The White House
There are two ways to look at leadership. One view is that leaders are born; that they possess an innate combination of qualities that cause them to achieve against all odds. The other contends that leaders are better thought of as a product of their times. In other words, the emergence of leaders has more to do with societal factors than with personal qualities or ambitions.
As with most debates like these, truth exists on both sides. New research, however, suggests that, in the context of governmental leadership, the “product of their times” argument should not be overlooked.
Specifically, a team of scientists led by Jolanda Jetten of the University of Queensland collected data in 28 countries spanning five continents to test whether people living in societies with greater economic inequality were more likely to endorse the desire for a “strong leader.” They found the answer to be an emphatic yes.
To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers recruited over 6,000 undergraduate students from universities in the following countries: Canada, The United States, Chile, Brazil, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Germany, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran, South Africa, and Australia.
They asked these students to complete a short survey that first measured their perceptions of economic inequality in their country and then measured the extent to which they believed in the need for a strong leader (i.e., “Our country needs a strong leader right now,” “We need strong leadership in order to make this society survive,” and “We need strong leadership in order to overcome societies’ difficulties”).
Examining the relationship between perceptions of inequality and the need for a strong leader, the researchers found that higher perceived levels of inequality were associated with the tendency to advocate for a strong leader.
Next, they compared these same ratings to the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a statistic used by economists to gauge income inequality in populations. Again, the researchers found that higher levels of inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, were associated with a heightened tendency to advocate for the need for a strong leader.
Summarizing their findings, the researchers state that “both objective and subjective economic inequality were positively associated with the wish for a strong leader.”
Why might this association exist? The team conducted a follow-up analysis to examine whether beliefs regarding a perceived “breakdown of society” could explain their pattern of results. To do this, they asked a second group of participants to complete a similar task to the one described above, with one important addition: they asked participants to complete a 12-item scale that measured perceptions of the breakdown of social fabric and the breakdown of government. For instance, they asked people to rate their agreement with statements such as, “In [country] today, everyone thinks of him/herself and does not help others in need” and “In [country] today, the government laws and policies are ineffective.”
The researchers then tested whether beliefs regarding societal breakdown could explain the association between income inequality and the need for a strong leader. They found that it did. People who were more likely to perceive societal breakdown were especially likely to espouse the need for a strong leader when income inequality was high.
Returning to the contrasting philosophical positions regarding the nature of leadership, these results clearly suggest that societal factors (in this case, income inequality) tend to foster a certain type of leadership (i.e., the “strongman” politician).
Perhaps the following quote by a German school teacher in the 1930’s best encapsulates the gist of the research.
I reached the conclusion that no party, but a single man could save Germany. This opinion was shared by others, for when the cornerstone of a monument was laid in my home town, the following lines were inscribed on it: “Descendants who read these words, know ye that we eagerly await the coming of the man whose strong hand may restore order.”
#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/what-data-from-28-countries-says-about-the-nature-of-strongman-politics/
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