1. HOW MUCH DOES POLITICAL LEADERSHIP MATTER?
What is statecraft and how relevant are statesmen in its pursuit? And why doesn’t political science study leadership (“agency”) much? Example: realism vs. comparative politics (structuralism, and social forces, and institutionalism) vs. political psychology
Most important political thinkers (except for Marx) have thought strong, morally-driven, visionary leaders are really important (i.e., “transformational rather than transactional”) are important, so why do leaders matter so much less in the advanced democracies than elsewhere?
Why do leaders in general seem to matter a whole bunch less than they used to?: Democratization, technology, institutional learning, cultural change
Some leadership terms you should know: Dictators vs. tyrants vs. totalitarians, demagogues/populists, modernizing tyrants, citizen-leaders, figureheads, “heads of government” vs “heads of state,” PMs vs. presidents…
What’s the difference between a “delegate” and a “trustee”? What kind of leaders are best? Technocrats and politicos: Which is better?

2. WHEN DO POLITICAL LEADERS MATTER?
James McGregor Burns/Nye: Transformational (necessary & mostly sufficient for outcomes) vs. transactional (outcome benders) leaders
As Nye points out, some politicians have an inspirational (it looks like transformational) “style” but pursue incremental or SQ objectives, while other pols may show a transactional “style” while pursuing transformational objectives (Deng Xioaping vs. Mao Zedong)
There are several factors that matter in how much autonomous power leaders will have:
Institutional place and actual powers (foreign vs. domestic presidencies)
Crises allow for openings as do where a system is in its historical cycle (“wave” elections)
The selectorate: Who, its openness to change, what it requires with respect to leader initiative, its acceptance for and frequency with which it evaluates failure (two terms pushes presidents to be ambitious, but perhaps too attentive to historical legacy)

3. WHEN DO POLITICAL LEADERS MATTER?
What’s going on in leader’s head matters a lot, too.
The way s/he thinks:
cognitive style (openness, complexity),
primary motivation (achievement, affiliation, or power) ,
world view (operational code), and
traits (e.g. risk, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, emotional stability)
Personality (Problematic types: Narcissism, paranoia, obsessive compulsive)
Mukunda: At least in the US and Britain: How much previous experience a politician has will strongly impact their willingness to be transformational… The more experience, the less likely to think and do radical things.
How does that play out in the US? Next slide….

4. EXPERIENCE AND PRESIDENTIAL GREATNESS- Top 1/2

5. EXPERIENCE AND PRESIDENTIAL GREATNESS- Bottom

6. WHAT MAKES SOME US PRESIDENTS BETTER THAN OTHERS?
What makes a “great” president?
Context and setting
The constitutional presidency, party politics, and changes over time
Stephen Skowronek’s notion of “political time”
Presidential staffs: Gatekeepers, groupthink
Institutional cultures/autonomy, SOPs, and leadership choices
Bureaucratic politics
Does the individual president matter?
What kind of leader does our electoral system produce?
James David Barber’s work on presidential character: active/passive; pos./negative
Richard Neudstadt’s ideas about “political capital”
Jeff Tullis’s “rhetorical president”
But again, remember Nye’s caution that transactional leaders can be better.