Political centralization and policy constraint in british executive leadership: Lessons from American presidential studies in the era of sofa politics

Despite often superficial comparisons of British executive authority and American presidentialism over the past three decades, British politics has yet to develop anything approaching a sub-discipline of leadership or executive studies. Owing to the increased bifurcation of political and policy authority in Britain, whereby an increasing centralization-personalization of politics coexists with growing policy constraint, this paper argues that British politics could now benefit from incorporating theories and frameworks developed in the American context for understanding prime ministerial power. The fragmentation of the governing environment in Britain, combined with a centralization of executive power, suggests that models of American presidential leadership can help explicate and improve our understanding of changing executive politics on this side of the Atlantic. This paper investigates the pertinence of theories of presidential leadership to Britain, arguing that the classic Neustadtian model of the 'politics of persuasion' possibly has greater resonance with British executive leadership than American owing to the more extreme polarization of presidential power in the United States. Bringing a leadership perspective to executive politics, we argue, invites scholars to pose a host of previously unexplored research questions that promise to provide a more differentiated, sophisticated and nuanced portrait of policy and political leadership in Britain than that offered by standard institutional perspectives that emphasize the strength of executive authority and thus 'black box' matters of leadership. © 2007 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.