Abstract
This chapter is dedicated to the Serbian case—a state that is often described as a partocracy, due to the high influence of political parties, in political as well as everyday life. Serbia is also a state with strong influence from prominent leaders, from all sides of the political space. Due to a weakly institutionalized party system and non-consolidated democracy, Serbia is a good example of a society with structural conditions for highly influential leaders and their ability to greatly (re)shape societies and politics. This chapter analyzes two important leaders—Boris Tadić and Aleksandar Vučić—and their influence on the parties they led as well as society in general. It examines whether their personality traits can be related to the success or failure of their parties, and to what extent their personalities shaped their parties and policies. It also investigates whether different ideological profiles of leaders and voters lead to different political outcomes in similar circumstances.
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Notes
- 1.
Jovanović was later excluded from the party, because the DS statute does not recognise factions (Stojiljković & Spasojević, 2016).
- 2.
The Serbian government works on a ‘one man-one vote’ principle, so the number of ministries can also be extremely important for coalition agreements and very often can produce weak prime ministers that do not control the government in a full capacity.
- 3.
Tadić used a legal loophole and claimed that the first mandate was under a different Serbian constitution, while Serbia was a part of state union with Montenegro.
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Spasojević, D. (2020). Rising Expectations and Centralizing Power: Party Leaders in Serbia. In: Gherghina, S. (eds) Party Leaders in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32025-6_10
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