Conclusion: In Search of a New Style of Political Leadership

Abstract

In recent years, on the basis of an array of opinion surveys, researchers have registered a general decline in trust toward political institutions and especially toward parties and politicians (Norris 1999; Pharr and Putnam 2000; Cain, Scarrow, and Dalton 2003; Dalton 2004). The phenomenon has affected all the advanced industrial democracies, although the timing depends on national contexts. Such findings confirm a common trait that many people have been observing: the erosion of political support in Western democracies. It should be said that democracy as a founding principle and a political model does not seem in danger as “the present questioning of governing often comes from those who strongly adhere to the democratic creed” (Dalton 2004, 192). However, it is quite evident that there is pressure to change institutions and political culture. In the debate that has followed, there are issues that deserve to be especially underlined because they fuel demands for some changes that, among other things, could greatly affect the notion of female leadership. I am going to argue that a possible answer to these growing demands can be found in a redefinition of democratic leadership. Some ongoing trends point to an evolution, and possibly to an overcoming, of the traditional concept of leadership. In this perspective, women leaders could be better welcomed and accommodated.