Replication Data for: Personal Leaders and Party Change. Italy in a Comparative Perspective

Party leaders have become more powerful and autonomous actors in recent years, by developing a direct and personal relationship with citizens. As anticipated in the United States (Lowi 1985), the rise of the “personal leader” seems to have occurred in many European democracies, both in old parties and in more recently formed parties, with a widespread tendency for them to be promoted and controlled by individual leaders. Nevertheless party leadership remains quite a neglected theme in political science. Through a dataset including approximately five hundred party presidents in thirteen democracies, this article focuses on the personalization of party leadership by comparing Italy with other Western countries. More particularly, new procedures for the selection of party chairs, the centralization of power in political parties, and the new role of party leaders in the legislative/governmental arena are analysed, given their importance to such a process. The article summarizes new data on the party leaders’ characteristics, with regards to their political backgrounds, how they are elected, how long they stay in office, and whether they become prime minister or enter the executive. In this way, we are able to see how some new parties are created from the outset as highly personalized and centralized parties (Forza Italia being the paradigmatic case), while other older parties have also evolved in a personalized direction.