Personality Politics? The Role of Leader Evaluations in Democratic Elections

Personality Politics? assesses the role that voters' perceptions and evaluations of leaders play in democratic elections. The book presents evidence from an array of countries with diverse historical and institutional contexts, and employs innovative methodologies to determine the importance of leaders in democracies worldwide. Addressing such questions as 'Where do leaders effects come from?', 'In which institutional contexts are leader effects more important?' and, 'To which kinds of voters are leaders a more prominent factor for voting behaviour?', the authors seek to determine whether the roles leaders play enhances or damages the electoral process, and what impact this has on the quality of democracy in electoral democracies today.

1 - Leader Evaluations and Partisan Stereotypes, A Comparative Analysis
2 - What comes first, Character Traits or Political Assessments? An Experimental Study
3 - The impact of Leaders in Presidential and Parliamentary Regimes
4 - Personality Politics in Single party and Coalition Governments
5 - Leader Effects and Party Polarization
7 - Political Sophistication and Media Consumption as Factors of Personalization
7 - Party Dealignment and Leader Effects
8 - Between Leadership and Charisma, the importance of Leader
9 - Determining the components of Leader Effects in a Post-Communist Context
10 - Emotions towards Leaders and Voting Behaviour

Marina Costa Lobo is a Political Science Researcher at the Social Sciences Institute of the University of Lisbon. Her research has focused on electoral behaviour and political institutions. She is co-director of the Portuguese Election Study since 2001. Recent publications include Portugal at the Polls (with A. Freire and P. Magalhães) and academic articles in Political Research Quarterly, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies and Party Politics . John Curtice is a Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He was co-director of the British Election Study from 1983 to 1997, is a former member of the steering committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Project, and has been a co-editor of the British Social Attitudes series since 1994. Recent publications include The Rise of New Labour (with A. Heath and R. Jowell) and Has Devolution Delivered? (ed. With C. Bromley, D. McCrone and A. Park).