Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors: Executive Leadership in Western Democracies

✍ Scribed by Ludger Helms (auth.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 321
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

How have the American presidency, the British premiership and the German chancellorship changed over the last half-century? Has there been convergence or divergence in the development of political leadership in the United States and in the two largest democracies of Western Europe? And what difference can individual leaders make in an ever-more complex political environment? Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors addresses these questions by looking at the leadership performance of more than two dozen American presidents, British prime ministers and German chancellors of the post-1945 period. In so doing, it offers a unique perspective on the nature of executive leadership in Western democracies that takes into account both the international and the historical dimension of comparison.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Studying Executive Leadership....Pages 3-23
Front Matter....Pages 25-25
The United States: Variations of Presidential Predominance....Pages 27-57
Britain: Prime Ministers, Cabinets and the Struggle for Supremacy....Pages 58-89
Germany: Chancellor Dominance and Coalition Rule....Pages 90-123
Front Matter....Pages 125-125
The United States: Providing Leadership in an ‘Anti-Leadership Environment’....Pages 127-160
Britain: Executive Leadership from the Top....Pages 161-190
Germany: Governing a ‘Semi-sovereign State’....Pages 191-222
Front Matter....Pages 223-223
Making Sense of Complexity: Comparative Perspectives and Conclusions....Pages 225-261
Back Matter....Pages 262-315

✦ Subjects

Comparative Politics; Political Science