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.近年来，政党领袖已成为权力更为强大、自主性更高的行动主体，这源于他们与公民建立起直接且私人化的关联。正如美国学者洛维（Lowi 1985）的预判所言，“个人化领袖”的崛起现象已在众多欧洲民主国家中浮现，涵盖老牌政党与新兴政党，且普遍呈现出由个体领袖主导政党遴选与管控的趋势。尽管如此，政党领袖议题在政治科学研究领域仍属被严重忽视的主题。本文依托覆盖13个民主国家、近500位政党主席的数据集，通过对比意大利与其他西方国家的情况，聚焦政党领袖的个人化进程。具体而言，鉴于上述因素对个人化进程的关键影响，本文将分析政党主席遴选的新程序、政党内部的权力集中化趋势，以及政党领袖在立法与执政场域中的新角色。本文还汇总了关于政党领袖特征的全新数据，涵盖其政治背景、选举方式、任职时长，以及是否曾出任总理或进入行政内阁。借此，我们得以清晰观察到：部分新政党从创立伊始便具备高度个人化与中央集权化的特征（意大利力量党（Forza Italia）即为典型案例），而部分老牌政党也在朝着个人化方向演进。