A country that embraces imaginative leaders and liveliness (9)
I believe the answer is:
animation
'liveliness' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'a country that embraces imaginative leaders' is the wordplay.
'country' becomes 'nation' (synonyms).
'that embraces' indicates putting letters inside.
'imaginative leaders' becomes 'im' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'nation' placed around 'im' is 'nimation'.
'a'+'nimation'='ANIMATION'
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for animation that I've seen before include "Liveliness and vigour" , "Vigour; film technique" , "Liveliness - illusion of movement in cartoon films" , "Film technique; lively state" , "Being full of energy" .)