Leaders And Leaders Makers
Peter Oye Sagay
Aug 28, 2017
Human political systems did not fall from the sky. They are consequences of gradual political evolutions that originated from a beginning based on the existential human tendency to group as social beings. This beginning was the family.
The first human family was established by an ancient African male. As founder of the family, he self-elected himself as the leader of his family and his leadership was unopposed by members of his family. This self-election of leaders within families continues in many parts of the world. Families eventually evolved into various types of simple and complex communities all around the world.
Complex groups are characteristically large and heterogeneous, so it is impossible for an individual to self-elect himself or herself as the leader of the group without oppositions. In complex groups, leaders are elected. An election is basically a selection process by which individuals in a group select their leaders. These selectors are the leader-makers in the group. All complex political spaces have leader-makers. In a kingdom, the leader is the King or Queen and the leader-makers are a group of nobles (King-Makers). In a democracy, the title of the leader varies (President, Prime Minister, Chancellor, etc) and the leader-makers are the People of the space. Even a dictatorship in a complex political space is made possible by leader-makers. Usually, such leader-makers are few and control the defense systems of the space.
The type of leader-makers in a political space is directly related to the type of governance in the space. For example, a democratic space guards strongly against absolute governance. This benefit of democracy is a direct consequence of the People being the leader-makers. The emerging problem of modern democracy in several spaces, is that the margin of victory (winning votes - opposing votes) is becoming smaller and smaller. In other words, there is increasing profound division among the People. If this trend continues, democracy will be in trouble because then the leader-makers would be some people (a very slim majority) instead of The People (almost all of the people).
Ultimately, space governance is about the People. The People become indifferent to the name ascribed to the selection process through which the leader-makers elect their leader if the leader through his or her deeds as leader signifies his or her commitment to the prosperity of the space and all its people.