The Politics Prime Ministers Make: Political Time and Executive Leadership in Westminster Systems

This chapter introduces, modifies and applies American political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s influential contextual theory of presidential leadership in political time to prime-ministerial leadership in parliamentary democracies. The theory is based upon a cyclical notion of political time in relation to the rise, consolidation and decay of political ‘regimes’ (or policy paradigms). Different opportunity structures for political leadership are created by the interplay of these regime cycles and a president/prime minister’s degree of affiliation with the regime or policy paradigm they inherit upon taking office. The applicability and efficacy of transplanting Skowronek’s political time theory to Westminster democracies is explored through empirical cases studies of the comparative leadership records of three modern Australian prime ministers, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.