Toward a Theory of Policy Leadership: Three Propositions

This paper formulates a theory of policy leadership based on propositions that relate to the conditions under which rival leadership coalitions engage in a contest for authority over the system-wide direction of the policy process and differentiate themselves according to distinctive styles in respect of which the demand shifts due to the endogenous accumulation of disappointment over distinct phases of a process of paradigmatic policy change. It both draws from concepts familiar to policy theorists and the work of economic revisionists who have sought to make the expressive dimension of phenomena such as leadership more amenable to deductive analysis.