Patterns of Political Leadership and Support

Political leadership in most of the emergent countries is usually faced with three major problems: first, arousing continuous public interest in a wide variety of complex political issues and mobilizing support for its own programme; second, acquiring or maintaining power; and third, finding ways to solve outstanding social, economic, and political problems.

The problem of interest in wider political issues exists on at least two levels, which sometimes reinforce each other but occasionally conflict. The first level is that of general identification with the new policy. The second is that of attitudes toward various concrete issues and policies.

In so far as these two levels reinforce one another, the prospects for the development of a realistic and critical attitude towards political issues and of getting political support for particular programmes are relatively great. But in so far as these two levels contradict one another - and such a possibility is inherent in the basic conditions of some of the societies - unrealistic attitudes develop, including, for example, religious or semi-messianic movements; xenophobic, megalomaniac beliefs in the imminence of new eras, and in the efficiency of particular formulas as panaceas for all the ills of society.

The development of such attitudes can greatly influence the type of political support available, creating a vicious circle of vain, irredeemable promises by the leaders (which only stir up mass emotion) and of rigid manipulation and control of the masses. In most differentiated modern systems, political organisation is usually carried on by parties. They are usually composed of three elements: interest groups, social movements, and more general, diffuse, intelligent public interest. The relative strength of these elements varies in different parties, depending on the nature of the issues, the leadership, and the type of support which they can mobilise.

The interest group, or pressure group, is usually oriented towards the satisfaction of concrete, specific interests - economic, personal, or organisational - being concerned with the broader political machinery of the party primarily in so far as it can promote this interest. These diverse interest groups - economic, professional, religious, ethnic, tribal - are found in most modern parties. The second element, which is especially strong in the newly-emerging states, is the social movement. While the group concentrates on specific issues and interests, a social movement usually aims at the development of some new total society or culture. It attempts to infuse certain values or goals into the institutional structure or to transform the structure in accordance with these aims and values. Its aims are usually inclusive and diffuse. It has a strong 'future' orientation, often containing apocalyptic, semi-messianic elements. It very often makes demands of total obedience or loyalty on its members and tends to make extreme distinctions between friends and foe. The development of many modern political parties can be viewed as a gradual transformation, routinisation, and institutionalisation of such movements.

The third element is what I have called general, diffuse, intelligent interest in public issues. By this I mean people or groups who have a rather more flexible attitude to both specific interests and 'total' ideas, and who are interested mainly in the 'sober' evaluation of a political programme in terms of values and concrete possibilities.

A political party has to integrate its different elements, usually through subsuming various concrete interests under more general rules or aims which may be of appeal to a wider public, and through the translation, as it were, of the inclusive, diffuse aims of the social movements into more realistic terms of concrete political goals, issues, and dilemmas.

In this process of integration of interest groups and movements, the element of 'general public interest' may be very important. The extent of this element may be crucial to the possibility of over-coming the direct pressure of specific interests and of resisting the lure of 'total' slogans and inclusive demands. But when 'vested interests' of the total movements predominate, whether singly or in coalition, there may be little possibility of flexible political orientation.

There are as yet no widely-accepted generalisations about what type of party organisation is most conducive to the maintenance of both representative government and of an effective executive. Some tentative suggestions may, however, be made. First, the smaller the extent to which any party has (or the smaller the number of the parties which have) a monopoly over a fixed public (clientele) and over fixed vested interests, so that they cannot entirely dominate and manipulate their clientele and potential supporters, in terms of ideology, interests, and political representation, the better are the chances for effective functioning of representative institutions. In other words, alongside well-organised parties, there must be strata, groups, and leadership basically identified with the political order but yet having no fixed organisational and ideological allegiance.

Such groups can provide both a background of consensus for contending parties and a public for whose support these parties may compete peacefully. They may also help in the crystallization of well-organised parties. Continuous over-lapping between strata, interest groups, movements, and parties is of paramount importance to the continuous functioning of efficient government within the framework of the representative institutions. It may prevent the development of fixed, undifferentiated representation, on the one hand, or of total divisiveness, which results when particular clienteles are completely monopolised by certain parties; and it may further the development of wider and more flexible political interests and orientations.

In other words, the chances of the functioning of a representative system improve with the capacity of the different parties, and especially of the dominant party, to integrate diverse interests in a flexible way. Within the society exist independent centres of potential power whose support is contingent on the development of such flexible and realistic political orientations.

Because of the specific historical conditions of newly-developing states, there are several special problems. First, the preponderance of traditional forms of social and political organisation may impede the development of more differentiated and flexible activities, giving rise either to direct representation by heads of traditional units or to growing conflict between them and more modern leaders. Second, all the political groups, and especially the leading parties and nationalist movements, must simultaneously develop loyalty to the new political order and allow opposition to themselves, thus possibly greatly endangering their own power.

Third, the tradition of nationalistic and religious-messianic movements makes difficult the development of interest in concrete issues and of a realistic approach to political problems, the differentiation between major political and social symbols and such concrete issues. Lastly, there is not enough trained personnel to deal with the many concrete problems, especially political and economic, of these societies.

Now, a combination of the first and second problems produces some basic dilemmas for the ruling elite: on the one hand, the contradiction between the traditional forces and the various modern professional, economic, and cultural groups, on the other, the contradiction between the tendency of the modem forces to coalesce in relatively independent and autonomous centres of power and influence, and the aim of the ruling elite to control as many as possible of these forces and centres of power.

It is unnecessary to emphasise the problems of economic development, the difficulties a democratic regime has in enforcing a rate of savings and productive investment capable of ensuring some measure of economic stability. But the conjunction of this problem with the transition from a nationalist movement to an independent state creates special problems. The goals proclaimed by the leaders often contain implicit promises to the population, especially in the economic field. Therefore the distribution of goods and services, which 'are in the hands of the government, to its own supporters becomes an important means for the elite to maintain its position and to control various other social forces. But this can be self-defeating because the necessity to spend considerable resources for the continued allegiance of supporters may cut into other expenditures.

(S. H. Eisenstadt: Africa. The Dynamics of Change, Ibadan University Press)