Prime-ministerial leadership rankings: the Australian experience

ABSTRACT

Leadership ranking exercises, which have a storied history in the United States, have recently gained a foothold in Westminster democracies. In 2020, the author conducted a major survey of Australian political scientists and historians to gauge their opinion of the leadership performance of the nation’s past prime ministers. Read in tandem with the results of earlier surveys, particularly that conducted out of Monash University in 2010, the 2020 rankings indicate that expert opinion about who have been Australia’s most successful prime ministers is largely settled. The 2020 results also suggest that the experts believe that the policy legacy of a leader is a more important indicator of prime-ministerial success than is the longevity of office.

给领导人打造排行榜，这在美国有很长的历史，但最近也在英系民主国家落户了。2020年笔者对政治学者和历史学家做了个调查，了解他们对历任总理领导业绩的看法。参阅此前的调查，尤其是莫纳什大学2010年的调查，2020年的排行榜说明专家关于谁是澳大利亚最成功总理的意见已大体妥定。专家们认为一位总理的政策遗产比在位时间更能说明其当国的成功与否。

KEYWORDS:

• Expert rankings
• political leadership
• prime ministers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for example, reviews in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2(1), 2014: 90–91; and Political Psychology, 36(1), 2015: 134–135.

2 For instance, the Canberra Times survey had 143 respondents while at the opposite end of the scale the Australian Financial Review survey was confined to a panel of six historians. The Canberra Times survey did not stipulate any criteria for measuring prime-ministerial success, while both the Australian Financial Review and Age surveys included benchmarks against which the prime ministers were to be assessed.

3 Hughes is excluded from these calculations because of his unique status as having been both a Labor and non-Labor prime minister.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Strangio

Paul Strangio is a professor of politics at Monash University. He is the author and editor of 12 books on Australian politics. He has twice been the winner of the Henry Mayer Prize for the best book on Australian politics as awarded by the Australian Political Studies Association. Paul’s chief areas of research are Australian political history and political leadership.