Leaders and Leadership

Abstract

To say that political science as a whole ignores the role of specific leaders is inaccurate.1 To say, by contrast, that most modern international relations scholars tend to either ignore or disregard the role of individual leaders is, on the whole, true.2 Undeniably, contemplating a role for the personality and abilities of any particular leader is difficult to reconcile with aspirations to scientific rigor. In one of the rare articles in the international relations literature that attempts to address the issue, the authors break down criticisms against consideration of the leader into two general varieties. In the first, they claim that “many political scientists contend that individuals ultimately do not matter, or at least they count for little in the major events that shape international politics.”3 Yet, as was suggested in the Introduction, the claim that individual leaders do not matter is simply inconsistent with the experience of most people and must be rejected because, as noted by Robert Tucker, “people as individuals, and particularly those who are leaders, often make a significant difference in historical outcomes by virtue of the ways in which they act or fail to act at critical junctures in the development of events.”4 The opening pages of this book suggested that it is hard to imagine the Second World War and its consequences without reference to Hitler.KeywordsInternational RelationIndividual LeaderCausal StoryLeadership TaskArmor UnitThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.