Petra Kelly: Charismatic Leadership in the German Peace Movement and Early Green Party

Abstract

Political leadership in Western democracies is often analyzed as leadership in governments, parliaments, parties and administrations (Helms, 2005; Helms, 2000; Glaab, 2007; Walter, 1997). Beyond these boundaries leadership research is an interdisciplinary field (Fiorina and Shepsle, 1989: 17). Social movements lack executive positions making leadership more difficult to characterize. The grassroots nature of social movements adds further challenges to the identification of influential persons. A way to overcome this can be to analyze leadership through the biographies of participants in social movements (Ferree, 2000: 111 ff.; Barker, 2001).