TITLE:
Governmental Leadership without a Political Party
AUTHORS:
Raffaele De Mucci
KEYWORDS:
Chancellor Democracy, Personalized Leadership, Populism
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.8 No.3,
July
25,
2018
ABSTRACT: This article focuses on the theme of
strengthening government leadership within contemporary democracy schemes,
irrespective of their forms of Government-parliamentary or presidential. They are, in
most cases, leaders-without-party in the sense that, though (formally)
sponsored by a political party, they manage to impose and legitimize themselves by virtue of their personalities along
with a team of loyal followers, doing without their own party and often opposing to it. This phenomenon of “leadership concentration” of the head of Government
is evident even in parliamentary systems where—according with the Germany’s historical prototype—is defined as a “chancellor democracy”. We can get
many examples of this tendency around the world in the latest ten years. The Italian political experience of the last thirty
years is assumed as an interesting case study, demonstrating the vitality and at same time the hidden risks of
that process which enhances the personalistic model of “leader-without-party”. All within the framework of a weak and partial
democracy that is defined in various ways: hybrid, dissociative, personalized-prodromal signs
of a possible step back towards a “populistic style”.