The paper regards leader democracy as an adequate conceptual framework to analyse the transformation of contemporary democracies. Leader democracy provides a top-down rather than a bottom-up image of democratic political process and regards political leaders the crucial actors of the political process. The paper recalls the theories of Schumpeter and Riker, two crucial theoretical forerunner of leader democracy. It argues that both Schumpeter’s theory of disequilibrium and a modified version of Riker’s heresthetic undermine crucial assumptions of classical democratic theory and have shocking normative implications. In leader democracy, democratic elections turn to be an institution of authorization of leaders to rule rather than a means of self-rule of the people. Principals do not know enough and are not competent enough to track their agents’ actions, therefore “the transfer of power inherent in an act of delegation can cause it to be equivalent of abdication” (Lupia 2003). The paper focuses, first, on the contribution of Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and disequilibrium and Riker’s heresthetics making election into authorization of leaders instead of controlling them by the people. Second, the paper takes into account the normative implications of authorization/abdication on democracy. I.e., (1) it undermines accountability of leaders (Friedrich’s rule); (2) it makes the principal-agent model and the notion of “agency loss” irrelevant; (3) it inverts the role of the “invisible hand”. Third, the paper explores the question, whether or to which extent does the personalist view of democratic elections lean towards an authoritarian type of rule.
