Our ongoing research reflects on the pioneer work of Bennister, t’Hart and Worthy, which concern the conceptualization and measurement of the political leadership capital. The proposed paper has two aims. On one hand we try to improve the index and plan to modify the research method on some points. Firstly, we advise that the LCI shall include the institutional arrangement, i.e. the relationship of the political leader towards the heads of other institutions participated in horizontal power sharing. We argue that the leadership capital is increased by declining veto points in the political system. Secondly, we expand the LCI with the analysis of “media capital” based on the theoretical works on Bourdieu’s concept. We would like to refine PCI by exploring media positions of the political leaders, therefore we integrate it into the dimension of ‘reputation’. Thirdly, we plan to modify the last element of the LCI, because we perceive problems with the applicability of ‘historical revision’ in this form. On the other hand we analyze, how a selected Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány acquired and lost his political capital. We expect that the arc of his LCI shows the pattern of a “meteoric” leader. We intend to apply the mixed method of the LCI, so we base our research on election results, public poll-data recorded in the period of his Premiership between September 2004 and March 2009. We also use contemporary analyses and retrospective expert judgments on the Prime Minister’s political record.
