“Rethinking the Role of Leadership in Democratic Regimes, “Nicole Peisajovich, Columbia University

ISPS FELLOWS BREAKFAST TALK

Abstract: There is a widespread tendency in democratic theory to neglect, downplay, and, at times, altogether reject leadership as a normative component of democracy. While the topic of leadership is commonplace in empirical analyses of democratic politics, normative democratic theory remains largely silent on the role of leaders. This is problematic, I argue, not only because a democratic theory that ignores leadership is descriptively inaccurate but, most importantly, because it loses the ability to distinguish between different kinds of leaders. While I defend leadership as a constitutive—in fact, indispensable—element of a democratic regime, not all forms of leadership are democratic, and a robust theory of democracy must be able to contemplate and explain such distinctions. In a democracy, I contend, leadership should not be the preserve of elites; rather, ordinary citizens must have real opportunities to exercise it.

Nicole Peisajovich is Lecturer and Director of the Ethics Core Curriculum at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. She specializes in democratic theory and the history of political thought, with a particular focus on leadership and twentieth-century theories of democracy. In her current book project, The Puzzle of Leadership in Democratic Theory, she argues that post-war democratic theory has failed to provide a principled defense of leadership and offers a normative account of it as a constitutive element of a democratic regime. Peisajovich received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2025. Before moving to the United States, she worked in the public and non-profit sectors in her home country of Argentina.

Breakfast will be served.
Sponsored by the ISPS program on Democratic Innovations.