Do Party Leaders Matter?

Update: Originally posted as mine but actually Gerry’s post

Is that a trick question? Of course they matter. But the question is do the personalities of party leaders matter sufficiently to swing the outcome of an election? There is a belief that such personalities are hugely important and this is reflected in the way the media covers politics and the quasi-presidential nature of electoral contests in parliamentary democracies. I raise this question because I caught the end of Bertie Ahern’s appearance on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE last night. He was relaxed, affable and all that and has no problem dealing with the soft-focused, essentially non-political approach of the chat show host.

Then I perused the online versions of the Sunday papers this morning and noticed that the Leader of the Opposition was not getting such an easy ride.

Diarmuid Doyle in the Sunday Tribune kept referring to “crazy Enda” and Brian Cooper in the Sunday Times believes that Fine Gael’s electoral strategy will founder on Kenny’s “lack of charisma”. Both commentators were critical of Fine Gael for not putting forward convincing reasons why the people should voter for them. Doyle reckons that “the government is blessed by the incompetence of its enemies” while Cooper predicts that “[i]f the next election comes down to a popularity contest between Kenny and Ahern, put your money on the Taoiseach”.

There are a couple of other pieces this morning in the Sunday Business Post and the Sunday Independent that look at Fine Gael’s prospects based on their take of Frank Flannery’s leaked analysis. There is much to be critical of in the Fine Gael approach in terms of its performance, lack of policies and its tendency to think of sound bites first and then see if a policy will follow. The leader can take a major share of the blame. But that is not the same thing as saying that Kenny’s lack of charisma or other perceived personality defects will actually cause electoral defeat.

The evidence from the political science literature, or at least from the one book on the topic I happen to have on my shelves, suggests that it is the exception rather than the rule when leaders’ personalities and personal traits determine electoral outcomes. Professor Anthony King discusses a couple of hypotheses whereby leader effects may have their greatest impact. One is that voters may be more influenced by leaders’ personalities when emotional ties to parties are at their weakest. Voter alignment or party identification has weakened considerably in Ireland over the last couple of decades. Another is that voters are more likely to cast their ballots on the basis of personality if they are unable to discern any other grounds, either on policy or performance, for making their electoral choice. If the opposition don’t get it together in terms of motivation and message this latter hypothesis could well be confirmed by the next election.