Three Faces of Political Leadership Possible Interpretations for Leadership in Democracy

Perhaps the events of our days – the European migrant crisis, the Brexit referendum or the election of Donald Trump to the presidency – have further strengthened our common belief that there is an irreconcilable tension between democracy and leadership. Strong and populist leaders raise our fears again and again about the weakening of the democratic system and self-government. Our intuition tells us that we must choose between more leadership or more democracy, but as citizens we expect leaders to be both: effective and ethical/democratic. The question –as several studies (Kane-Patapan 2012, 2014; Kane et al. 2009; Keohane 2016; Ruscio 2004; Teles 2015; Weber 2010; Wren 2007) have pointed out– is not that whether leadership is necessary for the functioning of democracy or not, but what kind of leadership we consider to be indispensable. Thomas Wren (2007) argues that democracy and leadership are closely related social and historical constructions: “[i]f democracy is ‘a unique system for organizing relations between rulers and the ruled’, and leadership is ‘an influence relation among leaders and followers that facilitates the accomplishment of group or societal objectives’, the leadership process in a democracy might be viewed as simply democracy at work.” (Wren 2007:2) Thus, leadership in democracy is a socially constructed concept, but still a reality, that must provide solutions for two crucial dilemmas: (1) What should the good (effective or/and ethical) leadership be like? (2) What should the right relationship between leaders and followers be like? Our answers depend heavily on what kind of democracy we want to defend and realize or what kind of leadership is compatible with it. Therefore in this study we will reveal the implicit leadership theories of three main democratic theories (Pakulski and Körösényi 2012): the deliberative-participatory - (Rawls, Habermas), the aggregative-pluralist - (Downs, Dahl) and the leader democracy (Weber, Schumpeter). These theoretical frameworks draw three completely different interpretations of democratic leadership by providing different answers to the question of good leadership and the right relationship between leaders and followers. By linking democracy and leadership theories and providing analytical framework, we strive to determine the possible constructions of leadership in democracy and widen the field in which we could think about democracy and leadership. From this perspective we will argue that “strong” leadership and “strong” democracy are not only conceptually compatible but also necessarily dependent on each other. However, I use empirical cases only to illustrate these implicit leadership theories, these concepts could serve as heuristic devices to understand real life cases such as the democratic leadership articulated by Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Angela Merkel or Viktor Orbán.