Heir Apparent Prime Ministers in Westminster Democracies

Promise and Performance

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6265721
AutoresLudger Helms (0000-0002-8634-9267, Universität Innsbruck, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen55
Número2
Páginas260-282
Fecha de publicación2020-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGovernment and Opposition (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0017-257X • E-ISSN: 1477-7053
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/gov.2018.22
OpenAlexW2891482158
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas41

While the grand narratives of political leaders and leadership in parliamentary democracies tend to centre on victorious campaigners, prime ministers ‘inheriting’ the office from their predecessor between two parliamentary elections are a widespread occurrence in constitutional practice. Focusing on four Westminster democracies (Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), this article inquires how such heirs apparent have fared in terms of prime ministerial performance. Although in light of their experience, expertise and public recognition, heir apparent prime ministers can be, and have been, considered to be particularly well placed to succeed, when eventually securing the most powerful political office, most of them have actually been conspicuous under-performers. The single most important and strongly counter-intuitive finding of an empirical investigation of different prime ministers is that extensive experience in government, both in terms of duration and diversity of ministerial offices held, seems to correlate more with failed rather than particularly successful premierships

Diversity (politics · Government (linguistics · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Prime (order theory · Prime minister · Sociology · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Law · Mathematics · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Political Systems and Governance · Public Administration