166-440 Leadership in Politics, Organisations and Groups

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to fourth-year Political Science.

Contact

Subject Description

The study of leadership as a psychosocial process, focusing on leadership in politics, business, education, religion, social movements. Topics include: the leader-follower relation; the relative importance of gifted individuals and the groups that promote and demote them; the relation between leaders and 'their times'; types of leaders' competing models of leadership; and how to study leadership. On completion of this subject students will be able: to supplement the analysis of policy with the analysis of people involved in making and carrying out policy (the personal element in politics); to gain a better understanding of the complexity of human motivation and response in politics and society (avoiding the rationalist fallacy); to become aware of the major schools of thought on the psychology of leadership (agreed that emphasis is psychoanalytic but without prejudice to other psychological contributions); to explore whether psychological ideas about leadership 'travel' across culture, and how leadership differs in different cultures; to understand how relationships between leaders and followers are formed and how, in particular, followers influence leaders; to explore the boundary between different disciplines, the psychological approaches and political science.

Assessment

Written work totalling 6000 words.