Obiettivo
This project intends to explore charismatic political leadership, and the conditions that promote its successful realisation in the newly democratised states of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. It is hypothesised that charismatic leadership is characteristic of the contemporary political environment of the above countries, and therefore, determines their prospect of achieving a sustainable democratic future.
These countries are still in the process of stabilisation and are experiencing considerable economic and political difficulties. Therefore, it is important to explore the contribution of charismatic leadership to the process of democratisation and its effect on the dynamics of the transitional path of these countries.
The principal research objectives are twofold:
(1) to clarify empirically what charismatic political leadership connotes, and;
(2) to define the mechanics of its success in the perspective of further national democratisation in the above named countries.
The first part of our investigation will focus on the process of building authority by the most prominent political figures at election time, and explore their 'charismatic' realisation in practice through their narratives and various messages to their electorates. The second part of research will include an analysis of leaders' success/failure with their followers and will be studied at a grass-root level. This is to determine what motivates voters to support charismatic leaders, and how their vote endorsement develops and is sustained at and after election time
The eventual results should shed important light on both methodological and practical question of sustainability of charismatic leadership in post-communist democracies. It is expected that strong authoritarian legacies and current economic-cum-political upheaval may support the existed political discourse and, thereby, hinder the process of democracy building in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The research is designed to contribute to an understanding of the logic and mechanics of political leadership in its extreme form, and thereby, to envisage and overcome possible difficulties in relationship to the process of democratisation, in practice.
Argomento(i)
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BA2 7AY Bath
Regno Unito