Archive for April 1st, 2009
Crisis? What Crisis?
Finance minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen to stay away from EU meeting in the week-end due to a family occasion.
Well, if it was that important, a possible hand-over would probably take place on Monday, so I can’t see any formal reasons why LLR shouldn’t be able to go.
Going Out in Style Academically
Just to keep you awake, here are two links to articles about party leader change:
Kasper M. Hansen, Jens Ringsmose, 2004: “Når partilederen får sparket: partilederskift i de fire gamle partier”, Politica, 38/1, 78-97.
Abstract:
In the last fifty years, 26 party leaders of the four ‘old’ parties in Danish politics — Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Conservatives and Liberals — were replaced. Sixteen leadership changes were related to non-fulfillment of the four strategic party goals: vote-seeking, office-seeking, party cohesion, and policy influence. Defeat in the electoral arena is the key source of change in leadership. The effect of the change is less obvious: it tends to make things worse in the short run. Since 1973, media increasingly focus on party leaders and their ability to ‘deliver’, making politics more competitive. Hence, change of leadership nowadays results from defeats rather than exit by ‘natural causes’, the pattern before 1973.
Fredrik Bynander, Paul t’Hart, 2008: “The art of handing over”, Government and Opposition, 43/3, 385-404.
Abstract:
Historically, ruler succession episodes have been marred by fierce competition and infighting among members of the ruling elite. Evidence suggests that managed transitions also frequently fail to run smoothly. Two comparative case studies of major succession failures in Dutch politics provide an analysis for succession processes and help develop a conceptual framework identifying the specific challenges for the main protagonists involved in such successions. A comparison of these findings with cases of successful transitions explores which factors may be critical in shaping the course of party leaders’ attempts to select and groom their own successors. Several simple conditions that are often overlooked, underestimated or deliberately ignored could go a long way toward explaining the prevalence of succession dramas — and thus their avoidance.