Abstract
The role of former leaders is a neglected issue in the study of political and governmental leaders and leadership. Empirically, much more is known about the backgrounds, recruitment patterns and routes into high office of political and governmental leaders than about their ‘exits’ and what they do after leaving office. Normatively, the political theorists of representative democracy are silent on this subject (Keane 2009), though Alexander Hamilton, writing in The Federalist Papers in 1788, conjured up a memorable image of former presidents ‘wandering about the people like discontented ghosts … sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess’ (Hamilton, Madison and Jay 1971, 370–71).
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© 2012 Kevin Theakston and Jouke de Vries
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Theakston, K., de Vries, J. (2012). Introduction. In: Theakston, K., de Vries, J. (eds) Former Leaders in Modern Democracies. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265319_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265319_1
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