The chairmanship is a generic feature of political decision-making, whether at local, national, or international level. In city councils, parliamentary committees, and multilateral institutions, chairmen facilitate and influence decision-making by managing the agenda, brokering agreement, and representing the decision body vis-à-vis external parties. In many cases, the institution of the chairmanship is itself an object of contention. Political parties compete for formal control of legislative committees, and states struggle over the right to appoint the chairmen of multilateral conferences and international organizations. Indeed, this phenomenon extends beyond the political domain, to decision-making in other areas of social organization, from company boards to university departments and local associations.

Yet, so far, political scientists have been slow to ask and answer the kind of questions motivated by these observations. Influenced by the game-theoretical heritage of the field, students of negotiation and decision-making have tended to treat bargaining parties as functionally and formally equivalent, thus leaving little theoretical space for formal leaders with asymmetrical control over the nature of the game. In this book, I have sought to remedy this lack of attention to formal leadership in existing research. Developing and testing a rationalist theory of formal leadership, this book offers answers to three questions of general interest: Why is the institution of the chairmanship a universal feature of political decision bodies? What are the power resources of formal leaders? When, why, and how do negotiation chairs wield influence over political outcomes?