation that there is something philosophical about dogs—a love of learning whereby they are well disposed to what they know, and hostile to what is alien. Dogs, and by implication guardians, can discriminate between friends and enemies. Socrates’ joke reveals an important aspect of thumos— that it is not uniquely human, that it is concerned with guarding or protecting, initially what is uniquely its own, its body, and by extension or education, what it can regard as its own. In this respect it is open to learning and knowledge, but in a most limited way. It judges or evaluates by a simple expedient— the familiar or what it knows is a friend; everything else is an enemy. Consequently, thumos seems indifferent to the virtues or vices of those it meets and therefore oblivious to merit. This “blindness” is dramatically demonstrated in a dog’s willingness to protect (and therefore implicitly consider as “its own”) its human master. But to the extent that thumos favors Polemarchus’ definition in the Republic of justice as helping friends and harming enemies (334b), and is essential for the preservation of the luxurious city, it seems to be that aspect of the soul that seeks justice and is therefore fundamentally political. It is not surprising that Socrates calls it an attractive affection of the soul for it represents all those actions we praise as noble and beautiful, ranging from the protection of family and friends, to the defense of city and country. Indeed, our willingness to risk ourselves in protecting others is the principal civic measure of our virtue, an essential requirement for heroism. Thumos is the political passion, explaining our wholehearted commitment to those things larger than ourselves, most obviously our country. Yet the 214

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political necessity of thumos is in important respects qualified by its darker aspects. The ambiguous relationship between thumos and reasoning—the inherent tension between our erotic love of the good and the noble, and our intransigent will to defend what is our own—means that there are fundamental limits on the extent to which politics can be philosophical. Importantly, though a mainstay of our conception of justice, thumos may often exceed its due measure, especially in its inclination or impulse to attribute or imagine intentionality and culpability. Thumos can issue not only in justified indignation, but in intemperate anger, and in the extreme, blind fury or rage. For classical political philosophers such as Plato, these aspects of thumos mean that our thumotic longings can at best only be moderated or educated, but never extirpated from political life. Socrates shows the political importance of thumos and its implication for patriotism, in his famous discussion of the role of lies in politics. In addition to undergoing extensive selection and training, Socrates admits that the guardians of the best city will have to be told certain stories or noble lies (gennaion pseudos). In introducing these noble lies, Socrates concedes that the best city (and therefore all cities) are necessarily founded on certain original stories that are not strictly true. Yet the lies he introduces are noble precisely because they moderate and ennoble thumos. The first part of the lies, that we are born of the earth and are brothers, is an acknowledgment of the thumotic attachment of all cities to land (as territory, country, soil, earth). That we are all brothers is intended by Socrates to found an egalitarianism that potentially undermines the claims of divine or ancient lineage as a form of superior citizenship. The second lie, that each citizen has different metal in his soul, justifies ranking and hierarchy, yet at the same time qualifies it by noting that golden souled individuals may be born in any family and therefore the city should be open to their promotion and advancement. Socratic insight into thumos explains why he thinks we need noble lies and therefore patriotism in politics. All cities will require defense and therefore sacrifice, and consequently a thumotic attachment that will sustain such noble attachment. There are therefore limits to the extent that a city can be founded only on reasoning and calculation or, put differently, thumos imposes strict limits on the extent to which any city can be open to philosophical reflection. Socrates’ understanding of thumos reveals why patriotism is an essential, though philosophically questionable aspect of politics.

Modern Experiments with Patriotism The Socratic understanding of thumos accounts for why Greek cities were said to be closed, and therefore inevitably “waspish” in their disposition.7 With 215

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the notable exception of the Stoics, cosmopolitanism was for classical political philosophers only viable for the philosophical few, if only because attempts to broaden the scope of thumos risked another great danger—the problem of forcefully seductive leaders like Alcibiades whose longing for glory and honor pointed to empire.8 It was this understanding of thumos and therefore glory and honor that was radically challenged by modern philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, one of the most influential early modern thinkers who shaped the subsequent debates regarding the nature of liberalism, the concept of social contract and natural rights, and significantly, the ideas of sovereignty at the heart of the modern state. His solution to the problem of war in the state of nature is well known—the institution of a common power or sovereign authorized to preserve peace by enforcing covenants, especially the Laws of Nature. Yet the radical nature of Hobbes’s endeavor only comes to sight when we realize his great ambition. Hobbes regarded pride as the obstacle to peace and prosperity. Consequently his great theoretical experiment is to extirpate the dangers of leaders moved by pride and “vaine-glory.” In the discussion below we will trace how he achieves this, starting with his comprehensive debunking of the traditional concept of honor, principally with his idea of “power,” and then the creation of the “state,” in effect a transformation of traditional patriotism.

“Lord Over Children of Pride” Hobbes’s most famous work, Leviathan, is dedicated to Francis Godolphin, in honor and gratitude to the memory of his brother Sidney Godolphin, a poet and exemplary patriot who sacrificed his life in the Civil War. Hobbes wanted to protect good citizens like Godolphin from war caused by the “perpetuall contention for Honor, Riches, and Authority,” but especially from the ambitions of those leaders who seek glory (A Review and Conclusion: 718).9 Glory or pride is the political problem for Hobbes, as is evident from the very title and frontispiece of the Leviathan. But what exactly is the problem of pride? As we will see, for Hobbes, pride is the desire of vaine-glorious leaders to subordinate all about them. For Hobbes the state of nature is a state of war due to three causes: competition, diffidence, and glory (L 13: 185).10 The diffident, according to Hobbes, is one of “those men who are moderate”—wants more power only to defend himself (L 11: 161). The diffident is forced to counter the competitive who does not simply desire, like the diffident, to secure and defend his possessions, but wants more because he “cannot be content with a moderate power,” and so he goes beyond defending his immediate safety and uses violence to make himself “Masters of other mens persons, wives, children, and cattell” (L 13: 185). Yet the competitive never think that “Mastery” is anything other 216

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than a means to gain; they tend not to derive pleasure in exercising their power over other human beings except in the sense that it indicates, or is a measure, of gain. Consequently, their need to master is always constrained and circumscribed by material gain, and they can tolerate others who do not threaten that gain. In contrast, the glorious seek a type of “Joy,” which is an “exultation of the mind which is called GLORYING,” arising from “imagination of a mans own power and ability” (L 6: 125). For some individuals, intense delight can be found in contemplating one’s “own power in the acts of conquest,” which produces great pleasure in the confirmation to oneself of one’s power (L 13: 184). But Hobbes notes that glory-seekers often pursue glory “farther than their security requires,” creating the problem that some seek glory even at the risk to their life (L 13: 185). For these people, glory becomes disengaged from its source in the pursuit of the power needed to preserve their vital motion. The difficulty of acquiring and maintaining glory, due to our inability to judge or “value” accurately, the problem of construing “signs” of valuing, and the need of the glory-seeker to “extort a greater value from his contemners, by dommage; and from others, by example” means that the glory-seeker is compelled to risk himself to show his power (L 13: 185). Sustaining the joy that is glory may necessitate harming his body or undermining his property. In the extreme case, the glorious may risk his own life to show his power. Therefore, the pleasure of glory is not checked by the moderating demands of security and property in two senses. The first is in the sense that we have noted—the glorious will illogically sacrifice his life for his name. The second is that the pleasure of glory seeks to ever increase its delectation—­glory will in social terms seek ever greater mastery, at the risk of security. From this perspective war for Hobbes is typically due to the tendency of the glorious types to challenge and test each other regarding their worth, thereby compelling both the diffident and the competitive to enter into warfare far beyond what they would ordinarily wage. Hobbes’s solution to the problem of war in the state of nature is well known. Passions are to counter passions. Fear, especially fear of death, inclines human beings to peace (L 13: 188). Therefore, Hobbes relies upon fear to counter pride. Men with foresight who want to leave the “miserable condition of Warre,” to preserve themselves and to secure a more “contented life,” will establish a common power or sovereign to whom they will submit their will and judgment (L 17: 227). This new power will use fear of punishment to keep all in awe, making men observe their covenants and especially the Laws of Nature. Fear is needed, according to Hobbes, because “without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed,” the Laws of Nature “are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like” (L 17: 223). Institutionalized terror is the principal way in which Hobbes attempts to curb the escalating sense of glory that becomes violent 217

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pride. The other is to foster the passion that inclines to peace, the “[d]esire of such things as are necessary to commodious living” (L 13: 188). But in addition to such an institutional solution, Hobbes also seeks to undermine the source of pride. One such important source is the view that we possess dignity, that we are honorable, or worthy, either because we are noble, born of good family, have natural skills or aptitudes, and perhaps because we are chosen by God. It is to undermine these sources of pride that Hobbes initiates his concept of power. And, as we will see, the idea of power and its reconceptualization of honor will have far-reaching implications for the dignity of the individual and the honor of the state.

Dignity, Honor, and the Leviathan State Hobbes introduces his famous idea of “power” in Chapter X of the Leviathan titled, “Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthiness,” and as the title suggests, links it to honor. Hobbes’s idea of power reconceives thumos and thereby justifies his ambitious attempts to limit its scope. The chapter commences by defining “The Power of a Man” as “his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good” (L 10: 150). An example of “Instrumentall” power is “Reputation,” and as Hobbes notes, “the nature of Power, is in this point, like to Fame, increasing as it proceeds” (L 10: 150). Reputation is especially important because power increases as the wills of individuals are united, either in “Factions” or in the greatest of human powers, a “compound of the Powers of most men,” the “Power of a Common-wealth.” The importance of fame and reputation in allowing the union of wills and therefore amassing of power, allows Hobbes to redefine the meaning of “Worth,” “Dignity,” and “Honor.” “The Value, or Worth of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of Power: and therefore is not absolute; but a thing dependant on the need and judgment of another” (L 10: 151). No matter how highly we value ourselves, our price is determined by the “buyer,” that is others, and not the “seller.” Honor is therefore the currency of power; a measure of how many other wills you can command or draw upon. It is a measure of our political value: “Honourable is whatsoever possession, action, or quality, is an argument and signe of Power” (L 10: 155). It is this understanding of power, and therefore honor that allows Hobbes to give new meaning to “Dignity” and “Worthiness.” Dignity is not inherent, natural or derived by our own actions. It is the “publique worth of a man, which is the Value set on him by the Common-wealth” (L 10: 152). This discussion of dignity and worthiness reveals what is at the core of Hobbes’s new understanding of honor: there is nothing, it would seem, intrinsically honorable about honor. “Honorable” or honor is a “sign” of power, a measure of ability to acquire future goods. But our power (and 218

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therefore our honor) is always changing because our power derives from the will and therefore opinion of others (the purchaser will determine the price); it is subject to the accuracy of their judgment, which inevitably relies on the appearance of power, that is, our fame or reputation of power (the worth of our “brand”). Hobbes’s discussion of power is intended to undermine all those sources that may sustain our hopes and beliefs that we are worthy, have dignity, and therefore are honorable. In disabusing us of these views Hobbes intends to kill the seeds of vaine-glory. His conception of power fundamentally reinterprets the classical understanding of thumos and love of our own. It is on this basis that Hobbes proposes his radical innovation, the “Artificiall Man,” the “great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE,” which is of “greater stature and strength than the Naturall” (L Introduction: 81; L 17: 227). But how does the state differ from those forms of government Aristotle’s Politics famously (and influentially) described as monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy? Hobbes acknowledges that people will fight over the form of government. For example, love of country can become influential in politics as a source of power, because “Reputation of love of a man’s Country, (called Popularity,)” is power, for the same reason reputation of power is power, “because it draweth with it the adhearence of those that need protection” (L 10: 150). Country and the form of government is therefore potentially a source of honor and dangerous pride. Hobbes’s “state” is intended to undermine such potential. It does so in three important ways. The first is by reminding us that the state is “Artificiall,” of our own making, and therefore designed to serve the specific purpose of securing peace. Such an instrumental view of the state limits contentions about the state. The state is made for security, and its usefulness is to be judged by this principle. If it cannot fulfill this task, we can unmake it, as it were, and seek another instrument to serve our purpose. As we can see from The Introduction (L Introduction: 81), the elaborate mechanical metaphor used to depict the state is intended to deny it any authority and dignity it once possessed, whether from divine, natural, or traditional sources. Second, Hobbes rejects the view that there is a qualitative difference between different forms of rule, for example between monarchy and republicanism. His definition of the state reduces the question of the regime to simply the size of the executive, so that difference between Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy is now reduced to the more neutral and practical question of how many exercise sovereignty—one, few, or many (L 19: 239). Finally, Hobbes denies Aristotle’s claim that the polis is not simply a defensive alliance for conducting business but aims for a complete and self-sufficient life (Politics, Book 3). The state no longer has a moral dimension for Hobbes precisely because it is concerned not with the good life but security: “There be other names of Government in the Histories, and books of 219

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Policy; as Tyranny, and Oligarchy: But they are not the names of other Formes of Government, but of the same Formes misliked.” So those who dislike monarchy call it tyranny, aristocracy oligarchy, and democracy anarchy (L 19: 239–240). In denying the state this moral dimension, Hobbes reduces its moral demands on its subjects and therefore defuses its potency in political disputes. Thus the overall trajectory of Hobbes’s solution to the problem of governmental honor is to strip sovereignty of all those aspects that may encourage or sustain claims of inherent dignity or worth. Government is therefore revealed to be a fabrication, a legal arrangement of institutions with no overarching moral ambitions. This approach to sovereignty, where politics is reduced to a matter of security and not to the pursuit of virtue, either in its classical or pious sense, means that politics no longer has the potential to provide the foundation for the struggle over honor and therefore pursuit of “pride” in the Hobbesian terms. There is nothing august about the state; it is another “Automata,” no more than a useful invention to overcome our perilous condition.

Modern Patriotisms The discussion above shows how Hobbes, on the basis of his reinterpretation of thumos as pride, undermines patriotism and pride in one’s country with his innovation of a contractual, artificial “state.” How successful was his great experiment? The influence and reach, both philosophically and politically, of the modern concept of the state, would testify to the extraordinary success of this Hobbesian approach to politics. Yet as I will argue below, Hobbes’s success is tempered in two significant respects. The first is that rather than defusing patriotism, his creation of the state initiated and therefore reinstituted a new source of pride in the “state” itself, including the notion of contract and individual rights. The second is that to the extent that this new entity was removed from “one’s own,” both in the sense that it was not linked to a specific place and because as contract it was universal, it could not sustain a rich or powerful thumotic attachment. Consequently, love of one’s own, now ostensibly freed from country yet seeking to alight on something that was not universal or cosmopolitan, readily settled on anything that approximated the country—its language, habits, traditions, history, ethos, and ethnos. Thus Hobbes’s experiment gave birth to something he did not intend and wanted to defuse, “nationalism” as a form of patriotism that was now much more volatile and politically unpredictable because it was no longer anchored in the traditional patria or mother/fatherland. In this way Hobbes’s new patriotism issued in a contingent universalism in the form of the modern state, and 220

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a radically fluid particularism that was no longer anchored by the noble lie of “earth,” exacerbating, rather than solving the political problem of pride. In the discussion below we will briefly outline each of these new forms of patriotism in turn.

Divine Modern State As we have seen, the fabricated or artificial nature of the state seemed to be a powerful reason for denying its inherent goodness. Because something of our own making is inherently inferior to us, and since it is merely an instrument, designed to serve a specific purpose, its merits would be always defined and understood in terms of its usefulness. Though Hobbes attempts to strip the state of any dignity and thereby its status as a source of pride, these two aspects of the state also form the basis for its potential elevation as something admirable, sowing the seeds for its subsequent rehabilitation and elevation. The state is admirable precisely because it is our handiwork. We love all those things of our own making, and consider them part of us. To this extent the state is “us” writ large, a comprehensive and magnified articulation of all our hopes and ambitions. Yet in important respects the state is also superior to us. Though no more than our handiwork, the state is essential for the enjoyment of our natural rights; more than a useful instrument, it is a foundational device that secures and assures our lives, security, and importantly our commodious living. As such it is no mere instrument—it is the most important thing we have made. But, unlike other instruments, the state is more powerful than you or me. The social contract that made the state has also made me its subject and therefore in keeping my contract I must now obey this new entity that is overwhelmingly more powerful than I could ever be. This new entity is potentially terrifying because it may lawfully kill me. If honor is the measure of power, then the state is the most honorable thing in this world. It is not accidental that such earthly glory, evident in its power and beneficence, makes this “Artificiall Man,” seem like a “Mortall God.” Thus the state is not only close to the divine, but its very existence indirectly confirms my own dignity as a keeper of contracts and implicitly reveals our God-like grandeur as maker of something that is of “greater stature and strength than the Naturall” (L Introduction: 81; L 17: 227). Therefore the Leviathan, a new artificial yet divine creature superior to those created by God, ensures not only an unending commodious life here on earth, but allows us to share in its immortality, especially in the contemplation of our “laudable actions,” where we will delight in imagining now the fame we will anticipate in the future (L 11: 162). The state is greater and in a sense more divine than I can ever be, but in acknowledging this very insight, I gain the reflected glory and satisfaction of being its maker and therefore essential origin or source. 221

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Hobbes did not seek to emphasize these aspects of the Leviathan state. Yet it is these features that were subsequently taken up and developed by political philosophers. Consider, for example, Hegel—one of the most influential political thinkers who helped shape and advance such an elevated conception of the state. Hegel accepts the importance of the social contract state initiated by Hobbes, and subsequently refined by Locke and Rousseau. Such a state, which he calls civil society, provides the necessary foundation for individual security and preservation of property. But Hegel is critical of this conception of the state because, in its instrumental fulfillment of the subjective morality (Moralität) and subjective will of its members or the bourgeois, it does not sufficiently acknowledge the objective will or universal spirit. The citoyen, who according to Hegel is superior, is only to be found in the modern state where both the subjective and objective will are reconciled in an absolute ethical life (Sittlichkeit). It is true that few states actually approximate this state and that the world of religion and art transcends it. Nevertheless, Hegel’s state is the final, non-contradictory expression of the march of history and the completion of the progressive march of God and spirit in the world.11 In Hegel the state assumes a God-like stature. It is therefore tempting to regard Hegel as the fulfillment or completion of a line of reasoning that we discerned in Hobbes’s initiation of the state. The state as Hegel sees it overcomes a fundamental problem that social contract theorists could not answer, or answered by means of petitio principii, namely, why anyone would die for the state. Hegel endows the state with sufficient dignity and moral authority to justify individual sacrifice for the greater good. He therefore claims to have recovered the public spiritedness evident in the ancient polis in the light of modern subjective will.

Coldest of Cold Monsters Such apparent deification of the state, combined with the Kantian rehabilitation of Hobbesian rights of nature into “human rights,” reinstituted in the state the pride that Hobbes hoped to strip from patriotism. Yet there seemed to be something missing in this new patriotism. It was hard to warm to it. Perhaps it was its premise in contract and calculation—it seemed too ­instrumentally “rational” to be beautiful and therefore loveable. Maybe it was because it abstracted too much from all things that made politics so human—it seemed indifferent to the color, texture, and flow of particularity that made traditional patriotism so powerful. The state was too abstract and universal, too cosmopolitan to speak directly to any one people. We can see this in Hegel who, consistent with Hobbes, views the state as “neutral” regarding territory, language, culture of each state. Though Hegel knows there is a specific spirit to each nation, such Volksgeist or national character 222

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is for him an accidental feature or aspect, not decisive in the formulation of the modern state. These reservations about the state are strikingly summarized in Nietzsche’s claim that the state is the “coldest of all cold monsters.” In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in a section titled “On the New Idol,” Part I: 11) Nietzsche (1976) provides a detailed analysis and critique of the claims that the modern state is noble, admirable, and the “ordering finger of God,” arguing they are all lies of what he calls this new monster. Nietzsche’s debunking claim that the state is only an idol confirms the pervasiveness of the view he sought to reject, that the state was somehow divine. Yet his critique also captured the core inadequacy or insufficiency of the experiment that was modern patriotism. The coldness of the modern state did not satisfy the thumos of traditional patriotism. Indeed, I will argue that it was this very coldness that issued or resulted in another version of modern patriotism, nationalism.12 There is of course an extensive scholarship on nationalism, most of which takes a sociological approach to the question.13 As this scholarship shows, there is a general consensus regarding the modernity of nationalism, though its character and exact origins remain contested. I would suggest that our examination of modern patriotism provides an important theoretical basis for understanding the nature of nationalism. Nationalism was in one sense a testament to the limited success of the modern experiment with patriotism. Modern patriotism had learned to shift its focus from the land to more abstract elements, such as the contractual state and rights. Consequently it could not repair the problem of coldness by simply returning to traditional patriotism. Nationalism was therefore a response to the failure of modern patriotism, a return from the “state” to traditional patriotism but on a new modern basis. The new basis was the drive in modern patriotism toward abstract concepts and principles, which meant that nationalism could be founded on a number of general conceptions that were at the same time unique and specific to each country, whether it was culture, language, or race. We can see this in the early advocates of different forms of nationalism who saw in it a necessary improvement on the concept of the state.14 What is significant about nationalism was that its new attachments were no longer limited, moderated, or bound by ties to “land” or territory and the politics of traditional patriotism. This meant nationalism, both in its shift of attachment and in its concentrated vehemence or ardor, was much more volatile than both traditional and modern patriotism. It is in this sense that nationalism represents the failure of the modern experiment to moderate thumos in politics. We can see this in the contemporary responses to nationalism. Having seen the power and destructiveness of nationalistic movements in the twentieth century, modern students of nationalism have been unsure 223

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in their response. Consequently most attempts have tried to return nationalism to its origins in modern patriotism.15

Democratic Leadership and the Politics of Patriotism The discussion above has shown the complex nature of patriotism. In this concluding part of the chapter I want to explore two important ways democratic leadership is shaped and influenced by what I will call the politics of patriotism. The first is that if good democratic leaders must in some important sense be patriotic, then what this requires is going to be constantly contested because there are three powerful coexisting notions of patriotism (traditional, modern, nationalism) that may, and often do, conflict with each other. This means that the contested nature of the politics of patriotism will pose a constant challenge to the leader’s judgment and integrity. The second is that to the extent that political debates draw upon or engage patriotism, they also inevitably raise deeper questions regarding the character of the country. It is possible to demonstrate these claims in detail in a range of areas, from international relations to important aspects of domestic politics. Here I can only provide an indicative example. I have chosen the problem of illegal immigration in America because America was seen as the preeminent experiment in modern constitutionalism, and because this case reveals the subtle way patriotism can interweave itself into a range of political problems that may appear in first instance far removed from questions of patriotism. “There is a patriotism,” claims Tocqueville (1969: 235) in his Democracy in America, “which mainly springs from the disinterested, undefinable, and unpondered feeling that ties a man’s heart to the place where he was born. This instinctive love is mingled with a taste for old habits, respect for ancestors, and memories of the past; those who feel it love their country as one loves one’s father’s house.” Tocqueville contrasts this “instinctive” patriotism, which “does not reason, but believes, feels, and acts,” with a more “rational” or “reflective” patriotism that is “less generous, perhaps less ardent, but more creative and lasting, it is engendered by enlightenment, grows by aid of laws and the exercise of rights, and in the end becomes, in a sense, mingled with personal interest.” Tocqueville neatly summarizes what we have been discussing as traditional and modern patriotism, to argue that because it is no longer possible to return to disinterested patriotism, it is essential to move toward an enlightened patriotism by granting political rights (1969: 235–236). To a large measure Tocqueville’s aspirations have been fulfilled; modern democracies, because they are liberal–democratic, are founded on a modern (Tocqueville’s “rational”) patriotism of abstract rights and freedoms. Yet as I have also suggested in this chapter, the ambiguity or 224

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confusion Tocqueville saw in the transition from instinctual to rational patriotism has not resolved itself. Indeed, it has been complicated by a new modern patriotism in the form of nationalism. We can see this in the contemporary American problem of illegal immigrants. There are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in America, mostly in states such as California, Texas, and Arizona that border Mexico. Because these immigrants work mostly in poorly paid jobs they provide a significant economic benefit to these states. But they also make major demands on the health and social services of these states. What is to be done with this large population of immigrants, and importantly, what is the status of their children, have become almost intractable problems for leaders. A range of measures have been proposed. In 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act gave legal status to close to 3 million unauthorized immigrants. Yet subsequent economic and demographic factors dramatically increased the number of illegal immigrants from negligible levels in the 1960s, to more than 1 million annually during the 1980s and close to 2 million annually by the end of the 1990s. In 2010 Arizona enacted what was widely considered the broadest and strictest immigration measure, making the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and giving police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents saw the law as a form of racial profiling and challenged its constitutionality (see generally Boushey and Luedtke 2011; Campbell 2011). While the matter went to the United States Supreme Court, the Obama administration announced it would stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children and did not pose a risk to national security. In justifying his decision Obama stated that these children of illegal immigrants “are Americans in their hearts and minds; in every single way but one—on paper” (cited in Mason and Cowan 2012). Soon after the announcement, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision. The Court seemed to equivocate, invalidating the harshest provisions such as making it a state crime for an immigrant to fail to carry federal registration papers, or authorizing jail time for illegal immigrants who seek work in Arizona, while upholding the requirement that police check the immigration status of people they stop for traffic or other offences.16 This snapshot of the ongoing United States immigration policy debates can only hint at the complexities involved. But it is sufficient to show how the question of contested notions of patriotism is in the very fabric of the debate and how it shapes and influences the practice of democratic leadership (see for example, Smith 2011; Mukherjee, Molina and Adams 2011). The significance of traditional patriotism can be seen in this case in the fact that to be American means to be born in America. The requirement of being “natural born” means that “land” remains a crucial aspect of American patriotism. This results not only in extensive and costly attempts to protect 225

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borders but significantly in the incongruous treatment of children of illegal immigrants, where those born in America are regarded as citizens, while children who crossed the border with their parents, even from a very young age and therefore have grown up in America, remain (with their parents) illegal immigrants. Obama’s initiative to grant amnesty to the children who have grown up in America and know nothing of their parents’ home is clearly meant to address this anomaly. Yet in doing so it seems to draw upon another idea of patriotism, one that believes that these children are “American” because they have lived in America all their lives. In other words, there is an unstated appeal to an American nationalism that makes these children different from their siblings who remained back home. Ironically it is also a form of nationalism that justifies the Arizona enactment. The random legal searches that contravene constitutional rights are premised on the fact that we know what Americans look like, and therefore law enforcement agents can pick out illegal non-Americans by sight or appearance. Finally in the intervention of the Supreme Court, adjudicating the dispute on grounds of individual rights, federalism, and constitutionalism we see the force of modern patriotism. As this case, ostensibly far removed from patriotism but in fact entangled in its contested definitions reveals, good democratic leadership is confronted with profound difficulties precisely because the modern politics of patriotism is so complex and difficult to negotiate. Modern democratic leaders may now have at their disposal powerful new bases for pursuing and justifying their actions, yet they must also know that their choice of patriotism will be questioned by other contending notions that will contest their decision not on its merits, but in effect by challenging the type of patriotism and thereby the personal integrity of the leader who espouses it. Modern democratic leaders are therefore constantly confronting the question of what is best for my country, and will often be tempted to appeal to all these forms of patriotism at the same time because they know that with every exercise of judgment they are also defending a very personal charge that can go to their very character. The second and perhaps more profound challenge for good democratic leadership we can discern in the illegal immigrant debate is that in trying to engage with these contested bases of patriotism, democratic leaders are inevitably drawn into a larger and more philosophical debate regarding the nature of American democracy. What does it mean to be American? Is it a way of life? Is it a “look”? Or is it sufficient to be someone who seeks the refuge of the Constitution and the rights and freedoms it enshrines? Democratic leaders, in determining policy questions, will sooner or later have to confront these deeper questions regarding patriotism. These are obviously profound questions and the willingness of democracies to articulate and dispute them surely reveals an impressive philosophical disposition of the regime. Yet this very 226

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strength also discloses a deep and fundamental uncertainty in modern democracies as to what they are. The good democratic leader will therefore have to appreciate that modern democracies exhibit a profound sense of unease and doubt regarding their origins, legitimacy, and raison d’être that is not evident in other regimes, and therefore good leadership in democracy is also unavoidably constitutive leadership. Hence, good democratic leadership is exceptionally onerous, requiring outstanding character and ability, because in a very real way the democratic leader is also a founder, continually setting and defending the moral course and political direction of the country.

Notes 1. For a history of patriotism see Dietz (1989); Viroli (1995). For advocates of patriotism see MacIntyre (2002); Schaar (1981); Rorty (1998); Berns (2007); Miller (1995). 2. Johnston (2007: 13, 15), for example, claims that patriotism has a “Manichean logic,” and can be shown to “depend on and produce the cult of endless enmity.” Nussbaum (1996) favors “becoming a citizen of the world” and is therefore a strong advocate of cosmopolitanism (but note that she subsequently modifies her views in Nussbaum 2008). 3. For constitutional patriotism see Habermas (1996); Ingram (1996); Müller (2007); Dietz (1989). For republican patriotism see Viroli (1995). For “moderate” patriotism see Baron (2002); Appiah (1997); Walzer (1974); Tan (2004). 4. See Schaar (1981). For the extensive scholarship on nationalism see Notes 12, 13. 5. Another instance of the larger problem of democratic leadership: see Kane and Patapan (2012). 6. On the scholarship on thumos see Koziak (2000); Ludwig (2002); Newell (2000); Pangle T. (1976); Pangle L. (2009); Tarnopolsky (2010). 7. See, for example, Aristophanes’ Wasps, and more recently, The Federalist Papers on the instability of ancient democracies. 8. On Alcibiades, ambition, and empire see Faulkner (2007); Forde (1989). 9. References to Hobbes’s Leviathan are as follows: (L, chapter, and page number) (Hobbes 1968). 10. This discussion draws on Patapan (2009); Patapan and Sikkenga (2008). 11. See Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and generally his Phenomenology of Spirit. 12. See in this context Gellner (1983: 138) who views nationalism as a “very distinctive species of patriotism” and Schaar (1981: 245), who argues: “when liberalism had proceeded so far in its work of breaking the bonds among men that new ones were needed to provide at least the minimum of warmth and some measure of connectedness and direction.” 13. For a general overview of the scholarship see Hutchinson and Smith (1994); McKim and McMahan (1997); Smith (1998); Spencer and Wollman (2005); Özkirimli (2010). On political theory works on nationalism see Beiner (1999); Canovan (1996).

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Haig Patapan 14. Consider, for example, Rousseau’s advocacy of an “esprit de corps,” Herder’s “Volk,” Hegel’s “phenomenology of spirit” and “civilization,” and Fichte’s emphasis on language. 15. This explains the various attempts to constitutionalize nationalism (Habermas 1996) or make it “republican” (Viroli 1995) or even “liberal” (Tamir 1993). 16. Arizona vs United States, 567 US—(2012).

Bibliography Appiah, Kwame Anthony 1997, “Cosmopolitan patriots,” Critical Inquiry, spring, 23(3): 617–639. Baron, Marcia 2002, “Patriotism and liberal morality,” in Igor Primoratz (ed.), Patriotism, Humanity Books, Amherst, 59–86. Beiner, Ronald (ed.) 1999, Theorizing Nationalism, State University of New York Press, Albany. Berns, Walter 2007, “Patriotism and multiculturalism,” in Philip Abbott (ed.), The Many Faces of Patriotism, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 3–14. Boushey, Graeme and Luedtke, Adam 2011, “Immigrants across the U.S. federal laboratory: Explaining state-level innovation in immigration policy,” State Politics & Policy Quarterly, December, 11(4): 390–414. Campbell, Kristina M. 2011, “The road to S.B. 1070: How Arizona became ground zero for the immigrants’ rights movement and the continuing struggle for Latino civil rights in America,” Harvard Latino Law Review, Spring, 14, 1–5. Canovan, Margaret 1996, Nationhood and Political Theory, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. Dietz, Mary G. 1989, “Patriotism,” in Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L. Hanson (eds), Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 177–193. Faulkner, Robert 2007, The Case for Greatness: Honourable Ambition and its Critics, Yale University Press, New Haven. Forde, Steven 1989, The Ambition to Rule: Alcibiades and the Politics of Imperialism in Thucydides, Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Gaffney, James 2007, “Patriotism: Its moral credentials,” in Igor Primoratz (ed.), Politics and Morality, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 135–152. Gellner, Ernest 1983, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Greenfeld, Leah 1992, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Habermas, Jürgen 1996, “Citizenship and national identity,” essay incorporated as Appendix II in Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, MIT Press, Cambridge, 514. Hobbes, Thomas [1651] 1968, Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson (ed.), Penguin Books, Middlesex. Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D. (eds) 1994, Nationalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Patriotic Leadership in Democracy Ingram, Attracta 1996, “Constitutional patriotism,” Philosophy Social Criticism, 22(6): 1–18. Johnston, Steven 2007, The Truth about Patriotism, Duke University Press, Durham. Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits Its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Koziak, Barbara 2000, Retrieving Political Emotion: Thumos, Aristotle, and Gender, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park. Ludwig, Paul W. 2002, Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. MacIntyre, Alasdair 2002, “Is patriotism a virtue?,” in Igor Primoratz (ed.), Patriotism, Humanity Books, Amherst, 43–58. Mason, Jeff and Cowan, Richard 2012, “Obama spares many illegal immigrants deportation,” Reuters, June 16, retrieved at . McKim, Robert and McMahan, Jeff (eds) 1997, The Morality of Nationalism, Oxford University Press, New York. Miller, David 1995, On Nationality, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mukherjee, Sahana, Molina, Ludwin E. and Adams, Glenn 2011. “National identity and immigration policy: Concern for legality or ethnocentric exclusion?,” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, December, 12(1): 21–32. Müller, Jan-Werner 2007, Constitutional Patriotism, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Newell, Randy 2000, Ruling Passion: The Erotics of Statecraft in Platonic Political Philosophy, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham. Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1976. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In The Portable Nietzsche selected and translated by Walter Kaufmann, Penguin Books, New York. Nussbaum, Martha C. 1996, For Love of Country? Debating the Limits of Patriotism, Joshua Cohen (ed.), Beacon, Boston. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2008, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality, Basic Books, New York. Ovid 2005, Epistulae Ex Ponto, J. F. Gaertner (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford. Özkirimli, Umut 2005, Contemporary Debates on Nationalism: A Critical Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Özkirimli, Umut 2010, Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, 2nd edn, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Pangle, Lorraine Smith 2009, “Moral and criminal responsibility in Plato’s Laws,” American Political Science Review, 103(3): 456–473. Pangle, Thomas L. 1976, “The political psychology of religion in Plato’s Laws,” American Political Science Review, 70(4): 1059–1077. Patapan, Haig 2005, Machiavelli in Love: the Modern Politics of Love and Fear, Lexington Books, Lanham. Patapan, Haig 2009, “The glorious sovereign: Thomas Hobbes’ understanding of leadership and international relations,’’ in Ian Hall and Lisa Hill (eds), British International Thinkers from Hobbes to Namier, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 11–32.

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Haig Patapan Patapan, Haig and Sikkenga, Jeff 2008, “Love and the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes’ critique of Platonic Eros,” Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy, December, 36(6): 803–826. Plato 1991, The Republic, 2nd edn, trans. with interpretive essay by A. Bloom, Basic Books, New York. Primoratz, Igor (ed.) 2002, Patriotism, Humanity Books, Amherst. Rorty, Richard 1998, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Schaar, J. H. 1981, “The case for patriotism,” in Legitimacy in the Modern State, Transaction Books, New Brunswick, 285–312. Schaar, J. H. 2002, “The case for covenanted patriotism,” in Igor Primoratz (ed.), Patriotism, Humanity Books, Amherst, 233–258. Smith, Anthony D. 1998, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism, Routledge, New York. Smith, Rogers M. 2011, “Living in a Promiseland?: Mexican immigration and American obligations,” Perspectives on Politics, September, 9(3): 545–557. Spencer, Philip and Wollman, Howard (eds) 2005, Nations and Nationalism: A Reader, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. Tamir, Yael 1993, Liberal Nationalism, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Tan Kok-Chor 2004, “The limits of patriotism,” in Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Patriotism, Cambridge University Press, New York, 135–162. Tarnopolsky, Christina H. 2010, Prudes, Perverts and Tyrants: Plato’s Gorgias and the Politics of Shame, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Tocqueville, Alexis de 1969, Democracy in America, J. P. Mayer (ed.), trans. G Lawrence, Doubleday, New York. Viroli, Maurizio 1995, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Walzer, Michael 1974, “Civility and civic virtue in contemporary America,” Social Research, winter, 41(4): 593–611.

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Index

Aaron Burr Society  75 Abbott, Philip  52 absolutist system  179 accountability  3, 7, 11, 20, 41, 161, 164, 166, 169, 170–1, 173, 186, 200, 209 see also transparency Adams, Glenn  225 Adams, Guy B.  62 Adams, John  19, 136 Adams, Katherine H.  122 Addams, Jane  122 Adeimantus 214 Adenauer, Konrad  58, 59 adversarial democracy  92, 96 Agelasto, Parker  44 agency (individual)  4, 6 agents (of democracy)  21, 178 Alcibiades 216 Aldrich, John H.  162 Allentown (Pennsylvania)  84 Allum, Felia  61 Alperovitz, Gar  33 Alter, Jonathon  185 Alvarez, Mike  166 ambition  23, 40, 51, 136, 202, 208, 216, 220, 221 American Association of Retired People  76 American Bar Association  76 American Federation of Labor  117 American Medical Association  76 ANC (African National Congress)  131, 132, 133, 137 Anderson, Richard  183 Antietam  26, 112 anti-segregation reformers  113–21 anti-slavery reformers  109–12 Arafat, Yasser  134–5 Arendt, Hannah  79 aristocracy  19, 219, 220 Aristotle: aesthesis 3 being ruled  8, 70, 74, 80, 84 deinos 3 dianoia 3

elections 19 human capacity for deliberation  95 human capacity for speech  16 judgment  4, 5 Nicomachean Ethics  3, 79 nous 3 phronesis  3, 79 poiesis 4 polis 219 Politics  3, 16, 74, 79, 80, 219 regimes  17, 219 Rhetoric 16 ruling  8, 70, 74, 80, 84 sophia 3 sources of political persuasion  16–17 theoretical wisdom  79 virtues of citizens and rulers  16 Arizona 225 Armenia 147 Aslund, Anders  178 Athens 97 Atkins, Ralph  191 Attlee, Clement  58 Augustine, St: Confessions 3 Aung San Suu Kyi  136 austerity  28, 185, 187, 190, 191 see also GFC Australia: prime ministers  59 Austria 148 authenticity 130 authoritarian regimes: and civil associations  78 contrast with democracy  6, 161 foreign policy leader selection  169 and Middle East  199 autocracies  101, 169 Ayyash, Yahya  133 Bacon, Laura M.  57 bad leadership  51–64 avoidance  51, 52, 62, 63, 62–4 communication with public  61–2

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Index bad leadership (continued) definitions  8, 52 dimensions in liberal democracies  52–7 electoral promises  55 facilitating factors  54 gender 57 importance of context  56, 57 indicators of  55 inefficiency 54–5 institutional safeguards against  8, 53 institutions 63 lack of ambition  55 and leaders selection  63 and media  8 methodological problems  58 and morality  53 and party affiliation  58 patterns 57–62 political experience  58, 63 and presentism  55 problems defining criteria  56 and recall  64 and short-term responsiveness  55 study of  51–2 subjectivity 57 tenure  56, 57, 59, 60, 63 term limits  63–4 toxic  52, 61, 62–3 unethical behavior  52–3 variants  52, 53, 54, 55 Baghdad 135 Bair, Sheila  188, 190 Baker, Donald  40 Baker, James  135 Balfour, Danny L.  62 Baliles, Jon  44 Barak, Ehud  134 Barber, Benjamin: civic republicanism  96 civil association  85 forms of leadership  96 neutral conception of civil society  76 strong democracy  96 Barofsky, Neil  188 Bartol, Frederick C.  140 Basel Accords  190 see also international agreements Baum, Matthew A.  163 Bedell-Avers, Katrina E.  52 Beerbohm, Eric  73 Begin, Menachem  135 behavioral economy  83 behavioral psychology  83, 105 Beiner, Ronald  5, 79 Belgium  56, 178, 183 Benhabib, Seyla  209 Berinsky, Adam J.  162, 172

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Berlusconi, Silvio  60–1, 183 Berwanger, Eugene H.  111, 112 Betts, Richard K.  168 Bible 21 Biden, Joe  184 Birmingham (Alabama)  120 Blair, Tony  59, 61 Bliley, Thomas  39 Bobb, Robert  35 Boin, Arjen  57 Bonaparte, Napoleon  129 Borgida, Eugene  162 Boris, Eileen  123 Bourne, Jeffrey  45 Boushey, Graeme  225 Bouton, Marshall  163 Bracey Jr., John H.  118 Brady, Henry E.  75 Brandeis, Louis  96 Brazil 72 Bretton Woods system  181 Bristol  209, 210 Britain see United Kingdom Bronx 72 Brown, Gordon  59, 185 Brown, Scott  184 Brutus 26 BSCP (Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) 117 Buchanan, James  27 Buckley, William F.  20 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce  161 Bührs, Tom  185 bully pulpit  104, 106, 162, 164 Bundesbank 191 bureaucracy  22, 40, 41, 149, 163 Burke, Edmund: delegation to elites  171 intergenerational compact  206, 210 representative as delegate  209 representative as trustee  21, 33, 209 Burns, James MacGregor: definition of leadership  140 Leadership 98 power-wielders 52 transactional leadership  98 transforming leadership  98–9 Bush, George W.: 2000 elections  29 2004 elections  164 administration 184 attack on Iraq  129, 135 and bailout  184 presidential ranking  58, 59 and public deference  170 Social Security reform  105 tenure 59

Index Bush Sr., George H. W.: 1992 election  169 guardianship presidency  55 leadership  59, 61 Bynum, Cornelius L.  116, 117 California  25, 225 Callicles  90, 91 Cameron, David (PM)  183, 185 Cameron, David  209 Camp David (US)  134, 135 campaigns: and elections  26, 29, 36, 44, 55, 106, 117, 131, 151, 164 funding  33, 103 permanent 60 Campbell, Kim  57 Campbell, Kristina M.  225 Campus, Donatella  58 Canes-Wrone, Brandice  162 capitalism: and communism  181 crony capitalism  188 Carey, John M.  143 Carter, Jimmy  58, 59, 61, 124, 135 Catt, Carrie Chapman  111, 117, 121, 122, 123 Cesarano, Filippo  180, 192 Chaffin, Josh  191 Chaisty, Paul  150 Chalabi, Ahmad  135 Chamberlain, Neville  27 Cheeseman, Nic  150 Cheibub, José Antonio  143, 144, 166 Chen, Anthony S.  119 China  24, 72 Churchill, Winston  59, 136 Cicero: Offices 3 On Duties 3 Citigroup 184 citizenship  8, 85, 94, 95, 114, 115, 123, 202, 209, 215 civic associations: activism 75 activities 77 and autocratic decision-making  83 challenges to  81–3 and citizen engagement  8, 77, 78, 82, 83, 84 decline of  9, 81, 83, 84 and democracy  78, 83 and education  8, 9, 77–8 elites 84 encouragement 85 expertise  73, 79 and judgment  79–81, 83

and leadership  70, 77, 82, 83, 84, 86 and political activity  75, 76, 77, 78–9, 83, 84, 85 reluctance to lead  81–2 remedies to decline of  84–5 types of  76 voluntary associations  81 zealotry 81 see also civil society civic education: and civic republican discourse  9, 91, 94–6 and the common good  94–5, 96 conceptions of civic republicanism  95 and deliberative democracy  95 and minimalist democracy  94 role of leadership  95 and conceptions of leadership  9, 91–9 and democratic leadership  90–107 discouraging data  103–5 and educative stance of leaders  92, 99 historical and contemporary cases  99–103 and instrumental public communication  9, 91, 92–4 limits of  103–7 loss aversion  105 and media  105 paideia 90 and populist mobilization  9, 91, 96–9 and presidency  99 response of the people  104–5 skepticism  90, 91, 100 viability of  90 civic virtue  48, 91, 93, 95, 100 civil associations see civil society civil rights (US): laws  119, 121 leadership  39, 40, 111, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121 movement  34–6, 49, see also emancipation movements Civil Rights Act (US)  120 civil service  183 civil society: challenges to  81–3 civil and political associations  74–7 definition 75 and democratic leadership  70–86 federated membership associations  81 formal institutions  76 future of  83–6 and governance in democracies  74, 77, 78, 85 leadership  70–1, 77–9 and judgment  79–81 and national professional associations  76 and neighborhood associations  72 and reasons people do not lead  71–3

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Index civil society: (continued) and role of citizens  73–4 and social movements  81 see also civic associations Civil War (UK)  216 Civil War (US)  27–8, 100, 117, 118 civility  85, 95, 98, 100, 200, 208 Clay, Henry  22 clientelism 60 Clinton, Bill: administration of  184 as communicator  106 health care reform  105 and Middle East negotiations  134–5 presidential terms  63 ranking as president  59 strategic judgment  134, 135 Coelho, Pedro  183 coercion  16, 136 cohabitation  147, 152 Cohen, Jeffrey  55, 105 Cohen, Marty  167 Cold War  119, 181 Cole, Alistair  149 Coleman, Charley  64 Colliard, Jean-Claude  151 Commission on the Status of Women (US) 124 common good: as aim of civic republicanism  9, 92, 94 as aim of good leadership  6, 28 and civic associations  77 and democracy  166 and loss aversion  105 as part of civic education  96, 105 as political objective  17 and populist mobilization  9, 97 and trustees representatives  21 communism  180, 181 Connaughton, Jeff  188 consensus democracies  56 consent (popular)  16, 19, 23, 25, 164 conservatism 34 constitutionalism  13, 104, 120, 213, 224, 226 constructivism 139 Consumer Protection Act (US)  189 Converse, Nathan  144 Converse, Philip E.  164 Cooper, Helene  172 corporate: establishment 35 rent seeking  188 welfare 188 corporations  12, 77, 84 corporatism 190 corruption  20, 22, 33, 58, 60, 90, 122, 129, 134

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Cosby, Bill  42 cosmopolitanism  212, 213, 216, 220, 222 Council of Economic Advisers (US)  185 Cowan, Richard  225 Cowley, Matthew  185 Cresson, Édith  58 Crevani, Lucia  57 Crisis  115, 116 Croly, Herbert D.  96 cronyism 60 Crupi, James  36 Cuba  167, 189 Dagger, Richard  32 Dallek, Robert  119, 120, 121, 164 Dalton, Russell J.  57 Davis, James W.  53 De Cecco, Marcello  180 de Gasperi, Alcide  58 de Gaulle, Charles  58 de Klerk, F. W.: and 1992 referendum  131–2, 133, 134 empathy 131 and Mandela  10, 131–3 and National Party  132–3 negotiations with ANC  131, 132, 133 power sharing  131, 133 risk-taking 132 strategic judgment  131–3 Declaration of Independence (US)  25 deficit  28, 185, 187, 199, 204 deHaven, Tad  188 delegate see representation deliberative democracy  95, 102 Dell, Willie  35 Delli Carpini, Michael X.  161 demagoguery  97, 102 demagogues  32, 97, 160, 171 democracy: adversarial see adversarial democracy Athenian  96, 97 citizen education  74 and civic associations  78, 83 compared to monarchy and aristocracy  219 definitions  2, 71, 165–6, 179 deliberative see deliberative democracy ‘democratic disconnect’  209 demos 2 direct see direct democracy and elections  2, 19, 20, 22, 53, 54, 92, 166, 169, 170 and elite leadership  165 and equality  2, 18 and executive power  185 foundational constitution  2 and humility see humility and institutions  2, 10, 11

Index and leadership see democratic leadership and liberalism  1, 2–3, 21, 179, 209 local 32 minimalist see minimalist democracy myopia 185 openness of  187 origins of  2 and patriotic leadership  12–13, 212, 213, 224–7 popular sovereignty see sovereignty psychology of  7 and question of who leads  71–3 representation  2, 21–2, 139, 166, 173 right to rule  18 role of citizens  73–4 rule of law  2 short-termism 185 democratic consequentialism  28 democratic leadership: and capability  15, 16 challenges to  11–13, 15 characteristics 178 and civic education  90–107 and civil society  70–86 consistence with democratic principles  18–20 constraints on  3, 6, 178, 187–8 contingent nature of  6, 12 definitions  71, 128 and economic judgment  178–93 effectiveness of  7, 9–10, 136 and elitist challenge  15–30, 165 and followers  128–9 and foreign affairs  158–73 institutions 139–54 and intergenerational justice  198–210 and judgment  128–37 and legitimacy see legitimacy motivations to lead  32, 129 and patriotism  212–27 and politics of equal rights  109–25 and populist resentment  15–30 tension with popular sovereignty  1, 7, 8, 16, 18, 24, 48, 49, 72, 161, 170, 199 in urban America  32–49 see also bad leadership, good democratic leadership democratic participation  49, 199 Democratic Party (US): 1862 elections  26, 27 and Doug Wilder  40 economic policy  203 and feminist movement  122 leadership  58, 116 and Lincoln  26, 27 Northern Democrats  120 opposition to  122

in Richmond  47 Southern Democrats  117, 118, 120 Dennis, Rutledge M.  34 Dente, Bruno  141 Di Rupo, Elio  183 Diesing, Paul  199 Dilulio, John J.  203 Dione Jr., E. J.  130 direct democracy: collaboration 73 contrast to representative democracy  73 and Kant  165 obstacles to  72–3 and technology  72 Doherty, Brendan J.  60 domestic politics  61, 159, 160, 161, 164, 224 Donadio, Rachel  183 Dossi, Samuele  141 Douglas-Home, Alec  58 Douglass, Frederick: alliance with A. Lincoln  111–13, 119 and dilemmas of activist reformers  110, 112–13, 119 leadership  111–13, 114, 115, 117, 120, 124, 125 Downs, Anthony  92, 93, 162 Draghi, Mario  183, 192 Drake, Avon  35 Du Bois, W. E. B.: and anti-segregation movement  115–17 criticisms of  116, 117 leadership  111, 114, 115–17, 119 and W. Wilson  116, 117 Duhamel, Olivier  151 Dukakis, Michael  130 Duncan-Clark, Samuel J.  115 Dunn, Susan  136 Duverger, Maurice  151 Dyer, Thomas G.  114 Dzieweczynski, Jessica L.  52 East Jerusalem  134 ECB (European Central Bank)  183, 185, 190, 192 ecological fallacy  141 economic affairs: and democratic leadership  11, 12, 178–93 challenges 182–93 and corporations  12 and financial sector  188–9 and pressure groups  188 fiscal policy see fiscal policy illegal practices  188–9 international agreements  189–90, see also Basel Accords judgment and leadership  192–3 legitimacy of technocrats  186

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Index economic affairs: (continued) monetary policy see monetary policy problem of advisers  183–5 problem of diffused power  187–9 problem of international coordination  189–92 problem of short-termism  185–7 problem of understanding  182–3 see also GFC economic liberalism: alternatives to  180 characteristics 179 definition 179 and democracy  178–82 depression causes  181 deregulation  103, 181, 182, 184, 187, 192 economic growth  180 and globalization  180 gold standard  180 government role  179 laissez-faire  179, 180, 181 neoliberalism see neoliberalism risk management  182 see also globalization economics: cycles (of capitalism)  180 inductivist economics  183–4 Keynesian measures  181 neoclassical school  183–4 post-war 181 The Economist  135, 178, 189, 192 Eden, Anthony  58, 59 Edinger, Lewis J.  140 Edwards, George C. III: On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit 104 partisan divisions  104–5 presidential communication  105, 162 Ehrenberg, John  75, 81 Eisenhower, Dwight  16, 59, 105 elections see democracy electoral systems: majoritarian  56, 147, 151, 152 proportional  146, 147, 148, 152 Elgie, Robert  11, 141, 142, 143, 149 elites: accountability 11 bureaucratic 21 and civic associations  83, 84 competition 171 consensus  161, 172 and democratic leadership  3, 11, 165, 166 dissent  11, 162, 169 Eastern 130 financial  188, 189 in foreign affairs  158–73 morality of policy  172

236

political 106 Richmond  34, 36 and Tony Blair  61 see also Burke, Edmund elitism: and capability  15 challenge to democracy  24 effect on democracy  24, 161 elitist arrogance  23 Elkin, Stephen  32 Ellis, Mark  116, 117 emancipation movements: anti-segregation reformers  113–21 challenges to emancipatory reforms  109, 110 democratic leadership and politics of alliances  10, 109–25 and feminist reforms  121–4 Johnson–King alliance  119–21 Lincoln–Douglass alliance  111–13 Randolph–Franklin D. Roosevelt alliance 117–19 Washington–Ted Roosevelt alliance  114–16 see also policy alliances empathy: and authenticity  130 in dealing with adversaries  130, 131 and judgment  130–5 and leadership  10, 82 and Mandela–de Klerk negotiations  131–3 and Nixon  130–1 and Reagan  130 in relations with followers  130–1 Enlightenment 201 equality: as democratic principle  4, 17, 18, 19, 27, 33, 95, 97 economic  102, 103, 192, 203 of gender  110, 122, 123, 124 and leadership  19 moral 19 racial  114, 120 equifinality: causes  146, 149 definition 143 example 147–8 as problem of empirical institutional analysis  11, 140, 142–8, 149, 152 Erasmus: The Education of the Christian Prince 3 Erhard, Ludwig  59 EU Summit  191 euro  190, 191 Europe: banking system  189–91 e-bonds 191 post-war recovery  181 sovereign debt crisis  190–2

Index Eurozone 191 Evans Hughes, Charles  122 Evening Post 116 externalities 199 Fabbrini, Sergio  60, 61 Fair Housing Act (US)  121 Falklands War  129 Family Medical Leave Act (US)  124 Fearon, James D.  161, 166 Federal Reserve  182, 184 federalism  85, 226 Federalist Papers  19, 22, 27, 165, 171, 202, 208 Fehrenbacher, Don E.  100, 101 feminist reforms: and constitutional suffrage reform  121, 123 criticism of  123 and democratic leadership  121–4 Equal Rights Amendment  123, 124 female vote  121, 122 gender equality  122, 123, 124 goals and strategies  121 historical divisions  121 and lack of strategic alliances  110 leadership divisions  123 in modern times  124 and T. Roosevelt  121, 122 struggle  122, 123 and W. Wilson  122, 123, 124 and World War I  116, 122 FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Committee) 118 feudal system  179 Fidley, Stephen  185 Finkelstein, Sydney  52 Finley, M. I.  97 Fiorina, Morris  81, 84–5 fiscal policy  181, 186, 192, 203, 205 Fish, M. Steven  147 Florence 96 Flynn, Rachel  42 followers: and Aristotle  74, 80 and avoidance of elitism  96 and bad leadership  52, 62 and civic republicanism  95, 98, 103 and democratic leadership  7, 9, 71, 141 empathy  130, 131 and Franklin D. Roosevelt  101 good followers  80–1 instrumental communication  106 and James MacGregor Burns  98, 99 judgment 79 and leaders  128–9 and Lincoln  101 political engagement  85, 107 and populist mobilization  96, 97, 98, 103, 105

and Schumpeter  100 self-interest 93 and toxic leaders  63 Foner, Eric  113 Ford, Gerald  58, 59, 124 foreign affairs: compared to domestic policy  158 delegation to elites  11, 162, 170, 171–2, 173 and democratic leadership  158–73 as area of study  161 importance of leadership  11 leadership accountability  161, 164 and domestic affairs  28 elite-centered approach  11, 153–73 and democracy  164–6 elite bargaining  163 elite discourse  162 fire alarm model  162, 169, 173 and good leadership  11, 159, 164–6, 173 and presidents  162–3 and voters  158, 161–2, 167 elite leadership  11–12, 158–9, 160, 161–4 accountability  167, 170–1 selection of leaders  167–9 substantive policy choice  167, 171–3 and media  162, 171 and minimalist democracy  159, 165–6 and public opinion  11, 158, 160, 162, 163 realism 160 Fox, Vicente  137 France: Basel Accords  190 and civil associations  78 and Confederacy  26 conservative leaders  58 Fifth French Republic  151–2 and GFC  178, 191 leader-centered system  142 leadership 183 power-concentrating institutions  56 strategic analysis of institutions  151 franchise: disfranchisement  114, 115, 116 as result of economic and social change  180 and women  123 freedom: as democratic value  2, 17, 25, 101 entrepreneurial 179 and patriotism  212, 224, 226 of speech French Revolution  2 Frenzel, Bill  198, 199 Friedman, Milton  192 Friel, Brian  204 Fugitive Slave Act (US)  112 Fung, Archon  72

237

Index G8 group  57, 59 G20  185, 193 Gabriel, Trip  198 Gaffney, John  149 Gallie, W. B.: essentially contested concepts  71 Galston, William A.  7, 75 democratic humility  7, 15, 27 psychology of democracy  7, 16, 20 Galtieri, Leopoldo  129 game theory  5 see also positivism, rational choice Gandhi, Mahatma  136 Gardner, John  85 Garrison Villard, Oswald  116 Gasiorowski, Mark J.  144 Gaza strip  133 GDP (gross domestic product)  192, 203, 204 Geithner, Timothy  184 Gelb, Leslie  168 George, Alexander: multiple advocacy  169 Germany  29, 58, 142, 183, 190, 191 Gerstle, Gary  114, 122 Gerth, H. H.  97 GFC (global financial crisis): advisers 183 austerity  185, 190, 191 bailout schemes  184, 186 and banking/financial sector  186, 187, 188–9 causes of  182, 193 consequences  178, 189, 192 deficit reduction policies  185, 186 leadership  178, 183, 186, 192, 193 and Obama–Biden administration  184 and power of financial sector  188–9 remedies to  185 and response of nations  190 stimulus packages  185 Gill, Mark  58, 61 Gillard, Julia  59 Girl Scouts (US)  76 Glaucon 214 globalization: modern 182 nineteenth century  180 glory: glory-seekers  213, 217 and Hobbes  216–18, 221 and leadership  27, 122, 129, 216, 217, 219 as political problem  216 Godolphin, Francis  216 Godolphin, Sidney  216 gold standard  180 Goldfarb, Zachary A.  185 Goldman, Paul  43

238

good democratic leadership: challenges to  11–13, 15, 20–4 definition  7–8, 62, 71 effectiveness 9 principles of  15 skills, virtues, qualities  10, 24–8 subjectivity  56, 57 Goodwyn, Lawrence: populist moment  96 Gore, Al  136 Graham, Sally Hunter  122, 123 Grand United Order of Antelopes  75 Great Depression  101, 103, 180, 181, 182, 185, 189, 193 Greece  2, 178, 187, 190 Grey, Robert  43 Groeling, Tim J.  163 Gulf War  162 Gutmann, Amy: moral constituents  207 habeas corpus 28 Hacker, Andrew  178 Hah, Chong-Do  140 Hale, John  200 Hall, Peter  142 Hamas 134 Hamilton, Alexander: ambition 208 efficient government  91 and factions  171, 202 Federalist 68  19 letter to John Adams  19–20 and majority rule  171 and representative democracy  171 Hammond, Kenneth R.  83 Hansbrough, Tiffany  52 Hargrove, Erwin C.  61 Harlan, Louis R.  63, 114 Harlen, Christine Margerum  63 Harris, William H.  117 Hathaway, Oona A.  178 Hayter, Julian  34, 35 Heath, Edward  58 Hegel, G. W. F.  222–3 Heilbrunn, Jacob  191 Helmke, Gretchen  54 Helms, Ludger  8, 10, 52, 57, 59, 63, 140, 142 Henderson, Maurice  47 Heppell, Timothy  63 heroism 214 Hibbing, John: stealth democracy  82 Hicks, David  36 hierarchy  7, 20, 21, 95, 97, 215 Hilmar Haarde, Geir  183 Himmelfarb, Richard  61

Index Hitler, Adolf  128, 129, 135–6, 180 Hobbes, Thomas: causes of war  216 competition 216–17 diffidence 216 glory  216, 217 dignity  218, 221 fear 217 and glory-seekers  213, 216–17 honor  213, 216, 218–19 judgment 5 Laws of Nature  217 Leviathan  213, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222 liberalism 216 modern concept of state  213, 216, 219, 221, 222 natural rights  216, 222 passions (natural)  217–18 patriotism  13, 213, 219, 220, 222 power  213, 216, 217, 218, 219 problem of pride  213, 216, 217–18, 219, 220, 221, 222 reputation  218, 219 social contract  216, 222 solution to problem of war  216, 217 sovereignty  216, 217 state of nature  216 Holland 178 Hollande, François  183 Holworth, Robert  35 Holzer, Harold  101 honor  213, 216, 218–19, 220, 221 Hoxie, Richard G.  53 HSBC 188 Hughes, Judith M.  130 human rights  2, 109, 172, 222 humility: in democracies (democratic humility)  7, 15, 27 and Lincoln  27 and Madison  27 tension with leadership  27 Hunt Logan, Adella  111, 121, 122 Hunter, Samuel T.  52 Iceland  178, 183, 187 idealism  5, 91 illegal immigration (US)  13, 213, 224, 225–6 Imbroscio, David  33 IMF (International Monetary Fund)  189, 191, 193 Immigration Reform and Control Act (US)  225 independent sector  75 see also civil society inequality  19, 33, 95, 97, 102, 103, 114, 192, 203 inflation  181, 185, 186, 187

institutionalism (institutional approach): assumptions of approach  140 challenges and limitations  139–40, 146, 148, 153 definition 139 future of  149–53 institutional differentiation  143 institutional variation  141, 143, 146, 147, 148, 152 and interactionist framework  141–2, 148, 149, 150, 152 and leadership  11, 139–42 methodological issues  145 and parliamentarism  11, 139, 143, 144, 145, 146, 153 and presidentialism  11, 139, 143–4, 145, 146–7, 153 and presidentialization  152 and problem of determinism  141, 142 problems of equifinality and multifinality  142–8, 152 definitions 143 small n problem  142–3 systematic covariation  147 see also equifinality, multifinality and reductionism  11, 140, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153 solutions to problems of  140, 149–53 strategic analysis of institutions  15–52 strengths of approach  139, 154 toolbox approach  150, 151 agenda power  150 budgetary prerogatives  150 cabinet management  150 informal institutions  150 partisan powers  150 institutions: definition 142 and democracy  2, 10, 11 formal  54, 76 and impact on leadership  10, 11, 139, 142, 143, 146, 152, 153 informal  54, 150 instrumental public communication  9, 91, 92–4, 107 and minimalist democracy  92–4, see also minimalist democracy rhetoric 93 and self-interest  93 interactionism 149 interest groups  32, 75, 107, 167, 171, 202 intergenerational justice: alternative ways of thinking about  205–8 benefits to future generations  198, 199, 203, 204, 208 challenge of environment  203–5 challenge of public finance  203–5

239

Index intergenerational justice: (continued) challenge to leadership  12, 199, 208–10 and civic republican tradition  209 costs to future generations  12, 198, 199, 203, 204, 208 fairness 207 moral constituents  207 obligation to future generations  12, 200, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210 risk to future generations  198, 202, 203, 204 international relations: democratic advantage school  161 and democratic theory  164, 165 and elite-centered approach to foreign policy 159 leadership and democracy in  160–1 and patriotism  224 theory of  160 and voters knowledge  158 see also realism interpretivism 139 Invictus 131 Iran 188 Iraq War: elite discourse  162 and George W. Bush  129, 135 and leadership  172 and public opinion  162, 164, 170 Ireland  148, 178, 183, 187, 190 Israel–Palestine negotiations  10, 133–5 Italy  58, 142, 183, 190, 191 Jackson, Andrew  97 Jackson, Jesse  40 Jackson, Robert (Justice, US)  25 Jacobs, Lawrence R.  105, 162 Jaeger, Werner  90 Jamison, Calvin  37 Japan  23, 142, 181, 190 Jefferson, Thomas: and duty to future generations  205–6 on enlightening the people  91 and John Adams  136 leadership 96 letter to James Madison  205–6 letter to John Adams  19–20 Jesus 136 Jewell, Marty  44, 47 Jewell-Sherman, Deborah  41 Jim Crow laws (US)  111, 114, 115, 119 Johnson, Lyndon B.: and 1968 election  163 anti-segregation movement  112, 114, 119–21 leadership  109, 111, 114, 119–21, 124

240

and Martin Luther King Jr.  10, 109, 111, 114, 119, 120 political ideas  119 presidential experience  59 presidential ranking  59 and Vietnam War  163–4 Johnson, Simon  189 Johnston, Neil  64 Jones, Derek E.  45 Jones, Dwight C.: and Anti-Poverty Commission  45 criticisms of  47 and democracy  47, 48 elections  42, 43–4 leadership  45, 47, 48 political career  44–5 political influence  47 and poverty reduction  43, 44, 45, 46 judgment: and Aristotle  3–5, 79 and civil society leadership  79–81, 83 classical conceptions of  4 and courage  10 and de Klerk  131–2 definitions and dimensions  79–80 and democratic leadership  1, 3–6, 10, 128–37 and democratization of  4–6 and empathy  130–2 enlarged mentality  79, 80 ethical action  5 flawed 83 and Hobbes  5 instrumental calculation  4 and Israeli–Palestine negotiations  133–5 and Kant  5 leader selection in foreign policy  168 moral definition 135 as quality of good leadership  10 phronesis  3, 79 political  5, 9, 79 strategic definition 130 as quality of good leadership  10 tactical definition 129–30 as quality of good leadership  10 Juncker, Jean-Claude  191 Jung, Courtney  134 justice: global 205 intergenerational  11, 12, 201, 205–8 and populist mobilization  97, 98, 101 racial  36, 112, 120 social  38, 43, 48, 119 and Socrates  214 and thumos 215

Index Kaine, Tim: contribution to institutional change  39 leadership skills  37–8, 48 political achievements  38–9 political career  36–9 politics of race  38 successor to  43 see also Richmond Kane, John  12, 18, 20, 21, 22, 51, 56, 60, 72, 159, 160, 161, 165, 178, 187, 199 with Patapan, H.: The Democratic Leader 1 with Patapan, H. and P. ‘t Hart: Dispersed Democratic Leadership 1 Kansas–Nebraska Act (US)  111 Kant, Immanuel: concept of duty  5 democratic war making  164–5 despotism 165 human rights  222 leaders’ ability to make war  165 moral judgment  5, 79 prudence 5 republicanism 165 Kapstein, Ethan B.  144 Karol, David  167 Kawa, Lucas  186 Keene, Michael L.  122 Keeter, Scott  161 Kellerman, Barbara: bad leadership  51, 52–3 Followership 81 leadership  52, 61 Kennan, George F.  160 Kennedy, Enda  183 Kennedy, John F.  105, 119, 124 Kennedy, Moorhead  53 Kennedy, Ted  184 Keohane, Nannerl O.  8–9, 52 Thinking About Leadership  71, 79 Key, V. O.  162 Keynes, John Maynard  193 Keynesianism  181, 193 King, Anthony  54 King, Desmond S.  100, 110, 112, 116, 118, 121 King Jr., Martin Luther: and anti-segregation movement  114, 119–21 civil rights leadership  10, 119, 120–1 criticisms of  120 ‘I Have a Dream’  24, 119 ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’  98 and Lyndon Johnson  10, 109, 111, 114, 119, 120–1 as moral leader  136 political strategy  119 and racial equality  120 Kiwanis 76

Klinkner, Philip A.  116, 117, 119, 125 Kloppenberg, James T.  102 Knock, Thomas J.  121, 122, 123 Korean War  23, 39 Körösényi, András  51, 56, 60 Kotz, Nick  119, 120, 121 Kramnick, Isaac  202, 208 Krasner, Stephen D.  169 Kroenig, Matthew  147 Krugman, Paul  184, 185 Ku Klux Klan  76, 81, 106 Kurbjuweit, Dirk  62 Kuttner, Robert  184 Kyoto Protocol  205 La Guardia, Fiorella  118 laissez-faire see economic liberalism Lassiter, Matthew  35 Latin America  189 law of oligarchy see Michels leadership: bad see bad leadership definitional difficulties  128 and democracy see democratic leadership executive leadership  140–1 non-democratic leaders  128–9 studies 3–6 League of Women Voters (US)  123 Lebanon (Southern)  133 Ledbetter Equal Employment Act (US)  124 legitimacy (political): definition 15 and democratic humility  7, 27 and elitism  15 and leadership  6, 15, 18, 24, 55, 93, 99, 144, 227 as political outcome  55 and popular sovereignty  19, 27 and populism  15 and preservation of democracies  27–8 and technocrats  186 Lehmann Schlozman, Kay  75 Leidinger, William  35 Lenihan, Brian  183 Leopold, Aldo  200 Levine, Peter  75 Levitsky, Steven  54 Lewis, David Levering  116, 117 liberal democracy see democracy and liberalism liberal economy see economic liberalism, economic affairs liberalism: and constraints on people’s will  2 economic see economic liberalism and Hobbes  216 natural rights  179

241

Index liberalism: (continued) procedural 95 and tension with democracy  1, 2–3, 21, 179, 209 see also neoliberalism liberty  17, 21, 100, 122, 202 Libor 188 Libya 172 Lijphart, Arend  56 Likud (Israel)  134 Limongi, Fernando  166 Lincoln, Abraham: alliance with abolitionists  9–10, 109, 111–13 anti-slavery movement  9, 26, 101, 109, 111–13 criticisms of  112, 113, 120 democracy  27, 28 dilemmas of reforming politicians  110–13 as educator  100 Emancipation Proclamation  26, 112, 113, 120, 122 first inaugural address  107, 112 and Frederick Douglass alliance  111–13, 114, 115, 119, 120, 124 Gettysburg Address  91, 114, 122 and human equality  27, 121 leadership  19, 25, 96, 102, 109, 118, 121 letter to Thurlow Weed  100 Lyceum speech  112 and magnanimity  100 New York City’s Cooper Union address  101 ‘The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions’ speech  23 political achievements  120 political ideas  27, 100, 111, 118 political strategy  26, 112–13 populism  97, 101, 106 promotions of generals  19 as reformist  10, 26–7, 111–13, 114, 115, 120, 124, 125 reverence for the constitution and law  23, 27 second inaugural address  100, 106 sense of timing  26–7 suspension of habeas corpus 28 Lincoln, Robert Todd  117 Lindgren, Monica  57 Link, Arthur S.  115, 116 Linz, Juan J.  143, 144 Lipman-Blumen, Jean  52, 61, 62–3 Lippmann, Walter: contrast between leaders and citizens  93–4 democracy 160 efficient government  90, 91, 93 The Phantom Public 94

242

self-government 90 Lipscy, Phillip Y.  186 Lipset, Seymour Martin  71–2 Lloyd Garrison, William  112, 116 lobbying  76, 78, 120, 123, 188 lobbyists  76, 103, 188 Locke, John  222 Lodge, Martin  57 London 135 Lord, Carnes  62 Luedtke, Adam  225 Lunardini, Christine A.  121, 122, 123 Lupia, Arthur  171 Lust, Ellen  134 Luxembourg 191 MacArthur, Douglas (General)  23, 24 Machiavelli, Niccolò: The Prince (Il Principe) 3,  62 and republican history  96 MacKinnon, Catherine A.  124 Madison, James: ambition 202 appeal to ‘better angels’  12, 208 democratic leadership  22, 202 duty to future generations  205–6, 208 and elections  27 and extended republic  21 Federalist Papers  22, 171, 202, 208 and legitimacy principle  15 letter from Jefferson  205–6 letter to Jefferson  206 and public opinion  171 and representative democracy  171 republican principle  19 Maeda, Ko  144 Maginot line  129, 130 Mainwaring, Scott  144, 150 Major, John  58 Malloy, J. S.  166 Mandela, Nelson: criticisms of  131 and de Klerk  10, 131–3 and democracy  136, 137 empathy 131 moral leadership  136 Rivonia treason trial  136 strategic judgment  131, 132 Mandeville, Bernard: Fable of the Bees 201–2 Manhattan 70 Manin, Bernard  166 Mann, Thomas E.  60 with Ornstein, N. J. and T. E. Mann: It’s Even Worse Than it Looks Mansbridge, Jane J.  124

Index Mao Zedong  128 market (economic)  75, 77, 137, 179, 181, 182, 203 Marsh, Henry L.: as mayor of Richmond City Council  34, 35 political base  43 rivalry with Doug Wilder  40, 41 see also Richmond Marshall, George C.  19 Mason, Alpheus  20 Mason, Jeff  225 Massachusetts 184 Mayeri, Serena  124 Mayflower Compact  25 Mbeki, Thabo  137 McAnulla, Stuart  61 McCain, John  29 McCarthy, Eugene  164 McClellan, George  27 McCollum, Rudy  39 McConnell, Grant  83 McCubbins, Mathew D.  162, 171 McMahon, William  59 McPherson, James M.  113 Mead, Walter Russell  168, 169 Meier, August  118 Merkel, Angela  58, 61, 183, 191–2 Merom, Gil  172 Mervin, David  55 Messenger  116, 117 Mexico  137, 225 Michels, Robert: ‘law of oligarchy’  82–3 Middle East  78, 133, 134, 135, 199 Milkis, Sidney M.  112, 113, 119 Mill, John Stuart  32, 47 Miller, Warren E.  164 minimalist democracy  9, 92–4, 95, 98, 100, 159, 166 see also Joseph Schumpeter Minnesota 198 Miroff, Bruce  9, 101 modernism 5 Moeser, John  34 Molina, Ludwin E.  225 monarchy  72, 219, 220 monetary policy  181, 186, 187, 193, 203 Mongolia 147 Monroe, Rodney  42 Monti, Mario  183 morality: and foreign policy  172 and Hegel  222 and leadership  58, 99 private and public  28, 53 Moravcsik, Andrew  167, 171

Morgenthau, Hans J.  160 Morrow, James D.  161 Mukherjee, Sahana  225 Mulgan, Richard  54 multifinality: definition 143 example of  147 as problem of institutional analysis  11, 140, 142–8, 149, 152 reasons for occurrence  146, 149 Murray, Pauli  124 Myers, Steven Lee  172 NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, US)  76, 115, 116 National Economic Council (US)  184 national interest  11, 29, 159, 160, 170, 172 National Organization of Women (US)  124 National Party (South Africa)  132 National Woman’s Party (US)  122, 123 nationalism: American 226 definition 213 Hobbes  13, 220 and leadership  213 modern 212 Palestinian 134 and patriotism  13, 223–4, 225 Nau, Henry R.  168 NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association)  121, 122, 123 nazism 181 Nedelsky, Jennifer  79 neoliberalism  181, 182, 192 see also liberalism Netanyahu, Binyamin  134 Neustadt, Richard E.  163 New Hampshire  164 New Jersey  116 New York Times  17, 184 Nietzsche, Friedrich: the state  223 Thus Spoke Zarathustra 223 Nixon, Richard: dollar floating  181 empathy with voters  130–1 and feminist reforms  124 ‘First inaugural address’  99–100 Leaders 100 political strategy  100 presidential experience  59 presidential ranking  58 Noel, Hans  167 Norris, Pippa  53 NRA (National Rifle Association)  75, 76 Nye, Joseph S.  56

243

Index Oakes, James  112, 113 Obama, Barack: 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address 102 as civic republican  102 as communicator  106 and European crisis  193 experience 183 financial crisis  103, 184 and GFC  28, 103, 184–5 health care reform  21, 105 illegal immigration policy  225–6 impact on public  106 impact on Richmond elections  44 and Joe Biden  184 Libya intervention  172 and opposition  102 political ideas  103 populism  21, 97, 102–3 ranking as president  44, 59 reelection  59, 65 second inauguration  70 speech for ‘New Nationalism’ address  103 stimulus package  185 O’Connell, Brian  75, 87 Office of Management and Budget (US)  205 oligarchy: and civil associations  78 and democracy  83 financial 189 and Hobbes  220 Law of Oligarchy see Michels and populism  97 Olin Wright, Eric  72 O’Malley, Eoin  148 O’Neill, Shannon K.  137 O’Neill, William L.  121, 122, 123 Orange Free State  132 O’Reilly, Kenneth  118 Ornstein, Norman J.: with Mann, Thomas E.: It’s Even Worse Than it Looks 200 ‘permanent campaign’  60 Osawatomie (Kansas)  102, 103 Osborne, Evan  55 Oslo Accords  134 Ovid 212 Packendorff, Johann  57 Page, Benjamin I.  163 Pagliari, Stefano  190 Paine, Tom  25, 206 Pakulski, Jan  51, 56, 60 Palestine: Israeli–Palestine negotiations  10, 133–5 Palestinian Authority  134 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)  135

244

Palley, Thomas  188 Pantele, Bill  43, 44 parliamentarism: arguments for and against  143, 144 contrast with presidentialism  11, 60, 139, 144–6 definition 143 and democracy  139 as institutional variable  153 institutions  54, 60, 144, 146 leadership 146 parliamentary responsibility  53 performance  59–60, 143 and presidentialization thesis  60 tenure  59–60, 63 term limits  63–4 parliamentary regimes  11, 53, 54, 59, 60, 144, 146 Parodi, Jean-Luc  151, 152 Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Mexico) 137 passions  16, 17, 97, 121, 172, 217 Patapan, Haigs  12, 13, 18, 20, 21, 22, 51, 56, 60, 72, 159, 160, 161, 165, 178, 187, 199 with Kane, J: The Democratic Leader 1 with Kane, J. and P. ‘t Hart: Dispersed Democratic Leadership 1 patriotic leadership: definition 212 and democracy  12–13, 212, 213, 224–7 home 212 modern experiments  215–20 modern patriotisms  220–4 as noble lie  214–15, 221 notions of modern  13, 212, 213, 220–3, 224, 225, 226 nationalism  13, 212, 213, 220, 223–4, 225, 226 traditional  13, 213, 214–15, 216, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225 patria  212, 220 problem of illegal immigration see illegal immigration see also Hobbes, Thomas Paul, Alice  111, 117, 122, 123 Pearl Harbor  29 Peele, Gillian  59 Peele, Quentin  191 People’s Party  96 Pereira, Carlos  150–1 Peres, Shimon: and Israel–Palestine negotiations  133–4 leadership  133, 134 Operation Grapes of Wrath  133 strategy 134 Pericles  90, 91, 97

Index Perotti, Rosanna  61 Persson, Karl Gunnar  180 persuasion (in politics): definition 16 and elites  164 and leadership  16, 25, 46, 52 rhetorical 164 sources of persuasion in Aristotle  16–17 and use of force  52 Pettit, Philip  73 Pfeffer, Paula F.  116, 117, 119 Philippines 64 Phillips, Kevin  131 PIIGS 190 Pitkin, Hanna: The Concept of Representation 73 Pittinsky, Todd L.  57 Plato: civic education  90 civic virtue  91 democracy 29 Gorgias  29, 90 liberty 17 patriotism  213, 214 Republic  3, 213, 214 thumos  213, 214–16, 218, 219, 220, 223 Plutarch: Lives 3 Poguntke, Thomas  60, 149 Polemarchus 214 policy alliances: barriers to cooperation  110 challenges 109–11 cooperation difficulties  110, 121 definition 110 and democratic leadership  9–10, 110–11 dilemmas for activists  110 dilemmas for politicians  110 and feminist reforms  121–4 Johnson–King alliance  109, 111, 114, 119–21 Lincoln–Douglass alliance  111–13, 114, 115, 119, 120, 124–5 and presidential leadership  124 Randolph–Franklin D. Roosevelt alliance  111, 114, 116, 117–19 Washington–Ted Roosevelt alliance  111, 114–16, 119 political participation  71, 72, 79, 96, 158 popular sovereignty see sovereignty populism: and Burns  98–9 as challenge to democratic leadership  15, 20–2, 24 characteristics of  20 demagogic 3 and democracy  97

fear of tyranny  22 and Franklin D. Roosevelt  101–2, 106 legitimacy 15 and Lincoln  100–1 and Obama  21, 102–3 and oligarchies  97 resentment  17, 23 populist mobilization: and adversarial democracy  92, 96 anger 98 and civic education and leadership  9, 91, 92, 96–9, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107 and collective action  98 critique of democracy  97 demagogic potential  97 justice  97, 98 rhetoric of conflict  92, 96 and self-interest  97 Portugal  178, 183, 190 positivism  5, 142 see also rational choice Potchefstroom (South Africa)  132 Povoledo, Elisabetta  183 Powell Jr., G. Bingham  53 Power, Timothy J.  144, 150, 151 presentism 55 presidential leadership: and civic education  99 cohabitation  147, 152 communication with citizens  91, 104–5, 106, 162, see also bully pulpit constitutional power  146–7 and elites in foreign policy  162–3, 168, 172 executive role  52, 55, 57 inaugurations 99 and the institutional approach  140 and institutional differentiation  143–4, 147–50 and institutions  150–2 length of tenure  59, 63 and loss aversion  105 and media  104, 105 performance 58 permanent campaigns  60 permanent crisis  57 political experience  58, 59, 63 popular support of  104 and populism  97 populist speeches  101–2 presidential tools  150 previous experience  63 and public opinion  55, 162, 163 rankings  58, 59 and reform  109, 111, 112, 121, 124, see also emancipation movements, feminist reforms

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Index presidential leadership: (continued) selection process  19 term limits  63 and vice-presidents  59, 99 presidential regimes  11, 53, 60, 63, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151 presidentialism: arguments for and against  143–4, 146–7 contrast with parliamentarism  139, 144–6 definition 143 and democracy  139, 145 as institutional variable  153 and institutions  146–7 and personalized leadership  146–7 see also semi-presidentialism presidentialization thesis  60 prime ministers: and bad leadership  56 cohabitation  147, 152 executive role  52, 55, 57, 143, 146, 147, 148 and the institutional approach  140 performance 58 permanent crisis  57 political experience  58, 59 previous experience  63 rankings  58, 59, 61 tenure 60 principal-agent theory  53 principals 21 prisoner’s dilemma see rational choice theory privatization 182 profitability 180 Przeworski, Adam: citizens in democracy  170 definition of democracy  166 representation 166 rotating governments  167 psychology: behavioral 83 of debt  204 of democracy  7, 16, 20 and leadership  18–20 political 93 public culture: definition 18 and democratic leadership  15, 24 public goods  78 public interest: obstacles to  33, 202 as orientation in politics  24, 32, 33, 47, 61, 203, 208 and private interest  208 public opinion: and decision-making  171, 172 and foreign affairs  158, 160, 162, 163, 164, 168, 172, 173 and leadership  27, 41, 47, 111, 113, 133, 164

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response of leaders  55 and social movements  110 Putnam, Robert: Bowling Alone 81 and civil associations  9, 75, 81, 82, 84 Qvortrup, Matt  64 Rabin, Yitzhak  133, 134 racial integration  121, 131 Radaelli, Claudio M.  141 Rae, Douglas: City: Urbanism and Its End 46 and the impoverished city  33 Raile, Eric D.  150, 151 Rajoy, Mariano  183 Randolph, A. Philip: and Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 117 criticisms  117, 118 and emancipation movement  117–19 and Franklin D. Roosevelt  117, 118 leadership  111, 114, 116, 117–19 and March on Washington Movement  117, 118 Rasmussen, Jorgen  63 rational choice theory: prisoners’ dilemma  110 as theory of positivism  5 Rawls, John: just savings  207 justice based on fairness  207 original position  206 realistic utopia  70 veil of ignorance  206–7 Read, James  131 Reagan, Ronald: ‘Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention’ 25 administration 205 as communicator  106 impact on public  104 patriotism 25 popularity as president  59 and populism  97 presidential terms  63 ranking as president  59 ‘Shining City upon a Hill’ speech  130 realism (in international relations): classical realism  159, 160, 161, 170 structural realism  160 recession  182, 185, 193 Redmon, Jeremy  41 Redmond, John  180 Reed, George E.  62 reformers see emancipation movements Reinhart, Carmen M.  185

Index Reinhart, Vincent R.  185 Reiter, Dan  161 religion  72, 99, 222 Renaissance 200 Repland, Brenda  53 representation: arguments for  165 delegate model  209 and democracy  2, 21–2, 139, 166, 173 and discretionary authority  22 trustee model  21, 209 see also Pitkin, Hannah representative democracy: accountability 54 contrast to direct democracy  73, 165 and factions  171, 202 and majority rule  171 moderating effects of  172 transparency 54 Republican Party (US): 1980 Convention  25 1984 Convention  130 contrast with Democrats  104 economic policy  203 leadership  29, 58, 104 liberal republicans  120 and Lincoln  26, 27, 101 and national finances  203 as opposition  38, 102 power base  131 Radical Republicans  26, 111, 112 war policies  27 republicanism: civic  95–6, 97, 102, 103 definition 165 and Hobbes  219 and Kant  165 res publica 94 rhetorical persuasion  164 Rhodes, R. A. W.  149 Richmond (Virginia): City Council  34 civil rights movement  34–5 demographic trends  34 elections  34, 37, 39, 43, 47 electoral law  43 leadership challenges  33, 36 and democracy  34–49 Doug Wilder  39–44, see also Wilder, Doug Dwight Jones  44–8, see also Jones, Dwight Henry L. Marsh  34, 35, see also Henry L. Marsh tension with poverty reduction  46–7 Tim Kaine  36–9, see also Kaine, Tim urban democratic (implications)  48–9 local politics  7

mayoral leadership (1988–1998)  35–6 Neighborhoods in Bloom  37 and racial justice  36 Richmond Crusade for Voters  34, 37 Richmond Free Press 37 setting and historical context  34–6 Slave Trail Commission  37 structural disadvantage  46 Ridgeway, Matthew (General)  24 right to rule  18 Risse-Kappen, Thomas  160 Rockman, Bert A.  56 Rogoff, Kenneth S.  185 Rome 96 Romer, Christina  185 Roosevelt, Eleanor  118 Roosevelt, Franklin D.: and 1940 reelection campaign Acceptance speech at Democratic Convention 101 and anti-segregation movement  117–19 as civic educator  100, 101 impact on civic education  106 commitment to equality  17 duty to educate  90 Executive Order 8802  118 extended presidency  63 ‘Four Freedoms’ address  24 leadership  29, 117–19 New Deal Coalition 118 instruction of civic values  91, 101 meeting demands of democracy  180–1 opposition to  106 as populist rhetoric  101, 106 strategy 114 and Philip A. Randolph  114, 117–19 politics of gradualism  118 populism  97, 100, 101, 106 presidential ranking  58 as reformer  111 in speech by Reagan  25 tenure 59 term limits  63 Roosevelt, Theodore: and anti-segregation movement  114–16 and Booker T. Washington  114 civic projects  96 and feminist reforms  121, 122 masculinity ideas  122 ‘New Nationalism’ address  103 political ideas  114 populism 97 The Progressive Movement 115 Progressive Party  115, 122 as reformer  111 Rose, Richard  56

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Index Rosenman, Samuel I.  101 Rossiter, Clinton  165, 171 Rost, Joseph C.  140 Rotary 76 Rousseau, Jean Jacques: The Social Contract 2 social contract state  222 Rubin, Bob  184 Rudwick, Elliott M.  116 rule of law  2, 28, 144, 146, 188 Ruscio, Ken  12, 55, 185 Rusk, Jerrold G.  164 Russett, Bruce M.  160 Russia 129 Ryan, James  35 Ryan, Mike  44 Sadat, Anwar  135 Safford, Sean  84 Samuels, David  143 Sandel, Michael J.: civic republicanism  95–6 critique of liberalism  95 formative project  96 Sarkozy, Nicholas  183 Sartori, Giovanni  55 Saunders, Elizabeth N.  11, 159, 168 Scharpf, Fritz W.  143 Schattschneider, Elmer E.  72 Schäuble, Wolfgang  191 Scheer, Robert  188 scholasticism 4 Schröder, Gerhard  61 Schultz, Kenneth A.  161, 162 Schumer, Charles (Senator)  70 Schumpeter, Joseph: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy 165 elite leadership in international relations 165 Leaders 100 leadership  93, 107, 170 minimalist democracy definition  92, 165 voter ignorance  93, 100, 165, 170, 172 Schurz, Carl  113 Schwartz, Thomas  162 Schyns, Birgit  52 self-interest: and civic republicanism  9 consequences of  201 and democratic leadership  71, 92, 173, 208 and fairness  207 and instrumental public communication  93, 94 and judgment  1 and Kant  5 and loss aversion  105 of market participants  181–2

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and populist mobilization  97 pursuit of  201, 202 self-regulation 190 Selma (Alabama)  120 Selznick, Philip  52 semi-presidentialism: definitions 143 and equifinality  147–8 and multifinality  147 premier-presidentialism  143, 147–8 president-parliamentarism  143, 147–8 regimes  11, 143, 145 separation of powers  53, 165 Shakespeare: and Brutus  26 and Coriolanus (character)  23 Julius Caesar 26 Shapiro, Ian  10, 105, 125, 131, 132, 134, 135, 137, 162 Shaw, Anna Howard  111, 121, 122 Sheffer, Gabriel  141 Shugart, Matthew S.  143, 144 Siaroff, Alan  147, 148 Sierra Club  76 Siguroardottir, Johanna  183 Silver, Christopher  34 Sing, Ming  145 Singh, Robert  16 single-party rule  147 Sitkoff, Harvard  117, 118 Siverson, Randolph M.  161 Skach, Cindy  144 Skocpol, Theda  75, 77, 81 Slater, Joanna  185 Slovenia 147 Smith, Adam: appeal to ‘better angels’  12, 208 duty to future generations  208 invisible hand  208 self-love  202, 208 Smith, Alastair  161 Smith, Rogers M.  9, 10, 110, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 124, 225 social capital  82 social movements  81, 98, 107, 110 Socrates: and Callicles  90 good citizenship  91 justice 214 kallipolis 214 leadership in civic education  91 as moral leader  136 noble lies  215 thumos 214–15 Sotomayor, Sonia  17 South Africa  131, 133, 136 Southern Democrats  117, 118, 120

Index Southern Lebanon  133 sovereignty: and Hobbes  219, 220 of the people (popular)  1, 3, 18, 19, 62, 71, 72, 161, 165, 179, 216 Spain  113, 178, 183, 190 stagflation 181 Stalin, Joseph  128 Stam, Allan C.  161 Standard Chartered  188 statesmanship  27, 91 Stepan, Alfred  144 Stern, Eric  57 Stigler, George  181 Stiglitz, Joseph E.  184, 186, 188 stimulus package  185 Stockman, David A.  205 Stoics 216 Stokes, Susan  166 Strøm, Kaare  53 suffrage  111, 112, 121, 122, 123, 180 Sullivan, John L.  162 Summers, Lawrence  184, 185 Sumner, Charles  111, 112 Sundelius, Bengt  57 Swett, Leonard  112–13 Switzerland  56, 64 Sykes, Patricia  58 ‘t Hart, Paul  1, 187 with Kane, J. and H. Patapan: Dispersed Democratic Leadership 1 Taoiseach 183 Tate, Brian W.  52 taxes  37, 46, 103, 184, 198, 199, 203, 204, 205 Taylor, Mamie  47 Tea Party (US)  75 technocrats  183, 186 terrorism (9/11)  172 Texas 225 Thatcher, Margaret  58 Theakston, Kevin  58, 61 Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth: and stealth democracy  82 theology 4 Thiele, Leslie Paul  80 third sector  74 see also civil society Thirlwell, Mark  193 Thompson, Dennis F.: moral constituents  207 Thompson, Kenneth W.  160 Thomson, Ken  72, 82 Thornbrough, Emma Lou  114, 115 Tichenor, Daniel J.  112, 113, 119 Tocqueville, Alexis de: civic virtue  48

civil associations  8, 74, 76–7, 78 Democracy in America  74, 224 foreign policy  173 leadership in civil associations  77 local democracy  32 patriotism 224–5 state power in wartime  170 Tooze, Adam  129 toxic leaders  62–3 trade  72, 171, 180, 181, 200 trade unions  75, 76, 77, 180 transparency  7, 20, 54, 80 see also accountability, representative democracy Transvaal (South Africa)  132 Trefousse, Hans L.  112, 113 Tremonti, Giulio  191 Truman, Harry: diplomacy and war  23–4 political strategy  16 presidential experience  59 presidential ranking  59 trust: and civility  200 in democracy  22, 30 and foreign policy  166, 170, 172 and institutions  25 and intergenerational justice  205, 206, 207 lack of  7, 10, 20, 22, 83, 208 and leadership  55, 62, 84, 86, 110, 123, 128, 130, 131, 133, 187 in rational choice theory  110 and recall  64 and self-interest  201 trustee see representation Tulis, Jeffrey  97 Tuskegee Institute (US)  115 Tyler, Bruce  44 tyranny 220 Ukrop, James  36, 37, 41 unions see trade unions United Kingdom: and Confederacy  26 and Falklands War see Falklands War founding 209 and GFC  178, 185 and globalization  180 Labour Party leaders  58 power-concentrating institutions  56 prime minister ranking  58 Prime Ministers  58 recall 64 and World War II  29 United States: anti-slavery activism see emancipation movements

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Index United States: (continued) civic virtue  91 civil society  82 Civil War  100, 117 Congress  29, 84, 112, 119, 120, 121, 163 Constitution  19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 226 constitutional amendments  63, 111, 114, 115, 121, 122, 123, 124 democracy crisis  178 economy  178, 182, 187 elections (2012)  71 equal opportunity  17 fear of discretionary authority  22 Federal Reserve  182 financial sector  187, 188, 189 foreign affairs  163–4 GFC  178, 185, 187, 190, 193 housing boom  182 illegal immigration see illegal immigration individual rights  2, 18, 95, 179, 208, 209, 220, 226 leadership of ‘free world’  181 ‘New Deal’ see Roosevelt, Franklin D. Obama see Obama, Barack Pearl Harbor  29 political system  21, 24, 99, 142, 160, 200 Proclamation 26 recall 64 Supreme Court  225, 226 Vietnam War see Vietnam War see also presidential leadership universalism  212, 220 uranium mining (debate)  198, 199 urban politics  32, 33, 48, 49 utilitarianism 5 Van Til, Jon  75 Venezuela 64 Verba, Sidney  75 Vietnam War: impact on politics  121, 164 justification 168 and leadership  163–4, 172 public opinion  162, 163, 170, 172 Vinson, Fred (Chief Justice, US)  25 Violence Against Women Act 124 Virginia  7, 34–49, 198 virtue: and Aristotle  5 of citizens and leaders  5 civic  48, 91, 93, 95, 97, 100, 209, 214 and civility  200 and democratic leadership  7, 18, 27, 122 and Hamilton  19 and Hobbes  220 and judgment  4 and Kant  5

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and Madison  22 public  97, 202, 208 and self-interest  201 Volcker, Paul  184 voters: accountability to  161, 166, 170, 173 and control of leaders  12, 53 de Klerk  132 and delegation of issues  162, 171, 173 democratic advantage school  161 and elites  12, 15, 162–3, 164, 168, 172 and foreign policy  163, 164 ignorance and disaffection  56, 92–3, 158, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, 169, 172 presentism 55 Reagan 132 and representation  21 Richmond  34, 38, 39, 40, 43, 47 see also Schumpeter Voting Rights Act (US)  120 Wall Street  184, 188, 189 Waltz, Kenneth N.: Man, the State, and War 160 War for Independence (US)  206 Warren, Earl (Governor, US)  25 Washington, Booker T.: ‘Abraham Lincoln Memorial Address’  114–15 and anti-segregation movement  114–16 criticisms of  115 leadership  111, 114–16, 119 political ideas  114 and T. Roosevelt  114–15 Washington DC  22, 59, 74, 82, 103, 134, 205 Webb, Paul  60, 149 Weber, Max  80, 81, 97 Weed, Thurlow  100 Weeks, Jessica L.  161 Wegrich, Kai  57 welfare: corporate 188 economic  179, 180, 181, 182 individual 5 social  22, 81, 159 state 91 Welle, Brian  57 West Bank  133 West, Roy  35 White House  58, 84, 100, 106, 113, 114, 118, 122, 123 Whitehead, Laurence  186 Wildavsky, Aaron  158 Wilder, Doug: character traits  39, 40, 41, 42 criticisms of  40 and democracy  47

Index leadership 42–3 political career  39–40, 42 political conflict  41 and rivalry with Henry Marsh  40, 41 Williams, Michael Paul  44 Williamson, Thad  7, 33, 42 Williamson, Vanessa  75 Willkie, Wendell  29 Wilson, Frank L.  63 Wilson, James Q.  203 Wilson, Woodrow  111, 116, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124 Wirthlin, Richard  104 Wittgenstein, Ludwig  128 Wolfe, Arthur C.  164 World War I  116, 117, 119, 121, 122, 180

World War II  19, 91, 117, 136, 162, 181, 191, 192 Wright, Thomas  191 Wright Mills, C.  97 Xenophon: Cyropadeia 3 Yellin, Jean Fagan  123 Young, Iris Marion  124 Young, Leonidas  35 Youngstown (Ohio)  84 Zaller, John  162, 167, 171, 172 Zapatéro, José  183 Zedillo, Ernesto  137

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