Political Leadership, Parties and Citizens

Jean Blondel was Professor and is now Professorial Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at European University Institute, Italy. He founded the Department of Government at the University of Essex in 1964 and co-founded the European Consortium of Political Research. His many publications include (as co-editor) The Nature of Party Government: a comparative European perspective; Cabinets in Eastern Europe; and (as co-author) Political Cultures in Asia and Europe (also published by Routledge). Jean-Louis Thiebault is Professor Emeritus and former director of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Lille, France. He is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Political Research. His many publications include (as co-editor with Jean Blondel) The Profession of Government Minister in Western Europe.

• Part 1: Personalisation of Leaders and Citizens-Party Relationships 2. The Problems Posed by the ‘Social Cleavages’ Analysis of Parties 3. Types of Personal Relationships among Leaders, their Parties and the Citizens of these Parties 4. The Psychological Bases of the Relationship between Citizens and Parties and the Role of Leaders 5. Parties and Personalised Leaders: Pre-Existing Parties and New Parties. A Preliminary General Survey 6. A Prospective Methodology for the Analysis of the Links between Leaders, Parties and Citizens Part 2: Case Studies of Party Personalisation of Leadership 7. Introduction: The Need to Examine Specific Aspects of the Impact of Party Personalisation by Means of Case-Studies 8. Great Britain - Did Party Personalisation of Leadership Save the British Two-Party System? 9. France - The Personalisation of Leadership and French Political Parties 10. Italy 11. Poland 12. Japan - The Personalisation of Politics: Koizumi and Japanese Politics 13. Thailand - The Personalisation of the Party Leader: Thaksin, Parties and Thailand