His relentless pursuit of these questions without providing many answers amused some but irritated many others. Indeed, he became known as a gadfly for his persistent and nettlesome style.
It did not work out particularly well for Socrates. While he raised the difficult questions that launched philosophical inquiry, the Athenian government sentenced him to death. Ostensibly he was executed for corrupting the youth of the city but in reality the people of Athens simply could no longer stand the non-productive efforts of this town critic.
Today, Mayor Rocky Anderson appears at various venues around Salt Lake City asking what he thinks are the important and difficult questions. Do commuters care about their capital city? Can members of the LDS faith have open minds? Can a city without diversity be a community?
His style of asking and raising such questions certainly recalls the methods of Socrates. He raises these subjects, and he presses hard for answers without offering many himself.
His behavior and style raise an intriguing question: Can a gadfly govern? Are the skills necessary for being a successful gadfly the same skills needed to govern effectively a large and complex city?
Political scientists have long studied the attributes necessary for effective political leadership. Perhaps one of the most celebrated pieces of research on executive leadership focuses on the importance of persuasion to the successful exercise of political power.
In his seminal work Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, Richard Neustadt argued that effective executives achieve success through the powers of persuasion. Executives of all stripes are constantly faced with situations where they need the support of a particular individual or institution. Rarely do executives find themselves in situations where significant accomplishments can be achieved by administrative fiat.
Therefore, the effective executive over the long term is one who learns to persuade a broad swath of constituencies, agencies or other branches of government and avoids unnecessarily alienating potential allies.
The art of persuasion is very different from the art of argumentation. Socrates was gifted at the latter, not the former. How does Mayor Anderson see himself? Does he see himself as a Socrates who must ask the difficult questions to raise consciousness? If so, does this approach compromise his ability to persuade the various constituencies and institutions he needs to accomplish significant policy goals?
Regardless of the mayor's perception of his proper role, Salt Lake City voters see him as a gadfly. In the 2003 KBYU-Utah Colleges Exit Poll, conducted with voters as they cast their ballots in the last mayoral election, we asked voters whether or not the phrase "works well with others" best described Mayor Anderson or his challenger Frank Pignanelli.
A much smaller proportion (38 percent) said the phrase described Mayor Anderson compared to a significant majority (62 percent) who said it described Mr. Pignanelli. To be sure, voters also saw Mayor Anderson as a strong leader. However, they also said that Mr. Pignanelli was more consistent on the issues.
The latter finding is particularly striking in light of the fact that Mayor Anderson had already been in office for four years.
The image Mayor Anderson portrays to voters is of a leader who speaks out on controversial issues and is not afraid to annoy prominent segments of the community. Indeed, his core supporters expect him to make controversial statements.
While such an image may enhance his standing among those voters who believe a gadfly may be needed in Utah, it also clearly alienates critical segments of Salt Lake City and the rest of the state. When exit poll respondents were asked to rate the mayor on a five-point scale, the responses were quite polarized - a large plurality of voters viewed the mayor at either end of the five-point scale.
If Mayor Anderson persists in cultivating his image as a gadfly, there is little doubt that he can remain popular and achieve re-election from a majority of his Salt Lake City constituents.
However, it is likely that Mayor Anderson's pursuit of such a strategy compromises his ability to build bridges beyond his most ardent supporters and thus may actually hurt his ability to achieve policy goals favored by his supporters as well as succeed in other dimensions of leadership.
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Kelly Patterson is associate professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. Quin Monson is assistant professor of political science and assistant director of CSED.
