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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Nick Randall
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
This article contributes to the developing literature on prime ministerial performance in the UK by applying a critical reading of Stephen Skowronek’s account of leadership in ‘political time’ to evaluate David Cameron’s premiership. This, we propose, better understands the inter-relationship of structure and agency in prime ministerial performance than existing frameworks, particularly those based on Greenstein’s and Bulpitt’s approaches. We identify Cameron as a disjunctive prime minister but find it necessary to significantly develop the model of disjunctive leadership beyond that offered by Skowronek. We identify the warrants to authority, strategies and dilemmas associated with disjunctive leadership in the UK. We argue that Cameron was relatively skilful in meeting many of the challenges confronting an affiliated leader of a vulnerable regime. However, his second term exposed deep fractures in the regime which proved beyond Cameron’s skills as a disjunctive leader.
Author(s): Byrne C, Randall N, Theakston K
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: British Journal of Politics and International Relations
Year: 2017
Volume: 19
Issue: 1
Pages: 202-220
Print publication date: 01/02/2017
Online publication date: 29/12/2016
Acceptance date: 30/11/2016
Date deposited: 30/11/2016
ISSN (print): 1369-1481
ISSN (electronic): 1467-856X
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1369148116685260
DOI: 10.1177/1369148116685260
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