Leadership and Politics: New Perspectives in Political Science

by Bryan D. Jones (Editor)

Overview

Few aspects of public life are scrutinized and debated as intensely as leadership. It is crucial to the welfare of nations, the survival of political parties, and the functioning of interest groups and public corporations. And, as this volume demonstrates, political leadership is both a complex and elusive quality.

In twelve provocative, state-of-the-art essays, leading scholars in political science explore the meaning of political leadership from the shifting, kaleidoscopic perspectives of the leaders, institutions, goals, procedures, problems, and traditions involved. The approaches, as varied as the subject itself, coalesce around the central question of how leaders interact with, transform, or are controlled by the organizations they lead.

Whether it’s Erwin Hargrove writing on leadership in the TVA, Aaron Wildavsky on the relation between leadership and regime type, Clarence Stone on urban leadership, Morris Fiorina and Kenneth Shepsle on leadership and public choice theory, Robert Harmel on oligarchy in West Germany’s Green Party, or George Edwards on presidential leadership in Congress, the authors provide perceptive analyses and suggest new directions for the discipline. For anyone concerned with the problems and potential of leadership in public life in the U.S. and Europe, these essays are certain to spark further debate on the question of political leadership.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700604081
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	09/15/1989
Series:	Studies in Government and Public Policy
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bryan D. Jones is head of the political science department at Texas A & M University. His books include Governing Buildings and Building Governments and The Sustaining Hand: Community Leadership and Corporate Power.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Causation, Constraint, and Political Leadership, Bryan D. Jones

Part 1: Leadership and Public Choice: Prospects and Problems

2. Formal Theories of Leadership: Agents, Agenda Setters, and Entrepreneurs, Morris P. Fiorina and Kenneth A. Shepsle

3. Leader/Follower Interactions in Mass Democracies: Follower-Driven Models, Bryan D. Jones

4. Two Conceptions of Institutional Leadership, Erwin C. Hargrove

Part 2: Culture, Economics, and Situation

5. A Cultural Theory of Leadership, Aaron Wildavsky

6. Strategies of Political Leadership in Diverse Settings, Frank R. Baumgartner

7. Paradigms, Power, and Urban Leadership, Clarence N. Stone

8. The Iron Law of Oligarcy Revisited, Robert Harmel

9. Leadership in the International System: Bismarck and Washington Compared, Manus I. Midlarsky

Part 3: Leadership in an Institutional Context

10. Presidential Leadership of Congress: The Role of Legislative Skills, George C. Edwards III

11. Coalition Leadership, Government Stability, and Macroeconomic Policy in European Democracies, John D. Robertson

12. Bureaucratic Leadership in Public Organizations, Kenneth J. Meier

Concluding Comments

13. Two Conceptions of Political Leadership Revisited, Bryan D. Jones

The Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Readers interested in urban and community power structures, presidential-legislative relations, interest-group process, conflict management, or more generalized public administration and management theory will find this work by Jones a genuine contribution to the literature that they will want to peruse carefully."—Perspectives on Political Science

From the Publisher