Authors

Petar Bankov¹;  ¹ University of Glasgow, UK

Discussion

Party leaders play a significant role for the electoral performance of European radical left parties. Current studies reveal the vital contribution of the popularity of radical left politicians, such as Alexis Tsirpas, Pablo Iglesias, or Jean-Luc Melenchon, for the electoral successes of their parties indicating the importance of having a popular face on top that draws electoral support. Very limited attention, however, has been paid on the role of collective leadership for the electoral fortunes of the European radical left. Currently, the literature on collective leadership associates it with radical left competitors, such as Green parties, as well as with the historic experiences of communist parties during the 20th century. Recent years saw parties with collective leaderships both achieve substantive electoral breakthroughs and fail to mobilise enough support. Prime example for the former is the United Left in Slovenia and its 2014 electoral breakthrough, before splitting in 2017. The latter can be seen in the case of Lewica Razem in Poland that missed its parliamentary entry in 2015 only to achieve this as part of a broad left-wing electoral alliance this year. This paper aims to understand the origins and impact of collective leadership on the organisational and electoral development of the two parties. Basis for this analysis will be series of semi-structured interviews with executive members of the two parties.