Local leadership «beyond city hall»: Analysis of the public communication of Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam

Abstract

This article looks at the public communication of mayors and their leadership styles beyond city hall. The research takes the public communication of Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam, as a qualitative case study, looking at the narratives, roles, and rhetoric over his 12 years in office. Aboutaleb’s public communication on migrant integration, radicalization, and terrorism takes a strong visionary approach that deviates from the non-political and less partisan Dutch way of leadership. Aboutaleb combines this approach with ‘democratic guardianship’, using the law and the constitution as the criteria that decide who does (or doesn’t) belong to Dutch society. His communication style is robust and expressive, while still maintaining a typically Dutch binding-and-bonding approach to leadership. This combination of local leadership styles does not receive much attention in the literature on mayoral and local leadership, which doesn’t go much beyond the often-emphasized dichotomy of non-decisive and process-orientated leaders versus directive and strong expressions of leadership.