Political Leadership in Central and Eastern Europe: Transactional or Transformational?

The regime change in Central and Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s meant the (re)emergence of a multi-party system in which a variety of political actors competed for representation. The political leadership styles of these actors differed fundamentally and their features were determined by institutional constraints of the party system or of party organizations. While much attention has been paid to general features of party leadership, there is little emphasis on the causes of the choice for a transactional or transformational leadership. Building on Blondel’s (1978) categories of influence – personal traits, available instruments, and the specific context in which party leaders act – this paper seeks to explain the prevalence of a leadership style over another. To this end, the analysis uses variables from all three categories: career pathway, years in office, personal wealth, electoral performance, number of party members, party system institutionalization and media outreach. The study covers the 2004-2015 time period and includes all parliamentary political parties from six Central and East European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.