Abstract
Political leadership has become increasingly volatile in recent times, as experienced directly by many of the leaders of both major parties in Australia over the last few decades who have been ousted by their own party. While some of these leaders have returned to power, others have faded away into history. Political capital can play a key role in the demise or reclaim of leadership and an immediate response can become critical not only in preventing any further loss of political capital but to begin the re-building of political capital towards a return to a leadership position. This study examined ousted political leaders and the likelihood of a return to leadership. Attribution theory was applied to the first press conference given by six Australian major party leaders immediately after having lost their leadership and were analysed thematically to show what the attributional causes of their successes and failures were during their tenure as party leader. The results indicate that what one says and how one says it can be important for their prospects of returning to the seat of power. The major party leaders who returned to power tended to acknowledge successes due to the collective group, while the other major party leaders tended to attribute the successes to themselves and failures on external factors, including their own collective group. The results illustrate the importance of how one handles one’s downfall in order to climb back up.
Highlights
Political leadership has become increasingly volatile in recent times, as experienced directly by many of the leaders of both major parties in Australia over the last few decades who have been ousted by their own party
To overcome the negative expectations and begin to re-build the trust and political capital in order to regain the leadership in the future, the initial press conference can be said to be a “trustworthiness demonstration” (Gillespie & Dietz, 2009)
With the pressure rising on leaders to perform in an environment where the amount of political capital is important for survival, rebuilding political capital immediately after having been ousted as party leader is of the utmost importance for any future prospect of returning to the leadership
Summary
Political leadership has become increasingly volatile in recent times, as experienced directly by many of the leaders of both major parties in Australia over the last few decades who have been ousted by their own party. While some of these leaders have returned to power, others have faded away into history. Many countries have been unstable in terms of changes to the Prime Ministership, but party leaders have generally been stable, such as New Democracy in Greece which has had only three leaders between 1997 and 2018. During the same period in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) had nine leaders and the Liberal Party had six leaders, (five of them from 2007). Walsh (2016) succinctly queries whether this is a “crisis, a political aberration or the new normal?” The issue now is if this will continue in the same fashion or not
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