Olof Palme (Sweden), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), and Indira Gandhi (India) achieved the pinnacle of political power, fell from or relinquished power, and then, after a period in the political wilderness, regained it. By placing greater emphasis than that customarily accorded by biographers on the "interment" that followed their "fall" and preceded their "resurrection," the book describes how what they did, the lessons they learned, and the mistakes made by their successors facilitated their reentry.

A leading foreign policy thinker uses Chinese political theory to explain why some powers rise as others decline and what this means for the international order Why has China grown increasingly important in the world arena while lagging behind the United States and its allies across certain sectors? Using the lens of classical Chinese political theory, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers explains China’s expanding influence by presenting a moral-realist theory that attributes the rise and fall of great powers to political leadership. Yan Xuetong shows that the stronger a rising state’s political leadership, the more likely it is to displace a prevailing state in the international system. Yan shows how rising states like China transform the international order by reshaping power distribution and norms, and he considers America’s relative decline in international stature even as its economy, education system, military, political institutions, and technology hold steady. Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers offers a provocative, alternative perspective on the changing dominance of states.

Olof Palme (Sweden), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), and Indira Gandhi (India) achieved the pinnacle of political power, fell from or relinquished power, and then, after a period in the political wilderness, regained it. By placing greater emphasis than that customarily accorded by biographers on the "interment" that followed their "fall" and preceded their "resurrection," the book describes how what they did, the lessons they learned, and the mistakes made by their successors facilitated their reentry.

From one of the world's preeminent political historians, a magisterial study of political leadership around the world from the advent of parliamentary democracy to the age of Obama. All too frequently, leadership is reduced to a simple dichotomy: the strong versus the weak. Yet, there are myriad ways to exercise effective political leadership -- as well as different ways to fail. We blame our leaders for economic downfalls and praise them for vital social reforms, but rarely do we question what makes some leaders successful while others falter. In this magisterial and wide-ranging survey of political leadership over the past hundred years, renowned Oxford politics professor Archie Brown challenges the widespread belief that strong leaders -- meaning those who dominate their colleagues and the policy-making process -- are the most successful and admirable. In reality, only a minority of political leaders will truly make a lasting difference. Though we tend to dismiss more collegial styles of leadership as weak, it is often the most cooperative leaders who have the greatest impact. Drawing on extensive research and decades of political analysis and experience, Brown illuminates the achievements, failures and foibles of a broad array of twentieth century politicians. Whether speaking of redefining leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Margaret Thatcher, who expanded the limits of what was politically possible during their time in power, or the even rarer transformational leaders who played a decisive role in bringing about systemic change -- Charles de Gaulle, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela, among them -- Brown challenges our commonly held beliefs about political efficacy and strength. Overturning many of our assumptions about the twentieth century's most important figures, Brown's conclusions are both original and enlightening. The Myth of the Strong Leader compels us to reassess the leaders who have shaped our world - and to reconsider how we should choose and evaluate those who will lead us into the future.

Explains how the persistence of party institutions (factions, PARC, koenkai) and the transformed role of party leadership in Japan contributed both to the LDP's success at remaining in power for 15 years and its downfall.

Presents a new theory of the rise, evolution, decline, and collapse of political orders, exploring the impact of late-modernity upon the survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes.

Here, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians--Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay--struggled for control as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession.