ABSTRACT
Rising from a fringe protest group to prominent political power, the German Green party (Die Grünen) celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2010. The Greens have drafted some of the most stringent environmental protection policies in the world (Markovits & Silvia, 1997, p. 127). The party draws its strength from its progressive and inclusionary approach to leadership. The party’s path to political success was fi lled with numerous twists and turns-starting as a grassroots outsider, becoming one of the fi rst “green” parties to enter national politics, experiencing an embarrassing loss in 1990, and fi nally reemerging as a secondary coalition partner from 1998 to 2005. The Greens’ tumultuous and in many ways extraordinary path is well known to political scientists. There is ample research from scholars who analyze the Greens from the perspective of party formation (Papadakis, 1984; Rothacher, 1984; Kitschelt, 1989), Inglehartian postmaterialism (Burklin, 1985; Kolinsky, 1989; Frankland & Schoonmaker, 1992), ideological formation (Kvistad, 1987; Heywood, 2003; Markovits & Gorski, 1993), and as a new type of social movement (NSM) (Rohrschneider, 1993; Dalton, Recchia, & Rohrschneider, 2003). The Greens are typically credited with creating an “alternative model” for party formation (Frankland & Schoonmaker, 1992, p. 118), lending voice to previously excluded groups. However, the Greens’ story has yet to be assessed by scholars of leadership. What does this “alternative model” and “outsider” mentality mean in the realm of leadership?
