ABSTRACT
The leaders of political parties are seen as key figures in the democratic political process as they take primary responsibility for organizing their parties' efforts to win elections and, if victorious, for governing the people and the country they have been chosen to serve. If only by virtue of their position of institutional leadership, party leaders can influence any number of political outcomes. They are usually, for example, the principal driving force behind government formation as well as policy proposals and outcomes. The unanimous consensus is that it is the psychological variable of personality that draws voters to party leaders. If the party leaders themselves are an important source of variation in the magnitude of leader effects in democratic elections, so too is the institutional architecture within which those elections take place. Institutions matter for leader effects and perhaps the most important institutional difference conditioning them is form of government, presidential or parliamentary.
