The way parties function depends largely on their leaders. Their role as well as the tasks they and their parties have to perform vary in time and between countries, and it is our aim to investigate these matters step by step to arrive at a clearer picture of these issues. The idea behind the Party Leaders Database consists in broadening the knowledge on party leaders in particular countries, facilitating international cooperation as well as undertaking comparative studies.
It is a fundamental research aim of the project to expand the knowledge on selection of party leaders. Yet other aspects of party leadership, such as their position, social and demographic factors, or in a broader perspective intra-partisan democracy, shall not be left unattended in the subsequent stages of the project.
The starting point of the current project has already been marked with a completed project: Party Leaders in Post-Communist Countries. This analysis focused mainly on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The next step is to include new contributors, in order to develop the project through wider cooperation and range of analyses reaching also the remaining post-communist countries. Consequently, the next step shall be focused on all European countries, while further stages shall include also Asia, Africa and both Americas.
Officially commencing the project at the beginning of 2017, we wish to focus on three goals:
- Developing the party-leaders.eu website, as well as other social media channels;
- Enlargening the group of people in the Party Leaders Database – Working Group;
- Working on the outline for the annually published Party Leaders Database Yearbook.