This book studies political leadership at the local level, based on data from a survey of the mayors of cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants in 29 European countries carried out between 2014 and 2016. The book compares these results with those of a similar survey conducted ten years ago. From this comparative perspective, the book examines how to become a mayor in Europe today, the attitudes of these politicians towards administrative and territorial reforms, their notions of democracy, their political priorities, whether or not party politicization plays a role at the municipal level, and how mayors interact with other actors in the local political arena. This study addresses students, academics and practitioners concerned at different levels with the functioning and reforms of the municipal level of local government.

The EU's pluralistic, nonhierarchical system of multilevel governance lacks clear structures of both government and opposition. According to the EU treaties, the presidency of the European Commission is thus not explicitly expected to exercise political leadership. However, the position cannot effectively be exercised without any demonstration of such leadership due to its many leadership functions. Examining this curious mix of strong political demands, weak institutional powers, and need for political leadership, this book systematically analyses the political leadership performance of the presidents of the European Commission throughout the process of European integration. The basic argument is that Commission presidents matter not only in the process of European integration, but that their impact varies according to how the different incumbents deal with the institutional structure and the situational circumstances, and thus their available strategic choices. The primary research question is thus, What makes political leadership in European governance successful and to what extent (and why) do Commission presidents differ in their leadership performance? In addressing this question, this book departs from existing research on EU leadership, which has to date often analysed either the EU's institutional structure and its potential for leadership or mainly focused on only the most recent incumbents in case study analyses. Focusing on the multiterm European Commission presidents Walter Hallstein, Jacques Delors, and Jos� Manuel Barroso, this book conceptualizes their political leadership as a performance, and thus systematically analyzes their agenda-setting, mediative-institutional, and public outreach performance over the entire course of their presidential terms.

Since its creation in 1974, the European Council has evolved from an informal meeting of presidents and prime ministers, resembling a cross between a society gathering and a diplomatic conclave, to become a full EU institution in its own right and the Union's supreme political authority, driving its strategy and resolving its crises. Nothing of any significance in the Union can now be set in motion without its consent, nor accomplished without its support. This book tells the story of how this came about. Individual chapters describe landmark meetings of the European Council, providing a detailed account of what went on at each summit, evoking the atmosphere and tensions and drawing out the achievements and longer-term significance. As well as high-level politics and the great issues of the European project such as enlargement to the East, treaty reform and the creation of the single currency, the story also involves the clash of strong personalities, sub-plots and moments of high drama. The authors are serving or former senior EU civil servants who have all been closely involved in preparing and attending European Councils. Very few officials have such intimate access. They therefore write as first-hand witnesses of events as they happened, offering new perspectives and insights. 'National Leaders and the Making of Europe is an important book. Written by insiders who also have the bigger picture in mind, it brings selected political moments in Europe's tumultuous history back to life.' Herman Van Rompuy

This book explores the relationship between the personality of political leaders, its interaction with top leadership positions and its impact on the respective parties' electoral performance and organization. It focuses on the less-investigated region of Eastern Europe and includes chapters on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. Each chapter compares and contrasts two party leaders with at least two terms in office between 1991 and 2019. The book applies systematically a common theoretical and methodological framework across leaders and countries, thus providing rich empirical evidence.

This volume is the first comprehensive analysis of women's ascendance to leadership positions in the European Union as well as their performance in such positions. It provides a new theoretical and analytical framework capturing both positional and behavioural leadership and the specific hurdles that women encounter on their path to and when exercising leadership. The volume encompasses a detailed set of single and comparative case studies, analyzing women's representation and performance in the core EU institutions and their individual pathways to and exercise of power in top-level functions, as well as comparative analyses regarding the position and behaviour of women in relation to men. Based on these individual studies, the volume draws overarching conclusions about women's leadership in the EU. Regarding positional leadership, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions, they more often hold less prestigious portfolios in such positions, and manifold structural hurdles hamper their access to power. Furthermore, huge variations exist across EU institutions, with the intergovernmental bodies being the hardest to access. Regarding behavioural leadership, women acting in powerful EU positions generally perform excellently. They successfully exercise a combined leadership style that integrates attributes of leadership considered to be 'masculine' and 'feminine'. This is not to argue that women per se are the better leaders. Yet more often than men they are exposed to stronger selection processes and their prevalent practice of a combined leadership style tends to best meet the requirements of modern democratic systems and particularly those of the highly fragmented EU.

With this book we aim at describing and analysing the selection, daily life, networks and values of local top political leaders in seventeen European countries. The empirical nourishment to the investigation into town halls across Europe is a survey conducted in 2003 with mayors and corresponding top local political leaders. The data covering responses from 2700 leaders is a unique and rich material allowing descriptions and analyses pursuing a number of lines of inquiry.

The challenges that have been facing the European Union in recent years have given rise to the question: who leads the EU? This book offers a systematic analysis of political leadership in the EU. This volume offers a theoretical and conceptual analysis of political leadership in the EU. It deals with questions such as what kind of leadership is there in the different domains (such as climate change or central banking). It also examines how various EU institutions (European Commission, European Parliament) exert or have exerted leadership. Furthermore, it examines the role of the presidents of some of these institutions, such as the European Commission the European Council, the European Central Bank, but also of selected national leaders. Although the book does not advance a single leadership concept, the findings of the individual case studies show that the EU is by no means leaderless. The chapters originally published as a special issue in the Journal of European Integration.