Robert C. Tucker - Political Leadership

Political Leadership

Tucker practiced what he preached. Not only did he compare Soviet and tsarist Russian political leaders, but he also compared various types of political leadership in various contexts. In Politics as Leadership (1981), he argued that leadership is “the essence of politics.” He analyzed the diagnostic, prescriptive, and mobilizing functions of leadership. He surveyed “the process of political leadership,” “leadership through social movements,” and “leadership and the human situation.” He underscored that a leader’s definition of a situation could be self-fulfilling and must be communicated effectively to different audiences. And he elaborated on the key sociopsychological maxim that “situations defined as real are real in their consequences”:

The political process is influenced by many a material factor, but it has its prime locus in the mind. Not only is it a mental process when leaders learn about and analyze the causes of circumstances that have arisen, when they interpret the circumstances’ meaning in relation to various concerns, when they define the problem situation for their political communities and decide on what seems the proper prescription for collective action. Mental processes are also pivotally involved—now in the minds of followers or potential followers—when leadership appeals for positive response to its policy prescription.

Tucker sharply contrasted constitutional and nonconstitutional states, especially their respective political cultures and leadership prerogatives:

What distinguishes constitutional forms of statehood ... is that no one, be it a ruling person, a government in power or a ruling party, may act on the principle L’Etat, c’est moi . For the state is the body of citizens, together with the collectively self-accepted system of laws by which they are governed and which center in the constitution.... The result is a disjunction between loyalty to the state and agreement with the policies of a particular government in power or acceptance of that government as a desirable one for the nation.... That, it seems, is the essence of constitutionalism as a political culture; open plurality of political groups or parties is an institutional derivative of this disjunction. Where constitutionalism does not exist, even though a constitutional charter may have been formally proclaimed, the authorities treat disagreement with the given government’s or ruling party’s policies, or disapproval of the government itself, as disloyalty to the state. In effect, they say: L’Etat, c’est nous .

Briefly stated, Tucker stressed the importance of political leadership. He contended that the psychological characteristics of autocrats varied greatly, as did their personal and policy priorities and their policymaking and administrative capabilities. He affirmed that oligarchs perceived opportunities and liabilities in diverse ways and often struggled over power and policy, especially at historical turning points with viable options. An avid scholar of Russian history, Tucker scrutinized the interaction between the tsarist autocracy and the revolutionary movement. He emphasized the Russian rather than the Marxian roots of Bolshevism. He highlighted the differences between Lenin’s one-party dictatorship and Stalin’s one-man dictatorship. He illuminated the similarities between tsarist and Stalinist state-building and social engineering. He elucidated the domestic and international politics of de-Stalinization in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. And he argued that the animosities, anxieties, and incompatibilities of the “two Russias” weakened the legitimacy, efficacy, and stability of tsarist, communist, and postcommunist regimes.