Características psicosociales del liderazgo político en los procesos de la transición hacia la democraciaanálisis comparado entre los líderes de España y Lituania

Resumen

Dissertation SummaryPsychosocial Characteristics of Political Leadership in Transition Processes TowardDemocracy: Comparative Analysis Between Spain and LithuaniaNeringa KalpokaiteThis research project was completed as part of the requirements for the doctoralprogram in social psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. It examinedpolitical leadership in the context of transition process from authoritarian to democraticregimes, taking Spain and Lithuania as case studies for a comparative analysis. The centralpurpose of the study was to develop and propose a model of political leadership in transitionperiods, testing the hypothesis that leadership styles play an important role in making thesetransition processes successful. The model is configured by the intertwining of power,decision-making, negotiation, and vision, as these elements are represented in the leadershipexperience of the four leaders that played a key role in these countries¿ transition processes:the King Juan Carlos and Adolfo Suarez, in the case of Spain, and of Algirdas Brazauskas yVytautas Landsbergis, in the case of Lithuania.Data for this study were collected in 2008 and 2009. Sixty-five semi-structuredinterviews were conducted with political leaders and people related to them, in Spain andLithuania, with the purpose of obtaining data that would help to characterize the leadershipstyles of the four leaders mentioned above. Among others, interviews were conducted withformer prime ministers of Lithuania, leaders of left and right wing parties in Spain as well asleaders of nationalist parties of that country, all of whom played important roles in theconstruction of the transition processes.The study concluded that indeed psychological characteristics of leaders provedrelevant in shaping a successful transition toward democracy, both in the case of Lithuaniaas well as of that Spain. In both cases, the political leaders that played key roles in allowingfor successful transitional processes presented similar sets of psychosocial characteristics.This suggests that there is a positive relationship between these psychosocial features ofleaders and the successful outcome of political transition processes.