Women Political Leaders and the Media

Women Political Leaders and the Media

Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership Series editors: LUDGER HELMS, Professor and Chair of Comparative Politics, University of Innsbruck, Austria ROBERT ELGIE, Paddy Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies, Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland TAKASHI INOGUCHI, Professor Emeritus, Universities of Tokyo & Niigata Prefecture, Japan BARBARA KELLERMAN, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership, Centre for Public Leadership, Kennedy School, Harvard University, USA GILLIAN PEELE, Fellow and Tutor in Politics, University of Oxford, UK BERT A. ROCKMAN, Professor and Head of Department, Department of Political Science, Purdue University, USA Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership seeks to gather some of the best work on political leadership broadly defined, stretching from classic areas such as executive, legislative and party leadership to understudied manifestations of political leadership beyond the state. Edited by an international board of distinguished leadership scholars from the United States, Europe and Asia, the series publishes cutting-edge research that reaches out to a global readership. Titles include: Mark Bennister PRIME MINISTERS IN POWER Political Leadership in Britain and Australia Donatella Campus WOMEN POLITICAL LEADERS AND THE MEDIA Ludger Helms (editor) COMPARATIVE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP Kevin Theakston and Jouke de Vries (editors) FORMER LEADERS IN MODERN DEMOCRACIES Political Sunsets Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership Series Standing Order ISBN 978 1 137 02484 8 (hardback) and 978 1 137 02485 5 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Women Political Leaders and the Media Donatella Campus Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna Palgrave macmillan

Donatella Campus 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-0-230-28528-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-33046-1 ISBN 978-1-137-29554-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137295545 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Gender and Models of Leadership 10 Power: A male concept? 10 The female style of leadership 14 Transformational leadership 18 2 The Media and Representation of Leadership 22 The mediatization and personalization of politics 22 Popular culture and leadership 28 New media, new leaders? 31 3 Media Coverage of Women Leaders 39 Visibility: Quantity and quality of coverage of women leaders 39 Taking care and cleaning up: Lights and shadows of the positive stereotypes 44 Viability and the horse race: Are the media educating future female leaders? 50 4 The Double Bind 54 The nature of the femininity-competence double bind 54 Iron Ladies and mothers of the nation 60 When women leaders are too feminine: The case of Ségolène Royal 65 When women leaders are too strong: The case of Hillary Clinton 69 5 The Appearance of Power 73 Women leaders and the personal factor 73 The dress code of women leaders 82 Power and seduction 88 v

vi Contents 6 The Family Factor 94 The good wife and the good mother 94 Going personal for women leaders 98 Dynastic politics: When daughters and wives enter politics 104 7 Conclusion: In Search of a New Style of Political Leadership 111 The crisis of traditional democratic leadership 111 Time for degendering leadership 115 Media as agents of transformation 120 Notes 126 References 129 Index 142

Acknowledgments The book has its origins in a paper I presented at the 31st Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in July 2008 in Paris. The content of the paper, titled Women Running for President: Female Leaders and Campaigning, is partially reproduced in chapters 3 and 4. I found the topic so interesting and stimulating that I decided to organize a seminar on female leadership and media at the University of Bologna, held on 13 November 2009 (proceedings of the conference have been published in Italian in Campus (2010c)). I am indebted to all those who presented papers, the discussants, and the participants for their invaluable contributions. This book grew out of many of the reflections and suggestions they advanced on that occasion. I would like to thank Amber Stone Galilee at Palgrave Macmillan, who worked with me on this project, and to the anonymous referee for precious comments. I also thank Tom Finnegan for editorial assistance in preparing the manuscript. vii