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The Evolution of Public Perceptions of Adenauer as a Historic Leader: Test of a Mathematical Model of Attitude Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Extract
The frequent association of memorable political leaders with formative political events is the source of the classic dispute over whether great men make great events or whether the events are themselves the conditions of great leadership. The long controversy over the role of leaders in history has often fastened on periods of fundamental political change—the creation of new states, major wars, changes of regime. Washington, Bolivar, Cavour, and Nehru are studied as fathers of their countries, Lincoln and Churchill as great war leaders, Lenin and Mao as architects of major revolutions, Ataturk and DeGaulle as founders of new regimes.
We are generally aware that such men, regardless of their personal distinctions, might well have escaped the notice of historians, had they lived in normal times; indeed each passed substantial periods of his life as a minor politician, local military commander, occasional writer, or unheeded prophet. We are also aware that the place of such men in history is the product of the interpretation—and reinterpretation—of succeeding generations of historians. On the other hand, we know relatively little about how these men were viewed by their leading contemporaries, less about the attitudes toward them of the general publics of their time, and almost nothing about the development of public attitudes toward them during their lifetime. Only with respect to the political leaders of our own time do we begin to have data which permits us to investigate the development of public perceptions of great leaders. In this way we can fill the gap in our knowledge of the complex and reciprocal relationship between historic political leaders and the members of their political communities who, in following them, gave them the possibility of shaping history.
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- Copyright © Social Science History Association 1976
References
Notes
1 Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Glencoe, III.: 1947), 362Google Scholar.
2 For a critical examination of the concept, see Friedrich, Carl J., “Political Leadership and the Problem of the Charismatic Power,” Journal of Politics, XXIII (1961), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a notable recent attempt to employ the concept empirically, see Douglas Madsen and Peter G. Snow, “Peron and Peronism: The Routinization of Charisma,” paper delivered at the World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Edinburgh, August 16-21, 1976.
3 On the rise of Adenauer as a leader in postwar Germany, see Heidenheimer, Arnold J., Adenauer and the CDU: The Rise of the Leader and the Integration of the Party (The Hague: 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 The event is discussed in Stern, Fritz, “Adenauer and a Crisis in Weimar Democracy,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXIII (1958), 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See especially pages 14-27, which conclude with speculation on the influence a great coalition led by Adenauer might have had on the subsequent fate of the regime.
5 The New York Times, April 26, 1967.
6 “Welcher grosse Deutsche hat Ihrer Ansicht nach am meisten für Deutschland geleistet?”
7 Neumann, Erich Peter and Noelle, Elisabeth, Statistics on Adenauer (Allensbach: 1962), 137Google Scholar.
8 Ibid., 38.
9 Ibid., 40-41, 123-238.
10 For other applications of this model, see G. R. Boynton and Gerhard Loewenberg, “Economic Sources of Rising Support for the Regime in Postwar Germany: An Interpretation of a Mathematical Model,” and “The Limits of Change in Support for the Regime: Further Interpretations of a Mathematical Model,” papers presented at the Conference on Alienation and System Support, Iowa City, Iowa, January 8-11, 1975; by the same authors, “Elections and the Growth of Regime Support in West Germany,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D. C., February 19-22, 1975.
11 Pages 97-99, infra.
12 Cadzow, James A., Discrete-Time Systems (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1973), 23–24Google Scholar.
13 Ibid., 106.
14 Ibid., 107.
15 Ibid., 102-103.
16 Ibid., 91.
17 John Sprague, “Three Applications of Contextual Theses,” unpublished manuscript.
18 Ibid., 22.