Prime ministers stand at the apex of government and loom large in the consciousness of the nations they lead. This book examines how prime ministers operate and how their performance as public leaders can be understood and evaluated.

1. Prime Ministers and the Performance of Public Leadership ; PART I UNDERSTANDING POWER IN PRIME-MINISTERIAL PERFORMANCE ; Introduction to Part I ; 2. Personal Style, Institutional Setting and Historical Opportunity: Prime-Ministerial Performance in Context ; 3. Power in Prime-Ministerial Performance: Institutional and Personal Factors ; 4. Chapter 4 The Politics Prime Ministers Make: Political Time and Executive Leadership in Westminster Systems ; 5. Gendering Prime-Ministerial Power ; PART II PRIME MINISTERS AND THEIR PARTIES ; Introduction to Part II ; 6. Prime Ministers and Their Parties in the United Kingdom ; 7. Prime Ministers and Their Parties in Canada ; 8. Prime Ministers and Their Parties in Australia ; 9. Prime Ministers and Their Parties in New Zealand ; PART III EVALUATING PRIME-MINISTERIAL PERFORMANCE ; Introduction to Part III ; 10. Evaluating Prime-Ministerial Performance: The British Experience ; 11. Evaluating Prime-Ministerial Performance: The Canadian Experience ; 12. Evaluating Prime-Ministerial Performance: The Australian Experience ; 13. Evaluating Prime-Ministerial Performance: The New Zealand Experience ; 14. From Prime-Ministerial Leadership to Court Politics

Paul Strangio is a specialist in Australian political history with a particular focus on political parties and political leadership at both national and state level. He has published widely in the field as the author and editor of some ten books over the past decade, including biography and party history. Paul is also a leading commentator on Australian politics in the electronic and print media. He is a senior lecturer in politics in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Paul 't Hart was, before joining Utrecht University, at Leiden University's Department of Public Administration from 1987 until 2002. Between 2005 and 2010 his main appointment was as Professor of Political Science at Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He is also a fellow of the Australia New Zealand School of Government and has taught and trained thousands of public officials in Holland, Australia, and Sweden. His areas of expertise include: political and public sector leadership; crisis management; policy evaluation and policy change; political-administrative relations within executive government; and accountability in national and EU governance. He is Professor of Public Administration at the Utrecht School of Governance and Associate Dean at the Netherlands School of Government in The Hague. James Walter has previously held chairs at the University of London and at Griffith University (Brisbane). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and a former President of the Australian Political Studies Association. His areas of expertise and publication cover Australian politics and political history, leadership and political biography, political ideas, political psychology, and policy decision making. He is Professor of Politics at Monash University, and Professor Emeritus at Griffith University.