On the Preferences for Strong Leadership*

This paper’s model suggests that a strong leader, sometimes with little legislative oversight, may nevertheless benefit from public support. The argument is that this support is induced as an attempt by the poor to counter the subversion of public protection of property rights by the rich, and to achieve this goal they are often willing to pay the price of the leader’s diversion of tax revenues for private use. The paper then examines survey data on individual attitudes toward strong leadership and finds their pattern to be consistent with the model’s predictions; specifically, support for strong leadership is inversely related to individual income and to countrywide income inequality.

This papers model suggests that a strong leader, sometimes with little legislative oversight, may nevertheless benefit from public support. The argument is that this support is induced as an attempt by the poor to counter the subversion of public protection of property rights by the rich, and to achieve this goal they are often willing to pay the price of the leaders diversion of tax revenues for private use. The paper then examines survey data on individual attitudes toward strong leadership and finds their pattern to be consistent with the models predictions; specifically, support for strong leadership is inversely related to individual income and to countrywide income inequality.

Polarization in society may hold consequences beyond the undermining of social cohesion. Here we provide the first evidence highlighting the power of perceived moral polarization in society to drive support for strong leaders. Across two studies and four samples drawn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States (N = 1,664), we found evidence linking perceived moral polarization with perceived anomie in society (defined as the perceived breakdown of social fabric and leadership) and with the rise in support for leaders with both a conservative/authoritarian and progressive/democratic style. Specifically, via the perceived breakdown in social fabric, heightened moral polarization predicted increased support for conservative/authoritarian style strong leaders, and via the perceived breakdown of leadership, increased support for progressive/democratic style strong leaders. Experimentally, using a fictionalized society paradigm, we then established causal links between moral polarization and the desire to elect conservative/authoritarian and progressive/democratic strong leaders. The current research is the first to identify the potential political consequences of heightened perceived moral polarization in two‐party liberal democracies and contributes to the growing body of research highlighting the role of societal factors in driving support for strong leaders.

This article highlights some of the most worrisome proliferation issues in Asia, in particular in light of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in May 1998, and discusses their implications for regional security and stability. It suggests that the current non-proliferation regimes are hampered in carrying out their mandates effectively because they face three sets of serious challenges in the post-Cold War security environment: The growing number of suppliers and the difficulties in norm building, globalization and technological diffusion, and the inadequacy of institutional responses and reforms. It argues that for the existing non-proliferation regimes to be more effective, strong and skilled political leadership, the necessary institutional reforms, and institution building are required-More importantly, efforts must also be made to develop fair, effective, and verifiable mechanisms under strong political leadership and through multilateral channels both to deal with the immediate proliferation concerns and to address the underlining security, commercial, and political causes of weapons proliferation. A successful strategy should therefore be one that is both holistic in approach (i.e., addressing symptoms and causes) and synergetic in execution (i.e., better coordination of efforts and policies in global, multilateral, and domestic contexts).

How the political leaders can commit themselves over the promises to abolish a specific kind of armament? By which means can they force the domestic actors or stakeholders to change their behavior?The international rules to control arms increasingly require qualified administrative management, and implementation of these rules significantly affect the interests of the domestic organizations or groups such as the military, the arms producers or the local governments and residents. So, compliance can be discussed as a matter of attaining cooperation among these domestic actors.This article examines the key sources of variation in the level of compliance by tracing the political process of the chemical weapons destruction in Russia. The recent three leaders (Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris El'tsin and Vladimir Putin) worked with different external enthusiasm and domestic political energy on the problem. This paper concludes that the most significant and direct source was the deliberate and effective handling by the leader, though the institutional changes also had limited impact on the situation.Compliance was poor, when a large majority of political energy went into bargaining with the local governments over the compensation for accepting the construction of destruction facilities, and when external commitment lacked political decisiveness to proceed against domestic resistance. Compliance was achieved, though with delay, when strong political leadership was exercised over budget allocation and over establishment of effective mechanisms of control over the local governments and the destruction troops. The case deserves serious attention, because it illustrates us that the institutional changes must be followed by strong and effective political leadership.

It is often said that strong political leadership is necessary for economic development. One look at the Third World suggests that strong political leadership may be good or bad for economic development. Almost everything depends on what sort of political leadership and what sort of economic development. This article seeks to clarify the issues by looking more closely at these two concepts. It distinguishes three functions of leadership—authority, inspiration and management. It then examines the relevance of political leadership in these three roles to the ends (objectives) and means (strategies) of economic development. It concludes that much depends on the circumstances of different countries, and that this applies not only to the desirability but also to the limitations of strong political leadership. In particular, except in the early years of mass mobilisation and fervour following a revolution, leadership which takes the form of central planning and detailed bureaucratic regulation of the e...

A growing body of evidence suggests that support for a strong non-democratic leader is driven, in part, by low economic development and economic inequality at the country level, and low income and interpersonal trust at the individual level. In the current research, we tested the hypothesis that although such a pattern predicts support for a strong non-democratic leader in democracies, it should produce decreased support for a strong non-democratic leader in non-democracies (where the presence of such leaders is the political status quo). Using three waves of World Values Survey data (2005-2020), as predicted, we found that in democracies, low economic development, high inequality, and low interpersonal trust predicted support for a strong non-democratic leader. However, in non-democracies, support for a strong non-democratic leader was higher in more economically developed countries and among individuals with higher social trust. These results contradict modernization theory’s proposition that development promotes support for democratic rule and suggest that economic development reinforces support for the existing political system.

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In many parts of the world, education change might have the right goals--better outcomes for students, including students from groups that had previously lagged behind average achievement levels. But many of these efforts have used wrongheaded approaches or failed to pay enough attention to what we are learning about effective large-scale change. In particular, many strategies place too much emphasis on test results as the main way to drive improvement. In contrast, Ontario's education change strategy embodies vital principles, grounded in research, that are associated with meaningful and sustainable change. Changes are respectful of professional knowledge and practice, and their main elements are coherent and aligned at the provincial, district, and school levels. Key partners--the provincial Ministry of Education, school boards, schools, and provincial and local organizations of teachers, principals, and others--work together. Change strategies are comprehensive and emphasize building capacity for improvement through professional learning, strong leadership, necessary resources, and effective engagement of parents and the broader community. Great emphasis is placed on public communication so that people know what is happening and support the schools. Most of all, there has been a relentless focus over several years on the same basic strategy. We believe this is an example of large-scale change that is effective and sustainable. Ontario has about 2 million children in its public education system. The provincial government provides essentially 100% of the funds for all four sets of locally elected school boards, reflecting Canada's constitutional requirement for public support of minority-language and Catholic schools. School boards (the equivalent of a school district in the U.S.) range in size from a few hundred students to about 250,000 in the Toronto District School Board. The province has nearly 5,000 schools extending across 400,000 square miles--the size of the eight southeastern states put together. The average elementary school has about 350 students; the average secondary school, fewer than 1,000. Ontario also has a very diverse enrollment, with 27% of the population born outside of Canada and 20% visible minorities. Ontario's 120,000 or so teachers and most of its support staff are unionized. There is a mandatory provincial curriculum. Thus, education in Ontario has all the challenges one might anticipate--large urban areas and very remote rural areas, significant urban and rural poverty levels, high levels of population diversity, areas with sharply dropping enrollment and others with rapid growth. During the 1990s, Ontario education was troubled. The province had significant labor disruption, lots of public dissatisfaction, increasing private school enrollment, and poor morale leading to high teacher turnover. However, in 2003, a new government was elected with the renewal of public education as one of its highest priorities. A premier with a deep commitment to education and talented ministers brought strong political leadership to bear. The Ontario education strategy that began in 2003 has two main components: * A commitment to improve elementary school literacy and numeracy outcomes, and * A commitment to increase high school graduation rates. These priorities were chosen because public confidence in and support for education depend on demonstrated achievement of good outcomes for students. These core goals are supported by a large-scale strategy based substantially on Michael Fullan's work. (1) The core strategies are also complemented by a range of other initiatives. Some of these initiatives, such as strengthening school leadership or renewing curricula, are necessary to support the key goals. Of particular importance was a commitment to reduce class sizes in the primary grades. Other initiatives, including provincial support for negotiating four-year collective agreements with all Ontario teachers in 2005, were necessary so that all parties could focus on improving student outcomes instead of being distracted by labor issues. …

India needs a sustainable citizen-centric e-governance model along with change management, effective project design and monitoring to facilitate information and services in a hassle free manner. This paper presents an e-Governance service delivery model based on its critical success factors. This model shows the mutual influences of these factors which influence other success factors and to identify those factors which are most influenced by others ('Dependent Success Factors'). The Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) technique has been used to evolve mutual relationships between these factors. 'Strong political leadership' and 'change management' are found to have significant effect and are able to maintain the sustainability of the e-governance project.

Survey experiments are an increasingly popular tool for causal inference in political science. We argue that an under-utilized application for survey experiments is nomological/construct validation, where researchers evaluate whether indicators really measure systematized concepts. We demonstrate this approach by examining respondents’ preferences for autocratic leadership by asking whether those that say they want strong leaders who bend the rules or ignore parliament and elections really want undemocratic leadership in the context of an experimental task. While approaches that measure construct validity with observational data support the validity of these measures, our experimental data tell a different story. We find that respondents – even those who indicate a preference for “strong” leaders in survey questions – are less likely to choose hypothetical candidates who ignore democratic institutions and refuse to compromise with other parties. Our study contributes to the literatures on survey measurement and support for democracy and authoritarian values in established democracies.

Strong leadership in public sector innovation can empower governments to address community challenges in new ways in light of the challenges posed by the global coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus management policy, pandemic responses, needs, and options are reflected in various Asian countries in respective published literature, but a summarized synthesis is not available. Using a systematic review approach (PRISMA), this study has analyzed the role of leadership in public sector innovation in COVID-19 management and synthesized 23 articles from 23 different Asian countries. In the light of available data, public sector innovation (PSI) and the role played by the leadership of each country' have been found to be largely inter-dependent. The current review provides a cross-section of the ongoing nature of the pandemic, as management responses and trend data in the countries are still emerging or evolving. Additionally, our study contributes a current state report regarding the barriers facing the leadership of Asian countries in mitigating the global pandemic through PSI. Our study found that a strong political leadership presence combined with a technocratic approach and a highly-skilled public sector workforce, could lead to more tremendous success in managing the outbreak. Furthermore, religious leadership was also found to have a potentially significant role in COVID-19 management strategies.

The rule of a strong leader above the law was found acceptable to a certain extent among 52 per cent of ESS Round 10 respondents from 30 European countries. Literature suggests that support for a strong leader is driven by individual and political factors, and individual and societal threats. The effect of individual factors and individual threats on willingness to submit to a strong leader supports the plausibility of the radicalising thesis. Adherence to strong leaders is affected by authoritarian upbringing, enhanced by lower education, ageing, economic and physical unsafety, and marginalisation. Political factors, however, are equally important. Our research confirmed that individuals extremely dissatisfied with democracy lean towards strong leaders. Nevertheless, satisfaction with democracy does not preclude a tendency to authoritarian submission. Party de-alignment, electoral apathy, and the authoritarian legacy create a political environment favourable to tendencies to authoritarian submission.

Schistosomiasis control in China has always been conducted with strong political leadership and support at the highest level of government [1] [...]

The rise of authoritarian-style strong leaders in democracies has prompted scholars to question the change in public support for democracy. However, existing studies have often misunderstood this shift by erroneously equating support for authoritarian strong leaders with a rejection of democracy. They thus fail to recognize the growing public support for both, a conception of democracy termed guardianship democracy. This conception reconceptualizes democracy, viewing strong leaders as necessary for the effective functioning of democracy. By differentiating these two distinct supports for authoritarian-style strong leadership in democracies – authoritarianism and guardianship democracy, we reexamine the impact of factors believed to increase public support for authoritarian leadership. Our analysis, utilizing data from the World Values Survey spanning from Wave 3 to Wave 7, reveals that authoritarianism and guardianship democracy supporters share several common factors that bolster their political convictions. However, two notable differences emerge. First, higher confidence in the elected government and political parties is only associated with guardianship democracy supporters. Second, lower trust in parliament is associated with authoritarianism supporters, but not with guardianship democracy supporters.