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Leadership with Trustworthy Associates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2018

TORUN DEWAN  and
FRANCESCO SQUINTANI
TORUN DEWAN*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
FRANCESCO SQUINTANI*
Affiliation:
Warwick University
*
Torun Dewan is a Professor of Government London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, UK, WC2A 2AE ([email protected])
Francesco Squintani is a Professor of Economics Warwick University, Coventry, UK, CV4 7AL ([email protected])
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Abstract

Group members value informed decisions and hold ideological preferences. A leader takes a decision on their behalf. Good leadership depends on characteristics of moderation and judgment. The latter emerges (endogenously) via advice communicated by “trustworthy associates.” Trustworthy advice requires ideological proximity to the leader. A group may choose a relatively extreme leader with a large number of such associates. Paradoxically, this can happen though it is in the group’s collective interest to choose a moderate leader. To assess whether these insights persist when political groups compete, we embed our analysis in a model of elections. Each of two parties chooses a leader who implements her preferred policy if elected. We find that a party may choose an extreme leader who defeats a moderate candidate chosen by the opposing party. Our results highlight the importance of party cohesion and the relations between a leader and her party. These can be more important to electoral success than proximity of a leader’s position to the median voter.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 844 - 859
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

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Footnotes

We thank for their comments audiences at several seminars, including Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, Berkeley University, Princeton University, University of Rochester, and Washington University in St. Louis, and at several conferences, and Melissa Schwartzberg.

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