Local Political Leadership: The Art of Circulating Political Capital

In this article, local political leadership is modelled as circulation of political capital. Based on intensive case studies of the political leadership performance of four mayors in Denmark, this article asks why the concept of political capital, introduced to local government studies in 1961 by Banfield, has in many ways sunk into oblivion. This article resuscitates the concept of political capital, using it to generate a general theory of local political leadership. In this framework, the crucial component of effective leadership is the mayor's ability, within a given institutional framework, to circulate (earn and spend) political capital. Effective leadership occurs when the leader continuously invests his or her political capital in ways which yield the greatest return. Clarence N. Stone's distinction between ‘power over’ and ‘power to’ is central to the model. Mayors performing what James H. Svara has labelled ‘facilitative leadership’ can in some cases accumulate substantial amounts of political capital.