The messy ministers - A qualitative interview study on voters’ perceptions of coleadership and its effects on the communication of a political party

Abstract

The Swedish Green Party is the only political party in Sweden who have two spokespersons instead of one party leader. An internal conflict in the party on whether the leadership model benefits them or hinders them in being able to communicate and reach out to voters became the starting point for this thesis. The leadership model of co-leaders is highly unresearched in relation to political parties. The model might be uncommon but is seen to be used in political parties around the world. While some previous research have been done in relation to the co-leaders own experiences, the perspective of the voter is missing. By conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 Swedish citizens, this thesis aimed at contributing to filling this research gap. The aim of the thesis was thus to research voters’ perceptions about the Swedish green party's choice of having two spokespersons instead of one party leader and whether that affects the trust in the party and makes it more difficult for them to communicate and reach out to voters. The theoretical background consists of theories and concepts of collective-leadership, leadership characteristics, party communication and political trust. These topics are then further explained, and their relation to each other is examined, in the chapter with previous research. The result of the study shows that voters overall view the co-leadership model as confusing, and that the party's communication is negatively affected by the implementation of two spokespersons because voters lack a clear “face” to associate to the party and this makes them messy in the eyes of the voters. This perception was shared among most participants that also commonly shared the understanding that the leadership model foremost benefited the spokespersons themselves.