The previous chapter critically assessed two ‘rival’ visions competing with the proposed scenario of expanding ‘leader democracy’: a sanguine vision of expanding and participatory democracy, and a dark vision of declining democracy. Both these rival visions, as argued above, look implausible. Instead, we suggest a scenario based on theoretical projections of changing forms of democratic representation, as well as our reading of the current trends and the empirical diagnoses of the ‘state of democracy’. However, this scenario has to be presented with some cautioning notes about the contingent nature of historical change, especially the ‘long-run’ change, the nonlinear character of social-political processes, the widening diversity of democratic configurations, and – perhaps most importantly – the vulnerabilities of ‘leader democracy’ to leadership vacuums and leadership failures.

Before we explore these themes and outline the predicted pattern of democratic change, let us pause and look back at the main argument, if only to remind the reader of the broader context of the proposed scenario. The central tenets of the book, painted with a thick brush, can be summarised as follows:

Over the last 30 to 40 years, we have observed and experienced in almost all advanced Western democracies an ever more pronounced centrality of – and focus on – political leaders. This increasing leader-centeredness is detectable in both parliamentary and presidential systems: it is reflected in the centralization of authority in leaders’ hands (vis-à-vis other segments of the political elite); in more firm, often unilateral, actions taken by leaders (and applauded by the mass publics); in a widening media exposure given to leaders and their personalities, especially in election campaigns; in the proliferation of ‘leader parties’, and in the mass expectation and approval of ‘firm’ and ‘decisive’ leadership’, typically contrasted with ‘weak leadership’, the latter condemned as a serious political affliction.