ty. Commonly, these individuals constitute a subgroup of the party's "executive committee" (see variable 8.01), which often serves as the effective seat of power in the organization. But sometimes such committees are only organizational showcases, which merely legitimate decisions made by a dominant figure inside or even outside the committee. This variable aims at effective leadership concentration, whether formal or informal.

Operational Definition. The following scale incorporates a range of alternative situations in the concentration of leadership, from low to high. For this variable, the exercise of leadership is not to be limited to the electoral stage, which often generates an illusion of leadership concentration as party activists defer to the candidates in the conduct of campaigns. This kind of leader-follower relationship may be short-lived with the resumption of normal political life.

0	Leadership is so dispersed that only local or regional leaders can be identified; no one presents a serious claim to the position of national party spokesman, much less central decision maker.
1	Leadership is clearly decentralized: there are more than five leaders who frequently make pronouncements in behalf of the national party, but they are not regarded as authoritatively binding spokesmen.
2	Leadership is decentralized: from one to five persons frequently speak in behalf of the party, but they are not regarded as authoritatively binding spokesmen by themselves for they do often disagree.
3	Leadership is collectively centralized into a group of more than five party leaders; the decisions of this group are regarded as authoritatively binding on the party; there may be a party leader, but he alone is not powerful enough to control party policy
4	Leadership is collectively centralized into a group of three to five party leaders; the decisions of this group are regarded as binding on the party.
5	Leadership is shared by two individuals; their joint decisions are regarded as binding on the party.
6	Leadership is exercised by one individual who can personally commit the party to binding courses of action .

Coding Results. The data obtained after coding almost 90 percent of our parties on BV908 are presented in Tables 10.8a and 10.8b. What amounts to one-man rule holds in almost 40 percent of our parties, with the exact percentage somewhat higher in the later 1950s. The remaining 60 percent of the parties are well distributed along the scale, with collective leadership emanating from a group larger than five (code 3) embracing the next largest segment of parties. There was a tendency for situations of one-man rule to be well described in the literature, resulting in part for the significant correlation between BV908 and AC908 of .33.

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