CHAPTER 1 Introduction Rationale The presumed dominance of the west over many aspects of our world cannot be denied.

At the moment, its extent is also boundless. The clout of influence may vary from direct to indirect perception that stretches from economic, social and even to a cultural dimension. Western dominance for one even extends to how we see ourselves. The mentioned perspective however is not new, Edward Saids book on Orientalism talks about a certain perspective that distorts how reality in Middle-eastern nations and its people are exaggerated and thus polarizes the East against developed Western civilization.1 In political thought however a certain disregard of eastern political thought as in Hegels Critique of Eastern philosophy to an extent shows the grounds of the presumption of western dominance in the history of philosophy.2 The list of political theorists in discussions, discourses, theses, and books about political theory are predominantly Western and the theories being consulted in explaining political phenomena has a Western orientation. One political matter that is very akin to political discourses is about the leader since many political thinkers have tried to hypothesize about it. The conduct of a leader and what constitutes being a good one has long been a subject of
Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books,1978), p.17. Robert Brown, Georg W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy 18256: Volume I: Introduction and Oriental Philosophy, (New York: Oxford Press).
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study as old as the discipline of Political Science itself. Platos Philosopher King, the notion of Augustine as to who should rule the earthly city, Hobbes