The Personalization of Politics

The Personalization of Politics
Oxford Handbooks Online

Ian McAllister
The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior
Edited by Russell J. Dalton and Hans‐Dieter Klingemann
Print Publication Date: Aug 2007

Subject: Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Institutions
Online Publication Date: Sep 2009 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199270125.003.0030
Abstract and Keywords
This article looks at the personalization of politics, starting with a careful examination of
the evidence that leaders are becoming more important. The role of electronic media in
personalizing politics and politicians is examined, along with institutions and political
leadership. The concept ‘political priming’ is introduced, which is the process where
leaders are evaluated by voters based on the leader's performance on issues considered
important to the voters. The consequences of the personalization of politics and the
decline of electoral participation and parties are discussed in the last portion of the
article.
Keywords: personalization of politics, electronic media, political leadership, political priming, consequences,
decline of electoral participation
IN a trend that has been shared by all of the liberal democracies, politics has become
increasingly personalized. It is now commonplace for governments to be named after
their leader, rather than after the party that holds office, particularly if the party and its
leader have won successive elections. This phenomenon is often traced to the election of
Margaret Thatcher in Britain in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in the United States in 1980,
two strong, charismatic leaders whose profile within the electorate easily eclipsed that of
their respective parties. However, it is often forgotten that the earliest post‐war
manifestation of a leader surpassing the popularity of his party was Pierre Trudeau's
election as Canadian prime minister in 1968, when newly enfranchised younger voters
responded to the new prime minister's “swinger” image by giving birth to
“Trudeaumania”.
Nor is the trend towards the personalization of politics restricted to presidential systems,
its traditional institutional home. The popular focus on leaders now appears
commonplace across almost all of the major parliamentary systems, where parties once
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occupied center stage. The focus on leaders within parliamentary systems has been so
marked over the past two decades that it has spawned a large literature that variously
labels it the “presidentialization of politics” (Mughan 1993; Poguntke and Webb 2005),
“institutional presidentialization” (Maddens and Fiers 2004), and “presidential
parliamentarism” (Hazan 1996). Despite the diverse labels, the common underlying
theme of these works is that the operation of democratic systems is experiencing
fundamental change, without any concomitant change in their formal institutional
structures.
(p. 572)
Explanations for the personalization of politics vary, but one that is often advanced is the
growth of the electronic media and its consequences for politics, particularly in the
conduct of national elections (Bowler and Farrell 1992; Glaser and Salmon 1991). The
electronic media are seen as crucial in shaping the way that governments communicate
with voters and in how they seek to convert them. At the same time, party leaders exploit
their exposure in the electronic media in order to attract votes. Whatever the importance
of the media in this process, no single explanation accounts for the increasing
personalization of politics in democratic societies, and it is clear that a complex and
multi‐causal process is at work. This chapter examines the evidence for leaders becoming
more important, and reviews the explanations that are advanced to explain it. The final
section examines the potential consequences of this change.1
1 Leaders and Democracy: The Evidence

Considerable impressionistic evidence supports the idea that leaders have become more
important in democratic societies. Studies of election campaigns routinely find major
party leaders gain consistently stronger recognition as polling day draws closer, while the
visibility of minor party leaders exhibits little change (Bartels 1988; Miller et al. 1990;
Page and Shapiro 1992). However, rigorous tests of the proposition are rare, for three
reasons. First, collecting consistent overtime data is difficult, and making such
estimations across a range of countries even more so. Second, since the personalities
(and the popularity) of leaders changes continuously, observing any consistent trend
becomes fraught with methodological problems as leaders fade in and out of the public's
view. Third, the types of qualities that voters see as most important in their leaders has
changed, and at least part of that change may well be a consequence of increases in
voters' levels of education, as much as other changes (Miller, Wattenberg, and Malanchuk
1986).
Substantial evidence supports the view that leaders are increasingly visible to the mass
public during elections.2 Particularly important is the mass media's propensity to mention
candidates rather than the parties to which they belong during elections campaigns.
Table 30.1 shows the ratio of candidate to party mentions for five advanced democracies
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for periods ranging from 1952 onwards. The results show that in four of the six countries
there is a marked and consistent trend towards more candidate than party mentions in
news stories. For example, in the 1952 US presidential election there were 1.7 candidate
mentions for every one party mention; (p. 573) by the 1996 election this ratio had
increased to 5.6 candidate mentions for each party mention, more than a threefold
increase. There was also a threefold increase in Austria between 1966 and 1995, and an
almost twofold increase in the United Kingdom. The only exception to the upward trend is
Canada.
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Table 30.1 The ratio of candidate to party mentions during elections in five democracies
United States United Kingdom Austria France Canada
1952 1.7
1956 2
1957 1.2
1958 0.7
1959 1.3
1960 3
1964 3
1965 4.3
1966 0.8 0.4
1968 3.6 1.7
1972 3.6
1974 0.9 4.4 2
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1975 0.4
1976 4.5
1980 5.2
1981 3.7
1983 1.3
1984 1.1
1986 1
1987 1.1
1988 5.2 5.4
1992 1.1
1995 1.3 5.6
1996 5.6
1997 1.3 1.6
Source: Dalton, McAllister, and Wattenberg (2000, table 3.6).
Page 5 of 24
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Other research comes to similar conclusions. Evidence from parliamentary systems

directly relating the popularity of leaders to the probability of voting for a party show
consistently strong effects, although of a much lesser degree than is often supposed once
other factors are taken into account (for a discussion, see Holmberg and Oscarsson
2006). Graetz and McAllister (1987) used summary (thermometer) (p. 574) scores of the
party leaders in the 1974, 1979, and 1983 British general elections to show that while
leader evaluations had a major impact on defection and conversion between the parties,
the net effect on the three election outcomes was comparatively small. The largest effect
was in 1983, when the relative standing of the two major party leaders—Margaret
Thatcher and Michael Foot, both of whom were from the radical wings of their respective
parties—influenced the vote by about 4 percent. In a comparative study of Australia and
Britain, Bean and Mughan (1989, 1174) reach similar conclusions.3
Interest in the electoral appeal of political leaders comes at a time when scholarly
research has concluded that the way in which a voter accumulates information about a
candidate—personal as well as political—is an essential tool that enables her to make
judgments about the suitability of the competing candidates for elective office. Miller,
Wattenberg, and Malanchuk's (1986) study of how US voters viewed presidential
candidates between 1952 and 1984 found that “the overall basic structure employed in
candidate appraisals” remained stable over the period of the surveys. However, there was
a trend towards such attributes as competence, integrity, and reliability becoming more
important over the period. There was also some evidence that non‐political, personal
mentions had decreased overtime, although the authors concluded that much of that
change could be attributed to the diverse personalities of the candidates being evaluated
rather than to any underlying structural change in how voters evaluate candidate traits.
Similar findings have come from research by Wattenberg (1991; see also Huang and Price
2001; Keeter 1987; McAllister 1996, 291) who examined the proportion of US voters who
mentioned economic, partisan, and sociological factors for voting either for or against a
presidential candidate over a forty‐year period. In line with the decline in partisanship,
the proportion of the American electorate who spontaneously evaluated the candidates
along partisan lines declined from around one‐third in 1952, to just 14 percent in 1992.
Sociological factors, such as group‐related mentions, remained relatively constant over
the period. The major change was the proportion of respondents who mentioned
economic factors in their evaluations of presidential candidates, rising from 13 percent of
all voter evaluations in 1968 to 57 percent in 1992. This supports the contention that
political leaders have become electorally important in their own right, by personifying the
policy platforms of their respective parties.
These findings derive, of course, from a presidential system. Do they also hold for
parliamentary systems as well? Bean (1993, 129) suggested that they do, and provided
evidence from Australia and New Zealand to support his assertion. His caveat is that in
presidential systems, candidates act as surrogates for their parties and as a consequence
absorb the programmatic traits that would otherwise be the responsibility of their party.
In parliamentary systems, by contrast, since parties are stronger and more disciplined,
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leaders are more likely to be evaluated on their non‐political, personal qualities. In their
study of Australia, Britain, and the United States, Bean (p. 575) and Mughan (1989) found
evidence to support this proposition, although the differences they detect were not large.
As a result, Bean (1993, 129) concluded that the weight of performance evaluations on
the vote is similar “across both national and temporal boundaries, for parliamentary as
well as presidential political systems and for many different individual political leaders,
whether they have stronger or weaker images and whether they are incumbents or non‐
incumbents.”
In shaping electoral outcomes, leaders clearly matter, though by a much lesser margin
than is often supposed, once a wide range of other factors are taken into account. There
is also substantial evidence that voters judge candidates against certain traits that enable
them to make a summary evaluation about the likely performance of the candidate if he
or she is elected to office. However, much of the evidence is country‐specific, and firm
conclusions are complicated by the changing personalities involved and by the specific
events and circumstances surrounding particular elections. While the evidence is
therefore tentative, it does suggest that voters in parliamentary systems are becoming
more candidate‐centered in their voting, compared to voters in presidential systems. At
the same time, it would appear that voters in presidential systems are evaluating
candidates in a more instrumental and less partisan way. In the sections that follow, some
explanations for these trends are advanced.
2 Institutions and Political Leadership

Variations in institutional arrangements have clear and important effects on the nature
and style of political leadership, with the major distinction being between presidential
and parliamentary systems (McAllister 1996).4 Almost all presidents are popularly
elected, usually by means of direct election, or occasionally through some form of
electoral college.5 Regardless of the electoral system, presidential systems conform to
Verney's (1959, 75) defining characteristic of the type, namely, that “the executive is
responsible to the electorate.” Presidentialism generally encourages individual
responsibility, since executive authority resides with an individual who is elected to the
position for a fixed period of time. In addition, party discipline is often weak in
presidential systems, since the president's political survival does not depend on the unity
of the governing party.
(p. 576)
Among parliamentary systems, there is a distinction between systems that have coalition
arrangements, a pattern that is found throughout Europe (Laver and Schofield 1990), and
those (mainly democracies in the Westminster tradition) that have majoritarian
arrangements. Parliamentary arrangements encourage collective responsibility, so that
the executive is both dependent upon the confidence of the members of legislature and
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accountable to them. The operation of parliamentarism also encourages party

government, so that in contrast to presidential systems, party discipline is a primary
factor in maintaining executive authority (Katz 1986). In parliamentary systems, parties
frequently go to considerable lengths to retain the loyalty of their elected members, and
to ensure party discipline, since these are the attributes on which their political survival
rests (Bowler, Farrell, and Katz 1999).
Presidential systems have fixed terms for their leaders, so retaining office is not normally
dependent upon the day‐to‐day confidence of the legislature. This permits presidents
greater flexibility in formulating and implementing policy without the risk of an
unexpected election to upset their plans. In parliamentary systems, by contrast, the
survival of the executive depends upon the confidence of the legislature. The executive
can therefore be removed at any time by the legislature, usually following the passing of
a vote of no confidence. In practice, this means that a prime minister must make it a
priority to retain the confidence of his or her party colleagues and to more carefully
refine his or her performance in office, since the date when the government will be
judged by the electorate at the polls is less certain.
It follows that presidents have much greater executive authority than their prime
ministerial counterparts, and they also have more autonomy in their ability to shape
policy—though not necessarily in their power to implement it. While we need to
distinguish effects which can be attributed to specific personalities, there is clear
evidence that the post‐war operation of parliamentary systems has moved closer to this
presidential model. Like presidents, many post‐war British prime ministers have
accumulated considerably greater power and authority when compared to their pre‐war
counterparts (King 1994; Rhodes 1995). In many Westminster systems, it is often argued
that government based on collective cabinet responsibility has been undermined by these
changes, in part by the increased complexity of modern decision making, but also by the
centralization of prime ministerial authority. Moreover, in majoritarian parliamentary
systems, the prime minister now exercises unprecedented power in shaping ministerial
careers, a crucial tool in ensuring compliance and centralizing authority.
The type of electoral system also can influence the nature and direction of political
leadership, although it is difficult to measure and highly variable across countries.
Electoral systems are easily manipulated by politicians and parties since they are rarely
constitutionally embedded, unlike presidentialism or parliamentarism.6 There is
increasing debate about electoral reform in the established democracies, such as Italy,
Japan, New Zealand, Israel, the UK, and Canada; this is in addition to debates (p. 577)
about the electoral systems most suited to the wide range of newly democratizing
countries (see Taagepera 2002). Among the list of items that feature in these
deliberations is the nature and degree of linkage between politicians and voters. This is
viewed as a major factor behind the recent fashion for mixed systems, whose principal
virtue is supposedly that they represent a balance between the proportionality found in
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multi‐member systems, while preserving the personal link between the politician and the
voter (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001).7
Traditionally, electoral systems are evaluated for their ability to “represent” social and
ethnic groups. More recently, attention has shifted to the choice that is offered to voters,
the consequences of such choice for democratic stability, and in the way that voters
exercise their choices to evaluate candidates (Farrell and McAllister 2006). Electoral
systems that permit voters to discriminate between candidates have more potential for
leaders to influence the vote than, for example, party list systems where parties
determine the order of candidates. The main distinction is between ordinal systems (such
as preferential systems like STV) where voters have more choice, either by selecting
multiple candidates or by rank ordering them, and categorical ballots (such as closed list)
where voters have few choices in determining the fate of individual candidates (Bowler
and Farrell 1993; Shugart 2001).
The new democracies of central and eastern Europe represent a special case in the role
of political institutions in shaping political leadership. The autocratic nature of the old
communist regimes has been a legacy that many have found difficult to leave behind, and
political instability and economic stress have combined to influence many voters to seek a
“strong leader” to overcome their problems. This has been most notable in Russia, where
Valdimir Putin has exploited this widespread popular desire in order to centralize political
authority (Rose and Munro 2002). Across most of the post‐communist societies,
institutional arrangements (whether presidential or parliamentary) often matter less than
particular individuals and the constellation of issues that shape political conflict (Baylis
1996). However, research by Beliaev (2006) in twenty‐two post‐communist societies has
concluded that presidential systems with stronger executive powers have fared worse in
democratic performance compared to either parliamentary systems or presidential
systems with weak executive powers.
The nature of legislative, executive, and electoral institutions moulds the style and
substance of political leadership within a country. However, many of the changes in
political leadership that are taking place, particularly in parliamentary systems, occur in
the absence of any significant institutional change. This holds in countries such as
Britain, that have unwritten, evolving constitutions, as well as in countries with formally
defined constitutional rules. There has been a changing interpretation of the formal and
informal rules that govern how politics operates with respect to political leaders. While
there are instances of institutional reforms that promote the (p. 578) personalization of
politics—electoral reform, for example, or the direct election of the prime minister in
Israel—such examples are few. In the next three sections non‐institutional explanations
for the personalization of politics are evaluated.
3 The Electronic Media and Personalization

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Many of the observed changes in the role of political leaders in the established
democracies is traced back to the growth of the electronic media, and especially
television during the 1950s and 1960s. In the early years of television's development,
relatively few resources were devoted to the coverage of politics, which was seen as not
well suited to the new medium (Patterson 1993). That view changed rapidly as the
potential of television to market politics to voters became apparent (Schudson 2002). In
the 1952 US presidential election campaign, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the successful
candidate, made extensive use of television advertising for the first time. His exposure on
television is credited with portraying him to voters as a warm and friendly personality, in
contrast to his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, who refused to follow suit and appeared aloof
and detached (Barkin 1986; West 2001).
While television had an early role in US politics, it was slower to demonstrate its potential
in the major parliamentary systems. Nevertheless, by the 1960s the television coverage of
politics—and especially political leaders—was established, and television began to
influence the way in which voters viewed their leaders. In Britain, the 1964 general
election was the first to be systematically covered by television;8 perhaps coincidentally, it
was the first election in Britain where analysts used the term “presidential” to describe
the character of the campaign (Mughan 2000, 27). Similar findings showing the link
between television and personalization have been observed in other parts of Europe,
although the effects are uneven, and often contingent on the types of personalities
involved, the electoral context, and the issues that dominate during the campaign (Kaase
1994; Kleinnijenhuis et al. 2001). By the late 1960s, television was an indispensable tool
for modern election campaigning in virtually all of the established democracies (Bowler
and Farrell 1992; Norris et al. 1999).
One indication of the profound nature of the impact of television on political leaders is the
increasing importance of televised leaders' debates during national election campaigns
(Hellweg, Pfau, and Brydon 1992). The first debate was held in the United States between
John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential election campaign and is
credited with winning Kennedy the presidency. (p. 579) In the words of one television
executive at the time, “Kennedy was bronzed beautifully…Nixon looked like death”
(quoted in Druckman 2003, 563). The next televised leaders' debate was not until the
1976 election, when Gerald Ford debated with Jimmy Carter. The two 1976 debates were
seen as significantly increasing not just the personal profiles of the two major candidates,
but in improving voters' knowledge of the issues (for a review, see Holbrook 1999).
Largely as a consequence of the US experience with televised debates, by the 1980s the
idea of a leaders' debate had spread to the established parliamentary democracies. Of
forty‐five democracies that were examined in the mid‐1990s, all but four had held a
leaders' debate at the immediate past election (LeDuc, Niemi, and Norris 1996, 45–8).
Perhaps the only established parliamentary democracy where a leaders' debate is
consistently resisted is Britain.9 In most other countries, the debate is now an established
and formal part of the election campaign, the only point of disagreement between the
parties being the number of debates and their closeness to polling day, with the
Page 10 of 24

incumbent wishing to minimize the risks of a live television debate by having fewer and
earlier debates, the challenger wishing to maximize it by later and more frequent debates
(Schroeder 2000).
The new democracies of central and eastern Europe have been quick to utilize television
for political purposes. With many of these countries still in the early stages of democratic
consolidation and with fragmented, unstable party systems and voters who exhibit few
partisan loyalties, the media has exercised an undue influence in shaping election
outcomes. In Russia, the pro‐Putin state television network had a major influence on the
outcomes of the 1999 parliamentary and 2000 presidential elections (White and
McAllister 2006; White, Oates, and McAllister 2005). It is hardly surprising, then, that
across many of the new democracies, media laws and the accompanying financial
arrangements are a major source of dispute among politicians (Voltmer 2006).
Television's concentration on the personalities of the political leaders and the way in
which it uses those personalities to frame political issues and events has several
explanations. The most obvious is how television presents information to its viewers.
Because of the way in which it communicates information through visual images, it is
easier for television to disseminate information through a familiar personality rather than
through an abstract document or an institution (Glaser and Salmon 1991; see also Ranney
1983). In turn, these visual images make it easier for viewers to develop a rapport with
the politicians they see on television, and to empathize with their goals. Viewers may
place themselves in the role of the candidates they see on television, or in the role of the
interviewers who interrogate them, and as a consequence gain a better understanding of
the politician's views. For television, political leaders represent a convenient visual
shortcut to capture and retain the viewer's attention, particularly if the information
overlaps with the leader's personality.
(p. 580)
While it is tempting to see television as the prime mover behind the personalization of
politics, political parties also play a key role in the process. Parties find it easier to
market political choices to voters through a familiar personality, who can promote the
party's policies much more effectively to voters when compared to the simple
dissemination of a press release or through the publication of a policy document. When
framed within the visual context of television, the leader can promote the policy and then
be questioned by an interviewer, who vicariously represents the interests of voters,
further heightening popular interest in the policy. When the party is in government, the
reinforcement of policy and personality that television can deliver—emphasizing such
values as authority and competence—can enhance the already substantial advantages
that accrue to incumbency, benefiting the government's popularity (McAllister 1996).
The desire of voters to hold governments accountable for their actions provides a further
explanation for the emphasis on the personalities of the leaders. Voters prefer to hold an
individual accountable for government performance (or, occasionally, for the performance
of the opposition), rather than an abstract institution or a political ideal (Bean and
Page 11 of 24

Mughan 1989). This tendency is more important in a parliamentary system, where

collective cabinet responsibility and the fortunes of the government as a whole may blur
accountability in the eyes of the public. Personalization can be especially problematic in a
coalition arrangement where accountability is more difficult to assign. By focusing
attention on the prime minister as the individual who is accountable for the government's
collective performance, the public finds it easier to deliver reward or punishment, when
compared to an abstract collectivity. As a result, there is a general trend towards a
stronger correlation overtime between prime ministerial popularity and the public's
rating of government in both Australia and Britain (Lanoue and Headrick 1994;
McAllister 2003).
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4 Television and “Political Priming”

A further refinement on the way in which television projects the personalities of political
leaders is the phenomenon of “political priming.” Political priming is the process by which
leaders are evaluated by voters, based on a leader's performance on the issues that are
considered to be of importance to voters. Since voters cannot make an exhaustive
evaluation of all aspects of a leader's performance, “their evaluations depend on a modest
sample of what they know, and a sample of convenience at that” (Kinder 1998, 181).
Typically, voters focus on a small number of issues, which are systematically linked to the
leader and their performance on those issues continuously evaluated (Iyengar and Kinder
1987). As new information (p. 581) emerges about political leaders and their
performance, this modifies how voters view the leader's key personality traits. Ultimately,
such popular evaluations of political leaders, aggregated over a period of time, come to
influence electoral outcomes (for a review, see Krosnick and Kinder 1990).
Political priming is consistently important in presidential systems, since the exclusive

focus on the president provides the electronic media with the greatest opportunity to
evaluate presidential performance across a wide range of issues, domestic and
international. Not surprisingly, most research on priming in presidential systems comes
from the United States (for a review, see Kinder 1998).10 Priming also takes place in
parliamentary systems, by focusing on the prime minister, but the evaluation of prime
ministerial performance is more difficult if there is one or more opposition leaders whose
performance must also be taken into account by the public. The extreme case is a multi‐
party system where there are several political leaders, and in these instances the media
must provide a distinct message about the performance of each (Gunther and Mughan
2000).
Television has a central role to play in determining how and in what way this priming
takes place, by shaping how the issue is framed and presented to the public. Television
news executives decide whether or not to focus on a particular issue or event. Since the
range of potential issues is vast, from moral issues like abortion or euthanasia, to
economic issues involving inflation or general economic management, television must
make a choice on which ones to concentrate on. What the media decides, and how often
they choose to cover a topic in their news stories, plays a key role in making an issue
politically salient, by priming voters on it (Mutz 1992). The decisions that the electronic
media take can even determine whether or not voters are likely to have a view on the
issue in the first place. Television can imply that a leader is responsible for creating a
problem in the first place. Even if the leader is not responsible for creating the problem,
as in the case of a natural disaster, then the leader can be held responsible if it is not
solved (Iyengar 1991; Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Kinder 1998).
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Political priming by the media occurs most frequently on issues of war or peace, or
foreign policy, where the options are clear and where the performance of the leader in
handling the issue is easily understood within the electorate. Several studies show the
importance of the electronic media in shaping the performance of the United States
president on such issues as the 1991 Gulf War and the bombing of Iraq (Edwards and
Swenson 1997; Krosnick and Brannon 1993), and European studies have show the
importance of priming on such issues as European integration, where there is also a clear
choice (de Vreese 2004). Priming is obviously more difficult if the issues are complex,
particularly where they involve economic management, and if it is an issue on which
party cues are weak. In contrast, the growth in education in the second half of the
twentieth century provides voters with more cognitive skills with which to process the
necessary information, thus diminishing uncertainty and risk in the process of priming
(Alvarez 1997).
(p. 582)
Does the way in which television portrays leaders and their personal characteristics
influence the vote? There is little doubt that the presence of the visual images and non‐
verbal cues conveyed by television has significant effects on how voters evaluate
candidates. Druckman (2003; see also Graber 2001) conducted an experiment to show
that those who saw a visual replay of the 1960 Kennedy–Nixon debate reacted differently
to those who listened to the audio version. Those who saw the visual version placed
greater reliance on their personal perceptions of the candidates than those who listened
to the audio version. Nevertheless, generalized conclusions are problematic, because of
the complexities involved in evaluating the direct electoral influence of television (Miller
and Krosnick 2000). We can say with certainty that while television exposure is a
necessary condition to ensure a leader's electoral competitiveness, it is not a sufficient
condition for his or her electoral success.
5 The Decline of Parties and Electoral

Participation
Popular perceptions of political leaders are usually traced back to political socialization,
and to the experiences of adolescents in the years before they join the active electorate
(Conover and Searing 2000; Jennings and Niemi 1974). This process of socialization is
also linked to the emergence of partisanship, and across most of the established
democracies for which reliable data are available how people view their leaders is
strongly associated with feelings of partisan attachment (Miller, Wattenberg, and
Malanchuk 1986). The link between partisan attachment and leader image is particularly
strong in parliamentary systems. Some of the earliest voting studies in Britain found that
citizens' views of the party leaders were associated with the popular images of the parties
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themselves, to the extent that they were almost indistinguishable (Milne and Mackenzie
1954; see also Butler and Stokes 1974). Similar findings emerge from other
parliamentary systems (Bean 1993; Graetz and McAllister 1987).
If partisanship is declining, then it follows that how voters view their leaders will also
change significantly as a result. The widespread partisan dealignment in most advanced
democracies in the past several decades is the most profound change that has taken
place in voting behaviour since the 1920s (Clarke and Stewart 1998; Dalton and
Wattenberg 2000; Webb, Farrell, and Holliday 2002). With weaker partisan loyalties, and
in the absence of strong social links to specific parties, such as class or religion, voters
are more likely to switch their vote between elections, or to abstain. In these
circumstances, weaker voter attachments to parties should enhance the role of the leader
in both the mobilization and conversion of the vote. In the absence of party cues, voters
will rely more heavily on the appeal of the candidates' personalities in order to decide
their vote.
(p. 583)
In line with many other social and technological changes in the advanced democracies,
the traditional concept of the mass party has been in decline for more than half a century,
most notably in the Westminster systems where they first originated (Scarrow 2000). The
decline of parties as mass organizations and the increasing difficulty that parties
encounter in mobilizing the vote has often shifted citizens' attentions away from local
election campaigns and towards the national political stage, a trend that has been
hastened by the growth of the electronic media. At the same time, the major parties have
shifted their emphasis during election campaigns from local candidates to national
political leaders, in turn elevating to high office those who they believe will exercise the
maximum geographical and social appeal to voters (McAllister 1996). As a result, there is
now less emphasis on a party's policies than in the past, and more emphasis on the
personalities of the leaders who will have to implement those policies if they win election
(Wattenberg 1991, 13–30).
A further change in the political context that influences the role of leaders in electoral
choice is the decline of electoral participation. Turnout has declined across the
established democracies (Blais 2000 and chapter in this volume; Wattenberg 2002), and
after an initially high level, among the newly democratized post‐communist states as well
(Kostadinova 2003). The assumption is that declining turnout will enhance the role of the
president or the prime minister, by focusing greater attention on the leader's role in
mobilizing the vote, above and beyond party considerations. In addition, the decline in
electoral participation should produce voters who may be more motivated by economic
self‐interest in reaching their voting decision, since their more apathetic counterparts
would abstain. This conclusion is in line with findings which show that the greater
propensity of late deciding voters in Australian, British, and US elections are more likely
to be rational and calculating, rather than capricious or disinterested. In such a context,
Page 15 of 24

the role of the leader in framing and promoting policies to attract these voters may well
become more important over the course of time (McAllister 2002).
This change in the partisan and electoral context has several important consequences for
the personalization of politics. First, political leaders are now important not just for voter
conversion, but for mobilization as well, traditionally the major function of the political
parties. To the extent that voters respond to the personalities of the leaders (either
positively or negatively) their probability of voting will increase. Second, leaders now
hold their positions by virtue of a personalized mandate, rather than because of a support
base within the party (Poguntke and Webb 2005, 9). This means that leaders can appeal
to voters over the heads of the party, bypassing party factions and activists.11 Third, once
a leader is popularly elected, the personalized mandate that he or she possesses will
convey considerable policy autonomy, with little or no recourse to the party machinery
(see Poguntke and Webb 2005 for longer discussion).
(p. 584) 6 The Consequences

There is little doubt that politics has become more personalized over the past half‐
century. The trend is especially pronounced within the established parliamentary
democracies, where the character and style of election campaigning, the presentation
and promotion of policies, and the executive authority of the prime minister have all
changed markedly from what was observed a generation earlier. The phenomenon of
personalization has also emerged in the former post‐communist states, although here its
origins lie in the lack of confidence in political institutions engendered by the communist
legacy, which has given greater prominence to political personalities (Rose and Mishler
1994). While the causes of the personalization of politics are numerous and complex, it
does appear that international trends in political communications have become so
uniform and pervasive that they dwarf all other explanations (Negrine 1996; Schudson
1995).
What are the consequences of the personalization of politics for electoral politics? The
trend towards the emphasis on leaders is likely to further exacerbate the decline in
political parties, since their programmatic function is being steadily absorbed by the
major party leaders who, in any event, hold a personalized rather than a party mandate.
There may be greater electoral volatility, which is already occurring as a result of
partisan dealignment and the declining political influence of social structure (Dalton and
Wattenberg 2000). As leaders come and go, and electoral mobilization and conversion
comes increasingly to depend on political personality rather than party program, there is
scope for even more electoral volatility. At the same time, election campaigns will become
more important in determining outcomes, featuring personal images as much (or more
than) parties and policies; this is already a trend which is one of the more visible
consequences of personalization (Bowler and Farrell 1992; Mancini and Swanson 1996).
Page 16 of 24

What are the consequences of the personalization of politics for democratic governance?
First, leaders will enjoy much greater autonomy in policy making because of their
personalized mandate; a dramatic recent example was the commitment of troops to Iraq
by Australia and Britain, largely as a consequence of their respective prime ministers'
personal commitment to the US president, George W. Bush. Second, the increasing
presidentialization of parliamentary systems will lead to demands for institutional reform
to accommodate these new practices. One example has been calls for the direct election
of the prime minister (Maddens and Fiers 2004). To date, this was implemented only in
Israel, between 1992 and 2001 (Hazan 1996), but it has been considered in countries as
diverse as Japan, the Netherlands, and Italy.12 The motivation behind the proposal is to
prevent the parliamentary system from being undermined by an undue emphasis on the
(p. 585) personalities of the major party leaders, and a consequent weakening in the
legitimacy of the parliamentary system itself.
The personalization of politics has also progressed significantly in the parliamentary

democracies. With the profound political changes that will result from internet
communication technology, the next decades may see at least as much change in political
leadership as the past few decades. Since the main changes in political leadership that
have occurred are in style and informal convention rather than in legal rules, we can
expect greater pressure to reform institutional structures in order to curb personal
political authority and personalized mandates; some embryonic attempts have already
been made in that direction. But in the absence of any radical changes, the
personalization of politics will remain a—and perhaps the—central feature of democratic
politics in the twenty‐first century.
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Notes:
(1) For longer discussions of these issues, see McAllister (1996, 2006).
(2) Wattenberg (1991; updated in McAllister 1996, 291) shows an increasing likelihood
that voters will refer to economic evaluations in their mention of US presidential
candidates.
(3) See also the country chapters in Poguntke and Webb (2005).
(4) Within the established and newly emerging democracies, the major distinction in
executive leadership is between presidentialism and parliamentarism. Countries that
have had interrupted periods of democratic government often display the characteristics
of both systems, at different points in time, such as Bangladesh. Other countries have
adopted hybrid constitutional systems. Among the established democracies, Switzerland
is perhaps the most difficult country of all to classify; France is also a difficult case.
(5) An exception is Taiwan, where the president is elected for a six‐year term by the
National Assembly; the sole purposes of this body are to select the president and to
amend the constitution, although it also has the power to recall the president in certain
circumstances.
(6) Sartori has characterized the electoral system as “the most specific manipulative
instrument of politics” (1976, 273).
(7) In Italy, the 1994 move from PR to a mixed system appears to have greatly enhanced
the role of the main leaders, since the winner almost invariably becomes the prime
minister. In Germany, Klingemann and Weßels (2001) show that in the single‐member
district ballot, there is a sizeable personal vote for candidates.
Page 23 of 24

(8) The two major parties were allocated seventy‐five minutes each of free television
broadcasting (McAllister 1985).
(9) In defense of not having a formal debate, it is usually argued that scrutiny of party
policies and the competence of the leaders is best left to professional media interviewers.
Schudson (2002, 264) observes that British television interviewing style, “once formal and
deferential” has changed to being “aggressive and critical.”
(10) An exception is de Vreese's (2004) study of Norway, and Gidengil et al. (2002) in
Canada.
(11) As Poguntke and Webb (2005, 22) note, this is both an advantage and a
disadvantage: “as long as they can ride the tiger of an increasingly fickle public opinion,
they can ‘go it alone’; once public support begins to dwindle, however, they are left with
few allies.”
(12) The major consequence in Israel appears to be a weakening of the parties, and what
Arian and Shamir (2001, 706) call “the privatization of the electoral system.”
Ian McAllister
Ian McAllister is Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University,

Canberra.
Page 24 of 24

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Print Publication Date: Aug 2007

Abstract and Keywords

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

1 Leaders and Democracy: The Evidence

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

United States United Kingdom Austria France Canada

1966 0.8 0.4

1968 3.6 1.7

1974 0.9 4.4 2

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

1988 5.2 5.4

1995 1.3 5.6

1997 1.3 1.6

Source: Dalton, McAllister, and Wattenberg (2000, table 3.6).

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Other research comes to similar conclusions. Evidence from parliamentary systems

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

2 Institutions and Political Leadership

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

accountable to them. The operation of parliamentarism also encourages party

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

3 The Electronic Media and Personalization

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Mughan 1989). This tendency is more important in a parliamentary system, where

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

4 Television and “Political Priming”

Political priming is consistently important in presidential systems, since the exclusive

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

5 The Decline of Parties and Electoral

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

(p. 584) 6 The Consequences

Subscriber: University of Connecticut - Storrs; date: 23 April 2018

legitimacy of the parliamentary system itself.