Personality Goes a Long Way

Abstract

This article reviews books which test the personalization of politics, looking at different dimensions of the growing importance of leaders over time, namely for political parties, in electoral behaviour and in the media. Only recently have wide-ranging comparative longitudinal studies on leaders been carried out. The personalization thesis is not equally demonstrated across all dimensions. Indeed, we find something of a puzzle: There is no strong trend towards personalization of party organizations, whereas in electoral behaviour the evidence points to the increasing use by voters of leaders as heuristics. This attests to the decline of the importance of parties. The personalization of media may be the mechanism which explains the change in voting behaviour, and the third and final section of the review looks into that arena. We conclude with some suggestions on further research on the personalization of politics.

Donald Trump, Populism, and the Age of Extremes: Comparing the Personality Traits and Campaigning Styles of Trump and Other Leaders Worldwide

“…Rather, we simply argue that the personality of political leaders (and, by extension, Trump's personality) is likely to matter. In an electoral context, candidates' orientations and record now overshadow issue orientations and even partisanship (Swanson and Mancini 1996;Van Zoonen and Holtz-Bacha 2000;Costa Lobo 2018); in addition, nonpolitical characteristics of a candidate (e.g., integrity, appearance, family circumstances, and personality traits) more and more dominate the overall evaluations of political leaders (e.g., Wattenberg 1991;Bittner 2011;Anderson and Brettschneider 2003; but see Wattenberg 2016). Due to the decline of party identification in modern democracies, an increasing number of voters are in urgent need of reliable and easy-to-access indicators serving as a heuristic in political decision making.…”

Disagreeable narcissists, extroverted psychopaths, and elections: a new dataset to measure the personality of candidates worldwide

“…These colourful examples suggest, indirectly, that the personality of political figures matters (Bittner 2011;Costa Lobo 2018;Clifford 2018). Certainly, Merkel reaped electoral benefits from her reputation as a conscientious and stable person, and that was definitely what May hoped for as well when she accepted the job in 2016, and who would disagree that Trump's and Wilders' brash political style grants them a spot in the limelight and, perhaps, explains part of their appeal?…”

Fear and Loathing in Populist Campaigns? Comparing the Communication Style of Populists and Non-populists in Elections Worldwide

“…Candidates' orientations and record now seem to prime over issue orientations and even partisanship, as politics gets increasingly "personalized" (Swanson and Mancini 1996;Van Zoonen and Holtz-Bacha 2000). Candidates' characteristics beyond their political profile strongly participate to define their image (Anderson and Brettschneider 2003), and increasing evidence suggests that personality goes a long way (Bittner 2011;Costa Lobo 2018).…”