Andrews-Lee, Caitlin and Laura Gamboa. 2022. “When Handpicked Successors of Charismatic Leaders Prosper: The Surprising Success of Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia.” Democratization. DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2022.2033971

Charismatic leaders, who loathe sharing power, often anoint sycophantic successors who fail to become powerful leaders in their own right. Curiously, however, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018), the handpicked successor of Alvaro Uribe (2002–2010), became a remarkably effective leader who served two terms and oversaw Colombia’s landmark 2016 peace agreement. We investigate this unlikely outcome and develop a novel theory to reveal a pathway through which some handpicked successors of charismatic leaders can establish independent authority. We argue that success is more likely when the successor breaks away from the predecessor. However, doing so requires the successor to engage in a sequential and highly strategic process we label tightrope walking, in which the new leader gains the predecessor’s endorsement to win office, expands his/her coalition by incorporating new allies from outside the predecessor’s base, and reforms the predecessor’s unsustainable policies and narrative. To substantiate our theory, we trace how Santos moved through each stage of the tightrope-walking process and ultimately broke from Uribe to achieve independent authority. The results suggest a rare but important mechanism through which charismatic movements can be challenged from the inside out, curtailing or reversing democratic erosion.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin and Amy H. Liu. 2020. “The Language of Legacies: The Politics of Evoking Dead Leaders.” Political Research Quarterly. DOI: 10.1177/1065912920930822

How can leaders recover public trust and approval when government performance is low? We argue politicians use speeches evoking images of deceased predecessors to reactive support temporarily. This arouses empathy and nostalgia among supporters, causing them to perceive the current leader more favorably. We test this argument by scraping for all speeches by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. We identify all instances when she referenced Juan Perón – the charismatic founder of the Justice Party. We find that as Kirchner’s approval rating decreases, the number of Perón references increases. To identify the causal mechanism and to ensure that endogeneity is not a concern, we employ text analysis and a natural experiment – courtesy of LAPOP. The results provide robust evidence that leaders reference their dead predecessors to evoke positive feelings. However, while doing so can improve public opinion, the effects manifest only in the short-term and among supporters.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. 2020. “The Politics of Succession in Charismatic Movements: Routinization versus Revival in Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru.” Comparative Politics 52 (2): 289-316. DOI: 10.5129/001041520X15668413926547 (Appendix)

Scholars suggest that charismatic movements must institutionalize to survive beyond the death of the founder. Yet charismatic movements around the world that have maintained their personalistic nature have persisted or reemerged. This article investigates the conditions under which politicians can use their predecessors’ charismatic legacies to revive these movements and consolidate power. I argue that three conditions—the mode of leadership selection, the presence of a crisis, and the ability to conform to the founder’ personalistic nature—shape successors’ capacity to pick up their forefather’s mantle and restore the movement to political predominance. To demonstrate my theory, I trace the process through which some leaders succeeded while others failed to embody the founder’s legacy across three charismatic movements: Argentine Peronism, Venezuelan Chavismo, and Peruvian Fujimorismo.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. 2020. “The Power of Charisma: Investigating the Neglected Citizen-Politician Linkage.” Journal of Politics in Latin America 11 (3): 298-322. DOI: 10.1177/1866802X19891472

This article proposes a compact theory that explains how charismatic attachments form, overwhelm alternative linkage types, and facilitate the development of powerful and potentially enduring political movements. To illustrate the theory, I turn to Chávez’s Bolivarian movement in Venezuela. First, a statistical analysis of a 2007 survey from the Latin American Public Opinion Project demonstrates the disproportionate influence of charisma on citizens’ attachments to Bolivarianism relative to competing factors. Next, six original focus groups with Bolivarian followers conducted in 2016 illustrate the mechanisms underlying the followers’ surprisingly resilient loyalty not only to the leader, but also to his overarching movement. The results suggest that affective political attachments can help sustain charismatic movements after their founders disappear.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. 2019. “The Revival of Charisma: Experimental Evidence from Argentina and Venezuela.” Comparative Political Studies 52 (5): 687-719. DOI: 10.1177/0010414018797952 (Appendix)

Focusing on Argentine Peronism and Venezuelan Chavismo, this article examines the potential of new leaders to revive their charismatic predecessors’ legacies to perpetuate the movement and gain the followers’ support. Through face-to-face survey experiments conducted in both countries, the article shows that new leaders who (1) implement bold, initially impressive policies and (2) symbolically tie themselves to the charismatic founder cause citizens to express stronger emotional attachments to the movement and garner political support. The results challenge the notion that charismatic movements are short-lived and underscore the potential of these movements to impact democratic politics and party-system development long after their founders disappear.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. 2022. “Venezuela: A Populist Legacy and Authoritarian Response.” In Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Responded to Covid-19. Nils Ringe and Lucio Rennó, Eds. UK: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/781003197614

Venezuela’s experience of Covid-19 has been shaped by two key factors: the country’s underlying political, economic, and humanitarian crisis and the authoritarianism of incumbent leader Nicolás Maduro. Using a framework of path dependence, this chapter argues that these characteristics stem from the populist legacy of Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s charismatic predecessor. Through implementing bold yet unsustainable policies, a quasi-religious narrative that divided society along a personalistic cleavage, and anointing a sycophantic successor who refused to reorient the country, Chávez set the stage for economic crisis, societal collapse, and hardened authoritarianism under Maduro. Given this context, the pandemic has presented Maduro with an opportunity to strengthen his grip on power without effectively addressing the public health crisis or the preexisting humanitarian emergency. Consequently, the pandemic threatens to worsen, while the country’s prospects for recovery and a democratic transition remain elusive. 

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. “Gendered Pathways to Political Legitimacy: An Analysis of Executive Leaders in Charismatic Movements .” In Progress.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. “Who Succeeds the Charismatic Strongman? Gender, Family Tiesm and an Improbable Pathway to Charismatic Power.” In Progress.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin. “The Divergent Gender Strategies of Women Leaders in Programmatic Parties and Charismatic Movements.” In Progress.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin, Michael McGregor, Jack Lucas, and Cameron Anderson. "Charismatic Leaders in Strong Democracies? Evaluating Candidate Charisma in the Least Likely Case of Ontario, Canada." Under Review.

Andrews-Lee, Caitlin, and Rodrigo Barrenechea. "Sowing Voice or Harvesting Loyalty? Reconceptualizing Grassroots Party Organizations." In Progress.