Routledge International Handbook of Charisma 9780367207441, 9780429263224

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“The Routledge Handbook of Charisma is a very valuable contribution to social theory and interdisciplinary scholarship. Chapters helpfully explore the heritage of the concept, examine its place in classical social theory, and show its relevance for contemporary research – all at a high standard.” Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University, US “An authoritative collection of essays reworking the concept of charisma just in time for its spectacular return to political life globally. But this is not simply a volume that allows us to make sense of populism, comprising, instead, a remarkable range of investigations into the meaning of charisma from across the academic disciplines and around the world.” Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of Oxford, UK “This Handbook is truly a Charisma 2.0 version as designed by the editor. It is quite comprehensive in surveying the fascinating field of charisma from every conceivable angle, from its origins to religion to the arts. It should interest scholars from a variety of disciplines and encourage future research.” Raj Pillai, Professor of Leadership, California State University, San Marcos, US “Charisma deconstructed, revitalized and extended in myriad paths with unexpected and energizing results – this Handbook is a landmark in understanding leadership, authority, obedience and the politics of imposture.” Chris Rojek, Professor of Sociology, City, University of London, UK “This is a timely and important collection of essays on a timely and important subject. It brings together some of the most incisive commentators on the concept of charisma, who have explored its many different facets in a consistently illuminating manner, while also giving an excellent sense of how scholarly discussions on the subject have evolved since the days of Max Weber.” David A. Bell, Director of the Davis Center for Historical Studies, Department of History, Princeton University, US “This Handbook offers the most diverse perspectives on charisma in print today. Authors from around the world examine charisma from many disciplines and in fascinating contexts ranging from apocalypticism to Bollywood. Readers will be delight in discovering the insights and charm of this book on charisma.” Joanne B. Ciulla, Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership, Rutgers Business School, US

Routledge International Handbook of Charisma

The Routledge International Handbook of Charisma provides an unprecedented multidimensional and multidisciplinary comparative analysis of the phenomenon of charisma – first defined by Max Weber as the irrational bond between deified leader and submissive follower. It includes broad overviews of foundational theories and experiences of charisma and of associated key issues and themes. Contributors include 45 influential international scholars who approach the topic from different disciplinary perspectives and utilize examples from an array of historical and cultural settings. The Handbook presents up-to-date, concise, thought-provoking, innovative, and informative perspectives on charisma as it has been expressed in the past and as it continues to be manifested in the contemporary world by leaders ranging from shamans to presidents. It is designed to be essential reading for all students, researchers, and general readers interested in achieving a comprehensive understanding of the power and potential of charismatic authority in all its varieties, subtleties, dynamics, and current and potential directions. José Pedro Zúquete (1978) is a political scientist whose research focuses mainly on comparative politics, social movements, and nationalism. He is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is the author of Missionary Politics in Contemporary Europe (2007) and the coauthor (with Charles Lindholm) of The Struggle for the World: Liberation Movements for the 21st Century (2010). Zúquete’s latest book is The Identitarians: The Movement Against Globalism and Islam in Europe (2018).

Routledge International Handbooks

ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHARISMA Edited by José Pedro Zúquete ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF WORKING-CLASS STUDIES Edited by Michele Fazio, Christie Launius, and Tim Strangleman ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF DIGITAL MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION Edited by Leah A. Lievrouw and Brian D. Loader ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF RELIGION IN GLOBAL SOCIETY Edited by Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF BREXIT Edited by Juan Santos Vara and Ramses A. Wessel; Assistant Editor, and Polly R. Polak ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CRITICAL FINANCE STUDIES Edited by Christian Borch and Robert Wosnitzer ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON THE GOVERNANCE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY Edited by Anna Triandafyllidou and Tina Magazzini THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CRITICAL EUROPEAN STUDIES Edited by Didier Bigo, Thomas Diez, Evangelos Fanoulis, Ben Rosamond and Yannis A. Stivachtis HANDBOOK ON ARCTIC INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE ARCTIC Edited by Timo Koivurova, Else Grete Broderstad, Dorothée Cambou, Dalee Dorough and Florian Stammler For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-International-Handbooks/book-series/RIHAND

Routledge International Handbook of Charisma

Edited by José Pedro Zúquete

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, José Pedro Zúquete; individual chapters, the contributors The right of José Pedro Zúquete to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-20744-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-26322-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figures xi List of tables xii List of contributors xiii Acknowledgmentsxx

Introduction: the study of charisma José Pedro Zúquete

1

SECTION I

Concepts and theories

5

  1 Max Weber and the sociology of charisma Christopher Adair-Toteff

7

  2 Émile Durkheim and charisma Philip Smith

18

  3 Freud and charisma Elizabeth Lunbeck

28

  4 The anthropology of charisma Charles Lindholm

39

SECTION II

Historical cases

51

  5 Charismatic leaders in ancient Greece Joseph Roisman

53

  6 Charismatic leadership in ancient Rome Maijastina Kahlos

65

vii

Contents

 7 Fascism Roger Eatwell

77

  8 Maoism and charismatic domination Matthew D. Johnson

89

  9 Charismatic leadership in African politics Sishuwa Sishuwa

101

10 Charisma in Latin American politics Carlos de la Torre

115

SECTION III

Religion127 11 Charisma and shamanism Eric Michael Kelley

129

12 Charisma and Judaism David Aberbach

140

13 Charisma in Christianity Paula Pryce

151

14 Constructing Muslim charisma Jonathan E. Brockopp

163

15 Charisma in Hinduism Amanda Lucia

175

16 Charisma in new religious movements Erin Prophet

186

SECTION IV

Politics199 17 Charisma and democratic discourse Tom F. Wright

201

18 Charisma in liberal democracies Jean-Claude Monod

215

19 Political charisma and modern populism Takis S. Pappas

226

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Contents

20 Charismatic leadership, ethics, and politics Terry L. Price

238

21 Charisma and toxic leadership: Prime Minister Tony Blair Timothy Heppell

249

22 Charisma and revolution: the key to Max Weber’s project Carl Levy

261

SECTION V

Extremism275 23 Apocalyptic groups and charisma of the cadre Rebecca Moore 24 Sunni Jihadist charismatic leadership: the case of Anwar al-Awlaki (1971–2011) Haroro J. Ingram

277

288

SECTION VI

Management and business

301

25 Charisma in organizational studies Jay A. Conger

303

26 Signaling charisma Nicolas Bastardoz

313

27 A follower-centric perspective on charismatic leadership: an integrative review and agenda for future research Aï Ito, Jennifer Harrison, Michelle Bligh, and Christine Roland-Lévy 28 Charisma and traineeship Benjamin Tur

324

337

SECTION VII

Culture, media, entertainment 29 Charisma and the arts C. Stephen Jaeger

349 351

ix

Contents

30 Charisma and the media John Potts

363

31 Celebrity and charisma: integration and insurgency Eva Giloi

375

32 Independence and charismatic authority in popular music: just do it yourself – DIY Trajce Cvetkovski 33 Hollywood and charisma Kate Fortmueller 34 Celebrity, charisma, and post-truth relations: agnogenesis, affect, and Bollywood Pramod Nayar 35 Charisma in sports Tim Delaney

387 398

408 418

SECTION VIII

Rising topics

431

36 The evolutionary foundations of charismatic leadership Ronald F. White

433

37 Charisma and gender among leaders Jean Lau Chin†

445

38 Charisma and the digital age: mass re-enchantment online and networking the new iron cage Raymond L.M. Lee 39 Death becomes us! Rethinking leadership charisma as a social inference Louisa Fink, Rolf van Dick, Niklas K. Steffens, Kim Peters, S. Alexander Haslam

457

468

Index480

x

Figures

17.1 17.2 17.3 19.1 27.1

“Mesmerising John Bull” (c.1841), National Library of Medicine 206 “The Magnetic Blaine,” May 8, 1880, Harper’s Weekly207 “The Cheap Dollar Ghost Dance,” Aberdeen Daily News, September 29, 1896 210 Charismatic leadership as a three-level concept 229 Follower-centric perspectives of charismatic leadership using a levels-ofanalysis framework 327 39.1 Serial mediation effect of identity leadership and identity fusion in Study 3 473 39.2 Partisanship and the death-charisma effect for (a) Helmut Kohl and (b) Helmut Schmidt in Study 3 474

xi

Tables

19.1 19.2 19.3 27.1

Types of legitimate leadership according to their nature and rule aims The index of charismatic leadership The index of populist leadership Summary of future research directions on follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership using a levels-of-analysis framework 39.1 Summary of studies

xii

228 230 232 331 471

Contributors

The editor José Pedro Zúquete (1978) is a political scientist whose research focuses mainly on comparative

politics, social movements, and nationalism. He is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. After receiving his PhD from the University of Bath (2005), Zúquete was a research fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Zúquete has edited books and special journal issues in Portugal and Brazil, and he is the author of numerous articles in journals such as The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Political Ideologies, and Latin American Politics and Society. He is the author of Missionary Politics in Contemporary Europe (2007, Syracuse University Press) and the coauthor (with Charles Lindholm) of The Struggle for the World: Liberation Movements for the 21st Century (2010, Stanford University Press). Zúquete’s latest book is The Identitarians: The Movement Against Globalism and Islam in Europe (2018, Notre Dame University Press).

The contributors David Aberbach (1953) is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Studies at McGill University, Montreal. He is the author of various studies combining Arts and Social Sciences: Surviving Trauma: Loss, Literature and Psychoanalysis (1989), Charisma in Politics, Religion and the Media (1996), National Poetry, Empire and War (2015), and Literature and Poverty (2019). He is currently Honorary Research Associate at the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, writing on literature and the environment. Christopher Adair-Toteff (1950) is Fellow at the Center for Social Thought at the University of South Florida. He has taught in the United States as well as Europe. His recent books include Raymond Aron’s Philosophy of Political Responsibility (2019), Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion (2016), and Fundamental Concepts of Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion (2015). He is completing a book on Carl Schmitt and is writing one on Max Weber’s political philosophy. Nicolas Bastardoz (1987) is Senior Research Associate at the University of Zurich in the

Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership. His research interests span two broad domains: Leadership and Methods. His leadership interests focus on charisma (its antecedents, measurement, and consequences), followership, and power. Methodologically, he is interested in applications of applied econometrics and methods for causal inference. Nicolas currently acts as Associate Editor and Methods Advisor for The Leadership Quarterly.

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Contributors

Michelle C. Bligh (1974) is Dean and Professor of Organizational Behavior in the School of Social Science, Policy, and Evaluation at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, US. Her research interests include charismatic leadership, gender, and followership. She has worked with a number of industries, including local and state law enforcement, consulting, health care, and real estate, and has taught and consulted in North America, Europe, Asia, and Central America. Jonathan E. Brockopp (1962) is Professor of History and Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania

State University. His primary research focus is on the literary remains of early Muslim cultures, including the Qur’an, hadith, legal, and theological texts. His most recent book, Muhammad’s Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities (Cambridge, 2017), traces the rise of a professional scholarly community in Islam and tries to understand how these early scholars constructed their notion of religious authority. Jean Lau Chin† (1944–2020) was Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University in New York. She has held leadership roles as Dean at Adelphi University, Systemwide Dean at Alliant International University, Executive Director of South Cove Community Health Center and ­Co-Director of Thom Mental Health Clinic. She has written widely about diversity and ­leadership, including being the 2018 Fulbright Scholar and Distinguished Chair at the University of Sydney in Australia. Her books on leadership include: (Joint editor) Building Bridges to Inclusive Leadership through the Lens of Cultural Narratives (in progress); (Joint editor) Global and Culturally Diverse Leaders and Leadership: Challenges for Business, Education and Society (2017). Jay Conger is the Henry R. Kravis Chaired Professor of Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He has written 15 books on leadership topics. His most recent publication is The High Potential’s Advantage (with Allan Church) (2018). His books on charismatic leadership include The Charismatic Leader,  Charismatic Leadership in Organizations (with Rabindra Kanungo), and Charismatic Leadership in Organizations: The Elusive Factor in Organizational Effectiveness (with Rabindra Kanungo). Trajce Cvetkovski (1968) is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law and Business at the Australian Catholic University. He has also practiced as a Barrister-at-Law since 1996. He has written widely about the political economy of the music industry and technological change. His books include the Political Economy of the Music Industry (2007), Copyright and Popular Media (2013), and The Pop Music Idol and the Spirit of Charisma (2015) (Pop Music, Culture and Identity Series). Tim Delaney is a Professor of Sociology and co-Director of the Sports Studies Program at the State University of New York at Oswego. He has published more than 20 books, dozens of book chapters, journal and encyclopedia articles, and has been published in five continents. His books include his coauthored The Sociology of Sport, Third Edition (forthcoming 2021) and Sportsmanship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (2016, editor). He also organizes an annual sportsmanship day symposium. Carlos de la Torre (1959) is Professor and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He has been a fellow at the Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. He is the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Global Populism, 2019; The Promise and Perils of Populism, 2015; Latin American Populism of the Twenty

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Contributors

First Century (with Cynthia Arnson, 2013). He is the author of Populisms: A Quick Immersion, and Populist Seduction in Latin America. Roger Eatwell (1949) is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bath.

He has written widely about both interwar and post-1945 fascism and populism. His books include: Fascism: a History (with new Introduction, 2003); (joint editor) Charisma and Fascism in Interwar Europe (2006) and (joint author) National Populism: the Revolt against Liberal Democracy (2018). Other works include chapters on related themes in the Oxford Handbooks on: The History of Nationalism (2013); Political Ideologies (2013); Populism (2017); and The Radical Right (2018). Louisa Fink (1996) holds a PhD in Management Studies from Cambridge Judge Business School (UK) examining organizational ambidexterity in the millennial age. She completed her MSc in Organizational and Social Psychology at the London School of Economics (UK). Among her most recent works, she has coauthored the book Leadership Styles: Interviewing Prominent Leaders in Society (2018; in German). Kate Fortmueller (1982) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia. Her work on media labor appears in the journals Film History, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Journal of Film and Video, Media Industries, Television & New Media, and is forthcoming in The Journal of Popular Film and Television. Eva Giloi is Associate Professor in the History Department at Rutgers University-Newark. She has written on material culture and visual culture; monarchy; museums; socialization and childhood; fame, celebrity, and charisma. Her publications include Constructing Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe (2010, joint editor); Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany, 1750–1950 (2011), and the essays: “So Writes the Hand that Swings the Sword: Autograph Hunting and Royal Charisma in the German Empire, 1861–1888” (2010) and “Copyrighting the Kaiser: Publicity, Piracy, and the Right to Wilhelm II’s Image” (2012). Jennifer Harrison (1983) is Associate Professor in HRM/OB at the Normandy Business

School. As a member of the Métis Laboratory, she conducts research on leader-follower relationships, gender, diversity, and inclusion in organizations. She has published in several leading management and psychology journals and has presented her research across North America, Europe, and China. S. Alexander Haslam (1962) is Professor of Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on the study of leadership, group, and identity processes in organizational and health contexts. His most recent books are The New Psychology of Health: Unlocking the Social Cure (Routledge, 2018, with Catherine Haslam, Jolanda Jetten, Tegan Cruwys and Genevieve Dingle) and The New Psychology of Leadership (2nd ed., Routledge, 2020, with Steve Reicher and Michael Platow). Timothy Heppell (1972) is Associate Professor of British Politics at the University of Leeds. He is an expert in British Political Parties and Prime Ministerial leadership. He is the author of Choosing the Tory Leader (2008); Choosing the Labour Leader (2010); Cameron: The Politics of Modernisation and Manipulation (2019) and the coauthor of The Political Rhetoric and Oratory of Margaret Thatcher (2016). He also co-edited How Labour Governments Fall (2013).

xv

Contributors

Haroro J. Ingram (1983) is a senior research fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. His research primarily focuses on the role of propaganda and charismatic leadership in the evolution and appeal of violent non-state political movements. He is the coauthor of The ISIS Reader: Milestone Texts of the Islamic State Movement (Hurst/Oxford University Press) and regularly publishes in academic, policy, and media forums. Ingram is an associate fellow with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague and a member of the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Council at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Aï Ito (1991) holds a PhD from NEOMA Business School and is a doctoral student at URCA (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne) in France. She holds BS and MS degrees in Business Administration from Hitotsubashi University, Japan. Her research focuses on charismatic leadership, self-disclosure, and gender. C. Stephen Jaeger (1950) is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor Emeritus of German, Comparative Literature, and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana/ Champaign. He has written on courtliness in the Middle Ages, courtly love, cathedral school education and European social ideals, and on charisma and art. His most recent book is Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Matthew D. Johnson (1975) is an independent research consultant and analyst. He was previously a historian at the University of Oxford and Grinnell College, and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. His books include (joint editor) Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (2015) and (joint editor) Redefining Propaganda in Modern China (forthcoming). Maijastina Kahlos (1967) is a Research Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Her research interests broadly include Roman history, religions in the Roman Empire, and Christianization of the Mediterranean regions. Her books include Forbearance and Compulsion: The Rhetoric of Tolerance and Intolerance in Late Antiquity (2009); Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity (2020) and (editor) Emperors and the Divine: Rome and its Influence (2016). Eric Michael Kelley (1969) is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has conducted ethnographic research in eastern Paraguay and is the author of “The Routinization of Improvisation in Avá-Guaraní Shamanic Leadership” (2013). He advocates for indigenous rights and is the author of “Yva Poty Rising: From the Ashes, a Cause for Hope” (2013), “Y’apo: Guaraní Continue Fight for Recognition of their Land and Human Rights” (2014), and a consultant for Universal Periodic Review Reports for Paraguay to the United Nations, in collaboration with Cultural Survival. Raymond Lee (1950) was previously Associate Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at the

University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. His publications on modernity, crowds, and religion have appeared in Sociology, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Culture & Religion, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, Thesis Eleven, Third Text, and the European Journal of Social Theory. He is also the author of The Tao of Representation: Postmodernity, Asia and the West (1999) and the coauthor of The Challenge of Religion after Modernity: Beyond Disenchantment (2002, reissued 2018).

xvi

Contributors

Carl Levy (1951) is Professor of Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written

widely on anarchism, Gramsci, and Weber. His most recent books are (joint editor), The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism (2018) and (joint editor) The Anarchist Imagination: Anarchism Encounters the Humanities and the Social Sciences (2019). Charles Lindholm (1946) is Emeritus University Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. His books include Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan (1982), Charisma (1990), Is America Breaking Apart (1999 with John A. Hall), The Islamic Middle East (revised edition 2002), Culture and Identity (revised edition 2007), Culture and Authenticity 2007, The Struggle for the World (2010 with J.P. Zúquete), and The Anthropology of Religious Charisma (2013 edited volume). Amanda Lucia (1977) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She is a historian of religions who has written widely about contemporary global circulations of Hindu religions, guru movements, charismatic authority, gender, sexuality, and race from an ethnographic and anthropological approach. Her publications include, White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals (2020), Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (2014), and numerous articles. Elizabeth Lunbeck (1953) is Professor of the History of Science in Residence, Harvard Uni-

versity. She is the author, most recently, of The Americanization of Narcissism (2014) – asking why the question of narcissism has become so urgent in our culture – and has written widely on the history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. She is currently writing a history of psychotherapy. Jean-Claude Monod (1970) is Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His work deals mainly with secularization and authority. Among his last books: Qu’est-ce qu’un chef en démocratie? Politiques du charisme (2012, pocket 2017 with a new afterword) and L’art de ne pas être trop gouverné (2019). Rebecca Moore (1951) is Emerita Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University.

She is the author of numerous articles and books on new religions, including Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple (Praeger 2018, 2nd ed.). Her most recent book is Beyond Brainwashing: Perspectives on Cultic Violence (Cambridge University Press 2018). She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Pramod K Nayar (1970) is Professor of English at the University of Hyderabad, India. His most

recent books include Indian Travel Writing in the Age of Empire, 1830–1940 (2020), Ecoprecarity: Vulnerable Lives in Literature and Culture (2019), Bhopal’s Ecological Gothic: Disaster, PRecarity and the Ecological Uncanny (2017), and Human Rights and Literature: Writing Right (2016). Forthcoming is a book, The Human Rights Graphic Novel: Drawing It Just Right. Takis S Pappas (1960) is a Greek, US-trained political scientist associated with the University of Helsinki, Finland. Besides dozens of articles in top academic journals, he has authored Making Party Democracy in Greece (1999), The Charismatic Party: PASOK, Papandreou, Power (2009, in Greek), Populism and Crisis Politics in Greece (2014), Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis (2019), and co-edited European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession (2015).

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Contributors

Kim  Peters is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on social influence processes (including communication and leadership) in social and organizational settings. Her work has been published in leading journals in social psychology and management science, and she works closely with organizations to examine the role of psychological factors in organizational functioning. John Potts is Professor of Media at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has written widely on

media studies, cultural history, and intellectual history. His books include: A History of Charisma (2009), The New Time and Space (2015), Ideas in Time: The Longue Durée in Intellectual History (2019); and (coauthored with Andrew Murphie) Culture and Technology (2003). He is also editor of the book The Future of Writing (2014) and joint editor of The Unacceptable (2013) and After the Event: New Perspectives on Art History (2010). Terry L. Price (1966) is the Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics and Professor of Leadership Studies and PPEL (Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law) at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. He is author of Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership; Leadership Ethics: An Introduction; and, most recently, Leadership and the Ethics of Influence. Erin Prophet (1966) is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the

­ niversity of Florida. She specializes in religion and medicine. Among her publications are U “Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements” in the Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements vol 2 (2016), and Prophet’s Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside Church Universal and Triumphant (2009). She is a coauthor with Jeffrey Kripal of Comparing Religions (2014). Paula Pryce (1964) is Lecturer in Anthropology and Research Associate at the University of

British Columbia. Her current work specializes in epistemology and ritual and performance studies among Christian monastics and non-monastic contemplatives in North America and South Asia. Pryce is the author of The Monk’s Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity (Oxford, 2018) and ‘Keeping the Lakes’ Way’: Reburial and the Re-creation of a Moral World among an Invisible People (University of Toronto Press, 1999). Joseph Roisman (1946) is Emeritus Professor of Classics at Colby College, US, who specialized in ancient Greek history and Greek rhetoric. His recent books include Lycurgus, Against Leocrates. Introduction and Commentary by Joseph Roisman. Translation by Michael Edwards. Clarendon Ancient History Series, Oxford University Press. 2019, and The Classical Art of Command: Eight Greek Generals Who Changed the History of Warfare. Oxford University Press. 2017. Christine Roland-Lévy (1953) is Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Reims, France. Her research focus is in applied psychology, and she has published nearly 200 scientific papers and books. She is the president of the International Association of Applied Psychology (2018–2022). She was President of two other international associations (International Association for Research in Economic Psychology, IAREP, 1997–1999; and Children’s Identity & Citizenship European Association, CiCea, 2008–2010). Sishuwa Sishuwa (1985) is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Zambia, with research and teaching interests in 19th and 20th century African History. His latest works, xviii

Contributors

published in the Journal of Southern African Studies, include “ ‘A White Man Will Never Be a Zambian’: Racialised Nationalism, the Rule of Law, and Competing Visions of Independent Zambia in the Case of Justice James Skinner, 1964–1969” (2019) and “Surviving on Borrowed Power: Rethinking the Role of Civil Society in Zambia’s Third-Term Debate” (2020). Philip Smith (1964) is Professor of Sociology and co-Director of the Center for Cultural Soci-

ology at Yale University. His books include Cultural Theory (2001); The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim (co-editor, 2005); Why War? (2005), Punishment and Culture (2008), Incivity (coauthor, 2010), Climate Change as Social Drama (coauthor, 2015), and After Durkheim (2020). Niklas Steffens (1983) is Lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the

University of Queensland. His work focuses on the contribution of identity processes to leadership and followership as well as health and well-being in social, organizational, and sports contexts. His research on leadership has uncovered how shared social identity can serve as a basis for leader-follower relationships, including leader charisma. Benjamin Tur (1991) holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from the University of Lausanne. He trains leaders to speak in public and has written on leadership and charisma. He is a coauthor of the book Leaderspritz (2018), a reviewer for The Leadership Quarterly, and he has published articles in specialized academic journals. Rolf van Dick (1967) is Professor of Social Psychology at Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany) where he also serves as Vice President. He has published several books and almost 200 papers in academic journals, mostly on applications of social identity theory on organizational topics such as mergers and acquisitions, leadership, and health and well-being. Ronald F. White (1951) earned a PhD in the History of Science and Medicine from the Uni-

versity of Kentucky. He has been teaching philosophy and ethics courses at Mount St. Joseph University, in Cincinnati for over 30  years. He  is an interdisciplinary scholar who  has published over 100 journal articles, book reviews, and book chapters across a variety of topics and disciplines. Tom F. Wright (1981) teaches English and American Studies at the University of Sussex. He

is the author of Lecturing the Atlantic: Speech, Print and an Anglo-American Commons (2017) and the editor of Transatlantic Rhetoric: Speeches from the American Revolution to the Suffragettes (2020) and The Cosmopolitan Lyceum: Lecture Culture and the Globe in Nineteenth Century America (2013). He is writing a book called Primitive Charisma about the prehistory of Weber’s idea.

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Acknowledgments

When, in January of 2018, I first told Gerhard Boomgaarden, senior publisher at Routledge at the time, about my plan to put together a unique, interdisciplinary, well-rounded Handbook of Charisma, I was met with an enthusiastic approval of the project. Three years later – with a few bumps along the way, including delays, and a few chapters dropped for a variety of reasons – the project is finally concluded with an overall sense of reward. I want to thank both Gerhard for his support and encouragement and Mihaela Diana Ciobotea, the editorial assistant on the Sociology list at Routledge, for her diligence and efficiency. I also want to thank Balaji Karuppanan for all the help throughout the production process of the Handbook. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers who – after assessing the proposal – gave their unconditional approval. Because of the magnitude of the project – particularly the fact that it covers many areas of research and fields of study – the advice and comments by outside referees was essential and to them – 29 in total – I express my recognition and gratitude. Lastly, to all 46 authors, specialists in each of their fields and from different places and universities across the world, I want to thank you for your professionalism, competence, patience at many of my requests and queries, and, more crucially, dedication to writing chapters that, I believe, will be a reference in the study of charisma for many years to come.

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Introduction The study of charisma José Pedro Zúquete

In various forms, historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, business and management specialists, and theologians, as well as scholars of entertainment and media studies, research charisma. The phenomenon also continues to attract considerable interest among students, practitioners, policy makers, and media professionals. The Routledge International Handbook of Charisma casts light on classical approaches to the study of charisma while also highlighting recent advances from scholars and thinkers in various academic disciplines around the world. By drawing together leading experts in the field of charisma studies, the Handbook examines key conceptual, methodological, theoretical, and empirical issues while delivering authoritative approaches from these various disciplines to the study of charisma. For the last few decades, this scholarly activity focused upon charisma has been at the center of many discussions, theorizations, and empirical demonstrations. Its study, of course, began roughly 100 years ago when Max Weber, influenced especially by the work of the jurist and theologian Rudolph Sohm, took the concept of charisma from its original theological context as a “gift of grace” in the Christian New Testament and made it operational in the historical and social domain as a sociological concept. Even though, as this comprehensive volume will illustrate, writers before Weber had formulated theoretical accounts of the phenomenon of charismatic leadership (without invoking the term charisma) and the ways in which leaders win over followers using powerful convincing means with examples that stretch back at least to antiquity, Weber took the decisive step in employing the term charisma within the world of social sciences and in the development of the notion of charisma – together with tradition and law – as a basis for the exercise of power. It can be argued that Weber was much stronger in his depiction of charismatic authority than about depicting charisma itself. The question of whether charisma was inborn (as a set of personality traits) or the result of an attribution by followers would remain somewhat open. Other contemporaries of Weber – such as Durkheim and Freud, with their work on group belonging and ecstatic states – have contributed to the study of charisma (hence the Handbook acknowledges their status as “classical theorists” of the concept), and have given rise to explanations of charismatic phenomena that thrive today; it is not an overstatement to say that the Weberian portrait of charismatic authority became the default position of subsequent studies and research on the topic. These studies had to incorporate – whether to accept, contest, complement, or reformulate – his analysis of charisma as major type of legitimate domination. Thus, such “dialogue” with Weber is present, to varying degrees, throughout the chapters assembled in this volume. 1

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Certainly, the religious origins of charisma cast a long shadow over Weber’s own work on it; the persistence of religious overtones is unmistakable. The leader, whose powers are not accessible to the ordinary person, is perceived by followers to be almost superhuman, the followers blindly follow the mission, and the charismatic bond is based not on reason but primarily on raw emotional power. Not surprisingly, Weber’s prototypical charismatic leader was the shaman, who bestowed healing gifts on the community. Also, even though Weber had attributed charisma to modern political figures, many of his paradigmatic examples of charismatic authority antedate the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the onslaught of secularization, when the religious sphere was arguably more central to the life of communities. Religious institutions both within and outside the West are, therefore, picture-perfect for the study of charisma. In terms not only of the attribution of exceptional, even seemingly divine powers to a founder or leader but also in regard to the ritualistic, performative, and soteriological dynamics that characterize and mobilize the charismatic community, the study of charisma will be thoroughly analyzed in this volume. This applies not only to the Abrahamic religions but also to religions such as Hinduism, where the Weberian notion of charisma is not limited to humans but also expresses itself in nonhuman entities and the material world. There is also the matter that although Weber was forceful in his description of such a type of charismatic authority as an ideal type, not as a mirror-image of reality but as an exaggeration of nevertheless essential features of reality, it became almost too easy for scholars both to associate this classical definition of charisma with a bygone era of an enchanted world and to dissociate it with modern, secular, disenchanted times. Ironically, charisma was deemed inapplicable to a disenchanted world whose coming of age was powerfully explained by Weber himself in his philosophy of history. In a refinement of the irony, the discrediting of Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership occurred in the last decades of a century that would be described, not without reason, as the “age of charisma” – by Arthur Schweitzer in a book of that title. According to this storyline, the early-to-mid-20th century could well be described as the last hurrah of charisma and also its last gasp. The vast literature on the interwar period, particularly in regard to authoritarianism and fascism, emphasizes the role of charisma, from regime leaders such as Mussolini or Hitler to a wide range of leaders of fascist-like movements. As the historical segment of the Handbook documents, these mass ideologies – together with communism and, later, Maoism – and their mythical, ritual, communal, fideistic, and salvationist nature are also studied as “political religions,” as examples of the sacralization of politics in the modern world; they were determined to bring about here and now their own vision of a sacred community. Having said that, it is important to bear in mind and not discount how more instrumental and materialist explanations may provide a useful lens for viewing and even complement the scholarly study of these mass ideologies, their charismatic leaders, and their allure. A similar emphasis on the sacralization of the political in the modern world – and the role played in it by charismatic leaderships – was evident in the literature on postcolonial nations, such as those in Africa. Most of these charismatic leaderships, however, emerged during extraordinary times of upheaval or revolution. In fact, leaders of long-standing democracies who acted in such moments of crisis – leaders like Churchill or Charles de Gaulle – have been also presented as case studies of charismatic leadership. Clearly, in the near or distant future, when dramatic, earthshaking, crises do emerge again – be they wars, natural disasters, plagues, or potential societal collapse and chaos – it is to be anticipated (almost as an unwritten rule in history) that the popular clamor for strong and charismatic leaders to “save” the community will emerge yet again – even if the actual advent of such a leader is never a certainty. But – such dramatic scenarios aside – what about charisma in “less exceptional” or “normal” times, in the supposedly desacralized, secular world of modern democratic politics? Especially 2

Introduction

in its Weberian formulation, charisma has many times been devalued as an explanatory concept. This tendency can be seen in two ways. On one hand, the literature of charisma studies has overwhelmingly chosen its case studies from examples of the past but has not paid the same attention to leaders acting in more stable, modern, and allegedly less-enchanted settings of liberal democracies. This is further complicated by the fact that for some writers Weber’s reading of charisma is inherently authoritarian. On the other hand, charisma has been often reproached because of its “limited empirical utility” and has been denounced as vague, imprecise, immaterial, and difficult to be analyzed (or measured), especially by political studies that aim to be increasingly scientific (read, “quantitative”). In our century, a BBC radio documentary series dedicated to the “alluring yet elusive quality that is charisma” received the title: Charisma: Pinning down the butterfly. Charisma, then, in the words of Joseph Nye, is a usable concept “only if we keep our eyes open” to its ambiguity and variability according to different contexts. According to James MacGregor Burns, a major scholar of leadership studies, charisma as a sociological concept addresses merely “an array of murky psychological needs,” which prevents it from being looked at in a serious and rational manner. Yet, bucking this trend, and particularly since the last decade of the last century, there has also been a growing academic interest in charisma, in its power, and in the dynamics associated with it. Such interest often arises in relation to issues such as the personalization of politics and parties – including a stronger, frequently media-driven, emphasis on the personalities of politicians – or the rise of populism (whether right-wing or left-wing) in modern liberal democracies. All of these issues – and others related to them, such as the ways that charisma can be a force in modern politics that is either constructive or destructive to pluralism and liberal democracy, whether charismatic leadership may be rationally and ethically defensible given modern notions of egalitarianism and of individuals as rational ends-in-themselves, or the rise of toxic leaders – are the focus of the section dedicated to the role of and challenges triggered by charisma in the realm of politics. If the coexistence of charisma with rationalized institutions and a formal legal-rational order has been met, at least for a considerable period of time, by considerable skepticism in the realm of the study of politics, it has been much more widely accepted in other fields of inquiry and research. The scholarship on extremism has been one such field, specifically in regard to the relation of charisma with violence, whether manifested in apocalyptic sects or terrorist radicalization, be it religious or political. As the authors of the section on charisma and violence make clear, charismatic leaderships and their dynamics – with a significant role played by followers – in specific circumstances, whether directly or indirectly, can result in aggression and destruction. Simultaneously, as will be abundantly shown in the Handbook, since the 1970s – and accelerating since the 1990s – a vast organizational literature on charismatic leadership has emerged that has produced some of the most multidimensional, innovative theoretical and empirical work on charisma to date and has been setting the research agenda on charismatic leadership, whether, for example, in regard to the ways that leaders signal charisma, the role of followers in charismatic leadership processes, or the ways to teach people to be more charismatic. Importantly, in the culture at large, the last few decades have witnessed a popularization of the term charisma. Charisma has become commonplace: Everyone who is popular, appealing, or gifted in sports, arts, or politics becomes in the eyes of public opinion a “charismatic” figure. Some writers have lamented the “devaluation” and “banalization” of the term charisma that this societal evolution set off. Although the origins of the celebrity phenomenon date at least to the 19th century, this consolidation of a celebrity-oriented culture – fueled by p­ opular tabloids, social media, and the public’s insatiable appetite for stardom – is at the very basis of the explosion of charisma in the popular vocabulary. The study of this everyday notion of 3

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charisma – intrinsically tied with consumerism and mass culture – and boosted by the internet – merits its own place in this volume, and experts on media, film, and entertainment explore its nature and ramifications while connecting it with the original, “more elevated” meaning of charisma. Further, they probe the ways that charisma may be “mass-produced” by entertainment industries and the role of mass media in both promoting and debunking charisma. At the same time, in this section attention is given to two areas that merit much further scrutiny: (1) the charisma of works of art and the impact of the aesthetics of charisma, and (2) the ­presence and display of charisma in the sports world. This latter is a curiously neglected research topic, especially if we think about the larger-than-life dimension – one that even transcends national borders – that professional athletes have in our societies. In fact, an important message that this Handbook promotes is that the study of charisma is an open field that is ripe with research possibilities. With this in mind, the volume ends with a section on key rising topics. One is the contribution of evolutionary leadership theory to the study of charismatic leadership, and how ancient dynamics of group selection and adaptive behavior continue to shape human psychology and people’s choice of leaders. A second is the gender studies approach, which upends the overwhelming traditional focus on male charisma by illuminating the different ways that women communicate their charisma. A third concerns the relation of charisma with the digital universe and how emerging networks and online communities may constitute a gateway to a technological re-enchantment Weber never predicted. Fourth, and finally, there is the study of the intricacies of postmortem charisma, or the link between charisma and death, and how the leader’s death may inspire attributions of charisma. Overall, it should be kept in mind that the driving force of this volume is not the search for a unified, one-size-fits-all theory of charisma. This is an evolving field, and if there is an overriding goal, it is to present a sort of charisma 2.0, showcasing from different perspectives what has been done and explored recently while keeping an eye turned toward new possibilities. With this spirit, the authors collected here have concluded their respective contributions with suggestions for future research. In short, The Routledge International Handbook of Charisma presents an updating and revision of the original charisma concept, one that takes into account the creativity and insight emanating from a wide number of disciplines while calling attention to the benefits of an interdisciplinary, multifaceted approach to the concept’s study and ambitiously contextualizing it within the increasingly more networked, hyper-connected times that we, scholars and non-scholars alike, are living in.

4

Section I

Concepts and theories

1 Max Weber and the sociology of charisma Christopher Adair-Toteff

The term charisma “Charisma” used to signify an extraordinary religious quality, yet now it is commonly used to apply to many different things. “Charisma” is frequently used as a name of something and even as a name for someone: as a name of a car, as a name of a beauty salon, and as a name of a person.1 Yet, as Edith Hanke has observed, many people use the term charisma without understanding either its meaning or its source (Hanke 2001: 19). For all of its presence in modern society, historically it was regarded as a very rare and extremely powerful religious or magical force. It was only with Max Weber (1864–1920) and his sociological investigations that the concept of charisma became more widely used. His explorations of the concept between 1913 and his death in 1920 helped pave the way for its expanded use today. However, in becoming such a popular term “charisma” has lost much of its uniqueness and its revolutionary sense that Weber had so strenuously emphasized. The purpose of this chapter is to explain Weber’s concept of charisma, and I do so first by tracing Weber’s sources, and second, and by explaining in detail his use of the term. I conclude with a few suggestions for future investigations into the concept of charisma. There is little doubt that the concept of charisma plays a crucial role in Max Weber’s political sociology. However, there is some confusion regarding its origins. In a “Translator’s Note” to his translation of Max Weber’s Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, Talcott Parsons claimed that “Charisma is a sociological term coined by Weber himself.” (Weber 1990: 281, note 105). Parsons’s comment may be correct or incorrect depending upon one’s interpretation of his claim. If one thinks of charisma in purely sociological terms, then it is probably correct since Weber was the first sociologist to employ the term charisma. If, however, one thinks of charisma in a non-sociological way, then Parsons was wrong because Weber was not the first scholar to use the term. It was a word that began to be used in theological circles around the end of the 19th century. The term “charisma” was not found in either the first edition of the standard theological encyclopedia of the 19th century: the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche. Nor was it present in the first edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, the encyclopedia that was published by Weber’s publisher J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).2 Its first appearance was in 7

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the second edition of the Realencyklopädie (1879) in an article entitled “Geistesgaben, Charismata” and was written by Hermann Cremer. He noted that it was an “extraordinary,” a “peculiar privilege,” and a “special power” that was given by God to a few individuals (Lauterberg 1898). And “charisma” was used by Moritz Lauterberg in his Der Begriff des Charisma und seine Bedeutung für die praktische Theologie which appeared in 1898. Lauterberg noted that the notion of charisma had been largely ignored and he cited Cremer’s article as one of the few pieces that dealt with it. He also took Cremer’s advice to apply the notion to practical theology; hence, Lauterberg’s book has three parts: a discussion of Paul’s original use of “charisma,” its place throughout Church history, and its application in modern practical theology. Max Weber himself looked at theology for the source of the term, but apparently not to Cremer’s article or to Lauterberg’s book. As is well known, Weber rarely provided sufficient indication for the sources that he used; thus, it is extremely fortunate that he explicitly cited two of the three sources for his concept of charisma. The two sources that Weber explicitly names are Karl Holl and his dissertation Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum and Rudolph Sohm and the first volume of his Kirchenrecht. At the time Holl published his dissertation, he was still at the beginning of his career and had not yet become the famous authority on Luther. It is likely that Weber had learned of charisma through his friend and colleague, theologian Ernst Troeltsch. Holl argued that charisma was part of the ethical ideal of the ascetic medieval monk’s life. In this sense, charisma was God’s gift to the monk to help him (Holl 1898: 148–155). Rudolph Sohm was a well-respected legal scholar and church historian when he published his Kirchenrecht. In fact, Max Weber had heard Sohm lecture while he was attending the university in Straßburg during the winter semester of 1883–1884.3 In his Kirchenrecht Sohm argued there was no canon law in the early Church because the essence of law is worldly whereas the essence of the Church is spiritual. Hence, the concept of Church law is contradictory (Sohm 1892: 1). Sohm argued instead that the early Christians did not follow any Ecclesiastic law but followed a charismatic leader. The believers recognized that God had given the leader the gift of charisma, thus they followed him voluntarily (Sohm 1892: 26–29, 51–52). Sohm was continuing the contention that he had made earlier. In Das Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche, he had argued that the Church is a spiritual institution and not an institution of power (“Die Kirche ist Heilanstalt, nicht Machtanstalt”) (Sohm 1873: 49). Sohm’s insistence on the lack of canon law led to a lengthy conflict with the noted church historian Adolf Harnack. Sohm’s point then and later was that the early Ecclesia was clearly not a legal organization but was a “charismatic organization” (“charismatische Organisation”).4 Weber’s contribution was to show that Sohm’s notion of “charisma” need not be restricted to theology but is also found in politics. And that is why most of Weber’s discussions about charisma are about charismatic leadership, but it is still important to consider all of Weber’s comments on charisma, regardless of whether they are about politics or about religion. Max Weber specifically mentions Rudolph Sohm in four places: (1) the section of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft on “Herrschaften,” which was most likely written during 1914 (Weber 2005: 462), (2) in his 1920 lecture course “Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik” (Weber 2009: 77–79), (3) in the introductory section of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, which was written in 1920 (Weber 2013: 454, Weber’s note 1), and (4) in the posthumously published “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft” (Weber 2005: 735). But it is only in the introductory section that Weber explicitly mentions Karl Holl (Weber 2013: 454, Weber’s note 1). And it is in “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft” that Weber hints at his third source – the Old Testament Prophets.5 It is in the section on “Prophet” in the Religiöse Gemeinschaften of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft where Weber provides a “sociological” definition of “Prophet”: “We want to understand here under ‘prophet’ a purely personal carrier of charisma.”6 Weber thought that there were two types of prophets: exemplary prophets whose disciples were drawn to the prophet because 8

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of the type of person he was and ethical prophets whose disciples were drawn to him because of the prophet’s doctrine.7 Weber offers Zarathustra, Jesus, and Mohammed as examples of the former, and Buddha and the old Hebraic prophets as examples of the latter (Weber 2001: 178). He then clarifies the difference between the priest and the prophet: the former serves because of tradition, the latter because of his “ ‘personal’ calling” (“ ‘persönliche’ Berufung”). And Weber suggests that this boundary between priest and prophet is fluid but adds that the prophet as well as the charismatic magician has been given the power of a personal gift (Weber 2001: 178–179). There are two important things to remember here – that it is a special gift and that it is an especially personal one. These are important to remember because of the differences they make in Weber’s types of legitimate “Herrschaften.”

Herrschaften The term “Herrschaft” is not easy to understand, but what Weber means by it is that people are willing to obey a leader’s order (Weber 2005: 135, 2009: 74–75, 2013: 449). The term “Herrschaft” is also difficult to translate into English. Some scholars have used “rule,” others have chosen “domination,” while still others have considered “authority” to be the closest choice (Lassman 2000: 86–87). “Domination” seems correct in Lassman’s sense of dominating, although he also uses “rule of man over man.” Yet “authority” also appears to be a proper choice, seeing as the point is to obey voluntarily.8 In many ways, only by considering the context is one able to determine the appropriate translation. Because there are so many difficulties with translating the term, “Herrschaft” will be used throughout this chapter. This is also because Weber is not interested in any type of “Herrschaft,” only the types which are considered “legitimate.” Again, it is difficult to explain what Weber meant by legitimate. In Soziologie Weber distinguishes between different levels of willingness. The slave is the most unfree and has no choice; the soldier must follow orders all the time, the worker may not be free in the work place but outside of it he is. Something is not legitimate if it is predicated on force, deception, or chance. Instead, “legitimate” means having trust, faith, or belief in the leader. Andreas Anter maintained that “legitimate” was the “Archimedian point” of Weber’s “Herrschaftssoziologie” and he insisted that “Herrschaft” that lacked legitimacy had no basis for “Herrschaft.” (Anter 1995: 64). For Weber there are three pure types of legitimate “Herrschaft”: traditional, bureaucratic, and charismatic. Before spelling out what each of these types are, it is important to keep in mind that he calls these “pure types,” as in “Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft.” (Weber 2005: 726, 2009: 76, 2013: 453). By “pure types” he means that they are heuristic devices intended to help clarify concepts and as such are seldom found in reality.9 Furthermore, they may be stringently delineated epistemologically, but they often overlap in the real world.10

Tradition “Traditional” “Herrschaft” is the oldest and the easiest one to explain. In Politik als Beruf, Weber quotes the authority of the “ewige Gestrigen” (“eternal yesterdays”), which was likely a reference to Hegel. In the Phänomenologie des Geistes, Hegel refers to the Laws of the Underworld in Sophocles’s Antigone: Nicht etwa jetzt und gestern, sondern immerdar lebt es, und keiner weiß, von wannen er erschein. (Not now and yesterday, but rather eternally it lives, and no one knows from when it appeared.)11 9

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Weber also writes of the “everyday belief in the holiness of some valid tradition” and again his point is to emphasize the sense of permanence of the traditional “Herrschaft.” While there is a sense that the leader is important, Weber stresses that the leader is only a “place holder” within that tradition. Thus, the piety toward tradition and the holy power of tradition supersedes any particular leader (Weber 2005: 251, 257). Furthermore, the traditional leadership form is often a gerontocracy because the oldest members of the society know the tradition the best (Weber 2009: 76, 83). Weber contended that there were three types of traditional “Herrschaft”: primitive patriarchy, patrimonial, and class “Herrschaften.” Weber further believed that these forms have been found throughout the world and throughout history. Therefore, traditional “Herrschaft” is not only permanent in the sense of tradition but that it has been the longest existing type found in the world. It is permanent, but it is not rational; instead the decisions that the traditional leader makes are sometimes arbitrary. Thus, it lacks a necessary ingredient for modern capitalism – the “indispensable calculablity of the functioning of the order of the state” (“unentbehrliche Berechenbarkeit des Funktionierens der Staatliche Ordnung”) (Weber 2005: 426). The importance of predictability cannot be overestimated for the state as well as the economy. Planning is paramount for modern capitalism; it cannot function if it is arbitrary. In contrast, the traditional leader can be, and often is, arbitrary (“Willkür”); hence, one never knows whether one can count on the good graces of the local leader. The properties of traditional “Herrschaft” can be briefly summarized: respect for tradition, a sense of permanence, and while there is a personal leader who can sometimes act arbitrarily, the leader is subservient to the power of tradition.

Bureaucracy Weber refers to his second pure type of “Herrschaft” often as “bureaucratic,” “legal,” or “rational.” And he juxtaposes many of its traits with traditional “Herrschaft.” First, “bureaucratic” “Herrschaft” is a modern development. Second, it has a type of permanence, but it is different from “traditional” “Herrschaft.” Third, it is even more impersonal than the traditional type. Each of these points will be clarified and a number will be added to them. Much of Weber’s interest centered on the rise of Western rationalism. In the “Vorbemerkung” to the revised edition of the Protestant Ethic, Weber insisted that “science” (“Wissenschaft”) exists only in the West because only there has the process of rationalization occurred (Weber 2016: 101–108). In his 1917 speech Wissenschaft als Beruf, Weber said that rationalism has replaced magic as a means to understand and to control the world. This meant the “disenchantment of the world” (“Entzauberung der Welt”), and he noted that there were two groundbreaking developments which furthered this process: first, Socrates’s invention of the concept, and second, the Renaissance scientists who discovered the rational experiment (Weber 1992: 89–90, 109). The first allowed people to move from concrete pictures to abstract thinking. The second allowed people to test theories and to develop a more reliable sense of prediction. Both cases allowed people to calculate better. And that leads to how the sense of permanency in bureaucratic “Herrschaft” differs from that of traditional “Herrschaft.” Weber had indicated that there was a degree of arbitrariness because of the person who is the leader in traditional “Herrschaft.” The high degree of rationality in bureaucratic “Herrschaft” minimizes if not eliminates that arbitrariness. Indeed, the formalism of bureaucratic “Herrschaft” is in opposition to arbitrariness (“Willkür”).12 And that high degree of rationality comes from a number of factors. The first is the formal training whereby a student undergoes formal training and must prove mastery over the material by passing formal examinations. The student must prove that he has sufficient knowledge (“Wissen”), and he demonstrates that he 10

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has competence (“Kompetenz”) by showing that he knows the rules.13 Second, it is not enough simply to know the rules; one must know how to apply them uniformly; that is, in each and every case as well as always in a fair and objective manner. Bureaucratic “Herrschaft” is always “impersonal” (“Unpersönlichkeit”), meaning that the bureaucrat acts “sine ira et studio”; that is, “without hate or love” and without any personal influence. Thus, there is no “regard for the person” (“ohne Ansehen der Person”) (Weber 2005: 727, 2013: 466). Thus, one person does not get favorable dispensations because the official likes her, nor is the other person penalized because the official dislikes him. In the Staatssoziologie, Weber provides seven marks of the “spirit of bureaucracy” (“Geist der Büroktratie”): (1) formal rules (2) impersonal character (3) utilitarianism (4) fight against irrational forces (5) democracy – meaning equality (6) costly and lengthy training (7) knowledge (Weber 2009: 82–83) These seven traits can be summed up in the following way: the bureaucrat is someone who has undergone a lengthy period of training and uses his knowledge of formal rules in an impersonal, equalitarian, and rational manner. As with the traits of traditional “Herrschaft,” the traits of bureaucratic “Herrschaft” will be helpful in clarifying Weber’s concept of charisma.

Charisma The third pure type of “Herrschaft” is the most difficult to explain, and that difficulty rests on several factors: “charisma” is resistant to a clear definition because it is a rather nebulous concept and it raises a number of questions. Who actually has it, and can somebody evil like Hitler be said to have been charismatic? These questions may not be answerable, yet “charismatic” “Herrschaft” may be the most important type of authority. Weber provided a number of attempts at defining charisma. Weber mentions the term in “Die protestantischen Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus.” Several things make this interesting: first, it is probably Weber’s earliest use of the term in print because the article was written in late 1905 or early 1906. Second, it is about the Protestant sects in the United States. Third, it is based upon Weber’s personal interviews when he was in the United States in connection with the 1904 World Congress. He notes that the American Quakers did not follow anyone because of his theological education or his theological office but because of the individual’s charisma. Weber repeats that charisma is not because of any theological qualification and stresses that the decisive quality is the “charisma of the state of grace” (“Charisma des Gnadenstandes”) (Weber 2016: 533–537). In the section of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft devoted to “Herrschaft,” Weber again does not define charisma but states it is a specific type of “supernatural” (“übernatürlich”) “gift” (“Gabe”), and he stresses that it is unlike what is found in the trained bureaucrat. Instead, it is divinely given (Weber 2005: 460–461). In Politik als Beruf, he identifies charisma as a “Gnadengabe” (Weber 1992: 160). In the Staatssoziologie, Weber offers an attempt at a definition: “Charisma: Faith in an extraordinary quality” (“Charisma: Glaube an eine außeralltäliche Qualität,”) (Weber 2009: 90). This definition is similar to the one given in the introductory chapters of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, where he wrote, “ ‘Charisma’ shall mean an extraordinary quality of a personality,” (“ ‘Charisma’ soll eine 11

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außeralltäglich  .  .  . Qualität einer Persönlichkeit heißen,”) (Weber 2013: 490). While these descriptions may not be definitive, they do include several key points about charisma. First, that historically charisma was regarded as a divine gift. Weber repeatedly emphasized this special gift or divine mission. He refers to it as a “gift” (“Gabe” or “Gnadengabe”) (Weber 1992: 160, 2001: 179, 2005: 530) or as a “mission” (“Sendung”) many times: as “mission” (“Mission”) (Weber 2001: 177), “divine mission” (“göttlichen Sendung”) (Weber 2005: 461), a “mission” (Weber 2005: 467), “Sendung” (“Mission”) five times (Weber 2005: 462–464, 734), a “Sendung” (Weber 2009: 92–93), “ ‘mission’ or inner ‘task’ ” (“ ‘Sendung’ oder innere ‘Aufgabe’ ”) (Weber 2013: 495), and “missions” (“Sendungen”) (Weber 2013: 498). These notions reflect the belief that a deity or God has chosen that individual and that the gift of charisma will allow that person to carry out his work. However, Weber warns that not everyone who claims to have charisma actually has it and he insisted that many who have claimed it have been swindlers. He pointed specifically to the Mormons, but he maintained that his use of the term “charisma” was being used here in an “entirely ‘value free’ ” (“gänzlich ‘Wertfrei’ ”) manner (Weber 2005: 460–461, 2013: 491). It is important to note that charisma is not always considered a divine gift but is always an unusual talent or power. This is especially true of politicians and poets: Weber would have in mind contemporaries such as Kurt Eisner and Stefan George (see Weber 1992: 160–163). Second, Weber maintained that “charisma” was either the same as or related to magic. This is shown by his references to “charismatic magicians” (“charismatischen Zauberer”) and “magic charisma” (“magische Charisma”) (Weber 2001: 159, 168). The relationship was always close; in fact, Weber claimed that originally charisma was always a magical quality (Weber 2009: 90–91). However, one can distinguish between charisma and magic in the following manner: religious charisma is a God-given gift; thus, the charismatic individual uses the gift on behalf of the deity. In contrast, magic is a special power which allows the individual to persuade the deities to do things or not to do them or to influence and direct natural forces. One might say that the charismatic individual is more passive and the magician more active. In any case, charisma was an extraordinary quality, which is why Weber placed so much emphasis on its unusualness. And it is prudent to follow Weber’s contrast of charisma with traditional and bureaucratic “Herrschaft.” The mark of both traditional and bureaucratic “Herrschaften” is their stability, durability, and permanence. Recall that Weber suggested that the traditional leader is devoted to the “eternal laws” and will pass on the tradition when the time comes. The bureaucratic leader does not have a tradition per se, but is bound by the tradition of following the rules impartially. In both cases, one can predict the future with some degree of probability; while it may be greater in the case of the bureaucrat, it will still be rather high in the case of the traditional leader – as long as he honors the tradition. Both “Herrschaften” are everyday ordinary: they are “Alltäglich.” Weber comments that the two types have degrees of opposition, but they share the most important property of “constancy” (“Stetigkeit”). This is the sense of “everydayness” (“Alltagsgebilde.”). He acknowledges that the patriarchal power is rooted in the covering of the “everyday needs” (“Alltagsbedarf ”) and that the bureaucratic structure is its opposite because of its rationality. Nonetheless, both systems function with regularity (Weber 2001: 148, 2005: 460). Weber frequently writes of variations of “everyday” (“Alltag”): “everyday customs” (“Alltagshabitus”), “everyday men” (“Alltagsmenschen”), “everyday world” (“Alltagswelt”), “everyday interests” (“Alltagsinteresen”), “everyday life conduct” (“Alltagslebensführung”), “everyday order” (“Alltagsordnung”), and “everyday trade” (“Alltagshandeln”) (Weber 2001: 312, 314–315, 366, 368, 371). In contrast, charisma is specifically “extraordinary” (“Die charismatische Herrschaft ist eine spezifisch außeralltägliche und reine personliche soziale Beziehung.”) (Weber 2005: 739, see 12

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also 740). He wrote “the authority of the extraordinary personal gift of grace (charisma)” (“die Autorität der außeralltäglichen persönlichen Gnadengabe [Charisma])” (Weber 1992: 160, see also 2009: 90–91). The notion of extraordinary is linked to its radicalness. Weber explained that the charismatic leader appears during troubling times – when the normal order seems unworkable and something new needs to be tried. What is warranted is not some normal change but something radically new – something revolutionary that breaks the old order. That is why Weber quotes the Bible “it is written – but I say to you” (“es steht geschieben – ich aber sage euch” (Weber 2005: 468, 2009: 92–93). And that is why he insists that this is “The eternal new, out of the ordinary workday” (“Das ewig Neue, Außerwerktägliche,”) (Weber 2005: 734). Another mark of charisma is its high degree of personalness. Tradition guides the patriarchal ruler and not his personal whims; rules govern the conduct of the bureaucrat, so both types of “Herrschaften” are impersonal. In contrast, charisma is very personal – God has chosen that one individual. Furthermore, the followers obey the person, not tradition or laws (Weber 1992: 161, 2005: 467–468, 739–741, 2009: 90–91). Weber maintains that charismatic justice is the opposite of both traditional justice and bureaucratic justice. It lacks the binding and “devotion of tradition” (“Heiligkeit der Tradition”) as well as the “rational deduction from abstract concepts” (“rationalistsche Deduktionen aus abstrakten Begriffen.”). Charismatic justice is extremely personal and apparently arbitrary (Weber 2005: 468). Furthermore, because charismatic “Herrschaft” lacks the class structure of traditional or rules of bureaucratic “Herrschaft,” there cannot be an orderly advancement or stable career. In the same way, there is no sense of law (Weber 2005: 462–463). Because of this, Weber insists that charisma is “not from this world.” (“nicht von dieser Welt”). And that implies not just a rejection of “ordinary vocations” (“Alltagsberufe”) but also the rejection of “ordinary family obligations” (“alltäglichen Familienpflichten”) (Weber 2005: 464–465). Instead of ordinary duties and everyday obligations, there is only the personal devotion to the charismatic leader. Weber refers to the charismatic leader as a “Führer” who has “super natural” (“übernatürlichen”) or “super human” (“übermenschlichen”) qualities (Weber 2013: 490). These qualities or powers are divinely given and are so strong that the leader does not simply have followers but “disciples” (“Anhängern”) (Weber 2013: 491). Weber emphasizes that the charismatic “Führer” has to prove that he has this personal charisma and that it is “valid” (“gilt”) (Weber 2013: 492, 495). And he originally did this by performing miracles. It is through this performance that the disciples recognize the quality of the chosen one. Weber also stresses that this “recognition” (“Anerkennung”) is not just a legitimate ground but is more of a “duty” (“Pflicht”). It is required by duty – “Die Anerkennung ist pflichtmäßig.” (Weber 2013: 494). This recognition is psychologically based upon either a “need” (“Not”) or a “hope” (“Hoffnung”). Weber notes that the disciples will continue to follow the charismatic “Führer” only as long as he appears to have the God-given power. If the “Führer” appears to fail to continue to perform these miraculous deeds, then the disciples frequently conclude that God has withdrawn the charismatic force and desert the “Führer” (Weber 2013: 492). Weber emphasizes the precariousness of the charismatic “Führer”: he lacks a hierarchy or an office and is simply personally called. There are no regulations or rules, no tradition or customs to support the charismatic “Führer”; instead, he has to depend upon the divine source for his ability to continue to prove that he has the power in order to maintain the faith of his disciples (Weber 2013: 494). If the disciples are convinced that God has forsaken their “Führer,” then they too will turn their backs on him. However, the charismatic “Führer” may also lose his hold over his disciples because of far more mundane reasons. Weber emphasized repeatedly that charisma was otherworldly and that 13

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the disciples had to abandon all earthly concerns and interests. He also insisted that charisma was specifically “economically alien” (“Reines Charisma ist spezifisch wirtschaftsfremd”) (Weber 2005: 488). Thus, the material needs often drive the disciples to abandon the “Führer.” Weber seems to have suggested that charisma carries its own seeds of destruction. In a rather powerful passage, he wrote: In this way each charisma finds itself [moving] from a stormy-emotional economicallyalien life to a slow suffocating death under the weight of the material interests during each hour of its life and indeed in increasing measure with each growing hour. Auf diesem Weg von einem stürmisch-emotionalen wirtschaftsfremden Leben zum langsamen Erstickungstode unter der Wucht der materialen Interessen befindet sich aber jedes Charisma in jeder Stunde seines Daseins und zwar mit jeder weiteren Stunde in steigendem Maße. (Weber 2005: 488–489; See also Adair-Toteff 2015a: 148–149) That charisma is such a short-lived phenomenon is why Weber expends so much effort in explaining what happens after it in a section devoted specifically to the issue of the routinization of charisma “Veralltäglichung des Charismas.” (Weber 2005: 497–513). He repeats that in its pure form charisma has a specifically “extraordinary” (“außeralltägliche”) character (Weber 2005: 496). However, it cannot remain in its pure form but will be transformed into a more traditional type, or a rational type, or even a combination of the two. His point is that everyday concerns will force the charismatic “Herrschaft” into one of these other two forms and a kind of hybrid. He claims that different factors will force this change: (1) the ideal or material interests of the individual disciples, and (2) the still stronger ideal or ­material interests of the charismatic community. In both cases, the family-like (­traditional) community will take its place or it will be transformed into a regulated (rational) one (Weber 2005: 498). Weber deals with another possibility, and this is that the charismatic “Führer” leaves, which leads to the question of succession. Weber offers five possible outcomes: (1) a search for a new leader by way of recognizing his qualifications, (2) a revelation (“Offenbarung”) that this is the legitimate successor, (3) the members of the community designating the successor, (4) a community’s qualified panel, and (5) some claim of inheritance, or what Weber calls “Erbcharisma” (Weber 2005: 500–501). Regardless of which community comes about, it completely lacks the mark of personal charisma: “Das persönliche Charisma kann völlig fehlen”) and the economic alienation (“Wirtschaftsfremdheit”) ceases (Weber 2005: 504–507). In these cases, charisma simply disappears. For examples of charismatic leaders, Weber offers both types as well as individuals. As examples of types, there have been magicians, prophets, healers, heroes, “beserkers,” leaders, war leaders, demagogues, party leaders, and even artists (Weber 2005: 460–461, 735–736, 2009: 90–91). Weber lists a number of individuals as having charisma: Achilles, Saint Francis, Napoleon, Jesus, Pericles, and even Gladstone (Weber 1992: 160–161, 2005: 461, 464, 736–737, 2009: 90–91).

Summary and research paths To summarize: traditional and bureaucratic “Herrschaften” are ordinary, permanent, and stabile in contrast to the extraordinary, short-termed, and unstable charismatic “Herrschaft.” Like traditional “Herrschaft,” charismatic “Herrschaft” lacks competency. Unlike bureaucratic 14

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“Herrschaft,” charisma is highly personal. Unlike both, charisma is indifferent if not hostile to money and hence cannot serve as a basis for any type of regular economics. And unlike both bureaucratic and traditional “Herrschaften,” charisma is extremely volatile. And it is its purported power that leads to its collapse. In Weber’s later thinking it seems that both the process of rationalization and the concept of charisma grew in importance. In the Staatssoziologie, Weber insisted that there have been “two great revolutionary powers: rationalism from outside, charisma from inside.” (“2 große revolutionäre Mächte: Rationalismus von außen, Charisma von innen.”) (Weber 2009: 94). These are the two great revolutionary powers, yet they differ in a number of fundamental ways. First, it is not exactly clear what Weber meant when he maintained that rationalism comes from without, whereas charisma comes from within. What he probably meant was that rationalism is an impersonal, objective, and permanent force, whereas charisma is a personal, subjective, and short-lived one. Yet he had made it abundantly clear that he regarded charisma as a divine gift. The answer may be that that was historically accurate regarding religious figures but that it grew to be inapplicable to charismatic political leaders. Second, charisma is the great revolutionary power in the traditional epochs, whereas rationalism is a modern phenomenon (Weber 2013: 497, 463). Third, rationalism is formal, whereas charisma is informal and irrational. The fact that it lacks form and structure condemns it to a short life – if rationality is calculable, charisma is its opposite. These comments lead to some final comments. Weber’s concept of charisma raises at least three questions: First, what did Weber really mean by “legitimate”? This question has not been satisfactorily addressed. Second, what did Weber really mean by “personal” and “permanent”? These notions should be clarified. Third, did Weber believe that there are three pure types of “Herrschaft” or did he think there might be a fourth – as a few scholars have suggested (Guzmán 2014). Weber did not invent the concept of charisma, but he provided an intriguing account of it. In today’s society, the range of charisma has been extended to cover many things that Weber would have never considered: nonetheless, Weber’s concept of charisma is certainly well worth the effort to understand it.

Notes 1 For additional examples, see Adair-Toteff 2015b: 353–357; Turner 2003: 6. 2 Had there been an entry on “charisma,” it would have been in the first volume because it was “Von A bis Deutschland.” Gunkel und Scheel 1909. 3 Weber 2017: 374. Weber also mentions attending Sohm’s lectures in his “Lebenslauf.” See Weber 2008: 352–353. 4 Sohm 1912: 50–52. For a discussion of the Sohm/Harnack debate, see Riesebrodt 2001a: 155–157, Kroll 2001: 47–72; Adair-Toteff 2014, now 2016: 100–102. 5 Weber 2005: 735. In his account of “Herrschaften” in Politik als Beruf, Max Weber does not mention any source for his concept of charisma, but he again mentions the Old Testament Prophets. Weber 1992: 160–163. In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Weber writes of “The charisma of the prophets” (“Das Charisma des Propheten”). Weber 2001: 247. 6 “Wir wollen hier unter einem ‘Propheten’ verstehen einen rein persönlichen Charismaträger.” Weber 2001: 177. 7 For a discussion of the differences between “ethical” and “exemplary,” see Riesebrodt 2001b: 197–203. For my understanding of them, see Adair-Toteff 2014, now 2016: 105–107. 8 Weber himself uses “Autorität” four times on one page in Politik als Beruf. Weber 1992: 160. In Soziologie, Weber writes “Herrschaft (‘Autorität’).” Weber 2013: 449. 9 “Die reinen Typen finden sich freilich in der Wirklichkeit selten.” Weber 1992: 161. And “Sharp differentiation is in reality often not possible, which therefore makes it only more necessary to have clear Concepts.” (“Scharfe Scheidung ist in der Realität oft nicht möglich, klare Begriffe sind aber dann deshalbe nur umso nötiger.”). Weber 2013: 451. 15

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10 Weber insists that the “opposition [between the priest and the magician] is in reality thoroughly fluid as almost all sociological appearances.” Weber 2001: 157. 11 Weber uses the phrase “ewig Gestrigen” again in the Staatssoziologie as well as in the section on “Patrimonialismus” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. See Weber 2005: 251, 2009: 76. For a fuller discussion of Sophocles, Hegel, and Ferdinand Tönnies on the importance of “Sitte” (“custom”) and “Sittlichkeit” (“morality”) for Weber’s understanding of traditional “Herrschaft,” see Adair-Toteff 2005, now 2016: 33–34. 12 Weber 2013: 467. “Formalism. Form [is] the enemy of the arbitrary.” (Formalismus. Form [ist] die Feindin der Willkür.”). Weber 2009: 83 13 Weber 2013: 464–465, 2005: 136–137, 2009: 78–90. Weber maintains that traditional “Herrschaft” lacks both the discipline and the competency, which are two of the main features of bureaucratic “Herrschaft.” Weber 2005: 731, 2009: 85.

References Adair-Toteff, Christopher. 2005. “Max Weber’s Charisma.” Journal of Classical Sociology. Vol. 5. No. 2. 339–353. Also in Adair-Toteff. 2016. 29–45. Adair-Toteff, Christopher. 2014. “Max Weber’s Charismatic Prophets.” The History of the Human Sciences. Vol. 27. No. 1. 3–20. Also in Adair-Toteff. 2016. 99–118. Adair-Toteff, Christopher. 2015a. Fundamental Concepts in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Adair-Toteff, Christopher. 2015b. “Charisma, Social Aspects.” In International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2nd Edition. Edited by James D. Wright. Oxford: Elsevier. Vol. 3. 353–357. Adair-Toteff, Christopher. 2016. Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Anter, Andreas. 1995. Max Webers Theorie des Modernen Staates. Herkunft, Struktur und Bedeutung. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Zweite Auflage. Cremer, Hermann. 1879. “Geistesgaben, Charismata.” In Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’ sche Buchhandlung. Zweiter Auflage. Band 5. 10–14. Gunkel, Hermann und Scheel, Otto (Hg.). 1909. Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Tübingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Erster Band Von A bis Deutschland. Guzmán, Sebátian G. 2014. “Substantive-Rational Authority: The Missing Fourth Pure Type in Weber’s Typology of Legitimate Domination.” Journal of Classical Sociology. Vol. 15. No. 1. 73–95. Hanke, Edith. 2001. “Max Webers ‘Herrschaftssoziologie.’ Eine werkgeschichtliche Studie.” In Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologie. Studien zu Entstehung und Wirkung. Edited by E. Hanke and W. Mommsen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 19–46. Holl, Karl. 1898. Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum. Eine Studie zu Symeon dem neuen Theologen. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’ sche Buchhandlung. Kroll, Thomas. 2001. “Max Webers Idealtypus der charismatischen Herrschaft und die zeitgenössische Charisma-Debatte.” In Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologie. Studien zu Entstehung und Wirkung. Edited by E. Hanke and W. Mommsen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 47–72. Lassman, Peter. 2000. “The Rule of Man Over Man: Power, Politics and Legitimation.” In The Cambridge Companion to Max Weber. Edited by S. Turner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 83–98. Lauterberg, Moritz. 1898. Der Begriff des Charisma und seine Bedeutung für die praktische Theologie. Guterslohe: Bertelsmann. Riesebrodt, Martin. 2001a. “Charisma.” In Max Webers “Religionssystematik”. Edited by H. G. Kippenberg and M. Riesebrodt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 151–166. Riesebrodt, Martin. 2001b. “Ethische und examplarische Prophetie.” In Max Webers “Religionssystematik”. Edited by H. G. Kippenberg and M. Riesebrodt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 193–208. Sohm, Rudolph. 1873. Das Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche: Aus dem Begriff von Staat und Kirche Entwickelt. Tübingen: Laup. Sohm, Rudolph. 1892. Kirchenrecht: Erster Band, Die geistlichten Grundlagen. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Sohm, Rudolph. 1912. Wesen und Ursprung des Katholizismus. Leipzig und Berlin: B.G. Teubner. Turner, Stephen. 2003. “Charisma Reconsidered.” Journal of Classical Sociology. Vol. 3. No. 1. 5–26. 16

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Weber, Max. 1990 [1930]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. London: Routledge. Weber, Max. 1992. Wissenschaft als Beruf 1917/1919/ Politik als Beruf 1919. Herausgegeben von Wolfgang J. Mommsen und Wolfgang Schluchter in Zusammenarbeit mit Birgitt Morgenbrod. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/17. Weber, Max. 2001. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Teilband 2: Religiöse Gemeinschaften. Herausgegeben von Hans G. Kippenberg in Zusammenarbeit mit Petra Schilm unter Mitwirkung von Jutta Niemeier. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/22. Weber, Max. 2005. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Teilband 4: Herrschaft. Herausgegeben von Edith Hanke in Zusammenarbeit mit Thomas Kroll. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/22. Weber, Max. 2008. Zur Geschichte der Handelsgesellschaften im Mittelalter. Schriften 1889–1894. Herausgegeben von Gerhard Dilcher in Zusammenarbeit mit Susanne Lepsius. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/1. Weber, Max. 2009. Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik (Staatssoziologie). Unvollendet. Mit- und Nachschriften 1920. Herausgegeben von Gangolf Hübinger in Zusammenarbeit mit Andreas Terwey. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. III/7. Weber, Max. 2013. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Soziologie. Unvollendet 1919–1920. Herausgegeben von Knut Borchardt, Edith Hanke und Wolfgang Schluchter. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/23. Weber, Max. 2016. Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus/Die protestantischen Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Schriften 1904–1920. Herausgegeben von Wolfgang Schluchter in Zusammenarbeit mit Ursula Bube. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. I/18. Weber, Max. 2017. Briefe 1875–1886. Herausgegeben von Gangolf Hübinger in Zusammenarbeit mit Thomas Gerhards und Uta Hinz. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. II/1.

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2 Émile Durkheim and charisma Philip Smith

Introduction: a cultural explanation of charisma Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) was not a theorist of charisma as such. Yet this chapter will argue that he offers a set of resources which become extremely potent when combined with the intellectual toolkit of the Durkheimian cultural sociology that he inspired. The paradigm allows us to think through foundational issues relating to the origins of charismatic attribution, unpack charismatic meanings, and resolve enduring problems of causality in case study research. Durkheim’s later sociology paid great attention to ritual, the sacred, and cultural creativity as episodic but also pivotal aspects of social life. It does not take much intellectual imagination to see that these play a role in his theoretical landscape not unlike that assumed by charisma in Weber’s. They are a meaning-centered break from routine, humdrum social life and functions as an emotionally charged engine of change. Durkheim was keenly aware that at certain times society generates new ideas and new solidarities. Hence in his masterwork of 1912 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life he mentions the French Revolution alongside the medieval crusades and the example of Joan of Arc as historical moments when the collectivity is inspired by ideals and there is great excitement and intellectual ferment (Durkheim 1995). The same ideas appear in a paper from 1911 entitled “Value Judgments and Judgments of Reality” (Durkheim 1974). He indicates that festivals and celebrations are a way in which such powerful sentiments are revived periodically. The overall picture we get from Durkheim is of a dynamogenic periodic ritual interaction oriented around sacred symbols. It charges up members of society with extraordinary energy, provides feelings of belonging and shared morality, and boosts confidence. For our purposes, what is important about this account is that after a relatively minor act of “theory translation” it can be used for a cultural explanation of charismatic phenomena. As such it offers a viable alternative to the problem-laden psychological and structural explanations of charisma that have long dominated the literature. We can look instead to the world of sacred symbols and ritual activity and use these to explain charismatic eruptions, successes, and failures. Here is the “theory translation” spelled out: To use one of Weber’s own famously enigmatic terms, there seems to be an elective affinity between the concept of charisma and the resources of cultural sociology (Weber 1978). After all, charisma is about the meaningful relationship between a leader and their followers. The motif also touches upon the emotional and spiritual 18

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foundations of authority, duty, and obedience. And Weber speaks of the “signs” that need to be produced to demonstrate the presence of special gifts. Without these signifiers, the magic vanishes. In all these ways, charismatic power opens up pathways for a Durkheimian hermeneutic and semiotic analysis of belief, interpretation, and communication. Contemporary cultural sociology, as we will see, has developed the specific resources with which to undertake this task. Yet if there is an elective affinity between Weber and the Durkheimian legacy, it has been somewhat slow to manifest in a concerted body of highly visible cultural sociological scholarship. And so charisma during the 20th century was generally seen (1) as a mysterious psychological force founded upon dynamics of personality and interpersonal attraction, (2) as the product of psychodynamic process in face-to-face, embodied interactions in small group and crowd settings, (3) as the outcome of structural crisis or social movement activity, and (4) as a manufactured product of demagoguery within mass society and mass mediated contexts. Somehow none of these explanations is fully convincing. Dealing with them one at a time, while personality might be considered to remain constant following early socialization, individuals seem to gain or lose charismatic power over their life course. What was cool suddenly seems uncool, the person who was inspiring now seems hackneyed. Winston Churchill was considered a bumptious youth and a tired old man. Somewhere in the middle he was inspirational. As for the interpersonal and proximity variables, we do not have to touch or meet individuals or show up for a speech and see them in person to feel a charismatic thrill. Sometimes, as Elvis Presley demonstrated to American teenagers on September 9, 1956, just watching television on your own at home will do the job. Chaos and danger help, but not every structural crisis generates a charismatic leader. Indeed social movements often lament the lack of inspirational leadership of the kind that can recruit new members or persuade a wider civil society of the merits of a cause. The protests of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 provided a wonderful structural opportunity for charismatic visibility. Nobody emerged from the pack of the “human microphone” to become the voice or symbol of outrage and hope. Mass society arguments focus on the huge infrastructural advantages of the powerful and so must struggle to explain the emergence of charisma as a counterforce from the relatively powerless margins. Such accounts invariably draw on fully fledged dictatorship contexts but fail to notice their own inconsistencies. The great dictators were all considered charismatic by their adepts long before they gained control of the means of symbolic production. Hitler started out ranting in a beer hall to a motley band of drunken Bavarians. He did not need a propaganda ministry to stand out from the crowd. Neo-Durkheimian cultural sociology offers a solution to these problems of specification concerning When? Where? Why? Whence? It explores how meaning systems interact with performances and fragmented audiences in large-scale, complex, mass mediated societies. The alignment of meanings, performances, events, and interpretations is a source of contingencies that see charismatic power come and go. Objective historical events, technologies and their control, public gatherings, animal magnetism, and embodied contacts are affordances. Perhaps they offer the necessary but not sufficient conditions for charismatic power to emerge. And perhaps not even that. Cultural sociology emerged from the cultural turn of the 1960s. It took the tools of literary criticism, anthropology, the new cultural history, and paradigms such as hermeneutics and structuralism and introduced them to a more institutionally focused sociology in the mid-to late-1980s. Inspired in particular by Durkheim’s Elementary Forms as a source of classical inspiration (Smith 2020), the field slowly gained momentum during the 1990s. Pivotal is the argument that social meanings can be identified and can be systematically studied. These need to be taken seriously and are every bit as “real” as the more material dimensions of social life. They operate 19

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alongside power, organizational capacity, and economic stratification but cannot be considered mere expressions of any of these. Meanings saturate our societies and provide the bases for solidarity, conflict, and self-understanding. The interpretations that actors make of their situation or of other actors are real in their consequences. The task of hermeneutic reconstruction is to capture these and to uncover their grammar, not to judge their accuracy or to denounce falsehood, as is the task of critical theory. The explanatory labor and methodological challenge that follows is to show how culture-structures lead to consequential outcomes. In the remainder of this chapter, I trace out the origins of the broadly Durkheimian cultural sociological approach to charisma and elaborate on core themes and contents. The past three decades in particular have seen the emergence of a cumulative, transposable knowledge base. Rather than having a series of internal disputes and debates, the discourse community has engaged in a series of constructive elaborations and refinements that have built up the scholar’s toolkit. This amplification has taken place on the back of wider developments in cultural sociology as a field where charisma has been a significant but by no means pivotal topic.

Charisma and the sacred center Perhaps the first scholar to see connections between charisma and cultural explanation was Talcott Parsons in The Structure of Social Action. In his attempt to arrive at a voluntaristic and nonutilitarian theory of action during the 1930s, Parsons (1949 [1937]) noticed deep affinities between Weber’s charisma theory and Durkheim’s (1995 [1912]) work in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Both could be understood as pointing to internalized motivations, taking these at the same time as a form of normative social control that solved the problem of social order. Charisma in this formulation was a kind of legitimate authority that provided meaningful ends for coordinated action. Likewise in Durkheim’s system, a shared sense of the sacred aligned members of the Aboriginal tribes in solidarity. Charisma and the sacred in this reading seemed to go together or to be two sides of the same coin. Formal, methodical, even labored though Parsons’s first masterwork might have been, he also displays here an interpretative sensibility that intuited a profitable intellectual synthesis. He was on the right track and years ahead of his time. From the 1950s through the 1990s the major contribution of neo-Durkheimian scholarship was to show that charisma – or perhaps more accurately, something charisma-like – could be tied to relatively stable institutional forms, including those associated with legal-rational modernity. Structural functionalists were keen to demonstrate the normative foundations of social order, and when they were not talking about values in highly abstract ways, began to explore other vocabularies. Aspects of this approach can be found way back in the 1950s with efforts to comprehend the persistence of the sacred and ritual in modern social democracies. Pivotal here was the figure of Edward Shils. Writing with Michael Young on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953, Shils drew on Durkheim’s work on Aboriginal rites to explain what went on in Great Britain (Shils and Young 1953). From the perspective of Shils, the coronation and its associated festivities, such as street parties, contributed to a renewal of national energy and solidarity, and were a celebration of democracy. Although the analysis was subsequently critiqued by the Durkheim scholar Steven Lukes (1975) for assuming consensus and for not giving enough attention to the indifference and irony of many British, it remains a landmark. The study indicated the persistence of irrational cultural forces in modernity, highlighted the centrality of the mass media in cultural diffusion (this was an early televised “media event”), and hinted that charismatic powers were associated with legitimate authority. These insights were developed a little more in some of Shils’s (1975) later and less empirical papers. Here he noted that pivotal state institutions and their associated offices are not simply rational bureaucratic 20

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enterprises of a Weberian kind. Instead, they can carry special meanings. They have a worldordering power and belong to a sacred center. They are associated with and located in proximity to other institutions and symbols of power. This gives them a cosmological centrality and a magical aura that Shils dubbed as charismatic. Looking back, these pioneering analyses by Shils muddled and conflated the sacred with the charismatic. The terms are often used interchangeably in his work. This is an issue that persists somewhat today, but it has been a productive fungibility insofar as it brings Durkheim into the fold. Durkheim, more than Weber, has been the pivotal figure for contemporary cultural sociology, as he brings with him the resources of his ritual theory, complex ideas about sacredness and pollution, and access to a classificatory conception of culture as internally structured or semiotic. This can head off the psychologism that is central to Weberian charismatic (and to some extent also religious) writings – a tendency that leads us to look into heads and speculate rather than explore visible and witnessable traces of meaning in the social landscape. It also moves us away from the theological doctrine-centrism of Weber’s religious sociology. Most important of all in this earlier work, charisma is shown to be a potentially stable social force tethered to long-term power. Durkheim-inflected 20th mid-century structural functionalism had a vision of social order center stage. The fundamental analytic problem was how to account for reproduction and social stability in light of enduring systemic tensions. It contrasts with the Weberian vision of history. This asks the sociologist or historian to map and explain social change. Weber’s vision of prophets and radicals, overthrowing the institutionalized order from without, does not leave a role for them as power holders building routinized social systems. The agenda set out by Shils was to be extended, intellectually updated, and made more empirically gripping by Barry Schwartz (1983) in his pioneering analysis of the first US President, George Washington. Here the focus is on collective representation more than the truth of the man himself or his interpersonal interactions. Washington had an excellent fit with visions of social virtue during his era. He was a man who reportedly could not tell a lie and who was famously incorruptible. He had turned down power and repeatedly protested that he only wanted a quiet life. Of course these gestures only made him more desirable as the leader of a new nation that was alert to tyranny. Washington was also a war hero who became strongly associated with a vision of the United States as viable and reliable. Yet he was not an outsider in terms of social values. For example, Washington did not oppose slavery nor demand a redistribution of wealth. He was in many ways a patrician conservative, and the only system he sought to overthrow was the one associated with British rule. Schwartz calls for a revision to the concept of charisma that can accommodate this kind of figure who holds office, who builds stability and oversees institutional routinization, but who is also seen as having unique and special powers relative to his peers.

Codes and narratives Drawing on the cultural turn in the humanities, and most notably upon anthropology, history, and literary criticism, cultural sociology from the late-1980s onwards began to focus on the binary structuring of political discourses and the ways that stories informed legitimacy, political opinion, and risk evaluation. From the perspective of cultural sociology, what is important is not so much the objective realities of such things but instead the way they are represented or “encoded.” Those codings had real consequences, and so social actors struggled over them. Durkheim’s (1995 [1912]) Elementary Forms of Religious Life was somewhat rediscovered by sociology in this period and finally given detailed reading attention. Sociologists approached the text informed by the sensibilities of the cultural turn and were amazed by what they saw: 21

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a dynamic and semiotic concept of social life. They also picked up on the Elementary Forms’ insistence that there was a universal distinction between the sacred and the profane. Although Durkheim largely intended this to involve a separation between the sacred and the quotidian, in contemporary cultural sociology the distinction was more often drawn between the good and evil, or between the civil and the uncivil, or the pure and impure (Kurakin 2015). The general point has been made time and time again by Durkheimian scholars that political leaders need to be aligned with the “sacred” side of a circulating and shared code and that in some instances this can become a source of charismatic power. Research repeatedly shows that charismatic leaders need to represent or embody the nation, the civil, the people, or the public-spirited against polluted, particularistic, and evil forces that threaten these. In the influential Strong Program in cultural sociology that emerged in the 1990s, special attention was given to the “discourse of civil society,” most notably in the United States (Alexander and Smith 1993). This identified sacred and profane elements in binary codes referring to motivations, institutions, and relationships. That which was sacred was open, honest, law abiding, straightforward, and universalistic. A  profane code identified contrary elements. Political struggles emerged over typifications. Scandals eventuated when it was agreed that the profane code had traction in describing an event or action. Early studies making use of binary codes tended to focus more strongly on the negative outcome of pollution than on the positive one of charisma. The disgraced US President Richard Nixon, for example, was convincingly shown to be polluted by virtue of association with selfish and irrational motivations, secretive relationships, and corrupt organizations (Alexander 1988; Alexander and Smith 1993). A problem with binary codes is that they can lead to a flat kind of cultural analysis that puts pegs in holes and that wants for hermeneutic complexity. When papers map out the application of the codes, this activity often does not quite capture the depth and musicality of political culture. In the 1990s, a shift toward narrative analysis took place in the neo-Durkheimian scholarship of the time. This added hermeneutic depth. Smith’s (1994, reworked for 2005 – full disclosure: Smith is the author of this paper) discussion of Egypt’s Colonel Nasser and Saddam Hussein offered an early indication of the direction this kind of scholarship would take. He shows that during the buildup to the 1956 Suez Crisis, Nasser was depicted in the United States media as a handsome, charismatic young freedom fighter. He was a modern, secular figure and a modest family man. This wider narrative was supported by smaller ones that were a little more conventionally mythological. For example media backstories featured accounts of Nasser dodging bullets as he bravely led rebellion against a corrupt state. By contrast, reports and profiles on Saddam Hussein in 1993 indicated a vicious dictator who was opposed to democracy and who threatened to bring about nuclear war. At the level of personality, stories focused on his self-aggrandizement, overweening ambition, and betrayal of his own people. Although binary codes such as those of democrat/dictator are still relevant to such cases, the cultural sociological analysis had a more fluid feel as it looked to intersecting stories, micro-narratives, and story frames. Drawing on structural poetics, Smith sums up that Nasser was seen in a Romantic frame that indicated an upwards movement of Egyptian society toward modernity and away from colonial oppression. The narrative of Saddam Hussein fell into the apocalyptic pattern. He was seen as hell-bent on nuclear war. At the time of his Suez Canal nationalization, the attractive and charismatic Nasser was given the benefit of the doubt in the United States. Hussein had no such luck when he invaded Kuwait. A few years later, this narrative approach was developed into a more systematic model that addressed the challenge of charisma theory head on. Smith (2000) moved in a slightly more Weberian direction and argued that charisma was closely associated with narratives of wordly salvation or what we might think of as a kind of secular eschatology. Charismatic leaders were 22

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seen as saving people from hell on earth rather than sorting out tax policy. Hence charisma tended to arise in situations characterized by highly inflated narratives where good was fighting evil or where an existential threat was seen as bringing world-historical or apocalyptic dangers. An irony of this, Smith noted, was that charismatic leaders often required an evil enemy or enemies in order for their charisma to be firmly anchored with a home constituency. Such an analysis permitted fluctuations in charisma to be accounted for with reference to shifts in code and narrative of the evil other rather than the charismatic leader themselves. Smith looks to Hitler, Churchill, and King as examples. Hitler was something of a loser as a young man. He was a failed artist and beer hall thug. Only by conjuring Jews and Bolsheviks as the enemies of the people did he become a savior. Churchill was a political outcast and has-been in the 1930s. He relentlessly prophesized the world-historical evil of Hitler but nobody was listening. When World War II started, Churchill was proven right. Now was the time he could step forward to save democracy, to save the world. After the war and the fall of Hitler, Churchill was a revered old man but no longer the carrier of such intense personal cult. The British were more worried about austerity, ration books, and strikes. To everyone’s surprise, Churchill was voted out of office. Martin Luther King did well while fighting injustice in the South. His rise to charismatic authority was assisted by a number of cruel and visibly outspoken sheriffs who personified an evil system of oppression. After civil rights had been won, King turned his attention to the less visibly evil, less narratively inflatable matter of urban politics and rent. Without a personified “evil other” to be mirrored against, King’s charismatic power started to slip. Newer and more hip groups like the Black Panthers took over with their more Manichean worldview of perpetual race struggle. The takeaway lesson from the narrative turn in recent Durkheimian cultural sociology is that we need to look at more than just the narration of the charismatic individual and their biography. It is important to also study representations of the wider political and geopolitical situation within which they are embedded and the range of other protagonists in the story (whether real or imagined). A second finding was the prevalence of narratives that required some kind of secular eschatology in contexts where charisma is seen. The charismatic individual seems to emerge where a form of sacred evil can be found and where they lead the struggle against this. Racism was an ultimate evil for King’s followers. High rent probably less so. This finding on narrative content has the attraction of connecting Weber’s charisma theory to his religious sociology (which revolved around identifying solutions to the universal problem of salvation) and has been amplified recently in a number of studies of populism and charismatic politics. For example, José Pedro Zúquete (2007) has illustrated how right-wing nationalists in Europe are engaged in a messianic politics of salvation. They attempt to propagate a narrative where they are saving a nation or would-be nation (e.g. a separate northern Italy) from terminal decline and disgrace, from exploitation, from uncontrolled immigration, and from a loss of identity. In Latin America, the theme is that the people need to be saved from social disorder, economic catastrophe, and neocolonial domination. The onetime leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, has been a notable subject for scholarly inquiry. His popularity rode on a relentless demonization of the United States, hints about vague conspiracies, and apocalyptic visions of national struggle (Gauna 2018). Such work on the narrative construction of a national destiny in the rise of populism has usefully augmented the earlier focus in cultural sociology on the role of the codes of liberal democracy in the United States. It has been shown not only that codes like those of the discourse of American civil society (mentioned earlier) are widespread in the democratic West (Smith 2005) but also that there is competition between codes (not “codings”) in other parts of the world. Again, studies of Latin America have proven crucial (Alexander and Tognato 2018). 23

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Typically, a code calling for “order” as the highest priority contends against one with a focus on individual rights or democratic process that is more “Western.” In the Venezuelan context, Chávez was able to fuse this alternative code with his own messianic, anti-imperialist narratives as a component of his charismatic claims (Gauna 2018). There is good reason to believe this kind of cultural underpinning has a long history in South America, perhaps being an aspect of Perón’s appeal in Argentina in the 1950s. Historically entrenched codes and narratives of this kind help explain why charismatic leadership has for so long been a feature of politics in certain parts of the world. Struggles against imperialism or disorder have strong eschatological features and prime the powder for a savior to be identified.

Performance In the early 2000s the Strong Program began to supplement its use of code and narrative analysis with a look to the significance of social performance. This was to add yet another layer of contingency into the mix. Now things like micro-sequences of action and response, events, press conferences and media strategies, and embodied displays of emotion became tethered to the identification of the charismatic individual. There was a strong sense that the same person could have this property one moment and lose it the next. It all depended on their last performance or on the one that followers and spectators saw as best indicating their true nature. The pivotal idea with studies of social performance (Alexander, Giesen and Mast 2006) is that competent social performance requires the political actor align themselves with background representations. If they can be seen as the embodiment of the good by their audience such that they are no longer perceived as “acting,” then they are said to have attained “fusion.” This is a source of real social power that is seductive rather than coercive. In the case of charisma, the leader needs to convince that there is danger, that they care about the people, that they have a solution, and that they have the unusual strength of character and ability to get the job done. In a way, this approach can be seen as a detailed theoretical specification of Weber’s focus on the production of signs and Schwartz’s understanding of George Washington as embodying virtue when he turned down office. The most significant analyses in this tradition are to date of the United States Presidents. Jason Mast (2013), in particular, has shown that Bill Clinton shifted between positive and negative narrations. In one he was “Slick Willy,” superficially charming but also too clever by half and sneaky, whereas in the other he was a person who truly understood the American people. He came closest to charismatic power in the wake of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombings as he spoke of hunting down the perpetrators and showed visible emotion. Likewise, Jeffrey Alexander explored the ways in which Obama came to be seen as a great leader or as rudderless (Alexander and Jaworski 2014). Mast (2017) went on to investigate Donald Trump’s election victory, and like many other commentators to an American Journal of Cultural Sociology special edition, indicated that narratives of national decline were pivotal to creating a mood where salvation was needed. Trump’s populist appeal was underpinned by themes relating to “authenticity,” pushing those relating to civil virtue to the side for once. From the perspective of social performance, his politically incorrect tweets and disregard for debate protocols were a masterstroke. These were interpreted as confirmation of his status as an outsider to the “swamp” of Washington politics. In the case of Trump, we come closer to the conventional Weberian understanding of rulebreaking charisma attacking power from the margins, like a Hebrew prophet coming in from the wilderness. But from the perspective of cultural sociology, it is the narration or representation of Trump as that rule-breaking outsider that is important, not its objective truth, as would be the argument in the Weberian political tradition. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton because 24

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he mobilized a base of supporters with his inflated narratives concerning national decline and his positive “what you see is what you get” self-representation, whereas Clinton struggled to generate enthusiasm and turnout with her low mimetic accounts of the need for detailed policy reform and a general sense that she was as underhanded as her husband. The capacity of a performance approach to explain the rise and fall of charismatic power at a very granular level is further illustrated in the cultural sociological study of Al Gore’s appearance in the film An Inconvenient Truth (Smith and Howe 2015). Gore was a failed politician best known at the time of the movie’s release for being boring, for boasting about how smart he was, and for his sour grapes response to losing the 2000 election to George W. Bush. He was perhaps the least charismatic public figure in America. However something changed and with the release of the movie Gore suddenly became the global face of climate change activism. What had happened? Durkheimian cultural sociology can provide an answer using the standard toolkit we have been reviewing. Firstly, an apocalyptic threat was identified in climate change. Secondly, Gore performed on film as an honest and open individual, admitting to his own failures. In this way he became aligned with the positive codes of American Civil Society. Finally, there were more microelements of performance that suggested extraordinary levels of self-confidence and capability. Gore made self-deprecating jokes that suggested he had learned and changed, was often looking sweaty (=hard working and authentic), slipped in references to contact with institutions of the Shilsian sacred center (Harvard, the US Congress) and connected empathetically and spontaneously with the audiences to whom he spoke in the film. The net effect – it must be said the cumulative product of personal ability and the filmmakers’ technical art of filming and editing – was to generate a sense of intimacy but at the same time authority. Of course not everyone liked Al Gore or found him inspiring. For many he was a tree hugging scaremonger and climate hypocrite living a carbon-hungry lifestyle. Not everybody finds Trump charismatic. Some see him as dangerous, incompetent, uncivil, and emotionally ­insecure. For just such reasons in the performance model a great deal of attention is given to differentiated audiences. The argument is made that in modernity, unlike in the smallscale societies studied by Durkheim, fusion is unlikely between a performer and an entire population. There will be counter-narratives and counter-performances that muddy the waters in a competitive marketplace of ideas, and there will be multiple, layered audiences separated from each other by socio-demographics, political allegiances, and core values. To do empirical cultural sociology well is to understand and explain the complexities of a cultural environment in which charisma is sometimes conferred and felt by some people and yet withheld by others. The relationship of performance and charisma is also to be found in the work of Randall Collins (2020) as he discusses figures like Jesus, Joan of Arc, and Lawrence of Arabia. Whereas the Strong Program tends to put circulating cultural systems with their codes and narratives first, Collins stresses how enduring meanings emerge out of embodied interactions. He argues that charismatic individuals are often at the center of interpersonal networks. They might occupy structural holes, dominate information flows and become symbols by virtue of being the focus of attention. Drawing on Erving Goffman, who Collins sees as a pivotal figure in a micro-­ sociological Durkheimian tradition, he adds a performative twist to this structural argument about social location. He shows these charismatic figures are masters of face-to-face i­nteraction. They know how to dominate situations by virtue of carefully crafted body language, adept speech, and quick thinking. They take over the rhythms of encounters and establish their authority from the ground up. This interpersonal influence later becomes magnified into a more general set of myths and collective representations. 25

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Issues and future research Although cultural sociological accounts of charisma are now common, these generally align charisma with positive codes and focus on the political leaders of nation-states. Perhaps surprisingly, less attention has been given to social movement leaders on the margins – the traditional home turf of charisma studies. Also requiring attention is the issue of differentiating charisma from celebrity. There has been precious little work to make or break the distinction, but an effort could clearly lead to a more precise understanding of the cultural resources required to attain social visibility. For example, many celebrities attain charismatic status by violating norms such as those relating to drugs or polite behavior; through talent at some cultural, sporting, or sexual activity; or through their unusual and/or attractive physical appearance. It is not so obvious that any of these are helpful in the world of politics. It might also be possible that repute can arise from the mere fact of visibility rather than from having a coherent narrative framing connecting the individual to the sacred. As Daniel Boorstin (2012) once put it, the true celebrity is famous for being famous. In such a case, then, symbolic and narrative content drops away as irrelevant and the toolkit of conventional semiotic cultural sociology starts to look unsuited to the task of analysis. These observations about the charisma/celebrity interface bring us to another point. Even if we do not add the extra variable of celebrity, charisma remains a difficult beast to pin down. From the scholarship we have reviewed, we might identify as forms or causes: (1) the diffuse charisma of office (the Queen), (2) a performance such as one that goes down well (Clinton, Gore), (3) being seen as a leader who embodies stable national virtues and codes (Washington), (4) offering messianic promise for radical change (Chávez, Trump). To these we might add being seen as special and talented but not necessarily in any way connected to politics or power (The Rolling Stones). There needs to be far more effort put into precisely differentiating forms of “charisma,” their cultural origins in sphere specific narratives and codes, and the forms of emotional reaction they entail (awe, anger, respect, arousal, etc.). This would not be simply a definitional issue relating to ordinary language usage but also one relating to clarification that would generate theoretical creativity and progress, perhaps through a rigorous typological activity. Such an agenda could take cultural sociology into a new phase of theoretical activity and renewal.

References Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1988. “Culture and Political Crisis: Watergate and Durkheimian Sociology”, pp.  187–224 in J. Alexander, (Ed.), Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C., Giesen, Bernhard and Mast, Jason. 2006. Social Performance. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Jaworski, Bernadette N. 2014. Obama Power. Cambridge. Polity Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Smith, Philip. 1993. “The Discourse of American Civil Society”, Theory and Society 22, 2: 151–207. Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Tognato, Carlo. 2018. The Civil Sphere in Latin America. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Boorstin, Daniel. 2012. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York. Vintage. Collins, Randall. 2020. Charisma: A Micro-Sociological Theory. New York. Taylor & Francis. Durkheim, Émile. 1974. “Value Judgments and Judgments of Reality”, pp. 80–98 in Sociology and Philosophy. New York. Free Press.

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Durkheim, Émile. 1995 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Karen Fields. New York. Free Press. Gauna, Anibal F. 2018. “Populism, Heroism and Revolution: Chávez’s Cultural Performances in Venezuela 1999–2012”, American Journal of Cultural Sociology 6, 1: 37–59. Kurakin, Dmitry. 2015. “Reassembling the Ambiguity of the Sacred”, Journal of Classical Sociology 15, 4: 377–395. Lukes, Steven. 1975. “Political Ritual and Social Integration”, Sociology 9, 2: 290–307. Mast, Jason L. 2013. The Performative Presidency: Crisis and Resurrection During the Clinton Years. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Mast, Jason L. 2017. “Legitimacy Troubles and the Performance of Power in the 2016 US Presidential Election”, American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5, 3: 460–480. Parsons, Talcott. 1949 [1937]. The Structure of Social Action. New York. The Free Press. Schwartz, Barry. 1983. “George Washington and the Whig Conception of Heroic Leadership”, American Sociological Review 48, 1: 18–33. Shils, Edward. 1975. Center and Periphery. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Shils, Edward and Young, Michael. 1953. “The Meaning of the Coronation”, The Sociological Review 1, 2: 63–81. Smith, Philip. 1994. “The Semiotic Foundations of Media Narratives: Saddam and Nasser in the American Media”, Journal of Narrative and Life History 4, 1: 89–118. Smith, Philip. 2000. “Culture and Charisma: Outline of a Theory”, Acta Sociologica 43, 2: 101–111. Smith, Philip. 2005. Why War? Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Smith, Philip. 2020. After Durkheim. Cambridge. Polity Press. Smith, Philip and Howe, Nicolas. 2015. Climate Change as Social Drama. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley. University of California Press. Zúquete, José Pedro. 2007. Missionary Politics in Contemporary Europe. Syracuse, NY. Syracuse University Press.

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3 Freud and charisma Elizabeth Lunbeck

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) never used the term charisma. Nor did his early psychoanalytic colleagues invoke it more than sporadically. In the discipline’s early years, charisma carried unwelcome associations of illegitimacy and unwarranted influence, influence such as might be exercised by all-powerful training analysts over their candidate analysands or, indeed, of Freud over the psychoanalytic movement. Allied with magic and mysticism, charisma was likely thought too similar to other practices organized around intensely affective relations between individuals  – such as hypnosis and telepathy  – from which the first psychoanalysts distanced themselves and their practices in seeking scientific legitimacy for their new specialty. Observing the rise of European authoritarianism in the 1930s both in situ and from afar, some analysts homed in on the powerful, reciprocal relationship between the fascist leader and his followers, characterizing it as hypnotic and fascinating, but they did not use the term charisma. Not until the 1960s and 1970s was charisma regularly discussed in the analytic literature, in which it was still cast as dicey and not altogether legitimate. In this period, however, following the lead of the émigré Chicago revisionist analyst Heinz Kohut (1913–1981) and the psychoanalyst and Harvard Business School professor Abraham Zaleznik (1924–2011), psychoanalysts began to discuss, depathologize, and even celebrate charisma in their discipline and beyond, focusing especially on the leader in the realms of politics and business. In professional papers as well as in the popular press, Kohut suggested that charismatic personalities were not necessarily evil, appearing “in all shades and degrees,” and likewise that their influence was not necessarily deleterious. He argued that people and nations were understandably drawn to charismatic leaders in moments of crisis, identifying with the “unquestioned righteousness” and unshakable confidence they attributed to such leaders. The results were sometimes catastrophic, such as Germany had experienced under Hitler  – the exemplary messianic “mass seducer” – but not uniformly so (Kohut 1973, 17). Kohut’s charismatic was a political leader. Zaleznik’s was a businessman (not surprisingly, men predominate in the analytic literature of charisma), a compelling, exciting figure who stood in contrast to the mid-century American ideal of the consensus builder – now appearing dull and ordinary by comparison. Notably, Zaleznik portrayed this leader in Weberian terms as a “numinous individual” (Zaleznik and Kets de Vries 1975, 242). Scores of psychoanalytically-inflected books and hundreds of articles have promoted this brand of charismatic leadership since Zaleznik first 28

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sketched its contours. Today, magic, mystical gifts, and even miracles are attributed to this figure in the flourishing literature of management, notwithstanding psychoanalysts’ early disavowal of the nonrational. Despite Freud’s indifference to charisma, his conjectures on groups and leaders have proven foundational for later psychoanalytic theorists of the concept. His landmark essay, “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” published in 1921, still serves as a reference point for nearly all psychoanalytic treatments of leadership. What, Freud asks in this essay, knits disparate individuals together such that they form a group with manifestly common interests and aims? How, in joining a crowd, are people transformed such that they can engage in brutal and destructive acts at odds with their usually civilized demeanors? Why do crowds need strong and even violent leaders, and why do people prove so oddly obedient to such leaders’ authority? Freud argues that neither contagion nor suggestion binds the group. Rather, he proposes, the cohesion of both stable organizations and evanescent gatherings (the army and the Church falling into the first category, crowds and mass rallies into the second) is secured by a shared fealty to the leader’s omnipotence, a fealty powerful enough to vanquish the usual rivalries found among individuals. Members of the crowd believe that the leader loves them all, “equally and justly.” The leader is envisioned in narcissistic terms as sovereign, unburdened of needs for anyone and anything, “masterful, . . . self-confident and independent” (Freud 1921, 124). To understand how, in Freud’s construal, the leader manages to effect and sustain the illusion of reciprocal love and narcissistic perfection that secures the latter’s supremacy, we need to refer back to Freud’s 1914 essay “On Narcissism: An Introduction.” In this essay, Freud introduces the ego ideal, an “intrapsychic formation” against which we evaluate our actual self and achievements (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973, s.v. ego ideal) or alternately, in layperson’s language, an internal image of our idealized self – the person we imagine ourselves, at our best, to be. Freud envisions the child as solipsistic and narcissistic, reveling in the gratifying but unrealistic overvaluation of her parents. She will at first internalize but then abandon this overvaluation, as the vicissitudes of life drive home the reality that she is not in fact “the centre and core of creation” they (and she) imagined she was (Freud 1914, 91). Freud argues that the ego ideal substitutes for this painfully abandoned state of narcissistic perfection, exerting an irresistible pull on us throughout life. Our belief in our own perfection shattered, we are fated to seek it in others. The key to the demand side of the charismatic relationship is found in this desperate yearning for the lost pleasures of childhood, a yearning that renders us susceptible to the illusions peddled by the narcissistic leader. The allure of narcissistic perfection also figures centrally in “Group Psychology.” Freud asserts in this essay that submission to the leader is effected through a process of identification, which the leader invites – idealized as perfect, he takes the place of “some unattained ego ideal of our own.” If we can’t attain perfection, then maybe the leader can. As Freud explains, “We love it on account of the perfections which we have striven to reach for our own ego” (Freud 1921, 112–113). Everyone in a group, Freud asserts, simply puts the same person in this position. The fascination this leader exudes is premised on his gift for appearing at once ordinary and relatable, a focus of identification, larger-than-life and remote, heroic, and unencumbered by needs and desires. As significant in the origins of analytic theorizing about charisma are Freud’s fleeting observations in his short 1931 essay, “Libidinal Types.” There he outlines what he called the narcissistic character, the person whose “main interest is directed to self-preservation; he is independent and not open to intimidation,” aggressive and primed for action. As Freud memorably wrote: “People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they 29

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are especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established states of affairs” (Freud 1931, 218). The contemporary psychoanalyst and business guru Michael Maccoby is especially fond of this passage, quoting it in his popular portrait of the “productive narcissist” as a visionary, engaging leader possessed of charm and charisma (Maccoby 2003). Notably, this charisma is in Maccoby’s (as in Freud’s) hands a relational quality, despite the leader’s manifest independence and emotional autarky. Bereft of subordinates’ sustaining admiration, his magnetism quickly dissipates. This chapter traces charisma’s psychoanalytic fortunes from its early construal as a disavowed and dangerous force mobilized to effect unwilling submission to authority to today, an enviable gift and indispensable personality disposition seen in effective leaders. The absence of sustained engagement with charisma in Freud and in contemporary and subsequent analytic thought is striking, especially in light of how central the nature of relationship between persons is to the discipline (captured most pointedly in the concept of transference, the highly charged relationship between analyst and analysand). As important, however, is that psychoanalytic theorizing of charisma since Freud’s time represents elaborations on Freudian models – of identification and group psychology, of once-abjured but always-present longings for omnipotence and perfection, and of vulnerability to the dangerous allure of magical solutions and larger-than-life messianic figures. If Freud did not explicitly engage with charisma, he laid indispensable foundations for later psychoanalytic theorizing of it. The chapter focuses on three moments in the history of psychoanalytic treatments of charisma: the charisma between leader and led as observed by 1930s analyst-witnesses to the rise of fascism; Heinz Kohut’s 1960s and 1970s writings on charisma in the genre of what he called “applied psychoanalysis,” the analyst’s engagement with the world beyond the consulting room; and the mobilization of charisma by Abraham Zaleznik and like-minded colleagues for the world of business, management, and the psychoanalytic understanding of organizations and leadership in the same period and up to the present. From the start, as we shall see, the psychoanalyst’s charisma was part and parcel of narcissism, organized around omnipotence and grandiosity, echt narcissistic dispositions that over the course of the last century were, like charisma, gradually depathologized and normalized. But, as will become clear, it would prove impossible for the discipline to free itself of its roots in its early disavowed magical practices. Indeed, a mere three decades ago an analyst could highlight “the hidden forms of suggestion latent in charismatic influences” (Hayley 1990, 6), forms that represented unwelcome archaic survivals in an otherwise modern scientific practice.

The fascinations of the authoritarian A number of prominent and well-known psychoanalysts wrestled in print, in the 1930s and 1940s, with the question of why individuals would surrender their sovereignty to the authoritarian leader. In tandem with the rise of fascism, they provided analytic accounts of the charismatic relationship couched in the idiom of narcissism and its pleasures – chief among them omnipotence, grandiosity, and merger – without necessarily invoking the term charisma itself. Collectively, they proposed that the material and psychic deprivations of depression-era Europe nurtured hunger for states of fantasized union, rendering individuals susceptible to the leader’s entreaties. They saw magic and illusion widely on offer as antidotes to people’s powerlessness. They stressed the appeal of “participation in fantasized omnipotence” and the allure belonging to something bigger than oneself, both of which the charismatic leader offered. In the words

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of one of them, “the insecure need and demand omnipotent, even transcendental, gods with whom to identify.” (Ephron 1941, 654) The most extensive of these accounts comes from the psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer, who wrote a once-secret wartime report, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, at the behest of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, over the course of eight months in 1942–1943 (Langer 1972). Langer was a Harvard-trained PhD psychologist and psychoanalyst, who, while pursuing analytic training in Vienna in the late 1930s, was witness to Hitler’s triumphant entry into the city. Among his interests was the Nazi leader’s reciprocal relationship with the German people and effective management of the crowd’s emotions. His report is unparalleled as an analytic account of charisma and the appeal of the authoritarian leader in action. Of Hitler, Langer observed, [H]is power and fascination in speaking lay almost wholly in his ability to sense what a given audience wanted to hear and then to manipulate his theme in such a way that he would arouse the emotions of the crowd. (Langer 1972) Hitler, “a showman with a great sense for the dramatic,” in the words of a former, now lapsed enthusiast quoted by Langer, “responds to the vibration of the human heart with the delicacy of a seismograph . . . enabling him . . . to act as a loudspeaker proclaiming the most secret desires, the least permissible instincts, the sufferings and personal revolts of a whole nation.” He has the ability to “hypnotize his audiences,” to whip them into a frenzy such that “by the time he got through speaking he had completely numbed the critical faculties of his listeners to the point where they were willing to believe almost anything he said.” Flattery, cajolery, hurling “accusations at them one moment” and then “building up straw men that he promptly knocked down” the next – these were his signature tactics. “His tongue was like a lash that whipped up the emotions of his audience. And somehow he always managed to say what the majority of the audience were already secretly thinking but could not verbalize. When the audience began to respond, it affected him in return. Before long due to this reciprocal relationship, he and his audience became intoxicated with the emotional appeal of his oratory” (Langer 1972, 50–53). As Langer saw it, Hitler was able “to unearth and apply successfully many factors pertaining to group psychology” as outlined by Freud. Invoking Freud’s model without identifying it as such, Langer writes that Hitler persuades “others to repudiate their individual consciences,” taking on the role himself, decreeing for individuals “what is right and wrong, permissible and impermissible.” Securing their allegiance, he then “seems to rob them of their critical functions. It is a bond that does not easily dissolve even in the face of evidence that he is not always what he pretends to be.” That is, Hitler – like Freud’s exemplary leader – overwhelms ­individuals’ superegos with his own weakened version of the same. Possessed of an almost “uncanny” ability to “gauge and seize the moment,” Hitler could “feel, identify with, and express in passionate language the deepest needs and sentiments of the average German and to present opportunities or possibilities for their gratification” (Langer 1972, 69–76). Hypnotic effects, fascination, magic, and magnetism feature prominently in Langer’s account. Disavowed at the discipline’s founding moment, these cannot be banished in the face of the messianic authoritarian’s p­ owerful sway.

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The collective argument of Langer and some of his fellow analysts was that the deprivation and humiliation to which the people had been subjected rendered them susceptible to the grandiose fantasies offered by the fascist leader, the “magic, visions, and dreams” that bolstered “the weaknesses of the flesh with the glory of the imagination” (Ephron 1941, 653). All around they saw yearnings for magical remedies, people powerless to comprehend their situations and plagued by longings they could neither name nor satisfy. Understandably, they sought the consolations offered by the fascist leader in the guise of “omnipotent savior,” who, like the hypnotist, “offers magical reparticipation in . . . lost and projected omnipotence.” Deprivation and powerlessness bred submission to authoritarians peddling illusory satisfactions, among them an intensely experienced yearning for  – sounding a theme that would become increasingly common – “participation in omnipotence.” People want to feel part of something transcending their limited selves, whether it was patriotism, the Fatherland, God, or simply “the feeling of being where one belongs” (Fenichel 1944, 133–137). According to one analyst, Hitler was a master practitioner of “mass hypnosis,” possessed of “a comprehensive, intuitive knowledge of the German subconscious mind,” and offered this knowledge in spades. As participants in staged spectacles of fealty to the omnipotent leader, the otherwise “weary and traumatized” could experience “the intense pleasure of an immensely greater expanded self, of heightened individual powers” (Meyer 1939, 120–122) and of “losing one’s helpless individuality in a magnificent oceanic feeling” (Fenichel 1944, 140–141). Consider the perspective offered by the analyst Christine Olden, a refugee to Los Angeles from 1930s Berlin. Olden plumbed the workings of what she called “fascination,” which she identified as at the root of her time’s most acute social issues: submissive masses on the one side, a narcissistic leader on the other. In a case history that reads as a simulacrum of this relationship, Olden told of a young Berliner she had treated who had renounced her own yearnings for omnipotence and masochistically submitted to a man strategically deploying excitement, nurturing fear, and promising “power, security, protection.” A  believer in magic, the young woman in this portrayal of charisma avant la lettre traded away her independence for the illusory satisfactions of merger with an “almighty personality.” Olden suggested, along lines laid down by Freud, that those who have relinquished a belief in their own omnipotence were especially open to the seductions of the omnipotent, wishing to share in their power. The leader without needs, who is independent of others – “he has magic powers, he is God himself ” (Olden 1941, 353–354).

Kohut on the leader’s charisma Heinz Kohut is best known for effecting a psychoanalytic revolution in the 1970s, breaking with Freud’s drive-based metapsychology and fashioning a distinctively upbeat and thoroughly American modal self. At the center of his agenda was his reframing of narcissism as a desirable dimension of mature selfhood, in contrast both to the Freudian conceptualization of it as pathological, a symptom of developmental arrest, and to popular construals of it as exemplary of an unseemly preoccupation with one’s self. Kohut was a theorist of the narcissistic aspects of the personality that historically psychoanalysts routinely condemned, grandiosity and omnipotence chief among them. Both aspects were central to his conceptualization of the charismatic or messianic leader. Grandiosity and omnipotence were normal traits in children, Kohut argued. In an ideal developmental scenario they were not banished but instead gradually frustrated and tamed by loving parental figures, remade into a sort of “instinctual fuel” for the adult that would sustain her creativity and ambitions (Lunbeck 2014, 37ff). Tempered and transformed, grandiosity and omnipotence were thus part of the normal adult personality configuration, not – as in the 32

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Freudian mainstream tradition – shame-worthy survivals of infantile dispositions. It was when grandiosity and omnipotence were not transformed but instead injured or abandoned, that trouble arose, with the individual then susceptible to the entreaties of the charismatic leader. It is not surprising that Kohut was drawn to the psychology of the masses and to the issue of the charismatic leader’s manipulation of them. Born in 1913, he fled his native Vienna in 1939 in the wake of Anschluss, making his way first to London and then to Chicago, where he worked his way up through the city’s and then the nation’s analytic establishment to eventually secure a position at the very top. Kohut made his mark within but also beyond psychoanalysis. He was fascinated by the manifestly irrational behavior of nations and the collectivities of which they were composed, and was regularly featured in the popular press bringing analytic insights to bear on the political conflicts of his day. Why had Hitler’s “archaic ideas of greatness” proven so appealing to his fellow German-speakers? (Geyer 9 May 1974). What made his rabble-rousing so intoxicating? Why were the Palestinian people, their own self-esteem crushed by Jews escaping Hitler, similarly susceptible to archaic notions of greatness? (Geyer 20 January 1976). Kohut was not interested in performing “psychological post-mortems” on historical figures (Geyer 9 May 1974). Instead, it was the relationship between leader and led, in how the leader “reflects back what a people need,” that drew his attention (Geyer 7 October 1982). Self-esteem was a concept central to Kohut’s construal of charismatic leadership. His focus was the self, the entirety of the person and her fortunes, aspirations, and feelings, in contrast to the Freudian emphasis on the negotiations among the different agencies of mind – id, ego, and superego. Wounded self-esteem, he explained, was behind the rise of the 20th century’s most dangerously charismatic leaders. “People whose self-esteem has been shaken need self-esteem, the excitement of glory and of identification with a leader who seems so utterly secure he makes them secure,” he said (Geyer 20 January 1976) – in this echoing the formulation of the 1930s and 1940s analyst-observers of Hitler’s rise that highlighted the striving for “participation in omnipotence.” Kohut’s argument was that charismatic figures were able “without shame or hesitation” to position themselves “as the guides and leaders and gods of those who are in need of guidance, of leadership, and of a target for their reverence” (Kohut 1978, 826). They brandished their feelings of infallibility and invulnerability to their adoring crowds, exerting “a quasi-hypnotic effect” on the latter. Exploiting individuals’ early longings for merger “with an all-powerful and all-knowing ideal figure,” the messianic leader traded in irrational desires and “forces of destruction.” Rationality was no match, Kohut argued, for the “charisma of archaic omnipotence.” As he saw it, charisma was dangerously aligned with passion against reason, with irrationality against rationality, and with the appeal of “grandeur and omnipotence” and destructiveness against “humanitarian ideals” and “culture-building goals” (Kohut 1973, 17–18). Kohut argued that only certain types of personalities were likely to emerge as charismatic leaders. These individuals were characteristically possessed of “unshakeable conviction of being all powerful” and absolute certitude concerning their opinions and their own greatness (Kohut 1973, 16). Ruthlessly pursuing their goals, they displayed an “absolute lack of empathic understanding” for the feelings and ideals of others – with the notable exception that they keenly understand how to mobilize and then use other people for their own ends. Certain of them suffered early deprivation and isolation and grew up with their childhood grandiosity never adequately challenged by reality, as was the case in more developmentally normal individuals (Kohut 1985b, 108–109). Such figures were especially appealing to those who had themselves suffered deprivations and injured omnipotence, for “deeply rooted in our earliest childhood there remains in us a longing to merge with an all-powerful and all-knowing ideal figure” (Kohut 1973, 17). Narcissists were prominent among such leaders. The impoverishment of personality seen in such persons that prevented them from seeing others as separate human beings 33

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with their own interests, feelings, and reactions became, in the sphere of leadership, an asset enabling the development of a heightened “sensitivity to the anonymous group and its motivations.” Envisioning others as types not singular individuals, such narcissistic leaders displayed a “heightened grasp of the unconscious and preconscious tension states, of the fantasies, wishes, and fears of the group” (Kohut 1985b, 109). It is hardly surprising that Kohut saw Hitler as exemplary of the dangerously messianic leader. But perhaps as surprising is his repeated invocation of Winston Churchill as exemplary of the “inspiring charismatic leader” that was missing from the Austria and Germany of his youth. Had such a figure lived then, Kohut suggested, he might have countered “that most pernicious mass seducer of our time” (Kohut 1973, 17) with a belief in his own “surpassing strength” and with a “conviction that he possessed unconquerable power” (Kohut 1985a, 12). Kohut hypothesized that a people’s capacity to choose the “right kind of ” charismatic leader was an expression of their “political genius.” Political savvy was required of both sides to the relationship, such as was displayed by the British, who turned to Churchill in their moment of “grave crisis.” Churchill was someone with whose “unquestioned righteousness” and “unshakable belief ” in himself, and by extension the nation, the British people could identify. Aspects of Churchill’s character were unappealing before the war and after, when he was thrown out of office. At both moments, his grandiosity proved similarly unnecessary and unwelcome. When the people were weak, Kohut argued, they sought to merge “with an omnipotent figure.” Their dominance assured, they turned to other, more ordinary, noncharismatic figures (Kohut 1978, 827–828). Kohut’s reverence for Churchill is exemplary of his larger project to normalize narcissism, its component dispositions, omnipotence and grandiosity, and the charismatic relationship between leader and led. Kohut’s model of charismatic leadership, like that of the 1930s and 1940s observers of fascism, is an elaboration of Freud’s model in “Group Psychology.” Both models are organized around identification with the leader’s narcissistic perfection. Following Freud, Kohut argues that the self-confidence of charismatic leaders is enticing and irresistible to those “yearning for archaic omnipotent figures,” for such leaders embody the greatness and perfection that individuals have abandoned in the course of development and in collision with reality. Charismatic leaders make themselves available to take in and hold the “wishes and needs of individuals, groups, and nations” (Ornstein 1978, 88–89). It is worth noting, however, that the optimistically cast, positive ego ideal that binds the group in Freud has, in Kohut, been replaced by a fantasy of a shared grandiose self. Further, the relatively benign ego ideal of Freud’s theorizing has given way in Kohut to an archaic self-object (part self, part other) that may take the form of a primitive, rage-filled figure bent on destruction of the other – in Kohut’s terms the “archaic omnipotent object” (Kohut 1972, 378). The difference between Freud and Kohut may stem in part from the fact that the latter, unlike Freud, lived through World War II, and he thus experienced firsthand the consequences of what he called “nationalistic narcissistic rage” (Kohut 1985b, 63).

The business leader as charismatic figure The next chapter in the story of the engagement of psychoanalysis with the concept of charisma takes us to the world of business and management. Here, in the 1970s and 1980s, we can see the emergence of a new charismatic leader in the figure of the CEO, a type of character cast as a visionary, committed to innovation, not the status quo, and to challenging, not accepting, organizational cultures. This emergent leader was a paragon of strength, inspiring “dread and fascination” in the underlings from whom he elicited “mystical reactions.” His proponents highlighted the contrasts between him and the humdrum consensus leaders favored by corporate 34

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boards: methodical, hardworking, intelligent enough but neither geniuses nor heroes. Such types were manifestly committed to egalitarianism and little tempted by power and its perks. Tumultuous times demanded a different sort of leader. As characterized by the analyst Abraham Zaleznik and his colleagues, the charismatic leader was bold and aggressive. Such a person found it necessary to stimulate cultural development and change – much like Freud’s narcissist of 1931. Also like Freud’s narcissist, this charismatic corporate player teetered on the edge of destructiveness. Capable of establishing emotional ties between himself and others (like the leader featured in “Group Psychology”), he was worshipped but also mistrusted by subordinates, generative but potentially a tyrant, concerned not with fitting in but with prevailing over others. Possessed of high self-esteem and exuding “the glow of confidence his inner light gives him,” he was, in the estimation of the psychoanalysts who created him, the very embodiment of charisma (Zaleznik and Kets de Vries 1975, 241). Zaleznik located the roots of his thinking of charismatic leadership in Freud, particularly in Freud’s theorizing, from the start of his analytic journey, of the mechanisms through which we have influence on each other – primarily identification and incorporation. Somewhat unusually for a psychoanalyst, Zaleznik was also a student of Max Weber and his writings on charisma. To his business-school audiences, Zaleznik underscored the “spiritual quality” of charisma, tracing to Weber his reference to it as “an inner light, which resulted from divine revelation and conversion.” More generally, he held, charisma could be equated with combinations of “unusual qualities in an individual which are attractive to others and result in special attachments” such as were visible in the personalities of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle, and Mahatma Gandhi. Such individuals were united in their capacity “to secure the emotional ties of others to themselves” (Zaleznik 1974, 223–224). Like Kohut, Zaleznik was interested in the interplay between psychology and history as well as in the emergence of great leaders in the midst of historical conflict. And also like Kohut, he was drawn to the study of narcissism, especially as it related to the leader’s belief in himself. Attempting to explain how someone might position himself as the repository of a people’s or nation’s aspirations to greatness, Zaleznik cited a famous passage in Freud overlooked by others in this conversation: “A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of success that often induces real success” (Freud 1917, 156; translated variously). The feeling special that was a precondition to assuming the mantle of charisma, in other words, had real-world effects. Unlike Kohut, however, Zaleznik was as much an object relations theorist on the subject of charisma as he was a more conventional Freudian, focused on the quality of the leader’s internal introjects – in lay language, the internalized others who populate our inner lives. Zaleznik theorized charisma in terms of the relationship between the leader’s inner theater and the internal lives of followers. Part of the power of charismatic leaders, he writes, lies in the way they are able to effect a connection or even merger between their own “internalized audience and the real audience.” The successful and benevolently disposed leader has a well-populated inner theater, with an internal audience of stable and “well-integrated introjects” that form “the basis for the ties he establishes with the masses” (Zaleznik 1974, 225, 234). In the moment, addressing the crowd, the distance between the leader and led collapses; self and other, intellect and emotion merge and time is suspended, taking the form of an eternal present. The leader appeals to an emotionally invested future of better times. Everyone basks in a glow of good feeling. The demagogue, in contrast to the psychologically well balanced and forward looking leader, summons up a glorious mythological past free of the present day’s enemies, scapegoats offered up “to focus hatred and to mislead.” Such leaders trade in primitive fantasies, with their own internal chaos resonating with the primitive within members of the crowd – hatred, aggression, 35

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destructiveness (Zaleznik 1974, 235). This is charisma staged in a theater of power and magical influence. It represented a kind of role-playing that was, Zaleznik argued, perfectly suited to the medium of television. Zaleznik and his coauthor and associate Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries consistently conceptualized charisma as both relational and as inhering in certain types of individuals. Kets de Vries, in particular, has argued narcissism is “the engine that drives leadership,” and he suggests that narcissistic executives succeed in part by activating the “latent narcissism of their followers” in gratifying circles of shared admiration (Coutu 2004, 68–69). Echoing Kohut, he argues that charismatic leaders appeal to their followers’ “primitive emotions,” enabling such followers to feel powerful and grandiose or, alternately, helpless and dependent. The leader exploits these unconscious strivings, in the process accruing to himself the supernatural, divinely derived powers that Weber saw attributed to the charismatic (Kets de Vries and Miller 1985, 585). Central to the psychoanalytic study of leadership is the notion that the psychic needs of leader and led are fitted together, with the charismatic leader possessed of uncanny capacities to gauge what followers want, in part because of their own narcissistic needs for constant streams of admiration. Charisma has become a sort of Holy Grail in this realm. Academics extol it and consultants offer to impart it. Notably, the charismatic business leader is now endowed with the mystical gifts, miraculous powers, and religious qualities (Khurana 2002) that psychoanalysis, in its formative years, adamantly disavowed as the price of scientific standing. Why psychoanalysis neglected charisma for so long is puzzling, especially in light of the fact that much of the discipline’s interest is focused on the nature and effects of our relations with one another. Several explanations seem plausible. Psychoanalysis was long committed to the primacy of the individual relationship between analyst and analysand, to a so-called oneperson psychology, with the line of influence (captured under the rubric of transference) going primarily in one direction, from analysand to analyst. Further, it was focused on psychic, not “actual,” reality, the reality of life beyond the consulting room. The most significant analytic studies of charisma, in contrast, while for the most part skirting the analytic relationship itself (to be sure, there is evidence in the analytic literature of anxiety about the overweening power the analyst might have over the analysand, with constant gestures toward its illegitimacy), are situated firmly in the real world of the 20th century’s most significant upheavals, conflicts, and sites – war, depression, and, in the postwar period, the workplace. This has traditionally been the remit of “applied psychoanalysis,” not analysis proper. Further, studies of charisma are markedly two-person in their orientation, focused relationally as much as on the personality of the charismatic individual and thus long at odds with mainstream analysis’s insistent focus on the analysand. Kohut was committed, especially in his later years, to deploying psychoanalysis beyond the couch, to understand how to manage and control the outbursts of “irrational frustration and aggression” that regularly coursed through societies. In arguing that the analyst could span the divide between the psychology of the individual and “the mass psyche of a whole people,” he was challenging core tenets of his discipline and calling for the creation of “a new science” (Geyer 20 May 1974). Just as significant, however, is that Kohut’s eye was trained on narcissism and more on feelings than on the mind’s structures (id, ego, and superego). The same holds for the 1930s and 1940s theorists of the authoritarian’s appeal and for the analytic theorists of leadership. Psychoanalytic treatments of charisma are inextricable from analytic conceptualization of narcissism. Freud may not have mentioned charisma, but as this chapter has stressed, the model of relationship between leader and led he sketched in “Group Psychology” is the foundation for all later analytic considerations of it – from the 1930s and 1940s analysts to the present. The 36

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model of followers handing over “their egos to the leader” and remaining “susceptible to his commands and directives,” a submission made to “preserve their love” for him and in return to participate in his omnipotence, still animates analytic considerations of charisma (Zaleznik 1974, 228). This model is powerful and adaptable enough to encompass findings from the relatively new discipline of neuroscience, in which, as reported by a Danish team, the hypnotic relationship at its base is revived: in the presence of the charismatic, the team writes, we are as if hypnotized subjects, “handing over” our “executive function to the hypnotist” (Schjoedt et al. 2011). This is straight from the pages of Freud’s “Group Psychology.”

References Coutu, Diane L. January 2004. “Putting leaders on the couch: A conversation with Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries,” Harvard Business Review, 65–71. Ephron, Harmon. 1941. “Fascism: A challenge to mental hygiene,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 11: 652–661. Fenichel, Otto. 1944. “Psychoanalytic remarks on Fromm’s book Escape from Freedom,” Psychoanalytic Review, 3: 133–152. Freud, Sigmund. 1914. “On narcissism: An introduction,” Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 14: 67–102. Freud, Sigmund. 1917. “A childhood recollection from Dichtung und Wahrheit,” Sigmund Freud, vol. 17: 145–156. Freud, Sigmund. 1921. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Sigmund Freud, vol. 18: 65–144. Freud, Sigmund. 1931. “Libidinal types,” Sigmund Freud, vol. 21: 215–220. Geyer, Georgie Anne. 9 May 1974. “A Chicago psychoanalyst puts the world on the couch,” Chicago Daily News. Geyer, Georgie Anne. 20 May 1974. “Dr. Kohut – the Freud of today,” Chicago Daily News. Geyer, Georgie Anne. 20 January 1976. “Nations, like individuals, need high degree of self-esteem,” Minneapolis Star. Geyer, Georgie Anne. 7 October 1982. “Toward a psychology of nations,” Chicago Sun-Times. Hayley, Tom. 1990. “Charisma, suggestion, psychoanalysts, medicine-men and metaphor,” International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 17: 1–10. Kets de Vries, Manfred F.R. and Miller, Danny. 1985. “Narcissism and leadership: An object relations perspective,” Human Relations, 38: 583–601. Khurana, Rakesh. 2002. “The curse of the superstar CEO,” Harvard Business Review, 80, 9: 60–66. Kohut, Heinz. 1972. “Thoughts on narcissism and narcissistic rage,” Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 27: 360–400. Kohut, Heinz. 1973. “Psychoanalysis in a troubled world,” Annual of Psychoanalysis, 1: 3–25. Kohut, Heinz. 1978. “Creativeness, charisma, group psychology: Reflections on the self-analysis of Freud” (1976), in The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950–1978, vol. 2, ed. Paul H. Ornstein. New York: International Universities Press. Kohut, Heinz. 1985a. “On courage” (early 1970s), in Self Psychology and the Humanities: Reflections on a New Psychoanalytic Approach, ed. Charles B. Strozier. New York: W.W. Norton. Kohut, Heinz. 1985b. “On leadership” (1969–1970), in Self Psychology and the Humanities: Reflections on a New Psychoanalytic Approach, ed. Charles B. Strozier. New York: W.W. Norton. Langer, Walter C. 1972. The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report. New York: Basic Books. Laplanche, Jean and Pontalis, J.B. 1973. The Language of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Lunbeck, Elizabeth. 2014. The Americanization of Narcissism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maccoby, Michael. 2003. The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership. New York: Broadway Books. Meyer, Hershel. 1939. “Psychopathology of Nazism,” Medical Leaves, 2: 118–130. 37

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Olden, Christine. 1941. “About the fascinating effect of the narcissistic personality,” American Imago, 2: 347–355. Ornstein, Paul H. 1978. “Introduction,” in The Search for the Self: Selected Writings of Heinz Kohut: 1950– 1978, vol. 1, ed. Paul H. Orenstein. New York: International Universities Press. Schjoedt, Uffe, Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Hans, Geertz, Armin W., et al. 2011. “The power of charisma: Perceived charisma inhibits the frontal executive network of believers in intercessory prayer,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 6: 119–127. Zaleznik, Abraham. 1974. “Charismatic and consensus leaders: A psychological comparison,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 38, 3: 222–238. Zaleznik, Abraham and Kets de Vries, Manfred F.R. 1975. Power and the Corporate Mind. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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4 The anthropology of charisma Charles Lindholm

Introduction What contributions has social/cultural anthropology made to our understanding of charisma? This is a more complicated issue than it might seem, because anthropology remains a discipline based on deep knowledge of particular human beings, their beliefs, relationships, and activities. The disciplinary focus on the particular means that anthropologists are known for their skeptical responses to the pretentions of grand theory – the “not in my village” syndrome. At the same time, the ultimate goal of anthropology is not just to render various worldviews legible but to make them comparable. Anthropologists, therefore, are torn between their role as miniaturists who collect observations from their various field sites and their desire to reach larger-scale comparative conclusions. In this chapter I summarize a few of the ways that anthropologists have combined theoretical perspectives with specific case studies in order to make more comprehensive arguments about the nature of charisma. I begin with the foundational work of Max Weber.

Weber’s theory of charisma and its influence on anthropology Weber built on Rudolph Sohm’s explicitly Christian concept of charisma to explain why Jesus’s disciples gave up their wives, families, and occupations to follow Christ. The reason was simple. They intuitively recognized Jesus as the Messiah because his God-given gift of grace – his charisma  – confirmed his destiny as the savior (Joosse 2014). For those who follow Sohm’s lead, charisma is inextricably attached to Christian theology and the Jesus cult. By definition, manipulators, power seekers, or malevolent tricksters cannot be truly charismatic (e.g. Friedrich 1961; Horvath 2013). But from Weber’s “value-free” perspective, the Jesus cult was just one (spectacularly successful) example of an ideal type1 of authority in which an individual exhibits qualities that are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a ‘leader’ . . . how the quality in question would be ultimately judged from any ethical, aesthetic, or other such point of view is 39

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naturally indifferent for purposes of definition. What is alone important is how the individual is actually regarded by those subject to charismatic authority, by his ‘followers’ or ‘disciples.’ (Weber 1978: 242, my emphasis) Premodern examples of charisma included shamans, berserker warriors, and epileptics. In more recent times, a charismatic could be a man like Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who, as Weber comments, may have been “a very sophisticated swindler” (ibid: 242), or the Bavarian rabble-rouser Kurt Eisner. Attributions of good and evil play no part in Weber’s value-free concept of charisma. What is crucial is the followers’ absolute belief in the genuineness of their leader’s divine authority and their “complete personal devotion to the possessor of the quality” (ibid: 242). These deified and transformative personalities, who included the exemplary prophet Buddha, the emissary Prophet Mohammad, and other such figures who played a pivotal role in history, fascinated Weber. His problem was how to bring them into his theoretical framework, which was based on his assumption that human beings are rational actors who consciously and intelligently seek to maximize culturally approved goals. While placing rationality at the center of his theory, Weber also believed that in premodern times two completely nonrational modes of being – tradition and charisma – “almost exhausted the whole of the orientation of action” (1978: 245). In their ideal-typical forms, tradition is unthinking, unchanging, and unexciting, but safe. Charisma is emotional, transformative, thrilling, and dangerous.2 To complete his theory, Weber divided charisma into two ideal types that have become staging points for later anthropological exploration. The first is a totally irrational primary form of charisma that is driven by the followers’ passionate emotional attraction to a divinized leader.3 In a pure charismatic relationship, there can be no economic maximization, no bureaucratic order, no rule, no consistency. Such revolutionary personal charisma is crucial for Weber’s global explanation of social change, since charismatic Prophets can inspire their followers to burn down the old world and build a new one on the ashes. But Weber also believed that the flame ignited by the charismatic Prophet is likely to burn out soon after the leader’s death, when he or she can no longer provide personal inspiration. The cults4 that endure do so only if surviving devotees are somehow able to turn their fiery primary and personal charismatic relationship to their leader/Prophet into the cool secondary charisma of a rationalized institutional order, presided over by a king/priest (Greenfeld 1985). According to Weber, the most common modes for the transition from revolutionary charisma to institutional charisma are genealogy (an offspring of the Prophet inherits the mantle), appointment (the Prophet designates a disciple as successor), and magical signs (as when a new Dalai Lama is chosen because a child candidate picks up certain sacred objects).5 For many of Weber’s anthropological followers, charisma is best studied as a manifestation of a human desire for coherence and meaning. For example, Clifford Geertz defined charisma as the manifestation of “the inherent sacredness of sovereign power” (1977: 123). It follows that, “if charisma is a sign of involvement with the animating centers of society, and if such centers are cultural phenomena and thus historically constructed, investigation into the symbolics of power and into its nature are very similar endeavors”(1977: 124). Pageants and pomp are therefore crucial modes for the legitimization of a ruler’s authority, since his hold over his subjects is not due to his character (though different cultural frameworks will emphasize different symbolic personal attributes required for kingship) but instead due to “the tendency of men to anthropomorphize power” (1977: 124). These basic assumptions underlie Geertz’s famous study (1980) of the authority of the God kings who ruled the “Theatre States” in the 19th century Bali. According to Geertz, the aura 40

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of the Balinese ruler was produced and maintained by the ornate ceremonies of submission and worship that symbolically located him at the axis of the world. Unlike a “great man” charismatic hero who used his supernatural powers and inspired insights to overturn the established order, the Balinese god-king’s every action was strictly prescribed by tradition. More of an automaton than a creative actor, his charisma emanated from his regalia, his appurtenances, and the rituals that surrounded him. Therefore, according to Geertz, if one is studying charisma, the rituals and symbols that manufacture and maintain the ruler’s sacred aura are what should be investigated. His symbolic approach to kingship in Bali had a significant influence on the anthropological studies of charisma, not least because it is based on the detailed descriptive approach that the discipline is expert at achieving. Furthermore, Geertz’s model lent itself to comparative research. Appropriate questions include: What exactly are the patterns of legitimization crossculturally? What symbols, postures, and relationships are potent? How do they connect to various belief systems? And so on. Stanley Tambiah proposed an alternative version of Geertz’s “Theatre State” paradigm for charisma in his writings on the arhants or “perfected saints” of early Buddhism and the “forest saints” of modern Thailand (1984). Rather than focusing completely on the symbolic forms of rationalized institutional charisma, Tambiah shows how monks begin their careers by rejecting the elaborate formal hierarchies of Buddhist learning. Instead, they leave home and family to wander alone in the wilderness, following the solitary path to enlightenment originally blazed by the Buddha himself. If they achieve spiritual illumination through their trials, their acquired charisma aura automatically draws disciples. The Saint then gradually becomes the sacred center of dispersed monastic cells, training his disciples in his meditative techniques and communicating his wisdom to them. Seekers attached to enlightened saints may become peripatetic teachers in their own right, setting up their own cells in the remote forest. Eventually, some of these cells may become permanent institutions, so that “a network of parent and daughter hermitages is established.” These networks have revolutionary potential as “rallying points for millenarian cults and movements” (Tambiah 1984: 334). Sufis in Islam traditionally had a spiritual trajectory very similar to the arhants and forest Saints. Like them, the archetypical Sufi left home and wandered afar and alone, seeking spiritual blessings (baraka) through practicing austerities. Those who achieved their goal gained the adulation of the populace by displaying superhuman powers such as the ability to prophesy, to bless, and to curse. Like a Thai forest saint, such a blessed wanderer might establish his own Sufi lodge, gain students, and spread his personal disciplinary methods and interpretation of the Holy Word. Like their Buddhist counterparts, these charismatic shaikhs could also become centers of rebellion against the state, which they execrated for its corruption. (Lindholm 2002). These examples show that charisma can be acquired gradually through the successful completion of ordeals and austerities, and institutionalized when popularly recognized. It follows that charisma will erode if the institutions with which it is associated become delegitimized. Then new charismatic figures may arise proclaiming their own version of a sacralized order. Anne Ruth Willner accepted Weber’s basic model of charisma and applied it to cross-­ cultural comparative studies of leadership in complex modern states, practicing “anthropology at a distance” and relying on the spontaneous statements of followers and eyewitness accounts as her sources. Her first task was to define clearly what charismatic leadership is so as to avoid confusing it with mere popularity or success. Following Weber, she delineated four dimensions: (1) The leader must be viewed as superhuman or as a cultural ideal, (2) The leader’s ideas are believed simply because he said them (contrafactual evidence is ignored), (3) Similarly, orders are obeyed solely because they emanate from the leader (no matter how incomprehensible or selfcontradictory they may seem), and (4) Followers have an intense emotional attachment to the 41

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leader. Other characteristics of devotees include a belief that their leader is extremely energetic, utterly at ease in stressful situations, supremely learned, and totally confident that he is “destiny’s child.” The charismatic figure disdains bureaucracy and demonstrates impressive rhetorical skills, a knack for dramatic action, and may well be attributed with the ability to read minds, predict the future, heal or harm by his very presence, control the weather, and other magical feats. He also always has “magnetic eyes.” Whether the leaders themselves believe in their powers is not discussed, nor is their personal history. Like Weber, she made no claims about the actual superhuman quality of a charismatic leader. As she says, “Charisma, then, can be found not so much in the personality of the leader, as in the perception of the led” (Willner 1984: 15). Nonetheless, Willner recognized that successful charismatics in the modern world do have characteristic abilities. They know how to create suspense, involve the public in sacrifice, and engage them in fighting a crisis (which is often created by the leader himself in order to mobilize his followers). Most importantly for anthropological research, she is clear that each charismatic leader in her sample “evokes, invokes, and assimilates to himself the values and actions embodied in the myths by which that society has organized and recalls its past experience” (Willner 1984: 62). For example, the Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution, contrasted himself in every way to the Shah, whom he compared to Yazid, the murderer of Husain, the rightful inheritor of the mantle of the Prophet, in the battle of Karbala. Khomeini’s promise was not only the overthrow of an oppressive regime, but also righting the ancient wrong of Husain’s murder by creating a pure Islamic republic. Celebration and heroism, not mourning and defeat, would be at the heart of the new order. To this day, his example animates and inspires the Iranian public.

Freud and the psychological anthropology of charisma After Weber, the theorist who most influenced the anthropology of charisma was Sigmund Freud, who believed that mankind is existentially torn between primal forces of eros and thanatos  – the desire for merger (epitomized in sexual and maternal love) and the desire to destroy (epitomized in rage and hate). It is this eternal struggle, and its psychic consequences, that comprises Freud’s portrait of the charismatic follower’s subjugation to a charismatic “primal father” who “loved no one but himself, or other people only in so far as they served his needs” (1959: 55). According to Freud, in submitting to the authority of a leader, the followers return to the dependency of childhood and try to make amends for their Oedipal rivalry and rage by repressing their aggression and groveling at the leader’s feet. To displace the anger and frustration that lies beneath the followers’ self-abasing love, the leader divides the world into good and evil. Good is located in those who love and worship him. Evil is anything that threatens or seems to threaten the collectivity of “many equals, who can identify with one another, and a single person superior to them all” (Freud 1959: 53). In this configuration, the evil ones, whether external enemies or internal traitors, can be hated, tortured, and annihilated without guilt, thus satisfying the primal urge to destroy. Freud’s final assessment of the charismatic community is gloomy: he warns “it is always possible to band together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness” (1962: 61). Prejudice, racism, ethnic cleansing, genocidal war, and other forms of irrational violence are the likely consequences of immersion in a charismatic collective. Weston La Barre was the first anthropologist to attempt a comprehensive comparative study of charisma based on a Freudian perspective. In his magnum opus The Ghost Dance (1970) he 42

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argued that the narcissistic pre-Oedipal “oceanic” stage of merger of mother and child is the source of the original manifestation of charisma in shamanic magic, whereas later forms of priestly religion derive from Oedipal rivalries. The first is associated with the infantile id, the second with the punitive superego. As he says: “The real difference between shaman and priest is who and where the god is, inside or out” (La Barre 1970: 108). In La Barre’s model, the charismatic shaman is creative, childish, illogical, filled with feelings of absolute power, and unfettered by the past or by the reality principle. He (or rarely she) appears when the order provided by a paternal superego/god is threatened by invasion, cross-cultural influences, or simply by the internal evolution of greater complexity and choice, which coincides with heightened repression of id drives and results in existential malaise. La Barre takes the Paiute Indian Ghost Dance as the type case of the cults that occur under these unsettled conditions and ambitiously asserts that, “all religions  .  .  . had their origin in a crisis cult” (La Barre 1970: 345). He then claims that the elevation of a sacred leader originates as a defense against new experiences and an effort to maintain homeostasis in the face of inevitable change. For La Barre, the authority of the magical charismatic shaman derives from the shaman’s own unshakeable and infantile belief that only he can control the forces of nature. In many respects, A.F.C. Wallace’s (1956, 1970) comparative study of charisma followed La Barre. Like La Barre, he was an expert on American Indian culture and based his theory on written accounts of a crisis cult, in this instance, the new religion founded by the 19th century Seneca Iroquois Prophet, Handsome Lake. Wallace compared Handsome Lake’s revelatory trajectory to written accounts of other cultic movements worldwide. He then argued that these could be roughly differentiated and typologized according to their defining precepts: A messianic cult requires a belief in a savior and so has a Judeo-Christian connotation; a millenarian cult implies a linear notion of time progressing toward a predestined paradise for true believers (as found most often among South American Indians); a revitalization cult presupposes the existence of a shining past that can be renewed for the faithful (a hope characteristic of North American Indians); Cargo Cults (prevalent in Melanesia) rely on a prescient guide’s magical instructions to extract rewards from the gods. Different circumstances and histories have led to other forms of cults and other types of revelation – some successful, others not.6 Although these overlapping types of cults had varied goals and beliefs, the followers’ faith in the divine authority of their leader was a characteristic shared by all. Wallace proposed an anthropological/psychological model to explain cultic trajectories. Using the term “mazeway” to refer to any taken-for-granted cultural gestalt, he posited that when a cultural system becomes dysfunctional, there ensues widespread psychic breakdown. In this liminal milieu where all boundaries are eroded, a Prophet, guided by dreams, visions, and intuitions of communication with a higher supernatural being, may (or may not) arrive and propose a “mazeway resynthesis.” Transformed by the inner experience of being linked to and even inhabited by powerful spiritual forces, he may be greeted by the despairing populace as a messenger of the gods or as a god himself. By worshipping the charismatic Prophet and implementing his new order, his followers find relief from their own fears and satisfy what Wallace, following Freud (and echoing La Barre), called their “dependency needs.” If the resynthesis proves viable, real social change takes place. But collapse and destruction ensue if prophecy fails. Wallace further proposed that his paradigm should not be limited to “nativist” cults among premodern people but could also apply to historical charismatic movements in complex societies, including the foundation of Methodism, the rise of the Sudanese Mahdi, the massive Taiping Rebellion in China, the origin of Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism and, potentially, the advent of Communism and other secular cults. 43

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The return of the repressed: new/old approaches to charisma While still referring to Weber and Freud (whether critically or admiringly), later anthropological work on charisma has often turned to theories that were previously set aside as peripheral: These include Durkheim’s theory (1965 [1915]) that religion (and culture itself) began in ecstatic “collective effervescence;” Gustave Le Bon’s notion (1896) that the crowd has a psychology of its own, much more emotional and labile than the psychology of individuals; and Gabriel Tarde’s argument that human beings are “unconscious puppets” (Tarde 1903: 77) awaiting a forceful leader to inspire them to acts of collective mimesis. Of special importance has been Victor Turner’s claim that a viable society must allow its members periodic escape from the deadening restrictions of instrumental reason and restrictive structure (1974, 1977). According to Turner, the flight from repression takes place during liminal experiences of spiritual “communitas” occurring in ritual performances. Whether collective and cyclic (marking seasonal change, for example) or individual life cycle transitions (birth, puberty, marriage, death) these celebrations follow a three stage pattern first discerned by Arnold Van Gennep (1909) in his seminal work Rites of Passage. These stages are: separation from the old order, a transitional liminal stage in which transformation occurs, and the final reaggregation back into normality, but at different structural position. However, if this does not occur, due to what Gregory Bateson (1936) called schismogenesis (the creation of division), then what is likely to ensue is either negotiated redress or destructive stalemate and social breakdown. Turner argued that the panhuman impulse toward healing self-loss in liminal experiences was regularly realized in simpler societies, where shamans induced ecstatic possession as a part of ordinary life. For example, among the egalitarian hunter-gatherer !Kung San of the Kalahari desert, healing trances were commonplace, occurring as often as once a week. Fully half the men and ten percent of the women were healers who had mastered the inner vital energy the !Kung San call n/um. The healer used this energy for curing the people of the community during the ecstatic state of !kia, brought on during all-night parties of dancing and singing (Katz 1982). While in this state, “Your heart stops. You’re dead. Your thoughts are nothing. . . . Then you . . . heal, heal, heal. Then you live” (quoted in Katz 1982: 42, 45). The experience of death and rebirth is characteristic of healing trances not only among the !Kung, but also in similar small-scale, premodern societies where charismatic possession is practiced. In these cases the possessed are not permanently inhabited by supernatural forces. Instead, their powers are limited and prophylactic. Their expertise at inducing ecstatic healing trance is regarded as an innate personal capacity – like good eyesight – that can be used to benefit the community. But when collective rituals of ecstatic communion are restricted or marginalized, the search for healing self-loss is likely to lead to a new kind of charismatic expression that rebels against a loss of autonomy and coherence. For example, when the !Kung came under the sway of the neighboring, more hierarchical Bantu peoples, some especially gifted !kia dancers became fulltime paid professionals embodying the sacred curative power of !kia before wildly excited and adulatory audiences. Such dancer/healers were “assigned the potential role of the charismatic political leader with far-ranging authority” (Guenther 1975: 165). Both the !Kung and the Bantu fear these powerful dancers, believing them to have a power to kill, as well as to cure. Turner believed (or hoped) that the desire for communitas in the modern world need not lead to such dangerous charismatic annunciations, but could be met in art, religion, and other modes of creativity and emotional connection. But he also emphasized the innate ability of “the weak” to enter into emotionally empowering liminal states, since they were less connected to and reliant on the rigid instrumental structures of authority. The category of the weak includes the poor and oppressed, but also may expand to anyone who feels marginalized, unwanted, 44

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disrespected, or simply misunderstood. As I.M. Lewis (1971, 1986) has demonstrated, and as the !Kung case and many others illustrate, some of those who are disdained and excluded in complex hierarchical social formations can become charismatic leaders for the downtrodden who are especially susceptible to the experience of collective ecstasy that such a person offers. Extending the insights of Turner and Lewis, building on Weber and Freud, Le Bon and Tarde, and on standard sociological portraits of modernity, I argued (Lindholm 1993) that in today’s complex hierarchical societies, old values and integrated communities have been undercut by increased personal isolation and rapid social and physical mobility as well as by extraordinary levels of competitiveness and an absence of values beyond the purely individual goal of pleasing oneself. The pleasures of technological innovation, relaxed social/sexual mores, and identification with sports heroes or media stars are not enough to offset widespread alienation and anomie in this densely interlinked brave new world, as revealed in soaring levels of crime, mental illness, drug abuse, and other objective indicators of malaise. In this type of social formation, those who feel themselves to be among “the weak” can now include almost everyone. From this point of view, charisma today tends to extremes because it is a quest for lost communion in a technocratic, bureaucratized, hierarchical social order. In this highly rationalized system, rewards are so unevenly distributed and dissatisfaction so widespread that a search for empowering alternatives is inevitable. Under these conditions, a heady mixture of political activism and religious fervor has emerged in charismatic “aurora movements” large and small arraying themselves against the dominating and seemingly irresistible impersonal forces of modernity (Lindholm and Zúquete 2010). In these movements, many who feel lost, disrespected, unloved, or hopeless are impulsively attracted to a charismatic figure whose self-presentation of absolute confidence and power, as well as disdain for the status quo and a willingness to flout respectable mores, is combined with an uncanny shaman-like capacity for emotional displays. The example of the leader triggers the mimetic release of the repressed aggressions and desires of followers, and fuses them into a group united by passionate love for their commander and one another, and by equally passionate hatred for detested outsiders and traitorous insiders. In the worst cases, the end result may be murder and flames. A reassertion of the old order may then occur, perhaps in even more repressive guise.

The trickster The picture I’ve painted so far is bad enough, but an even more dismal portrait of the modern condition has been drawn by the Hungarian political theorist/philosopher Agnes Horvath, who argues that leaders who arise in today’s world are tricksters with an uncanny “ability to launch emptiness in the likeness of the real” and “able to mimic normal forms and rules of behavior, even though – or rather exactly because – they themselves have lost their integrity. In contrast, a charismatic person is at one with themselves, having coherence and a never-changing attitude toward things in harmonious co-existence” (Horvath 2013: 7). Under the increasingly destabilized and alienating conditions of permanent liminality in the modern world, all true charisma has vanished; instead, only mad beliefs and ill desires keep proliferating, calling always for more passionate interests and for giving up the sanity of one’s mind, where for every trick there is always a new ritual pretext gaining legitimacy and then legislation . . . completion of the liminal stage . . . simply means that the initiands become themselves stalkers, scum, and cheating figures, by now completely assimilated into a bullying system. (ibid:130) 45

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Horvath’s cry of despair, while not anthropological itself, (except insofar as she relies on the “philosophical anthropology” of Plato) is worth special attention by anthropologists, since she and the others who were inspired by her have made impressively creative use of classic, but often ignored, anthropological paradigms, most obviously Turner’s theory of liminality and Van Gennep’s notion of the rites of passage, as well as Le Bon’s crowd psychology and Tarde’s concept of compulsive mimesis. Of special note is her adoption and expansion of Gregory Bateson’s (1936) model of schismogenesis. For Bateson, conflicts are usually resolved by eventual reaggregation (as predicted by Van Gennep). But Horvath places much more emphasis on escalating tension, the failure of reconciliation, and the resulting systemic collapse and descent into perpetual liminoid madness. Following Horvath, the writings of this new theoretical school (e.g., Thomassen 2012; Szakolczai and Thomassen 2019\; Armbrust 2019) reject the explanatory value of charisma (which Horvath agues must be of one integrated piece and without blemish – and thus nonexistent in today’s world) and invoke instead the mythical figure of “the trickster” to explain the chaotic rule-breaking behavior of leaders such as Hitler and Stalin (and Trump7). From my perspective, this is an overly simplified image of the trickster myth, which actually has many variations across cultures (e.g., Carroll 1984; Ossa 1998). In one setting he is a ridiculous joker, in others a subversive force, in others a warning against misbehavior, and in yet others all three. Horvath favors the image of the trickster found in Paul Radin’s classic text (1956) where he is portrayed as a shape-changing pre-oedipal figure ruled completely by instinct, lacking any distinction between sacred and profane, pure and polluted, true and false. From behind many masks, the joker grins at us all. However, in the full Winnebago cycle (the paradigmatic form, in Radin’s view) the trickster matures from his infantile state, rejoins his family, and eventually evolves into a culture hero who has a mission to help mankind. According to Radin, the moral of this version of the cycle is that “the life instinctual . . . leads inevitably to crime and the making of irrational demands. Both must end in tragedy. But (man can) be warned against such an existence . . . by depicting the inexorable and tragic consequences of such a life and by holding it up to ridicule” (Radin 1971 (1953): 339). The wholly destructive trickster is not the only possible incarnation of the myth. The image of an amoral, protean trickster/joker/con man as the paradigm for present-day authority also faces another objection. Does it help us to understand the worshipful adulation for Gandhi or Martin Luther King, or for Ayatollah Khomeini, who was not the Iranian leader that the Western world might prefer, but who was certainly no trickster? Was Mao Tse Tung a trickster? Charles De Gaulle? Fidel Castro? Jean-Marie Le Pen? Hugo Chávez?8 How can we distinguish between religious figures such as the Buddhist nun Zhenghan, who is worshipped as a living saint while also functioning as the head of a massive charitable organization in Taiwan? (Huang 2009) or Sathya Sai Baba, decried as a fraud and sexual predator by some, worshipped as God on earth by others (Srinivas 2010). My problem with the trickster model, as is obvious from my previous remarks, is that it relies too much on the explanatory power of a presumed archetype, which is actually subject to much academic dispute and cultural variation, while mostly ignoring contexts and the attitudes of the followers, which also vary considerably. For instance, an exemplary prophet of contemplative withdrawal is followed in a very different manner from “world affirming” charismatics such as Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard or rabble-rousing politicians such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Weber’s classificatory approach allows better typologizing of charisma. Furthermore, Weber’s ideal type model, with its emphasis on the followers’ belief in their leader’s specific supernatural properties and their intense emotional relationship with him (or her) provides a simple and precise way of determining the force and 46

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direction of charismatic authority – regardless of whether the end results of a charismatic tie are praiseworthy or deplorable. Perhaps the trickster is best regarded as a subtype of charismatic authority – albeit one with a special appeal in the modern world.

New directions One aspect of charisma that has been ignored by anthropologists and social theorists alike is its role in daily life. Years ago, Bertrand de Jouvenel echoed popular opinion when he explained that informal relationships in any group are a product of one individual’s “naked capacity of mustering assent,” a capacity that has nothing to do with position, or power, or advantage but emanates solely from an inherent personal magnetism (1958: 163). When such a person enters a room, heads turn, and those who are without this magical attribute press to be close to the one who has it; they want to be liked by her, to have her attention, to touch her. The hearts of the onlookers race when she comes near. This capacity is an ineffable quality admired and envied. It is imagined, perhaps accurately, to lead to success in love and work. In the West, we define and “explain” this felt magnetic attractiveness of others by referring to it as charisma. Even in the most intimate personal relationships charisma is a shorthand term for the intrinsic magnetic quality, outside the range of ordinary thought and logic, beyond beauty or talent, that emanates from the beloved, who is believed by the lover to be special, extraordinary, remarkable in every way. Because of these imputed qualities, the lover wants to obey and please the beloved, just as the follower wants to obey and please the leader. As I have argued elsewhere (Lindholm 1988), the parallel between romantic love and charisma is abundantly clear. But anthropologists have hesitated to trespass on territory colonized by psychologists who study inner states. Nonetheless, it is clear that the popular notion of charismatic attraction is a way to talk about exactly these mysterious emotionally charged aspects of social interaction, from the macro level of mass movements and religious cults to the micro level of the relationships between lovers in everyday social life. Some charismatics, like some lovers, may be manipulative tricksters; other are not. What conditions correlate with various manifestations and expressions of attraction is a question to be researched. Nonetheless, at each level, from the personal to the public, there remains the experience of a compulsive, inexplicable emotional tie binding a lover to the beloved or linking a group of followers together in adulation of their leader (who is almost always male, though often with stereotypically female characteristics).9 This tie can be manipulated, and the relationship can be regressive, neurotic, violent, and destructive. But it also can be transcendent. Anthropologists have also usually left the exploration of the relationships between charismatic mass leaders and their followers to political scientists, who in turn have tended to downplay charismatic aspects of politics in favor of more quantifiable means-ends analyses (an exception is the “trickster” school referred to earlier). Save for Willner, the anthropology of charisma has mostly concerned itself with small-scale groups, often focusing on those without great political influence or power. This is true even of the studies of charisma within the Christian tradition, which have burgeoned since Csordas’s phenomenological exploration of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement (1994). Anthropologists also have continued to add to the copious literature on charisma-related topics such as possession trance, shamanism, liminal states, ritual performance, and revitalization movements. We need more of these closely observed studies to get a better cross-cultural picture of what charisma entails and how the experience of charisma is related to the changing conditions of modern life. But anthropologists also ought to recognize that charismatic figures continue to appear as political/religious leaders or anti-establishment rebels in highly developed nation-states and 47

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ought to undertake systematic studies of charismatic phenomena at those levels, utilizing fieldwork techniques of participant observation as well as standard methods for study of culture at a distance. With these tools, anthropologists, perhaps working alongside scholars from different disciplines, could provide a concrete base for building wider theories about the occurrence, structure, relationships, ideologies, personalities, practices, cultural frameworks, and likely trajectories of charisma in supposedly hyper-rational modern societies where, according to Weber, it should long ago have been consigned to the dustbin. Such collaborative studies could also determine similarities and differences, and causes and consequences, and so extract ideal-typical models against which further cases could be compared, causes could be explored, and variations explained. But although this would seem to be an important and obvious research agenda, ethnography focused directly on charismatic cults remains relatively rare, and cross-disciplinary collaboration even rarer. One reason for the former may be the difficulties of doing research within such groups. As I know from the experiences of some of my colleagues and graduate students, the price of admission into a cult may require submission to mind-bending, physically exhausting and emotionally challenging initiatory procedures. Critique or resistance can result in exclusion, while acquiescence can test the investigator’s mental and emotional equilibrium. In short, participant observation within charismatic collectives can be psychically and psychically perilous, with no results guaranteed (Whelan 2006).10 A second difficulty is intellectual. The study of charisma as a total social fact requires a range of knowledge and attunement rarely achieved by specialists. Political scientists are interested in charisma as an aspect of power relations; sociologists are concerned with the structure of charismatic relationships; psychologists seek insight into the inner lives of leaders and followers; and anthropologists focus on the cultural frameworks, artifacts, and modes of interaction that surround and sustain charisma over time. All these are useful. None are complete. This is where cross-disciplinary collaboration may be imperative. While resisting the breaking down of boundaries of the self within a charismatic movement, researchers must also be prepared to break down their own intellectual boundaries in order to pursue their investigations. This is a difficult task but one worth attempting if we are ever going to take the measure of charisma as it operates all around us today.

Notes 1 The concept of ideal type is essential for Weber’s method. In reality, no pure example of an ideal type exists. It is an analytic tool, postulated by the investigator, consisting of a set of characteristics that provide a template for human action. It serves as a theoretical baseline for exploring and explaining the causes of the actually existing variations from the nonexistent ideal type. 2 For Weber this age-old dialectic was superseded by the triumph of the instrumental rationality of capitalism. 3 Weber believed that the virtuosos of pure charisma in prehistory were shamans whose epileptoid seizures and dramatic enactments of possession by spirits and subsequent death and rebirth drew the audience into ecstatic states where ordinary miseries of isolation, pain, and mortality were momentarily transcended (Weber 1972: 279, 287, 327, 1978: 242, 400–403, 535–536, 554, 1112, 1115). 4 I am using the term cult in its non-pejorative original sense – as in the Catholic cult of Mary. 5 For recent ethnographically based critiques and expansions of Weber’s theory of charisma, see the essays in Lindholm (2013). 6 For classic accounts of such movements see Worsley 1957; Lanternari 1963. 7 See Forlenza and Thomassen (2016). 8 On the charismatic leaderships of both Le Pen and Chávez, see Zúquete (2013). 9 Why women should so rarely be considered charismatic leaders is a topic ripe for future cross-­ disciplinary study. See Jean Lau Chin’s text in this Handbook. 48

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10 Another often insurmountable obstacle is the anthropologist’s code of ethics, which requires that the fieldworker make his or her position as clear as possible to the group being studied.

References Armbrust, Walter. 2019. Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bateson, Gregory. 1936. Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carroll, Michael. 1984. “The Trickster as Selfish-Buffoon and Culture Hero.” Ethos 12 (2): 105–131. Csordas, Thomas. 1994. The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Durkheim, Emile. 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press. Forlenza, Rosario and Thomassen, Bjørn. 2016. “Decoding Donald Trump: The Triumph of Trickster Politics.” Public Seminar April 28. Freud, Sigmund. 1959 [1921]. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. New York: Norton. Freud, Sigmund. 1962 [1930]. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: Norton. Friedrich, C. 1961. “Political Leadership and the Problem of Charismatic Power.” Journal of Politics 23: 3–24. Geertz, Clifford. 1977. “Centers, Kings and Charisma.” In Joseph Ben-David and T.N. Clark, eds. Culture and Its Creators. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1980. Nagara: The Theater State in 19th Century Bali. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Greenfeld, Liah. 1985. “Reflections on the Two Charismas.” British Journal of Sociology 36 (2): 117–132. Guenther, Mathias. 1975. “The Trance Dance as an Agent of Social Change among the Farm Bushmen of the Ghanzi District.” Botswana Notes and Records 7: 161–166. Horvath, Agnes. 2013. Modernism and Charisma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Huang, Chien-Yu Julia. 2009. Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu-Chi Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Joosse, Paul. 2014. “Becoming a God: Max Weber and the Social Construction of Charismatic Power.” Journal of Classical Sociology 14 (3): 266–283. Jouvenel, Bertrand de. 1958. “Authority: The Efficient Imperative.” In Carl Friedrich, ed. Authority. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Katz, Richard. 1982. Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. La Barre, Weston. 1970. The Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion. Garden City: Doubleday. Lanternari, Vittorio. 1963. The Religions of the Oppressed: A  Study of Modern Messianic Cults. London: Macgibbon and Kee. Le Bon, Gustave. 1896. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: Unwin. Lewis, I. M. 1971. Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lewis, I. M. 1986. Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lindholm, Charles. 1988. “Lovers and Leaders: A  Comparison of Social and Psychological Models of Romance and Charisma.” Social Science Information 27: 3–45. Lindholm, Charles. 1993. Charisma. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lindholm, Charles. 2002. The Islamic Middle East: Tradition and Change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lindholm, Charles. ed. 2013. The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions. New York:. Palgrave Macmillan Lindholm, Charles and Zúquete, José Pedro. 2010. The Struggle for the World: Liberation Movements for the 21st Century. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Ossa, Luisa. 1998. “There’s Nothing Underhanded About Liberation: A Reevaluation of the Trickster Figure.” Afro-Hispanic Review 17 (2): 46–51. 49

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Radin, Paul. 1956. The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology; with a Commentary by Karl Kerényi and Carl G. Jung. New York: Philosophical Library. Radin, Paul. 1971 [1953]. The World of Primitive Man. New York: Dutton. Srinivas, Tulasi. 2010. Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalism and Religious Pluralism Through the Sathya Sai Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. Szakolczai, Arpad and Thomassen, Bjørn. 2019. From Anthropology to Social Theory: Rethinking the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tambiah, Stanley. 1984. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tarde, Gabriel. 1903. The Laws of Imitation. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Thomassen, Bjørn. 2012. “Notes Towards an Anthropology of Political Revolutions.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54 (3): 679–706. Turner, Victor. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Turner, Victor. 1977. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. van Gennep, Arnold. 2004 [1909]. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge. Wallace, A. F. C. 1956. “Revitalization Movements.” American Anthropologist 88: 264–281. Wallace, A. F. C. 1970. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. New York: Knopf. Weber, Max. 1972 [1946]. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max. 1978 [1922]. Economy and Society. I. Roth and C. Wittich, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, Max. 2002 [1904–5]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Stephen Kalberg, ed. Los Angeles: Roxbury Press. Whelan, Christal. 2006. “Shifting Paradigms and Mediating Media: Redefining a New Religion as “Rational” in Contemporary Society.” Nova Religion: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 10 (3): 54–72. Willner, Ann Ruth. 1984. The Spellbinders: Charismatic Political Leadership. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Worsley, Peter. 1957. The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of ‘Cargo’ Cults in Melanesia. London: Macgibbon and Kee. Zúquete, José Pedro. 2013. “On Top of the Volcano: Missionary Politics in the Twenty-First Century.” Politics, Religion & Ideology 14 (4): 507–521.

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Section II

Historical cases

5 Charismatic leaders in ancient Greece Joseph Roisman

Weber and ancient Greek leadership We owe the concept of charismatic leadership to the immensely influential social scientist Max Weber. The opening chapters of this volume discuss his theory of domination, or herrschaft, that in essence classified leadership and authority into three types. The first and earliest one is based on personal charisma, which can transition to the second type of traditional domination. The third type is legal, or bureaucratic authority that is based on rational, impersonal rules as in modern democracy.1 Weber’s qualifies his classification of dominations in that they are “pure” forms, or what is commonly termed ideal types. It means that they never fully correspond to reality and that there can be combinations or hybrid forms of domination. He believes, however, that his types are useful in that they identify the categories under which organized groups fall (Introduction and Chapter 1; Weber 1947, 383). Weber borrowed the term charisma from the Christian Bible, and especially St. Paul, where it means a spiritual, heavenly gift. In developing the concept, he was influenced by contemporary theological studies on charis (grace) and charisma, on the one hand, and journalistic reports on Caesarism and political demagogues in 19th-century Europe, on the other (Nippel 2000, 8–16; Demandt 2013, 80; Ch. 1). Of particular relevance to this chapter are Weber’s examples of early charismatic leaders, such as sorcerers, prophets, lawgivers, leaders of hunting and booty expeditions, and warrior chieftains. Yet Weber finds charismatic leadership not just in “primitive” societies but also in rational, bureaucratic domination such as democracies, where a plebiscite legitimizes it. Alongside political leaders of the modern era, he traces precedents and historical confirmation of this type in Periclean Athens and in ancient Greek leaders such as aesymnetae (elected monarchs), tyrants, and demagogues (Weber 1946, 295–296; 1947, 359, 387–390). The goal of this chapter is to observe to what extent Weber’s definition and analysis of charisma are applicable or useful to our understanding of ancient Greek leadership. In other words, are there significant Greek leaders who fit his definition of charismatic leaders, and when they do, does his theory contribute to a better or different understanding of their leadership? The results are negative or mixed. I  start with general observations about the poor applicability of Weber’s charisma to Greek leadership and go on to examine the validity of his historical 53

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examples of ancient Greek charismatic leaders. Given the focus of this volume, the chapter does not deal with ancient Greek models and perceptions of leaders and how they changed over time, nor does it discuss Weber’s views of the Greek polis and its economic and social development. It also refrains from discussing Durkheim’s and Freud’s treatments of comparable types of leadership, chiefly because applying the assumptions that underlay their analyses of personal and collective psychology and the sacred and the profane to the ancient Greeks raises conceptual and methodological issues that cannot be adequately addressed here on top of Weber’s theories. According to Weber, it is the believers who make the charismatic leader, for what matters is not what the leader does but what the followers think of or feel about him (Weber 1946, 245, 295–296; Nippel 2001, 197–198). (Weber does not include women in his leadership model). This creates a problem for a researcher looking to identify ancient Greek charisma, because, generally speaking, our ancient sources may mention popular trust or confidence in a leader, but not necessarily on what grounds, which makes it difficult to judge if charisma, as opposed to other factors, played a role in their support. Weber’s charismatic leader is regarded by his followers as an extraordinary person with superhuman powers (Weber 1947, 358–359). Such traits exclude most Greek leaders from the charismatic category, because only very few, if any, were deemed endowed with supernatural abilities (see later in the chapter and Section 5 of this volume), and even then, the belief in such powers did not legitimatize their rule. Even though Weber offered historical examples of charismatic leaders from different times and civilizations, it appears that he had chiefly in mind religious leaders and miracle workers (Weber 1946, 295–296, 1947, 359). In ancient Greece, such leaders were rare and with limited impact, and no Greek political leader could be justifiably called a miracle worker. Hellenistic king Pyrrhus of Epirus is said to have healing powers (Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 3; Gehrke 1982, 262), and there are stories about other Greek leaders, who benefited from miracles and omens, suggesting that they were favored by the gods or destined to greatness. They included individuals such as the archaic Corinthian tyrant Cypselus (Herodotus, Histories 5.92.b-e; Nicolaus of Damascus in Jacoby 1926–57 90 Fragment 57.4–5), the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus (pp. 55–56), Pericles of Athens (Herodotus, Histories 6.131), or Alexander the Great (Callisthenes in Jacoby 1926–57 Callisthenes 124 Fragment 31; Arrian Anabasis 3.35; Plutarch, Life of Alexander 2–3). Yet, the stories were likely apocryphal, and even if authentic, they did not make people believe in the leader’s superhuman nature or become devoted to him. Weber suggests that the legitimacy of the charismatic leader is based (among other things) on the duty or “call” for a mission claimed by the leader and his small coterie of friends (Weber 1946, 246). Excluding small religious and philosophical groups, which were clearly Weber’s point of reference, Greek political leadership did not engage in “missionary” politics or movements. Many professed to act or speak for the greater good of the polis or the demos, but such calling, if calling it was, was so common that it could not be used to distinguish the charismatic from the noncharismatic leader. Weber highlights the revolutionary character of charisma and its rejection of the past and traditions (1946, 250, 1947, 390). Greek city-states experienced peaceful and violent transitions to oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy, yet the new regimes often used the past, real or fictional, to legitimize their authority. For example, both the leaders of oligarchic governments in late fifth-century Athens and of the democrats who preceded and replaced them in power claimed that they followed ancestral ways (Fuks 1953; Rhodes 2011b). There were leaders, such as the Spartan general Brasidas (Cartledge 2003, 179–191), or the Athenian turncoat Alcibiades (Rhodes 2011a), who lived during the tumultuous period of the Peloponnesian War between 54

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Athens and Sparta, and who defied conventions and their respective authorities, but they were not revolutionaries or derived their legitimacy from repudiating the past. Moreover, many aspects that Weber (1947, 360) lists as incongruent with charismatic leadership characterized, in fact, Greek leadership and its followers, especially in pre-democratic and democratic Athens. There we find an administration consisting of officials who were chosen on the basis of social status, lineage, or by lot, but not because of their charisma or a charisma that was transferred to them by the leader. In Athenian democracy of the Classical era, there existed hierarchy of power, dismissal from office through judicial procedures, and roles with relatively well-defined authority, competence, and territorial boundaries. There were also salary, training, and judicial functions and offices (Hansen 1999). In short, legitimate authority in democratic Athens resembled a domination type that Weber described as alien to charismatic legitimacy. According to Weber, charismatic movement, in its ideal form, rejects rational or routinized economic conduct dedicated to the procurement of regular income. It despises the possession of money and refuses regular income in favor of revenues from gifts, bribery, donations and booty (Weber 1946, 247, 1947, 362). I am unfamiliar with ancient Greek leaders or followers who held regular income in contempt or declined it. Even Greek tyrants, whom Weber identified as charismatic leaders, collected taxes (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6.54.5; Aristotle The Constitution of Athens 14–16). Later Greek condottieri and acquirers of huge booty such as Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kings welcomed, too, income from levies that they regularly imposed and collected. Also, there was nothing uniquely charismatic in relying on irregular sources of income. Booty was an integral part of most military campaigns in ancient Greece, and gifts and donations were given and solicitated on a frequent basis in noncharismatic regimes from democratic Athens to Hellenistic poleis (Pritchett 1991, 68–541; Monson 2015). It may be argued that we should not expect a historical figure to exhibit all the traits of a “pure” charismatic leader, and some of Weber’s defenders assert as much. Without going into the questionable merit of an “ideal type” category as an explanatory tool, it is legitimate to ask what use there is in a type that is selectively apt. In addition, how many and which similarities and contradictions between the type and historical reality does it take to designate a leader as charismatic or disqualify him from this class? For a reader who looks for enlightenment in Weber’s categories of domination, the gain appears elusive. But Weber also believed that there was room for charismatic leadership in a noncharismatic domination such as a traditional or bureaucratic system of government. He names tyrants, demagogues, and Pericles as ancient Greek examples, whose validity deserve scrutiny.

Tyrants At first glance, some of Weber’s charismatic attributes appear relevant to Greek tyranny. Charismatic leaders emerge in crisis situations, and in several Greek city-states tyrants rose to power amid crises involving aristocratic inner fighting, social injustice, and abuse of the people (Weber 1946, 295; Wallace 2009, 411–413). Weber’s charismatic leaders go against the status quo, and Aristotle, who is Weber’s ultimate, though not direct, source for Greek tyranny, describes tyrants as individuals who attacked the elite and won popular trust by slandering it (Weber 1946, 250, 1947, 390; Aristotle Politics 1305a,1308a; 1310a-b). Early tyrants like the Orthagorids of Sicyon or the Athenian Peisistratus distinguished themselves at war and instituted reforms similarly to Weber’s charismatic war heroes and change-makers (Stein-Hölkeskamp 2009, 104–107; Herodotus, Histories 1.59–64; Aristotle, The Constitution of the Athenians 14–16; Plutarch, Life of Solon 31). Yet the similarity is only partial and problematic, because these and other tyrants also operated in a way that contradicted Weber’s charismatic type. Thus, according to Weber, 55

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the charismatic leaders’ first goal is to destroy traditional and other types of authoritarian power and privileges (1947, 390). Aristotle’s discussion of how tyrants rose to power includes men who abused the power of their office or even their royal status, not exactly the ultimate outsiders (Aristotle Politics 1305a, 1308a; 1310a-b). Tyrants also did not try to destroy existing authority or privileges. Ancient sources on the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus state that he acted more constitutionally than tyrannically and was willing to administer everything according to the law, including submitting himself to a legal procedure. And if this was just a veneer, the tyrants, who largely came from the elite, were very much traditionalists as far as aristocratic culture and values were concerned. Historian Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp, using the tyrant Polycrates of Samos as an example, rightly claims that in terms of cultural practice and self-presentation he operated within the established frame of aristocratic society (2009, 110, 114). In addition, the evidence on Greek tyrants fails to mention major attributes that Weber associates with charismatic leaders such as their attracting supporters through their extraordinary personal talents. (Even Herodotus, Histories 1.59–64, who describes the tyrant Peisistratus’s remarkable intelligence, nowhere links it to his popular appeal.) Weber also includes Greek tyrants in a group of charismatic leaders who gained legitimacy through election or similar plebiscitary means that merely confirmed their preexisting power (1947, 387–388). The evidence in support of such a process in the case of Greek tyranny is weak at best. Aristotle, (Politics 1305a,1308a; 1310a-b), mentions Archaic leaders who used their office as a launching pad for tyranny, and certain Athenian tyrants held the archonship, a one-year term chief magistracy. In the Classical period, the Sicilian tyrant, Dionysius I of Syracuse, was elected supreme general and used the position to become a sole ruler (Roisman 2017, 231). Yet little to nothing is known about the power of these individuals before they entered office, and none of them or any other tyrant, especially during the Archaic age, (800/700–500 BCE), had his power confirmed by a plebiscite or comparable popular decision. Finally, Weber’s plebiscitary, charismatic leader is supposed to enjoy emotional relationship with his supporters. The ancient sources tell close to nothing about how the public, apart from the tyrant’s enemies, felt about him, and if there is a discernable attitude of the people, it is passivity (Stein-Hölkeskamp 2009, 112–113; see, however, Hammer 2002, 160–169). A word on the aesymnetae, whom Weber lists among plebiscitary charismatic leaders (1947, 387–387). According to Aristotle, aesymnetes was a tyrant or monarch elected by popular will (Aristotle Politics, 3.1285a-b, 5.1305a; Faraguna 2005). The prime example is Pittacus of Mytilene, who was chosen aesymnetes in 597 BCE. But it is highly likely that his designation as tyrant came from his enemies, and there is no telling how devoted the people were to him, if at all (Wallace 2009, 415–416, 419–425).

Demagogues Weber included demagogues among charismatic leaders such as prophets and military heroes. More often, however, he identified them with charismatic leaders whose legitimacy was approved by a plebiscite and whose personality and rhetorical gift drew many followers (Nippel 2001; Deininger 2002). Historian Moses Finley has criticized his depiction of Greek demagogues, and although Finley’s reading of Weber was faulted by the latter’s supporters, I  find many of his arguments convincing and wish to supplement them (Finley 1985b, 38–75, 177– 179; contra: Deininger 2002, 111–114; Chazel 2016). Weber’s view of the political role of demagogues changed over time, but as far as ancient Greece is concerned, it remained largely the same. He only fleetingly acknowledged ancient neutral or positive descriptions of Greek

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demagogues, who, true to the literary meaning of their name, served as the people’s guides and often championed pragmatic policies rather than a populist agenda. Weber’s Greek demagogues, in contrast, reflect their ancient hostile depictions as of low origins, corrupt, or corruptive, and deceptive. They flattered and catered to the people’s desires and moods and invoked their fears in order to attain and stay in power and profit from it. They also presented themselves as the demos’s protectors and benefactors, with the people following them out of stupidity or ignorance (Finley, ibid.; Rhodes 2016). Similar to other prejudicial images, the portrayals of Greek demagogues accorded with historical reality only in part, and the same can be said about their qualities as charismatic leaders. They corresponded to Weber’s charismatic leaders in that they appealed to emotions, acted as public benefactors, and broke traditional rules of speaking and dealing with the people. Yet in democratic Athens, about whose demagogues we are best informed, there was no blind, emotional devotion to them or to other political leaders. On the contrary, political rivals and the demos often criticized public speakers and curtailed their power (Rhodes 2016, 255). Weber thought that the career of a charismatic leader depended on his ability to produce success and benefits for his followers (1946, 248–249, 295–296, 1947, 360). This held true for most leaders, whether they were charismatic, demagogic, or not. Weber also suggests that it is not the masses that produce the leader from their midst but the charismatic leader who recruits following and wins the masses through demagogy (1978, 457). In actuality, it was the people who formally or informally decided which speaker to follow, and as far as can be told, there was little that was irrational about their choice. The balance of power between leader and followers was reflected in a common complaint that Athenian public speakers made against the people, namely, that they kept changing their policy, decisions, and attitudes (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 1.140.1, 2.61.2, 3.37–8; Roisman 2005, 199–203). Even if we ascribe the changes to the influence of competing demagogues, the complaint about the people’s allegedly inconsistency shows that the demagogues’ power was contested, limited, and temporary. In Weber’s view, however, [T]he tendencies of “social dictatorship” are classically illustrated by the Greek democracy of the Periclean age and its aftermath. In Rome the jurors who tried a case were bound by the instructions of the praetor, and decisions followed the formal law. But in the Greek heliaia-court decisions were made in terms of “substantive” justice – in effect, on the basis of sentimentality, flattery, demagogic invectives and jokes. This can be clearly seen in the court orations of the Athenian rhetors. (1978, 270) Weber’s characterization of the Greek (or more accurately, Athenian) judicial system suggests his superficial knowledge and understanding of it. Firstly, Greek orators deferred from each other in rhetoric and approach and lumping them together in a homogenous demagogic group duplicates ancient stereotypes. Secondly, Athenian jurors did not ignore the “formal law” or rejected it in favor of extralegal considerations. They took an oath to judge the case according to the extant laws or according to justice in the absence of a pertinent law, with the so-called demagogues reminding them of it (Roisman 2019, 94). Even speeches with a strong emotional appeal and character assassination included legal, solid arguments. Thirdly, we don’t really know what led the jurors to vote as they did, and often not even the results of the trials. Describing their decision, then, as an unthoughtful following of a charismatic orator is too simplistic or speculative.

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Pericles Weber thought that Pericles well exemplified the charismatic, plebiscitary demagogue. To quote: Since the time of the constitutional state, and definitely since democracy has been established, the “demagogue” has been the typical political leader in the Occident. The distasteful flavor of the word must not make us forget that not Cleon, but Pericles was the first to bear the name of demagogue. In contrast to the offices of ancient democracy that were filled by lot, Pericles led the sovereign Ecclesia of the demos of Athens as a supreme strategist holding the only elective office or without holding any office at all. (1946, 96, 1978, 270, see also, 2: 1314) I fear that Pericles illustrates less the charismatic demagogue and more the deficiency of Weber’s Greek proofs. It is true that in the age of Pericles the elected office of general, strategos, was the most important political magistrate in the state. Yet Weber duplicates the mistake of his primary source for Greek History, Eduard Meyer’s Geschicte des Altertums, or no less likely misunderstands it, in thinking that within the board of Athens’ ten generals, Pericles was officially ranked supreme because he was in charge of strategy (Spahn 2000, 23; Nippel 2001, 195–199; cf. Adair-Toteff 2008). In terms of office, Pericles’s position of a general was no different than his colleagues’. Also, there was no time when Pericles controlled affairs without holding an office. Weber thought, however, that Pericles’s military appointment was just a formal acknowledgment of his domination that was based on his personal influence and public trust. His characterization of Pericles’s power goes back to Meyer, who in turn was influenced by Pericles’s contemporary, historian Thucydides, who described Periclean Athens as democracy in name, but, in fact, a government by the foremost man (The Peloponnesian War 2.65). Weber understood it as charismatic legitimacy as opposed to an authority based on rational and impersonal rules of law. Yet neither Thucydides, nor any other of Pericles’s contemporary admirers or critics, regarded the influence and the trust he enjoyed as inherently irrational, illegal, or illegitimate. Pericles’s actions and policies were subjected to public debate and scrutiny, and were not always approved. The Athenians also had judicial procedures that dealt with illegal conduct of officials, and Pericles was subjected to them; at one time, he even lost his case and hence his office. Moreover, while Weber’s plebiscitary charismatic leader distributes offices to underlings in disregard of procedure and tradition, Pericles never engaged in such practice. Weber also thought that almost all political parties, even before they developed “into [a] routinized permanent organization,” originated in demagogues in the style of Pericles, Cleon (Pericles’s political successor), or the 19th-century German socialist leader Ferdinand Lassalle (1978, 2: 1130). Naming Pericles or Cleon in this context is either misleading or wrong. In ancient Athens, politicians might have friends and allies who rendered them support on irregular basis, but they never developed into political parties, not before, during, or following Pericles’s times. More significant is Weber’s reductive view of Pericles’s power to personality and rhetorical skills, or as he puts it, “by means of a charisma of the spirit and the tongue” (1978, 2: 1126– 1127). In fact, these were just two components, and not necessarily the most important ones, of Pericles’s authority. He owed it, in addition, to his aristocratic family, his father’s reputation, office, and impressive record as a general and politician. Helpful, too, were the absence of real opposition to him and his image of a dedicated leader who kept himself aloof and sparing in public appearances. Being aloof was not exactly conducive to emotional relationship typical of a charismatic leader and his admiring followers. Pericles’s rhetorical prowess and its impact on 58

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his audience were undeniable, but they did not amount to a superhuman skill in contemporary eyes. The best extant ancient assessments of Pericles’s leadership are Thucydides (The Peloponnesian War, books 1–2, esp. 2.65) and the biographer Plutarch (Life of Pericles, esp. 15), and both describes his leadership in terms that had very little to do with a plebiscitary, charismatic leader. I agree, then, with historian Peter Spahn (2000) that Pericles’s personality was (I would add, perhaps) charismatic, but not his rule.

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kings In spite of the problematic nature of Weber’s Greek examples of charismatic domination, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kings who followed him largely meet his criteria for charismatic leaders. That he never identifies them as such suggests, and not for the first time, his defective use of Greek history. Alexander’s and the Hellenistic kings’ authority can stand for a mixture of charisma and routinized charisma. Alexander’s subjects obeyed him, especially in his early reign, because he was a king, a son of a highly successful king, and an heir to the charisma of his royal family. Similarly to Weber’s charismatic war hero, Alexander cultivated strong personal relationships with his army and was careful to reward it with booty (Bosworth 1988, 259–277; Le Rider 2007). Before he adopted Iranian court protocols that distanced him from his followers, he interacted closely with his troops on, and away from, the battlefield in a way that strengthened their personal attachment to him and motivated them to make extraordinary efforts when called for. One episode toward the end of Alexander’s Asian campaign illustrates Weber’s usefulness to the interpretation of his rule. In 324 BCE, Alexander’s army mutinied against his wish to send Macedonian veterans back home from Mesopotamia. Among the steps he took to put down the revolt was to shut himself in his quarters and allow only a select few to see him. He then issued orders to replace the Macedonian units with Asian counterparts. The troops repented and supplicated Alexander for forgiveness, and in a dramatic reconciliation scene one of them complained that the king made the Iranians, instead of the Macedonians, his kinsmen and allowed them the special honor of kissing him. (“Kinsmen” were an elite Iranian unit that Alexander incorporated into his army). In response, Alexander called all the Macedonians his kinsmen and allowed anyone who wished to do so to kiss him (Arrian, Anabasis 7.11). Alexander scholarship often analyzes the mutiny in light of Alexander’s plan to change the character of his empire and army into less Macedonian and more Asian, and it presents the veterans as victims of his policy (Roisman 2012, 44–60). Weber’s observations on the personal relationship between charismatic leaders and their followers shed an additional light on the events. Alexander’s veterans rebelled not just because they felt used and abused but also because his plan terminated the close emotional ties that existed between king and troops and their feeling that they interacted and related to him personally. That is why when he went into self-seclusion and deprived them of his presence, they were desperate to restore their closeness to him. That was but a temporary success, though, because Alexander sent them to Europe not long after. Weber’s study of charisma could also be relevant to Alexander’s belief that he was a son of the Egyptian god Ammon and to cults that some Greek cities instituted for him on their initiative or upon a royal request in return for royal favors done or expected (Bosworth 1988, 278–290: Dreyer 2013; cf. Gehrke 1982, 265–266). Scholars have detected in Alexander’s deification a belief that was rooted in the charisma of the Macedonian kingship and which he wished to expand to his empire. Other historians interpreted his divine inspirations as an enactment of the traditional role of the gods as benefactors of their communities (Taeger 1957, 1: 179–190; Greenwalt 2011, 153–155). Alexander’s accomplishments were unprecedented and transformative, as Weber expected of a charismatic leader. His charisma survived him and was promulgated 59

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by his successors, who claimed special relationship with him in order to legitimize their rule (Meeus 2013). As might be expected, there are aspects of Alexander’s story that fail to accommodate and even contradict Weber’s charismatic type. Alexander’s army was devoted to him but not to the extent that one would expect of loyal followers of a charismatic leader as demonstrated by their mutinies or his conflicts with members of his staff (Müller 2003; Roisman 2012, 31–59). It is also impossible to tell how many contemporaries sincerely believed that there was something superhuman about him, while there are reports of resentment and criticism of his divine claims. Moreover, according to Weber’s developmental scheme of dominations, conflicts are to be expected in the process of routinization of charisma between the leader’s personal claims to charisma and the charisma of the office or hereditary status (1947, 370). Alexander, however, seemed to reverse the process when he moved away from the traditional charisma of the office to personal charisma. Lastly, it was claimed that Alexander held his vast and diverse empire by the power of his personality, and the disintegration of the empire after his death seems to support this view (Schuller 2000, 49–50). While there is no doubt about the personal nature of his monarchy, his personality and charisma alone were insufficient to sustain his rule without the equal if not greater role of his military power and the subjects’ fear of it, or their self-interest. Alexander’s immediate successors and later Hellenistic rulers appeared, too, to only partially fit Weber’s category of charismatic leadership, or more correctly a combination of charismatic and traditional domination. Like Weber’s charismatic military leader, their legitimacy and power were based primarily on military success, prestige, and booty, while defeat could cost them their rule, not to mention their lives. Inspired by Weber’s emphasis on the leader’s need for military victories, historian Hans-Johachim Gehrke even suggested to turn the common question of why Hellenistic kings went to war on its head and ask why they didn’t go to war (Gehrke 1982, esp, 265–266). Similarly to Alexander, they acted and presented themselves as generous benefactors of friends and subjects, which was also expected of charismatic leaders. Many kings also claimed divine status or special affiliation with the divine. More in line with traditional charisma than pure charisma that disregarded rules, they were deeply steeped in the values and conventions of their times, and their administration displayed, within limits, Weber’s rational, bureaucratic characteristics. Their personality and personal reputation played a major role, too, and it has been argued that Hellenistic monarchy was based on charismatic legitimacy, because the state could not be distinguished from its ruler and his prestige (Gehrke, ibid.). The qualities that the Hellenistic historian Polybius ascribes to young Philip V, the king of Macedonia (221–179 BCE), support Weber’s emphasis on the personal nature of charismatic leadership: “He possessed a quick intelligence, a retentive memory, and great personal charm (Gk. charis), as well as the presence and authority that becomes a king, and above all ability and courage as a general” (Polybius, Histories 4.77, Loeb Classical Library trans.). With that said, the gain in identifying Hellenistic kings as charismatic is small, because, apart from labeling them as such, it adds little to what we already know about them. Weber’s suggestion, (1946, 251–252), that military success and economic improvement legitimized charismatic domination is certainly correct for the warring kings of the Hellenistic age, but it is also true for most other leaders, charismatic or not. Military and economic successes also unjustly overshadow other legitimizing factors such as shared ethnicity (as in Macedonia), and hereditary claim to lead. Thus, the aforementioned Philip V owed his throne, firstly, to dynastic succession and not to his personality. The ruler’s use of legitimizing institutions such as the army assembly that confirmed his title, and his performance as a dispenser of justice, supporter of local elites,

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religions and civil administrators had an impact, too, on his authority (Gehrke 1982; Gotter 2008; Chaniotis 2018, 85–90). Significantly, some of these legitimizing qualities have nothing to do with charisma.

Conclusion Charisma is now a household word and it is common among scholars and nonexperts to call leaders with popular appeal and enthusiastic followership charismatic. But is their allure based on their personal charisma or because of other, perfectly good, “rational” reasons? Alternatively, when we apply Weber’s actual definition and discussion of charisma to ancient Greece, they prove adequate only selectively, if at all, and they seldomly provide a better or different explanation of Greek leadership. This is true even for Greek individuals whom Weber used as examples of ancient charisma. The deficiencies of his analysis forced scholars who seek to relate Weber’s charisma to Greek leadership either to ignore traits that he considered charismatic but are missing in or contradict the leadership under investigation, or to expand a leader’s charisma to qualities that Weber did not consider relevant to it (e.g., Schuller 2000; Azoulay 2004). There are, of course, other assessments of Weber’s contribution to ancient studies. Historian Christian Meier begins his paper on Max Weber and antiquity by introducing him as “without a doubt one of the most important ancient historians” (1988, repr. 2016; cf. Nafissi 2005, 17–123; contra: Finley 1985a, 88–103). I would like to qualify the compliment and suggest that Weber was largely a poor reader of Greek political history. Meier is aware of Weber’s limitations, but is willing to overlook them, much preferring theoretical models to what he dismissively called “details” or collecting facts from the ancient sources. But how valid is an explanatory construct when the examples that are supposed to demonstrate it are partly or completely wrong? Ulrich Gotter (2008) notes Weber’s deficiencies for historical comparison, but also suggests that we can use the concept of charisma to expand our historical evidence to information that does not explicitly refer to the political order but can explain it better, such as the ruler’s private conduct. Charisma can also be beneficial for understanding the anxieties that the ruler and the ruled have about the ruler’s “oversized” freedom of action and authority. The gain, however, is small, because the line between the public and private in leadership and politics has been blurred since antiquity and because anxieties about the leader’s power are not unique to charismatic domination. The question “What is Weber good for, then?” is legitimate for students of Greek history. With that said, I  suggest that Weber’s main contribution to ancient Greek leadership is in directing attention to the personality of the leader and its impact on the followers. These dimensions are often ignored or too briefly acknowledged in leadership studies that emphasize impersonal structures, ideologies, and functionality. Weber was also correct to suggest that a leader’s authority may contain an enigmatic and somewhat mysterious element, which rational and utilitarian considerations cannot adequately explain. The Greeks recognized this quality, but Weber, as might be expected, missed the evidence. In a treatise on the management of the household, author Xenophon discusses the differences between bad leaders, such as tyrants, and good leaders who make their followers obedient, eager to perform their tasks, and do nothing shameful. The troops of a good general follow him willingly through hell and high water and not because he is the best or the strongest warrior. Generals who have this impact on their followers are knowledgeable, brave, and “divine.” The

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same holds true for a coxswain in charge of rowers in a galley, or a man in charge of workers who are keen to perform their task, and not because he can reward or punish them. Men like that are called “high-minded,” because they accomplished great things by the power of their minds and not their muscles. Xenophon then adds: [T]he person who intends to possess these abilities needs education, and must possess the right kind of nature, and most important of all, he must be divine. For ruling over willing subjects, in my view, is a gift not wholly human but divine, because it is a gift of the gods . . . bestowed on those who have been initiated into self-control (sophrosyne). (Xenophon, Oeconomicus 21.7–12, Loeb Classical Library trans., modified)2 A divine man, aner theios, is a loaded term in contemporary vernacular, but it may be a more apt descriptor than Weber’s charisma of ancient Greek leaders who had this kind of impact on their followers. There are points of agreement between Xenophon and Weber. Both describe this hard-to-define quality as a natural gift, divine and kingly-like. Both stress the followers’ high motivation, voluntarily obedience, and loyalty to their leader. They also similarly describe the followers’ devotion and emotional attachment to the leader, often in return for the benefits he bestows on them. Both look at leader–followers relationship from a top-down perspective. But while Weber took an originally unrelated spiritual term and ascribed it to leadership, in Xenophon the divine quality was an organic part of being a leader and it better resonated with its historical context. Also, Xenophon, and rightly in my mind, does not ascribe the leader’s impact solely to a natural or a divine gift but insists that this quality complemented acquired leadership skills. In direct contrast to Weber’s charismatic tyrants, Xenophon sees them as the opposite of a good “divine” leader, and he does not require the followers to believe in the leaders’ superhuman nature. His description, in short, is more useful, accurate, and historically specific than Weber’s timeless, universal categories of domination. The criticism of Weber offered here should not discourage future attempts to apply his charismatic categories to various leaders and movements in ancient Greece. After all, the present chapter deals with only that many leaders. For example, our discussion is limited to leaders in historical accounts as opposed to leaders in mytho-poetic traditions such the Homeric epics, where scholars have argued for an authority based on a mixture of personal charisma, the traditional legitimacy of the office of the king, divine sanction, with plebiscitary-like approval and disapproval of leadership in action (Donlan 1997, esp. 42–43; Hammer 2002, 146–160). With that said, researchers should consider that Weber’s historical proofs from ancient Greece are problematic, either factually or methodologically. Even when a Greek leader and his followers show signs of charismatic domination, it is advisable not to force Weber’s charismatic type on the leadership experience in a way that overemphasizes some of its elements and obscures or contradicts others. It could be equally beneficial to examine if the weaknesses of Weber’s thesis discussed here do not apply to other periods and perhaps even to other disciplines.

Notes 1 For a different order of these types, see, e.g., Adair-Tottef, Chapter in this volume. 2 See also Xenophon Cyropaedeia 1.6.13, 5.1.124–125 on the troops’ motivation, and Xenophon, Agesilaus 6.4; Cyropaedeia 1.6.24 and Hipparchus 6.1 on their love and obedience. Azoulay 2004, 107–112. Sophrosyne and the divine: Taeger 1957, 1: 119.

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References Adair-Toteff, C. 2008. “Max Weber’s Pericles – The Political Demagogue.” Max Weber Studies. 7: 147–162. Azoulay, V. 2004. Xénophon et les graces du pouvoir. De la Charis au charisme. Paris. Bosworth, A.B. 1988. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge. Cartledge, P.A. 2003. The Spartans. The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. New York. Chaniotis, A. 2018. Age of Conquests. The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA. Chazel, F. 2016. “Observations d’un ‘profane’ sur une réception singulière, celle de Weber ‘historien’ de l’Antiquité.” Anabases. 24: 265–282. Deininger, J. 2002. “Antike und Gegenwart im Begriff des ‘Demagogen’ bei Max Weber.” Chiron. 32: 97–118. Demandt, A. 2013. “Das Charisma Alexanders.” Eirene. 49: 80–89. Donlan, W. 1997. “The Relations of Power in Pre-State and Early State Polities.” In L.G. Mitchell and P.J. Rhodes, eds. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London, 39–48. Dreyer, B. 2013. “Heroes, Cults and Divinity” in L. Tritle and W. Heckel, eds. Alexander the Great: A New History. Malden, MA, 218–234. Faraguna, M. 2005. “La figura dell’aisymnetes tra realtà storica e teoria politica.” In R.W. Wallace and M. Gagarin, eds. Symposion 2001. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte. Vienna, 321–338. Finley, M. 1985a. Ancient History. Evidence and Models. London. Finley, M. 1985b. Democracy Ancient and Modern. New Brunswick. Fuks, A. 1953. The Ancestral Constitution: Four Studies in Athenian Party Politics at the End of the Fifth Century B.C. London. Gehrke, H.J. 1982. “Der siegreiche König. Überlegungen zur Hellenistischen Monarchie.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte. 64: 247–277. Gotter, U. 2008. “Die Nemesis des Allgemein-Gültigen. Max Webers Charisma-Konzept und die antiken Monarchien.” In P. Rychterová, S. Seit and R. Veit, eds. Das Charisma. Funktionen und symbolische Repräsentationen. Berlin, 173–186. Greenwalt, W.S. 2011. “Royal Charisma and the Evolution of Macedonia During the Reigns of Philip and Alexander.” Ancient World. 42: 148–156. Hammer, D. 2002. The Iliad as Politics. The Performance of Political Thought. Norman, OK. Hansen, M.H. 1999. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Structure, Principles, and Ideology. 2nd ed. Bristol. Jacoby, F. 1926-57. Die Fragemente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin. Le Rider, G. 2007. Alexander the Great: Coinage, Finance, and Policy. Trans. W.E. Higgins. Philadelphia. Meeus, A. 2013. “Alexander’s Image in the Age of the Successors.” In L. Tritle and W. Heckel, eds. Alexander the Great: A New History. Malden, MA, 235–250. Meier, C. 1988. “Max Weber und die Antike.” In C. Gneuss and J. Kocka, eds. Max Weber. Ein Symposium. Munich, 11–24, repr. in Trivium [Online], 24 | 2016, online erschienen am 28 Oktober 2016, abgerufen am 10 Juli 2018. URL http://journals.openedition.org/trivium/5392. Monson, A. 2015. “Hellenistic Empires.” In A. Monson and W. Scheidel, eds. Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States. Cambridge, 169–207. Müller, S. 2003. Maßnahmen der Herrschaftssicherung gegenüber der makedonischen Opposition bei Alexander dem Großen. Frankfurt. Nafissi, M. 2005. Ancient Athens  & Modern Ideology. Value, Theory  & Evidence in Historical Sciences. Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, & Moses Finley. London. Nippel, W. 2000. “Charisma und Herrschaft.” In W. Nippel, ed. Virtuosen der Macht. Herrschaft und ­Charisma von Perikles bis Mao. Munich, 7–22. Nippel, W. 2001. “Die antike Stadt in Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologie.” In E. Hanke and W.J. Mommsen, eds. Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologi. Tübingen, 189–202. Pritchett, W.K. 1991. The Greek State at War. Berkeley, CA. Vol. 5.

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Rhodes, P.J. 2011a. Alcibiades: Athenian Playboy, General and Traitor. Barnesly. Rhodes, P.J. 2011b. “Appeals to the Past in Classical Athens.” In G. Herman, ed. Stability and Crisis in the Athenian Democracy. Stuttgart, 13–30. Rhodes, P.J. 2016. “Demagogues and Demos in Athens.” Polis. 33: 243–264. Roisman, J. 2005. The Rhetoric of Manhood. Masculinity in the Attic Orators. Berkeley, CA. Roisman, J. 2012. Alexander’s Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors. Austin, TX. Roisman, J. 2017. The Classical Art of Command. Eight Generals Who Shaped the History of Warfare. Oxford. Roisman, J. 2019. Lycurgus. Against Leocrates. Trans. M. Edwards. Oxford. Schuller, W. 2000. “Alexander der Grosse – die Inszenierung eines Welteroberers.” In W. Nippel, ed. Virtuosen der Macht. Herrschaft und Charisma von Perikles bis Mao. Munich, 39–54. Spahn, P. 2000. “Perikles – Charisma und Demokratie.” In W. Nippel, ed. Virtuosen der Macht. Herrschaft und Charisma von Perikles bis Mao. Munich, 23–38. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. 2009. “The Tyrants.” In K.A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees, eds. A Companion to Archaic Greece. Malden, MA, 100–116. Taeger, F. 1957. Charisma. Studien zur Geschichte des antiken Herrscherkultes. Stuttgart. 2 vols. Wallace, R.W. 2009. “Charismatic Leaders.” In K.A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees, eds. A Companion to Archaic Greece. Malden, 411–426. Weber, M. 1946. Essays in Sociology. Trans. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York. Weber, M. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Trans. A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons. New York. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology. Eds. G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley, CA. 2 vols.

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6 Charismatic leadership in ancient Rome Maijastina Kahlos

Introduction In place of the funeral oration, the consul Mark Antony had a herald read out the senate’s decisions to vote Caesar all honours both human and divine and also the oath by which they all had bound themselves to ensure his safety. To these statements he added a few brief words of his own. Magistrates and ex-magistrates carried the bier from the rostra down into the forum. While some were urging that he be cremated within the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and others in Pompey’s Senate Chamber, all of a sudden two figures appeared, girt with swords and each brandishing two javelins. With blazing torches they set fire to the bier and immediately the crowd of bystanders loaded on dry branches, the judgment seats, and the benches, as well as anything else that could serve as an offering. Then the fluteplayers and actors tore off the clothes which they had taken from among the triumphal finery to wear for the occasion, ripped them up and threw them into the flames, while the veteran legionary soldiers threw on the weapons with which they had decked themselves out for the funeral. A considerable number of matrons, too, threw on the jewellery they were wearing, as well as amulets and togas of their children. (Suetonius, Life of Julius 84. Trans. Edwards 2000, 40) This is how the Roman biographer Suetonius describes the funeral of Julius Caesar. The Roman people, including soldiers, citizens, and women, burst into an enthusiastic show of sorrow for their charismatic leader murdered by conspirators. Times of crisis and civil wars in the late Roman Republic (146–27 BCE) had contributed to the rise of charismatic military leaders such as Scipio Africanus, Marius, Sulla, and Pompey. Julius Caesar was the last of them. In the aftermath of Caesar’s death in 44 BCE, his adoptive son Octavian was able to consolidate his charismatic power into a Principate. Therefore, he is remembered in history as Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The reign of his successor, Tiberius, was a crucial phase in the routinization of charisma within the institution of Roman imperial monarchs. To study charismatic leadership in Roman history, one could ask what it might have meant as a Roman phenomenon. Charismatic leadership was a concept studied and developed by

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Max Weber as one of the three types of legitimate leadership; as such, it is a modern notion and therefore problematic to use in ancient history.1 Nonetheless, it can be a useful heuristic tool with which think about exceptional Roman leadership, especially military leadership, that appeared during internal crises (often such leaders were partly the cause of internal turmoil). Thus, in this chapter, while testing the Weberian concept of charismatic leadership, I will not use it as a fixed explanatory model. Weber stressed its temporary, arbitrary, irrational, and personal characteristics in contrast to the permanence, precise rules, rationality, and impartiality of bureaucratic authority. He also emphasized the revolutionary nature of the charismatic leader. This can be seen in the activities of military charismatic leaders of the late Roman Republic, as they acted outside the boundaries set by the traditional laws and customs of the ancestors (mos maiorum) and endangered the Republican system. The Weberian understanding of charismatic leadership also emphasizes its extraordinary or unusual character in contrast to the routine or everydayness of bureaucratic authority. A charismatic leader’s core followers recognize his particular qualifications and show their personal devotion to him. This has been stressed in the case of several Roman military leaders, such as Marius, Sulla, and Caesar. The charismatic leader is reliant on his adepts for recognition, and there is always the risk that charisma may disappear. The charismatic leader maintains his special radiance as long as he is able to show his extraordinary success (Adair-Toteff 2005, 194–198). The charismatic leader is believed to be endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or specific exceptional powers or qualities. This is obvious in Greco-Roman Antiquity, a period during which rulers, military leaders, and religious potentates were thought to enjoy an intimate relationship with the divine sphere. Several Roman military leaders claimed to be of divine origin or favorites of gods; for instance, Caesar and Octavian-Augustus linked their family origins to the goddess Venus Genetrix. Subsequently, emperors regularly presented themselves as divine and as close friends of the gods; for example, Constantine the Great depicted himself as the associate of Apollo, Sol Invictus, and the Christian God, respectively. The superhumanness of charismatic leaders and emperors had a legitimate place in the spectrum of the differing degrees of divinity. The ancient understanding of divinity did not comprehend it as absolute but on a scale; thus, there were minor and major deities, and even certain humans had a special spark of divinity, some more, others less (Gradel 2002, 25–30; Clauss 1999, 20–26). It is important to remember that in Antiquity, the spheres of what we today call religion and politics – the sacred and the secular – overlapped, and it is artificial to separate them. Romans had their own vocabulary to describe exceptional qualities of their leaders: auctoritas (authority), imperium (supremacy), potestas (ability, power), dignitas (esteem, respect), honor (honor), maiestas (prestige), and virtus (virtue, manliness) referred to the authority of magistrates, the honor of noble families, the prestige of the Roman people (maiestas populi Romani), and so forth, but they could also be used to refer to the extraordinary character of a charismatic leader. For example, Cicero (De imperio Pompei 28.43–46) describes the auctoritas of Pompey as his special quality as a military leader. In the case of the charismatic leader, dignitas and honor were no longer bound to a magistracy, as usual, but belonged to the individual personality of the charismatic leader. Felicitas (good luck, happiness) and fortuna (good luck), which referred to the exceptionally good success of a charismatic leader, implied that he had particularly good relations with the gods and that they favored him in his enterprises. In ancient Greek parlance, even the term charisma was used to refer to the favor of the gods toward the ruler as a gift of divine origin. This chapter focuses on the role of military leaders during the late Republic but also discusses the charismatic aspect in the reign of Roman emperors and late antique warlords. First, I  analyze the charismatic leadership of military leaders such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and 66

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finally, Julius Caesar. Second, I discuss how Augustus established the imperial monarchy, which was outlined into the form of the restoration of the Republic. We will see how charismatic leadership developed into traditional authority, the monarchy of emperors. Furthermore, the worship of emperors and their imperial families as a form of showing loyalty is examined. In imperial ideology that evolved over the course of centuries, the emperor’s intimate relationship with the divine was emphasized. Then, I  look at imperial charisma from the early imperial period (1st century CE) until the late Roman Empire (4th century) and its development after the Constantinian turn in the 320s in the Christian Roman Empire. Finally, I briefly discuss the late antique warlords, such as Stilicho and Alaric, and I compare their charismatic leadership with that of the earlier Republican military leaders. The chapter concludes with reflections on future trends in the research of charismatic leadership in Roman Antiquity.

The late Republic: Marius and Sulla Roman history is divided into the more or less mythical period of kings (until 509 BCE), the Republican period (509–27 BCE), and the age of emperors (from 27 BCE until the withdrawal of the emperor in 476 CE in the West and 1453 CE in the East). Republican Rome was a mixture of monarchic power (two consuls), aristocratic power (the senate) and democratic elements (assemblies of people). The power relations between these components fluctuated during the various phases of the Roman Republic.2 Rome was never a democracy in any modern sense but an oligarchy in which the leading senatorial families held and competed intensively for power. The Roman Empire was a military superpower, and the Republican period was characterized by continuing wars and the presence of soldiers. In this atmosphere, military virtues were emphasized, especially in the competition and hierarchy of the aristocratic families. Charismatic leaders arose during different crises in this Republican system, which had become vulnerable precisely because of the rivalry of aristocratic families and influential individuals.3 The first well-known Roman charismatic leader was Gaius Marius (157–86 BCE). In a moment of threat and crisis, after the Romans had lost several battles against the Cimbri and Teutons, Marius was elected consul a second time, which was against the ancestral rules (mos maiorum) of the Republic. Marius was eventually elected consul for a total of seven terms, which was unprecedented. The Roman people esteemed him as their savior and a new founder of Rome because of his victory over the Cimbri and Teutons at Aquae Sextiae in 102 BCE and at Vercellae in 101 BCE, and he received the titles of conservator and servitor. Marius went beyond the limits of tradition by reforming the Roman army into a professional army. This helped warfare be more successful, and it made the relationship between the commander and the soldiers especially strong. Marius’s charismatic leadership was based on the loyalty of his soldiers. This pattern became important in the case of the later charismatic military leaders Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar. Furthermore, Marius was soundly supported by the population of Rome (plebs urbana), and the Roman people even venerated his genius while he was still alive. The reverence shown to a person’s genius (protector spirit) originated from the private household cult, in which the family members venerated the genius of the head of the family (pater familias). However, the public veneration of a living person’s genius was against the Republican ethos, in which no person was supposed to be elevated above others. The plebs urbana is nonetheless also known to have shown unofficial and unsanctioned respect to the genii of such social reformers as the Gracchi brothers. With the late Republic experiencing severe tension between the people and the aristocracy, Marius was a homo novus, a newcomer among the senators, and his charismatic leadership grounded in popular support was opposed by aristocrats 67

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and the senate. The antagonism led to a civil war (88–82 BCE) between Marius and his former officer Sulla, in which Marius was defeated. Lucius Cornelius Sulla (c. 138–78 BCE) was the first charismatic leader to succeed in maintaining power until his death and whose leadership developed into charismatic rulership. In the civil war against Marius, he challenged Republican tradition by marching with his legions to the city of Rome in 88 BCE. This was unprecedented, as it was forbidden for military commanders to enter inside the city area with troops. Sulla’s march to Rome changed the dynamics of the Republic, and it has been regarded as one of the turning points in the transition toward the monarchy of the emperors (Hatscher 2000, 116–157).4 Sulla belonged to one of the most aristocratic families in Rome and won military glory in the war against Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus (reigned c. 120–63 BCE), and the Social War (91–88 BCE), which was brought against former allies (socii) who had rebelled against Rome. When Mithridates challenged Roman rule in Asia Minor, numerous Roman citizens were killed or placed in danger. Consequently, his rule – especially when combined with the Social War – was considered a severe threat to Rome. This crisis, along with victories, raised Sulla among the extraordinary military leaders of the time. In his propaganda, Sulla made great use of the threats. In addition to external enemies, Sulla seized on the civil war, allying with the conservative wing of the senate against Marius. Even though Sulla took the side of the aristocrats, he presented himself as a lone wolf for whom the intrigues within the aristocracy had been distant. By appearing to only be safeguarding the res publica (of the aristocrats’ senate and optimates) from tyranny (of his opponent Marius and populares), Sulla skillfully formed a public image of himself (Appian, Civil War 1.57.253). Sulla’s victories were memorialized on coins, and in the East, they bore his image (this was unthinkable in the West). In the Greek East, he was called soter, the savior in the manner of Hellenistic kings; in the Latin West, he received the supreme title of pater patriae, the father of the fatherland, and he was honored as the new founder of Rome. All these titles implied close connections to the divine sphere. Moreover, Sulla presented himself as the special favorite of the goddess Venus, an especially important deity for Romans. Venus (Aphrodite, in the Greek tradition) was the mother of Aeneas, who developed into a kind of national hero. For the Greek East, he styled himself with the title Epaphroditus (‘Favorite of Aphrodite’). This was also evidenced in the coins he issued (Plutarch, Life of Sulla 34.2). There circulated a legend according to which a goddess – either Luna, Minerva, or Bellona – appeared to Sulla in his dreams. As Plutarch later wrote: “This goddess, as Sulla fancied, stood by his side and put into his hand a thunderbolt, and naming his enemies one by one, bade him smite them with it; and they were all smitten, and fell, and vanished away” (Plutarch, Life of Sulla 9.4). Encouraged by this vision, Sulla marched with his troops to Rome. Dreams that were interpreted as oracles about victories were a conventional part of triumphalist propaganda in Antiquity. Sulla was supported by the aristocratic optimates, but his charismatic leadership was based first and foremost on his soldiers. The risk that he took when marching to Rome in 88 BCE with his troops shows he had absolute confidence in his soldiers. This special relationship between the commander and the soldiers had been established in the wars in the East. Sulla was successful on all fronts, both in the external wars in the East and in the civil war. He did not lose any battles, and this success not only reinforced the soldiers’ attachment to him but also gave him the special aura of an invincible leader; he was declared to possess divine felicitas, good fortune. Felicitas was also a deity. Eventually he received the surname Felix (‘Fortunate’) from the People’s Assembly (Plutarch, Life of Sulla 34.3). Sulla was capable of transforming his charismatic leadership into actual rule, and he became the dictator legibus scribundis et rei publicae constituendae, the “dictator for issuing laws and constituting the state.”5 Dictator was an old Republican position given in extreme circumstances and 68

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only for fulfilling a specific task, after which the person had to resign. Accordingly, after he had secured his own status and his adepts’ positions in Republican offices, Sulla stepped down and became a privatus, an aristocrat retired into private life. He received various honors, such as statues, honorary titles, and even the right to use a diadem, which reminded of Hellenistic rulers and contained a strong reference to the archaic form of kingship, which was strongly eschewed in Rome. Sulla retained the backing of the nobility as he reinforced the position of the senate and weakened that of the People’s Assembly. Furthermore, he understood the significance of his legions’ support and was keen to attach his soldiers to his cause. As dictator, he arranged the distribution of land to his veteran soldiers. This important procedure was later imitated by Caesar and Octavian, who gave land to veterans and thereby secured their loyalty. Sulla’s reign was infamous for proscription lists, which were established in the law of 81 BCE. Upon being listed, his adversaries were prosecuted and executed, their properties confiscated and given to Sulla’s supporters. Proscription lists became a mode of systematic terror that was later used by Mark Antony and Octavian against their rivals.

The late Republic: Pompey and Caesar The second civil war (49–45 BCE) was fought between the two charismatic military leaders, Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius (106–48 BCE), or Pompey the Great, as posterity remembers him. After the ascendancies of Marius and Sulla, there were already models and expectations for a regime of only one leader in the late Republic; consequently, Pompey and Caesar were able to focus many traditional forms of power as well as develop new forms of power for themselves and their followers. Before his defeat and death in 48 BCE, Pompey was at the height of his charismatic career. He had risen to prominence in the East after fighting several successful wars in Asia Minor, Syria, and Judaea. One of his most significant military achievements was his victory over pirates in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the internal crises of the Roman Republic, he acted as the defender of the aristocratic power of the senate. The senate supported him because it wanted a counterbalance against Caesar’s increasing influence. For this reason, the senate repeatedly invested Pompey with powers that were extraordinary in the traditional Republican system; he was even nominated as sole consul (instead of the usual two consuls), holding the title consul sine collega (consul without a colleague). In the manner of Marius and Sulla, Pompey was able to retain his soldiers as loyal followers, and the populace of Rome supported him. In the East, as a consequence of his victories, he received adulation in various royal and semi-divine forms, such as coins and shrines, which would have been impossible in Rome. Each crisis and task given by the senate provided Pompey with opportunities to increase his charismatic power. Nonetheless, his prospects were lost in the civil war against Caesar, where he was defeated and eventually assassinated. The dominion that Julius Caesar attained can be considered the culmination of the charismatic developments during the late Republic. It was the crisis of the Republican system that gave opportunities for men like Sulla and Caesar to build their charismatic leadership.6 Sulla’s dictatorship also provided a model for later leaders, even though Caesar’s dictatorship was different, being established for life. Moreover, during the late Republic there was a market, so to speak, for charismatic leaders. The Roman writers Sallust and Cicero expressed expectations for a great man who would solve the internal turbulence of the state.7 Caesar established his position and his troops’ keen following during his proconsulate in Gaul and the Gallic Wars in 58–51 BCE. The relationship between Caesar and his soldiers was depicted in the Roman literature as being exceptionally strong. Several anecdotes illustrate this. In Gaul, he was not only 69

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able to achieve key military victories to enhance his aura as a successful leader (which he also publicized in his reports to the senate, the Commentaries on the Gallic War), but he also collected economic resources in the form of military spoils. Caesar deliberately sought popular support by making lavish donations and organizing games and spectacles for the people of Rome. Caesar represented himself as the liberator of the Roman people from the suppression of the “faction of the few.” All this made him the favorite of the plebs urbana. The fact that Caesar’s decisive moment at the Rubicon River is remembered even today shows how skillful he was in his propaganda during the civil war (49–45 BCE), which he won. He presented his troops’ march to Rome as a defense of the traditional order. Caesar was particularly skilled in using coins for publicity. In 48 BCE, he declared “tranquillity for Italy, peace for provinces, and welfare for the Empire.” Caesar achieved many victories in both the Gallic War and the civil war, and even though he was not always successful, he was astute at adapting to changing fortunes and retaining his position despite in spite of losing battles. As the victor of the civil war, Caesar had limitless power in Rome. A symbol of his power was the title of “permanent dictator” (dictator perpetuo). He also received the honorary title pater patriae and became consul for the fifth time. Furthermore, Caesar presented himself as a merciful winner, emphasizing his clementia and aims toward concordia. He contrasted his own clemency with the harshness of Sulla’s proscription lists, which people still remembered. Even though Caesar did not use proscription lists, his clemency should not be overstated, however; he confiscated properties from Pompey’s followers and rewarded his own supporters. Caesar was the head of the college of priests (pontifex maximus) and a member of many other priestly colleges. His priestly titles tell us about the importance of traditional religion for Roman charismatic leadership. Like many other Roman leaders, Caesar made known his special relations with the gods, especially Venus, who was regarded as the alleged ancestral mother of Gens Iulia, Caesar’s family. As mentioned earlier, Venus was identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the mother of Aeneas; Aeneas’s son Ascanius (alias Iulus) was the alleged ancestor of the Gens Iulia. Consequently, Venus and Aeneas appear on coins, and in 46 BCE Caesar also built a temple to Venus Genetrix in his new forum. Caesar was accorded several extraordinary honors with strong royal connotations, such as the golden seat in the senate house and the famous laurel wreath (Suetonius, Life of Julius 76.1). In the East, Caesar was already acknowledged as an immanent deity on earth, and he was (more or less) spontaneously honored among the Roman people during his lifetime. These honors and cultic features reinforced the cult that was established after his murder in 44 BCE. The description of Caesar’s funeral (quoted at the beginning of this chapter) shows how enthusiastic the followers of a charismatic leader could be. Caesar’s right-hand man, Mark Antony, and Octavian, his great-nephew, who both aimed to become his successor, did as much as possible to reinforce his adoration. They even had the senate consecrate Caesar as a new god, Divus Iulius.

From charismatic leadership to charismatic rulership: Augustus After Caesar’s death, Rome suffered the long-lasting third civil war (44–30 BCE). As Mark Antony and Octavian had defeated their adversaries, they used proscription lists (following the model of Sulla) to purge their rivals. Ancient sources mention that 300 senators and 2,000 knights were killed. In the second phase, war ensued between the now-enemies Mark Antony and Octavian. It was Octavian who eventually emerged as the winner and consolidated his power with the honorary name Augustus (‘majestic’, ‘venerable’). Octavian skillfully constructed his self-presentation. As Julius Caesar’s great-nephew and adoptive son, he was able to employ Caesar’s charismatic image to reinforce his own position. After Octavian and Mark 70

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Antony had the senate consecrate Caesar as Divus Iulius, Octavian was able to present himself as the son of the god (divi filius). As the first Roman emperor, Augustus has been debated for centuries.8 Augustus built a political system that was a monarchy even though it was not named as such. Whereas Caesar had himself nominated as permanent dictator and subsequently was suspected of aiming to be a king, Augustus was cautious to avoid titles that could arouse any fears of kingship or tyranny. Therefore, he presented himself as having restored the traditional order with the phrase res publica restituta, expressing his power with old Republican titles and appearing as the peer of his fellow senators. He was imperator (the supreme commander) to soldiers, princeps (the head of the senate) to senators, and pater patriae (father of the fatherland) to the plebs. He kept the Republican post of tribunus plebis and the direction of the priestly college as pontifex maximus.9 It was this form of the restored order and traditional magistracies that made the Principate successful, and Augustus made careful effort in grounding his dominance on the Republican traditions. Augustus was wary about identifying himself with the divine sphere. He received divine honors and was worshipped as a god (as he was still alive) in the eastern part of the Empire, where the cult of the ruler had been an established tradition since the Hellenistic kingdoms. In Rome, he developed the worship of his genius (tutelary spirit) and the cult of the penates (household gods) of his home. Even though these were innovations, they were based on traditional Roman household practices in which the genius of the head of the family (pater familias) and the penates of the household were venerated; accordingly, they could also be masked as a restoration of previous existing traditions. After Augustus’s death in 14 CE, the senate consecrated him as a god, Divus Augustus.

The imperial period – routinization of charisma and divine emperors In the developments after Caesar and Augustus, we perceive how charismatic authority was incorporated into Roman society and how it was also routinized in imperial succession. The death of a charismatic leader was a crucial moment, as it could constitute the end of the government unless prior arrangements were made. In the case of Caesar, his successor Augustus took the initiative and built his own rule as a continuation of Caesar’s. Later, Augustus himself made preliminary arrangements by means of a series of adoptions (several family members had died, and new adoptions were needed), and his stepson and adoptive son Tiberius became his successor. In that sense, charismatic authority was inheritable; it could be transferred to another leader by means of succession. Rebecca Edwards proposes that the decisive steps in consolidating imperial rule were taken during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), who was keen to legitimate his own imperial power through Augustus’s authority and prestige. We need to remember that after Augustus’s death, despite careful preparations and adoptions, the transfer of power and the continuity of Augustus’s newly established monarchy in a Republican guise were by no means self-evident. It was during Tiberius’s reign that the charisma of one man was depersonalized and developed into a charismatic institution of emperors. Augustus’s charisma was transmitted to the position itself and to the domus Augusta, his household and family. In the Weberian terms of charismatic leadership, we may speak of the routinization of charisma. Edwards (2003, 5–9, 222–223, 339–340) even argues that it was necessary for the stability of this new system that an uncharismatic figure (such as Tiberius) assume the position of the emperor. For example, according to Edwards, Tiberius’s nephew (and adoptive son) Germanicus, who was charismatic and very popular 71

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among soldiers and the people because of his victories in Germania, would not have been a suitable person to continue the monarchical institution of emperors. Be that as it may, during the reign of the Julian-Claudian dynasty, the institution of emperors was consolidated. One of the ways to transfer imperial power and charisma was adoption of the successor. After the Julio-Claudian family (27 BCE – 68 CE), emperors from Flavian (68–96), Antonine (96–192), and Severan (193–235) dynasties rose to power and consolidated the monarchical leadership. Was every emperor a charismatic leader? This depends on whether we speak of personal charisma, which some individual emperors had (and others did not), or whether we look at the depersonalized charisma of the emperor institution. The personal charisma of a few individuals could be transmitted and used to reinforce institutions, as in the case of Augustus and his establishment of imperial monarchy. In this system, the name Augustus itself became the title of the ruling emperor while Caesar was given as the title of adopted heirs and successors within the imperial family. In the late third century, when Emperor Diocletian created the system of the tetrarchs (the four emperors), Augustus was the title reserved for the senior emperors and Caesar for the junior emperors, the future successors of the senior emperors. In the panegyrics of the imperial period, Roman and Greek writers conventionally praised their emperors as the personifications of virtues such as clementia (clemency), liberalitas (generosity), iustitia (justice), and pietas (dutifulness in regard to the gods, state, and family). From the first to the fourth century CE, Roman emperors (though not all of them) were consecrated as gods after their death, following the model of Julius Caesar’s posthumous divine honors. Furthermore, emperors were even regarded as semi-divine when alive, as their genius was honored with a cult. The worship of emperors and their imperial families (the so-called imperial cult) was an important part of the routinization of charisma. Augustus’s charismatic authority was institutionalized. As Simon Price states, “[T]he importance of rituals is that they can objectify and institutionalize this unstable form of charisma,” and “[T]he sudden outburst of cults of Augustus helped to ensure the perpetuation of his personal authority” (Price 1984, 58; see also Galinsky 2011, 4–6). There were a vast variety of different local practices that in modern research are misleadingly called “the imperial cult,” even though it would be more appropriate to speak of imperial cults in the plural. As the institution of the emperor developed into an office with a divine aura, he represented the guardian not only of the human order in his Empire but also the cosmic order. The welfare of the Empire and even the whole of humankind were believed to be based on the maintenance of good relations with the gods (pax deorum). It was the principal responsibility of the emperor to preserve the benevolence of the divine forces toward humans. In the mid-second century CE, emperors usually originated from the ranks of military commanders raised up by their troops. Most of these military emperors reigned only a few years or even months, and they were usually killed by rival candidates. They often had a nonaristocratic background, and they needed to consolidate their power by means of military achievements, popular support, and their relationship with the gods.10 Consequently, they presented themselves as being of divine descent and as favorites of the gods. The notion of the divine was increasingly stressed in these relations, as is apparent in imperial titles in which the emperor was now dominus et deus (lord and god). Emperor Aurelian (reigned 270–275), for example, was mentioned on his coins as ‘god and lord by birth’. This development toward divine emperors is seen in the Tetrarchy created by Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284–305). Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian (reigned 286–305) presented themselves as Iovius and Herculius, respectively. Both titles implied the rulers’ special relations with – and even descent from – Jupiter and Hercules. Emperors with a divine aura combined both political and religious authority, here expressed in modern terms, as what we nowadays distinguish as political and religious were intertwined in Roman Antiquity. 72

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Late Antiquity and the impact of Christianity How did charismatic leadership change in the Christian Roman Empire, that is, after the Constantinian turn in the 320s?11 Christianity brought an additional register to imperial representation, but basically the Christian emperors continued to closely connect themselves with the divine sphere. For example, Emperor Constantine enhanced his charisma by presenting himself as the friend or associate of each god to whom he was attached at the time. His background was in the Tetrarchy created by Diocletian, yet he challenged the Tetrarchic system, eventually defeating his rival Maxentius in 312 and his co-ruler Licinius in 324. Thereafter he reigned as the sole emperor. Before his conversion to Christianity, Constantine linked himself with solar deities such as Apollo and Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun) on coins and in inscriptions and panegyrics. Through Constantine, Christianity became the imperial religion. His conversion is by no means unproblematic and, consequently, it has been the subject of vigorous debates in scholarship.12 In any case, Constantine began to support Christian institutions with lavish donations and privileges after the victorious Battle of Milvius in 312. In the manner of Sulla, Constantine also had a vision before the battle that promised his victory over his rival Maxentius. Several versions of this vision circulated: in one, it was a dream at night; in another, it was a heavenly sign seen by the whole army (Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 44; Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 1.26–41). Now he identified himself as the companion of the Christian deity. However, he often expressed his relations with the divine sphere in such ambiguous terms that people could interpret the divinity according to their own inclinations.13 After his death, Constantine appeared as a divus, or a deified emperor, on coins and in inscriptions and laws in a manner that was similar to the previous emperors. Many fourth-century and even later Christian emperors appear with the title divus on coins and in inscriptions after their death. The connotations have varied according to the interpreters’ different religious inclinations – whether divus implied that the emperor had joined the gods or was merely somehow saintly or divine in the Christian universe. The traditional Greco-Roman mode of expressing the ruler’s charisma with divine status continued in the Christian Roman Empire and in modified forms in medieval kingship and Byzantine imperial ideology. In the Christian Roman Empire, the emperor was presented as the vice-regent of God on earth. Thus, the emperor was the Law incarnate. Emperor Justinian declared in 536 that God issued laws by sending the emperor as the animated form of the Law among humans (Justiniani Novellae 105.2.4). The charismatic leadership of emperors was challenged by the other late antique leaders, namely, the bishops of the Christian churches. The episcopate transformed into a new powerful force in late Roman society. Consequently, emperors had to share with bishops their authority, privileged access to the divine, and responsibility to maintain divine order. This led to tensions and collisions between emperors and influential charismatic bishops such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan, Cyril of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom, active in Constantinople (Drake 2011, 216–217).14 Ambrose (On Faith 2.16.141) delineated how the emperor should be subordinate to divine law and imperial authority was dependent on divine intervention. The turbulent times of the Late Roman Empire gave rise to charismatic military leaders in a manner that was similar to the crises of the late Republic. The fourth and fifth centuries produced their own Mariuses and Sullas, Pompeys and Caesars, namely, late antique warlords who rose to influential positions in late Roman society as well as in the post-Roman kingdoms. One the most prominent figures was Flavius Stilicho (c. 359–408), who became the most influential leader in the western part of the Empire during the reign of Emperor Honorius (reigned 395–423). Stilicho’s father was a Romanized Vandal and his mother a Roman. After the death 73

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of Theodosius I, Stilicho practically ruled the Western Empire while Honorius was still a minor. Bishop Ambrose of Milan declared in the funerary speech given in Theodosius’s memory that the emperor had left his sons and realm in Stilicho’s care. Court orators poured praises on Stilicho: he was “the strength united with wisdom, the prudence united with courage.” Stilicho was for the Romans the hero who several times had deterred groups of Goths from proceeding into Italy in the early fifth century. In 402, Stilicho’s Roman troops stopped Alaric’s Goths in Northern Italy. Poets celebrated him as the noblest Roman, equal to such Republican heroes as Scipio Africanus. However, the relations between Honorius and Stilicho became strained and finally resulted in a coup (in 408), during which Stilicho was deposed. He was finally murdered, the soldiers loyal to him killed, and thousands of soldiers of Gothic and other ethnic origins were massacred with their families. After his fall, Stilicho was labeled as a treacherous barbarian who had been conspiring with Alaric against the emperor. Alaric was the leader of one of the Gothic groups that had migrated to the Roman Empire in the late fourth century. He commanded the Gothic allies that fought for Emperor Theodosius I in his civil war against the usurper Eugenius (in 394). Because Alaric did not get the recognition that he expected for his services, he was embittered. He used his troops to pressure the Roman imperial government, both in the East and in the West, and his troops harassed Greece in 396, and in 401 they aimed toward Italy, sacking Rome in 410. Alaric was capable of gathering large forces of followers, not only among the Goths but also from other ethnic origins. The modern interpretations of Alaric’s activities and goals contest whether he was emphatically a leader of Goths searching for better living conditions for his people or whether he was a commander of mercenaries who fought for the side that paid better at the moment. Similar kinds of warlords emerged during this era, but while some of them (like Flavius Constantius, Aëtius, Ricimer, and Gundobad) worked behind the nominally reigning emperors, others (like Odovacar and Theoderic) decided to become kings themselves.

Future directions In this chapter, I  have tested the Weberian concept of charismatic leadership, not as a fixed explanatory model but instead as a heuristic intellectual tool that is used with careful contextualization in regard to the historical circumstances of the ancient world. Charismatic leadership is extraordinary and appears in chaotic times. The crisis of the late Republic and the development of the imperial monarchy have fascinated many generations of scholars. In the wake of the boom in the research of Late Antiquity (300–500), especially the “Long Late Antiquity” (200– 800), the third-century military emperors and the fourth- and fifth-century warlords (Roman and non-Roman) constitute a promising field of contextualized studies for charismatic leadership. Here I have only briefly sketched the prospects of third-century military emperors and late antique warlords for future research. The questions to be analyzed could be, for example, how much their leadership differed from the earlier Roman traditions. What was their relationship with the divine sphere? Who were their followers? What were the honors bestowed on them? How did they verify their abilities for leadership?

Notes 1 For critical insights against using the Weberian concept, see Lendon 2006. 2 For the different phases of the Roman Republic, see Flower 2010; Steel 2013; Moatti 2018, 57–61. 3 On the crisis, see von Ungern-Sternberg 2004, 89–109; Hatscher 2000, 9 even calls the late Republican period the charismatic age. 74

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4 On the transitional period of Sulla’s New Republic, see Flower 2010, 117–134. 5 This wording reminds of the position of Augustus, who was described as a person to restore the Republic (res publica restituta). 6 For the Republican crisis and Caesar, see Morstein-Marx 2009. 7 In The Dream of Scipio, which was included in the Republic (6.12), Cicero declared that he was waiting for a leader who would end the disturbances. 8 The interpretations have included Ronald Syme’s famous analysis of Augustus in The Roman Revolution (1939) as a figure who built a monarchy by means of cruel methods and whose propaganda was so efficient that it has long deceived posterity and Paul Zanker’s examination of Augustus’s skilled publicity work in Augustus und die Macht der Bilder (1987). 9 For an analysis of Augustus’s charismatic leadership in the changes towards imperial monarchy, see Sommer 2011, 155–180; See Ando 2000, 29–31 on Julius Caesar’s charisma and Augustus’s strategy of disguising his domination behind a Republican guise. 10 For the third-century military emperors, see Sommer 2004; Potter 2004, 213–294; de Blois 2019. 11 The Christian Roman Empire here means the empire governed by Christian emperors from Constantine onward (except for Emperor Julian); in terms of other aspects, it remained non-Christian in many regions. 12 For a survey of the modern scholarship on Constantine, see Lenski 2006, 7–10. 13 One of the examples of this deliberate ambiguity is the inscription of Constantine’s triumphal arch from 315 – erected to commemorate the battle of Milvius – with the vague phrase instinctu divinitatis (“by divine inspiration”): see Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI, 1139. 14 For their part, bishops were challenged by charismatic monks.

References Adair-Toteff, C. 2005. “Max Weber’s Charisma.” Journal of Classical Sociology, 5.2: 189–204. Ando, C. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. de Blois, L. 2019. Image and Reality of Roman Imperial Power in the Third Century AD: The Impact of War. London: Routledge. Clauss, M. 1999. Kaiser Und Gott: Herrscherkult Im Römischen Reich. Stuttgart: Teubner. Drake, H.A. 2011. “Intolerance, Religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late Antiquity.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 79.1: 193–235. Edwards, C. 2000. Suetonius: Lives of the Caesars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edwards, R. 2003. Divus Augustus Pater: Tiberius and the Charisma of Augustus. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.824.1396&rep= rep1&type=pdf. Flower, H.I. 2010. Roman Republics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Galinsky, K. 2011. “The Cult of the Roman Emperor: Uniter or Divider?,” in J. Brodd & J.L. Reed (eds.) Rome and Religion. A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult. Atlanta: SBL. 1–21. Gradel, I. 2002. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hatscher, C.R. 2000. Charisma und Res Publica. Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologie und die römische Republik. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Lendon, J.E. 2006. “The Legitimacy of the Roman Emperor: Against Weberian Legitimacy and Imperial ‘Strategies of Legitimation’,” in A. Kolb (ed.) Herrschaftsstrukturen und Herrschaftspraxis. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 53–63. Lenski, N. 2006. “Introduction,” in N. Lenski (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1–13. Moatti, C. 2018. Res publica: Histoire romaine de la chose publique. Paris: Fayard. Morstein-Marx, R. 2009. “Dignitas and res publica. Caesar and Republican Legitimacy,” in K.-J. Hölkeskamp (ed.) Eine politische Kultur (in) der Krise? München: Oldenbourg. 115–140. Potter, D.S. 2004. The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395. London: Routledge. Price, S. 1984. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 75

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Sommer, M. 2004. Die Soldatenkaiser. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft. Sommer, M. 2011. “Empire of glory. Weberian Paradigms and the Complexities of Authority in Imperial Rome.” Max Weber Studies, 11.2: 155–191. Steel, C. 2013. The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Syme, R. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. von Ungern-Sternberg, J. 2004. “The Crisis of the Republic,” in H.I. Flower (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 89–109. Zanker, P. 1987. Augustus und die Macht der Bilder. München: Beck.

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7 Fascism Roger Eatwell

Introduction Interwar fascism has attracted a vast scholarly literature. Yet over 100 years after Benito Mussolini founded the first Fascist movement in 1919, and Adolf Hitler joined what was to become the National Socialist Party, there remain major disputes about how to identify fascism, why it exploded onto the political scene, and what drove its governing policies. (This chapter adopts the common practice of using “F” for the specifically Italian variant and ‘f ’ for generic fascism.) The term derives from the Italian word “fascio,” meaning league or union, which had previously been used by both left- and right-wing groups. Etymologically, it was linked to the Ancient Roman fasces, an ax bound in rods symbolizing authority and strength, which became a major Fascist symbol. But few outside Italy termed themselves “fascist.” This lacuna raises the question of whether there were fundamental differences between what are commonly seen as other members of the “fascist” interwar party family. Certainly, many academics have argued that Nazism was sui generis – a movement which launched mass genocide and built a far more radical “totalitarian” state than Fascist Italy. Although I will not expand on the argument in this chapter, I accept that we can use the term fascist to apply to a variety of paramilitary, holistic-nationalist movements that sought to create a communal “new man” and an authoritarian third way (neither-capitalist-nor-communist) state. Fascist ideology was syncretic, which lent itself to both conservative and radical understandings, and there were certainly both internal and international differences. But the similarities between Fascism, Nazism, and other fascist major movements, like the Hungarian Arrow Cross and Romanian Iron Guard, outweigh their differences (Eatwell, 1992; Eatwell 2010). Turning to explanations of support, popular histories of the interwar era often focus on the role of the two most infamous “charismatic” fascist leaders, Mussolini and Hitler (for example, Rees, 2014). However, most academic historians reject historicist “great man” approaches, focusing on the role of cultural traditions and socioeconomic structures instead. Symptomatically, the most eminent historian to stress Hitler’s charisma sees this attribute mainly as a social relationship, situating the appeal within a historic longing for strong and warlike leaders, like Otto von Bismarck, rather than personal traits (Kershaw, 1987). Traditional “high politics” historians tend to stress the way in which elites played the dangerous game of using fascism to 77

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destroy the left, rather than the focusing on the mass appeal of Mussolini and Hitler (for example, Turner, 1996). More controversially, some analyses of the Nazi regime see Hitler as a “weak dictator,” responding to rival factions and situations (for example Broszat, 1981) However, charisma offers important insights into fascism. I will argue that the classic Weberian social conception of charisma – involving a crisis-driven affective, quasi religious, temporary bond sustained by the leader performing “miracles” – offers at best a partial explanation. I begin, therefore, by offering a conception of the charismatic personality, setting out four main defining characteristics: a radical mission, personal presence, symbiotic hierarchy, and Manichean demonization. In the second main section I go on to argue that a better understanding of the charismatic bond between leaders and followers can be achieved by focusing on what I term: “coterie charisma” and “centripetal charisma.” Although this chapter focuses mainly on the electoral rise of fascism, a third important form can take on greater force when movements achieve power, namely, the “cultic charisma.”

Conceptualizing leadership: the charismatic personality The rhetoric and style of the main fascist leaders during the interwar era differed in many ways. Hitler and Mussolini, for example, were confident and histrionic speakers who demonized enemies and set out broad new visions (Bosworth, 2002; Kershaw, 1998). On the other hand, Corneliu Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, was a reticent speaker who adopted a mystical, religious air (his movement was initially known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael). Ferenc Szálasi, leader of the Arrow Cross and Georges Valois of the French Faisceau, lacked personal presence, and their rhetoric was more program-oriented (Valois, in particular, wrote extensively about both economics and politics). Different images and rhetoric could be disseminated to specific audiences and could change through time. In the years before he became Prime Minister in 1922, Mussolini presented himself as a man of action, a member of a heroic “trenchocracy” who had bravely fought for his country in the Great War. But this radical firebrand also sought to convince conservative elites that he could destroy the rapidly growing left without overthrowing the existing socioeconomic order. Much later Mussolini added new dimensions to his appeal, including a father-like image targeted at young females. Hitler quickly became the rabble-rousing central attraction at the great rallies that came to characterize Nazism. But the “Austrian corporal” also came to power by courting the Establishment in private. After becoming Chancellor in 1933, he remained deferential in public to President Paul von Hindenberg, a First World War Field Marshall revered on the right – though after his death in 1934 Hitler abolished the post of President and declared himself “Führer,” around which an almost God-like cult developed. Rather than expand on differences, I want to identify four traits which are central to conceptualizing charismatic fascist leaders. Of these, the first – relating to a radical mission – is the core defining feature, especially as it links leadership to an ideological mission which itself can become charismatized, regardless of the personal characteristics of its prophets. The second trait – relating to personal presence – is not a necessary defining feature, though in popular usage this is typically the key characteristic of charismatic personalities (a term which can thus become debased to encompass television, sports, and other “stars”).

Radical mission It is important not to confuse charismatic leaders with “personalities” and iconic leaders like Hindenburg, whose face was well known and even used in adverts for Opel cars during the 78

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1920s. Iconic leaders are often father figures, respected for past glories, like Hindenburg and Marshall Philippe Pétain, the Great War “hero of Verdun” who became Vichy France’s aging head of state after the German conquest in 1940. True charismatics offer a radical mission, not the restoration of the past – though they can celebrate aspects of the past and may at times make compromises, like Mussolini’s attempts not to alienate conservative elites, and accommodation with the Catholic Church after coming to power. This sense of mission is often linked to a foundation myth, in which leaders like Mussolini portray themselves as the creators of radical new movements. While Hitler did not found the Nazi Party, which was initially named the German Workers’ Party, he similarly portrayed himself as the as the man who forged what was to become Germany’s largest party, with approaching 40 per cent of the vote in free elections during 1932 (almost double the number of votes won by the second-placed Social Democrats). His rise from a relatively poor Austrian background to Führer was also symbolic of a wider mission to create a Greater Germany and new Reich, extending well into the east and transcending the old Austro-Hungarian empire. This sense of mission was often accompanied by Christian religious language and imagery. A strongly Christian-influenced liturgy and rites accompanied burials of early Fascist “martyrs” who died in battles with the left. “Rebirth,” together with a variety of other terms such as “mission,” “redemption” and “salvation,” were central to Hitler’s language. The opening scenes of Leni Riefenstahl’s film of the 1934 Nuremberg rally, Triumph of the Will (1935), depicts Hitler’s plane descending through the clouds and creating a cross-like shadow over the marching men later, while a halo of light surrounds Hitler’s head as he steps down from the plane. Regular calendar celebrations were in part based on Christian ones, though others reflected Nazi concerns such as November 9, marking the “martyrs” of the failed 1923 Munich putsch. As both Mussolini and Hitler were non-believers  – Mussolini had even written an anticlerical bodice-ripping novel in his youth – this style and language was manipulative. It sought to appeal both to Christians, including healing the divisions between Catholic and Protestant in Germany, as well as to the increasing number of voters who had become secularized. The role of the Pope in the Catholic Church offered an instructive model about leadership and charismatization. So too did the use of religious imagery by socialists, including the cult of personality and quasi-religious ceremonies which grew up around pioneers like Ferdinand Lassalle, who was described as a “Messiah” and whose picture was carried in many processions after his death. Hitler in the second volume of Mein Kampf specifically discusses how Marx adopted the role of prophet and the need to make Nazism a form of counter creed. However, the quest for a broad popular appeal additionally encompassed an economic mission to create a new third way, which is neglected by those who see fascism as a political religion. Italian Fascism, and Nazism in particular, paid far more attention to economic issues than many commentators concede (Barkai, 1990). In the case of Fascism, economic development was vital to underpin Italy’s mission to become a great power and cease to be a “proletarian nation.” The Nazis developed extensive economic plans for different sectors of the economy, especially after rural crisis and the Great Recession set in during 1928–29, as part of their quest to create a new form of economy which would bring broadly spread benefits. Even the mystical Iron Guard had an economic program targeted at the peasantry and its anti-Semitism played on hopes that the expulsion of Jews would benefit “true” Romanians.

Personal presence Charismatic leaders typically have great personal presence and espouse their views with immense confidence. Personal presence usually involves physical traits. For example, although short and 79

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hardly handsome, many who met Mussolini referred to the piercing power of his eyes. He also actively courted the image of man of action and loved to be photographed engaged in sporting pursuits such as fencing and riding. Presence also involves speaking skills. Hitler, who was also short and plain-looking (certainly not the stereotypical Nazi blond, blue-eyed superman) eschewed the macho posturing of the Duce. But from the early stages of his political career he mesmerized both the inner party core and growing public audiences through the power of his oratory. Other traits noted by those who fell under his spell were his lengthy handshakes and intensely staring eyes. Confidently held and apparently well-informed views can also create a sense of charisma. While Hitler often talked in generalities, he was relatively well read  – albeit works which reinforced his views – and had a good memory for figures. He rarely started a monologue (he was not prone to true discussions) among his inner circle without a preconceived opinion. These skills helped him to win over Joseph Goebbels from the ranks of the Nazi critics during the late 1920s, a man who became personally devoted to Hitler and who as Propaganda Minister played a major part in developing the Führer cult (Longerich, 2015). However, it is important to add that others in the inner circle, like Heinrich Himmler, were attracted to Nazism more by fierce nationalism and hatred of both the left and Jews (groups who were often equated). There was undoubtedly a contrived element to both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s persona, but both men should be seen as truly charismatic personalities. In Mussolini’s case, these traits were visible from his time as a socialist leader before the war, whereas Hitler’s charisma only emerged against the background of humiliating defeat, left-wing revolution, and his entry into politics when the army used him to monitor right-wing groups in Munich (a role which quickly turned into election as leader of the Nazi Party in 1921). An often-neglected aspect of the rise of Hitler is the influence of Mussolini, who was the prototypical 20th century charismatic. This was not just a question of the decision to launch the Munich putsch, which was intended to have a similar effect to the 1922 March on Rome. Mussolini’s rhetoric and style were also influential, including on some leading Nazis like Herman Göring, who temporarily fled to Italy after the putsch. It is important to add that the man often seen, incorrectly, as the third major fascist leader, Spain’s General Franco, was a poor speaker who did not lead an electoral mass movement in the period before seizing power following a brutal civil war during 1936–39. But the authoritariantraditionalist regime which he led adopted aspects of the fascist style, including a pseudocharismatized cult which celebrated Franco as the savior of the nation from the irreligious left and the divisive forces of liberalism. These developments illustrate the demonstration effect of the Fascist and Nazi regimes on a wider set of more traditional forms of authoritarianism which sought to legitimize new leaders and build popular support (Costa Pinto and Kallis, 2014).

Symbiotic hierarchy Although fascist propaganda situated leaders at the pinnacle of a new dynamic elite, they could also be depicted as ordinary men of the people. The latter task was made easier by the fact that many came from relatively humble backgrounds. Notable exceptions included the wealthy British Union of Fascists’ leader Sir Oswald Mosley, whose movement failed dismally. As well as their class backgrounds, fascist leaders were often influenced by how they saw World War I impacting on different classes. Mussolini wrote in his war diary about distinctions between ranks disappearing and a sense of camaraderie developing, a type of “socialism of the trenches.” Valois made a similar point, noting how Pétain’s valiant defense at Verdun had rallied 80

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the national spirit, and how the familiar “tu” form often replaced the formal “vous” when addressing even superior officers in the trenches. Hitler began his first radiobroadcast speech to the German people as Chancellor in February 1933 with a left-populist greeting to his racial-comrades (“Volksgenossen”), and then modestly reminded his audience that in 1918 he had been an ordinary soldier like the rest. His simple military dress (a marked contrast to the Ruritarian regalia and lavish lifestyle which Reichsmarschall Herman Göring came to love) reinforced the man-of-the-trenches image for those present at the rally, and the vastly greater number who later saw Hitler’s speech in cinema newsreels. This speech also reveals another dimension to the Hitler image, which on this occasion was in some ways conciliatory: it was Goebbels in a “warm-up” speech who adopted a more strident line, including threatening to shut the mouth of the “lying Jewish press.” More generally, Hitler deployed a low rather than high language, an Austrian-accented ­discourse of the common man rather than the grandiloquence of the political Establishment, a technique he had learned from studying the populist-nationalist politicians Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Karl Lueger in pre-1914 Vienna. Mussolini, too, sought to cultivate a m ­ an-of-the people image, including being photographed in the fields helping peasants to harvest grain – though the dominant image was of the Duce who must be obeyed. A good example of the latter comes in the 1939 short propaganda film, 9th May, 17th Year, which depicts Mussolini making sweeping appeals, to which the people respond by building a new more prosperous Italy, including its new overseas empire.

Manichean demonization A final important technique of charismatic leaders is the targeting of enemies. This reflected a strongly Manichean streak in fascist ideology, which has led many scholars to argue that it was defined more by what it was against than what it stood for. Fascist violence did not just stem from the brutalization of war and the threat from the extreme left: it was also implicit in how it viewed its enemies, especially on then left. This “Other” can be internal, such as the way in which Mussolini in the early stages of Fascism targeted not only socialists and communists. He was also critical of governing liberal and conservative elites as weak and incapable of forging a strong nation, though without pushing this line so far as to make alliances with mainstream politicians impossible. Hitler’s demonization of the Jews is another example (in Italy Jews were not targets before the introduction of Nazi style Nuremberg laws in 1938, and even then Jews were not a primary focus of Fascist propaganda, though many died in the Holocaust). The Nazi propaganda film, The Eternal Jew (1940), repeatedly stereotyped Jews as cruel and cunning (a line which played on earlier Christian tropes), a degenerate source of Germany’s misfortunes who must be eliminated in order for the nation to be reborn. The underlying technique was openly stated in a widely-distributed 1937 propaganda pamphlet aimed at student and party leaders, which made it clear that “political faith needs an anti-hero,” a scapegoat, a devil. Enemies can also be external. After the imposition of sanctions during the Abyssinian war, Mussolini increasingly targeted British and French hypocrisy for denying Italy her legitimate place in the sun. (Earlier British and French imperialism helped to underpin the legitimacy of Fascist ideas about expansion, while Hitler referred favorably to the US doctrine of “manifest destiny,” referring to the Volga as “our Mississippi”). After launching the attack on the USSR in June 1941, Nazi propaganda became increasingly anti-Soviet, often linked to claims that Jews dominated the Communist party. By 1942, the anti-American strand in Nazism also became more prominent, with the US depicted as a culture-less, materialist society dominated by Jews. 81

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Theorizing fascism: the charismatic bond This approach to conceptualizing the charismatic personality offers fertile hypotheses about why such leaders might attract support. However, there is clearly no simple causal relationship. During World War I, Hitler was not seen as leadership material by his superiors. Within the infant Nazi Party, he was initially seen more as the “drummer boy” of national revival, but after the Munich putsch, Nazi propaganda increasingly focused on him as the coming great Führer. Nevertheless, in 1929 Hitler was heading to become a footnote in history before a devastating economic depression was followed by rapidly rising votes, which were translated into representation by the country’s proportional election system. There is no doubt that crisis helped to provide the conditions for fascist takeoff in Italy and Germany, the two countries which produced the main mass movements. The two others were Hungary and Romania during the 1930s, remarkable achievements given elite election rigging and suppression in these countries as conservatives became aware that fascists were not necessarily tools of the old order. However, the crises faced by these countries differed notably, as did their socioeconomic structures and cultural traditions. For example, Germany was far more industrialized and had far higher unemployment than Italy, let alone the other two. Indeed, Mussolini’s March on Rome was undertaken as the economic, if not political, crisis was receding. In Germany, mass unemployment by 1932 did not translate directly into Nazi votes: indeed, the unemployed tended more not to vote, or vote communist. In order to understand fascist electoral takeoff, we therefore need to look more specifically at its voters. Consider the major debates which have raged about the socioeconomic characteristics of the typical fascist supporter. One camp holds that s/he was a socially isolated “mass man,” looking for a new sense of community following rapid social change and dislocating war, while a major rival approach points to the pivotal position of a threatened middle class, which feared the rise of the radical left, especially communism (for example, Arendt, 1951; Beetham, 1986; Kornhauser, 1959; Lipset, 1960). Variations of these approaches have been reborn in recent decades in the shape of “political religion” and “rational choice” approaches, stressing the largely affective and economically rational basis of the fascist appeal respectively (Griffin, 2005; Brustein, 1996). One leading exponent of the former theory has even claimed that among “committed [Nazi] believers” there existed “a mythic world of eternal spring, heroes, demons, fire and the sword . . . a fantasy world of the nursery” (Burleigh, 2000, p. 8). This is a very different picture than one which sees the core of fascist support lying in groups like artisans, small shopkeepers, and state employees who had been harmed by, or at least feared the wider impact of, economic crises and the rise of the left. Although widely influential, these approaches both gloss over changes through time and the differentiated nature of the fascist mass movements. The early Nazi party was strongly male, including many former combatants, and included a high percentage of supporters from the Mittelstand. But in 1932 the Nazis won more votes from women and had become an all-class Volkspartei, though they retained a relatively young profile (Fischer, 1996; Mühlberger, 2003). While the Nazis largely failed to penetrate strongly organized working class and Catholic milieus, elsewhere communal bonds could increase Nazi voting, such as where Protestant pastors openly supported the Nazis. As well as historic links with Prussian nationalism, some Protestant theologians after 1918 became interested in the powers of a new charismatic leader and the concept of “holy war,” which opened them to Nazi ideology. Like the Fascists after 1919, the Nazis also deliberately penetrated civil society organizations, including apolitical ones, as well “uncivil” völkisch, veteran and other groups that were no friends of liberal democracy (Koshar, 1986; see 82

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also Riley, 2010). This last point means that people could have been attracted by group conformity rather than party program or admiration for the leader. It is, therefore, possible to explain fascist support without invoking the appeal of charismatic leaders. But scholars who ignore or play down charisma – like the eminent sociologist Michael Mann, whose much-praised comparative study does not even index the word “charisma” (Mann, 2004) – miss important elements in leaders’ roles. I will develop this argument under three partly overlapping headings relating to: coterie charisma, centripetal charisma, and cultic charisma.

Coterie charisma First, I use the term coterie charisma to refer to the bond which linked many within the inner party and ardent activists, who held that the leader was driven by a special mission and invested with unique powers. As a result, they accorded their leader great loyalty and were willing to make exceptional efforts on behalf of the cause. The importance of coterie charisma can be seen by reconsidering the extensive local studies of the rise of Fascism. These tend to stress the threat from the left and the way in which the owning classes, including landlords, feared the expropriation of their land. To the extent these accounts focus on the Fascists themselves, the emphasis is on the importance of their organization and local leaders (ras), like Italo Balbo in Ferrara. However, while Mussolini needed the bottom-up forces of local movements to make the initial electoral breakthroughs, his newfound Fascist mission and personality was crucial in holding the disparate Fascist movement together at the national level (Gentile, 1998). Hitler’s leadership and sense of mission was unquestionably important in holding the inner core of the disparate Nazi Party together in the wilderness years after the Munich putsch, a point which can be clearly seen in the loyalty he inspired in Goebbels and Göring. Turning to explaining voting, a pioneering German study of Nordheim has argued that “an essential arena . . . was on the local level, and that the critical figures were the local Nazi leaders” (Allen, 2014, p. 295). As in Italy, strong party organization was a major innovation on the right, and it could be remarkably flexible in responding to local conditions. In Nordheim, for example, the Nazis did not stress anti-Semitism before 1933, as there were popular local Jews in the town. However, highlighting the role of local activists plays down the role of Hitler in attracting activists in the first place. Although early supporters came to the Nazi Party by various routes, from 1929 on many were attracted by Hitler. In particular, he gained major publicity through Hugenberg press and cinema chains as part of a united nationalist parties’ campaign against the Young Plan which, while reducing the reparations imposed by the Versailles Treaty, met fierce opposition. By the time of the 1932 Presidential and Reichstag elections, many activists – as well as ordinary Germans – traveled long distances to hear Hitler speak as well as to spread the word more generally.

Centripetal charisma Second, I want to argue that it is important to distinguish between the personalization of politics, which can stress iconic features such as looks or experience and the way in which some leaders become the personification of a party and/or regime’s mission, exerting what I term centripetal charisma over a large number of followers. This was especially the case in explaining the rise of Nazis, who by the early 1930s were often called the “Hitler Party.” In the Fascist case, the link during the regime phase is illustrated by a comment about the Duce from Balbo, 83

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who stated that “Italy is a newspaper in which Mussolini writes the first page very day.” This preeminent position is reflected in the fact that Mussolini often held several ministerial offices, including major ones like the Foreign Ministry, and made well-publicized and frequent whirlwind trips around the country. The charismatic missionary leader can be hypothesized to have three important effects in terms of support. First, to adopt rational choice terminology, they offer a low-cost form of signaling, which helps send key policy messages to potential supporters, particularly those with a low general interest in politics. It is far easier to understand politics through a leader than to read programs. Second, voters who feel their opinion does not matter, including ones who had previously not voted, can feel a growth in efficacy by identifying with someone who they see as a heroic, strong leader. Put another way, people have a need to understand complex events and often find it easier to come to terms with complexity through the image of a single person who is held to be special. Third, by becoming the epitome of their parties, leaders like Hitler can help to overcome the cognitive dissonance which might have been created by the market segmentation politics which parties often pursued as they sought to come to power. To expand on the last point, the Weberian conception of charisma implies a leader dominated by a single mission, but leaders like Mussolini and Hitler targeted appeals at different groups, helped by the strongly syncretic nature of fascist ideology. Dissonance was partly resolved by developing these discourses at the local level, with the Nazis in some areas adopting a quasi-left-wing slant, though more commonly they stressed their right-wing credentials. This segmentation was helped by the absence of strong national media prior to achieving power. Dissonance could also be minimized by targeting specific groups like business, farmers, students, and women, which was an important part of Nazi strategy after Gregor Strasser’s reorganization of the party following the its poor showing in the 1928 elections when it won under three percent of the vote. These developments reflected an increasingly central strategy prior to coming to power of accompanying violence with propaganda targeting a broad swathe of voters (Eatwell, 2011). Mussolini and supporters like Margarita Sarfatti, a Jewish intellectual who for a long time was Mussolini’s mistress, were strongly interested in the question of how to influence public opinion. Prior to 1914, Mussolini had come into contact with the writings of crowd psychologists and early theorists of the media, like Gustav Le Bon, and during the early 1920s he became interested in the rising American profession of public relations (the first American political campaign consultants emerged in the late 1890s, part of a much wider boom in marketing consumer goods). Well before he came to power Hitler rehearsed speeches and gestures, often with the aid of his court photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. A further influence in this case was a widespread German obsession with the power of propaganda, which had been dramatically heightened by the prevalent belief that the wartime Allies had used propaganda cleverly both to boost their home fronts and undermine German resolve. This led to the publication in Germany of a plethora of academic and popular books about the subject, which often stressed the role of dynamic leadership. Goebbels was influenced by these ideas and also American marketing techniques. In the 1932 presidential elections, the growing Hitler cult was helped by the fact that the elections necessarily focused on the individual candidates. This focus was reinforced by the fact that the Nazis used remarkably sophisticated propaganda techniques, polished during the large number of national and other elections which took place after 1928. These included Hitler becoming the first major politician to regularly fly to mass meetings, often attending two per day (an attendance fee was normally charged, a major source of Nazi funds). Other propaganda media included specially commissioned gramophone records and films, which were 84

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often shown in temporary venues. His campaign targeted both affective voters’ quest for a new community and played upon economic distress, with unemployment that year rising to well over 40 percent. An important point when considering the role of economic crisis is that the economic situation has subjective as well as objective dimensions. In particular, crisis can be talked up (or down). Hitler regularly referred to an “Endsituation,” heightening fears of cataclysmic collapse and left-wing revolution. Similarly, Hitler’s refusal in 1932 to accept anything less than the Chancellorship was an important part of the late-Weimar governing crisis. History might have turned out very differently had Gregor Strasser led the party, as he seemed willing to adopt a secondary role in a conservative government but backed off in the face of Hitler’s opposition. Mussolini exploited similar fears before the March on Rome led the King to invite him to become Prime Minister, though this was well after the end of the great wave of postwar “red” strikes and when the general economic situation seemed to be improving. The importance of the leader in creating widespread support can be seen from the fact that both Mussolini and Hitler became far more popular than their parties during the regime phase. Although the parties had themselves become charismatized through their mission to achieve national greatness, many people came to resent features like their arbitrary powers, bureaucracy, and corruption. In Italy, as in Germany later, regime failings could initially be passed off with the trusting sentiment: “If only the Duce knew” – though by the turn of the 1940s the spell was breaking. Historians continue to debate whether there was widespread support for Fascism by the time of the conquest of Abyssinia in 1936 or whether it was more a case of passive acceptance of the Italian dictatorship. Even among those who welcomed the expansion of empire, many saw it in terms of economic opportunities for settlement and trade rather than in terms of Mussolini’s grandiose aspirations for imperial greatness. Moreover, the later move toward an alliance with the Nazis was in general unpopular, and Mussolini never achieved the major successes in war that the Nazis did in the early stages, when most historians think that support for Hitler was at its greatest. A broader consensus has emerged about the popularity of the Nazi regime. Two years after Hitler became Chancellor, over 90 percent of people in the Saar voted to return to Germany rather than remain a League of Nations mandate (its status after the Great War). Although voters were subject to a major Nazi propaganda barrage, this was a remarkable result given its Catholic and industrial complexion. Later, reports from within Germany for the exiled Social Democrats showed widespread support for developments like the achievement of full employment by 1936 and the Strength through Joy (KDF) organization’s expanding leisure and welfare programs (Gellately, 2001; cf Evans, 2007). The scope of these is illustrated by the fact that in 1939 the KDF was building the largest hotel in the world on the island of Rügen to provide subsidized holidays for workers, while the prototype Volkswagen car really was intended for mass consumption (after fighting an expansionary war).

Cultic charisma Third, cults began to develop around Mussolini and Hitler well before they came to power, partly inspired by the desire to weaken potential rivals. However, they were developed far more intensely during the regime phase, when fascists were able to use the full panoply of state resources, as well as party and other means of legitimation. Simply by holding the highest office, these leaders benefited from office charisma, which makes it difficult to separate personal from more traditional forms of authority. One example of the way in which power presented new opportunities for charismatization concerns the media. The interwar era witnessed the rapid development of radio and sound film. 85

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State subsidies meant that by 1939 Germany had the highest percentage of radios per head in the world. Over a thousand feature-length films were made in Nazi Germany, accompanied by newsreels which regularly featured the Führer. Reflecting Goebbels’s dislike of overt party propaganda in feature films, some of the most expensive films made were historical allegories linking Hitler with earlier phases in Germany’s history, such as the Napoleonic wars “blockbuster” Kolberg (1945), which portrayed a heroic defense of the homeland by the people leading to French withdrawal after a crucial turning point. Charisma is important to understanding policy making as well as support. The decision to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, or invade Poland, would probably not have been taken by a leader who was not driven by an overwhelming confidence in his sense of mission. This charisma was crucial to developing a policy making trait which his leading biographer has called “working towards the Führer” (Kershaw, 1998; Kershaw, 2000). After 1933, Hitler quickly dismantled the formal mechanisms of government. Within his “court,” acolytes and functionaries sought to curry favor by anticipating his wishes, which led to a process of increasing radicalization in major policy areas. Although there are major debates about whether the Holocaust stemmed from a top-down decision, or more from bottom-up pressures of those dealing directly with the “Jewish problem,” it seems highly unlikely that systematic mass murder would have been launched without a widespread belief that this was the Führer’s will. However, many people at lower levels followed orders about incarcerating and killing Jews believing that they came from a legitimately constituted regime. Although Nazis talked of revolution, the German state had strong continuities with the Weimar Republic, including much of its bureaucratic structure and personnel. Turning to Italy, a case can be made that the Duce became a prisoner of his own myth, with leading Fascists deferring to his “genius,” such as his unpopular decision to forge the Axis with Nazi Germany. Moreover, the Italian case demonstrates the limits to charismatic powers over the inner core when the leader’s “miracles” start to wane and there are alternative sources of legitimacy. In 1943, the Duce was overthrown after a vote in the Fascist Grand Council, following a newfound resolve on the part of the King and some in the army hierarchy to challenge the Duce. Nevertheless, his continuing charismatic appeal helps explain why many supported his puppet Salò Republic, a chaotic and murderous regime which programmatically sought a return to the radicalism of early Fascism. Remarkably, Mussolini casts a long shadow to this day, with many admirers visiting Predappio, the shrine-like town of his birth where he is buried. It remains a moot point why the Nazi inner core remained loyal until almost the very end in 1945. Did Hitler exert a more powerful coterie charisma than the Duce? Was the situation one in which there was no serious route for “exit” given the Allies’ insistence on German unconditional surrender? Germans more generally seem to have stayed largely uncritical of the Führer, and there were certainly no strikes or public dissent of the type which broke out in Italy before the Duce’s overthrow. Was fear of the Gestapo and state terror greater than in Italy, which did not develop a concentration camp system and engage in mass killings, like the Nazis after 1933? And how should we interpret the fact that in 1949, 59 percent of West Germans believed that National Socialism was a good idea badly carried out? (Merritt and Merritt, 1970). Was the culprit the once-revered Führer, or did the spell linger on?

Future directions/research In spite of the vast scholarly literature on fascism, there are still questions for which we have no definitive answer – specifically those relating to the precise role of charisma, especially in attracting and retaining widespread support for Nazism until the very end. 86

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In general, the evidence points to the fact that support for fascism was only partly based on a Weberian, affective charismatic bond. Currently fashionable political religion approaches rightly point to the fascist desire for moral and national renewal, but most supporters saw both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s mission as perfectly consistent with Christianity (Duggan, 2013; Steigmann-Gall, 2003). Moreover, the fascist appeal was multifaceted, including an emphasis on the creation of a radical new socioeconomic order. The last aspect is neglected in political religion approaches, which see the appeal of fascist leaders as stemming more from anomie than their charisma (for example, there is no index entry on charisma in Burleigh, 2000). It is important to note that a central problem for the study of charisma is that it is much easier to study the rhetoric and style of fascism than to read the hearts and minds of those who supported it. For example, it could be hypothesized that charisma mainly appealed to a small number of “seekers” who then converted friends and others to the cause through factors such as group norms. We do not have the benefit of social science methods like opinion polls and the focus group to test such a hypothesis (though these tools have problems in the contemporary context in attempting to assess charismatic appeals). So it is difficult to assess whether social conformism trumped political radicalism. The cultural turn in fascist studies in recent decades has brought many important insights, including moving away from the view that fascism was simply a violent “revolution of nihilism” by focusing on the positive aspects of its ideology. But fascist studies have often moved away from the direct empirical study of fascist mass support. Indeed, citations of intellectuals and others referring to the alienated masses and/or their longing for a new sense of belonging regularly pass for evidence of what ordinary people thought (for example, Griffin, 2007). Scholars need to revisit evidence about fascist support, taking on a more guarded view that the key to the conundrum lies in variations of class and/or mass society theory. To take one example of a potentially fertile source: letters which ordinary people sent to Hitler could be examined specifically with a view to searching for charismatic bonds (a small selection appears in Harris, 2012). Although the group is one of self-selecting Hitler admirers and letters may reveal little of wider social influences, these offer both a diachronic and synchronic source of leader-centric opinion. Or to take a specific period: as Hitler’s ability to produce “miracles” after 1942 waned, did his charisma fade too? Or did it live on, if only fleetingly, in the years before anti-Nazism became the foundation stone of the post-1949 West German state? Note: I am grateful to José Pedro Zúquete for his comments on this chapter.

References Allen, William Sheridan. 2014 (1965 first ed.) The Nazi Seizure of Power. The Experience of a Single German Town 1922–1945. Brattelboro, VT: Echo Point Books & Media. Arendt, Hannah. 1951. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Schocken Books. Barkai, Avraham. 1990. Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory and Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Beetham, David (ed.). 1986. Marxists in the Face of Fascism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bosworth, Richard. 2002. Mussolini. London: Arnold. Broszat, Martin. 1981. The Hitler State. The Foundation and Internal Structure of the Third Reich. London: Longman. Brustein, William. 1996. The Logic of Evil. The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Burleigh, Michael. 2000. The Third Reich. A New History. London: Macmillan. Costa Pinto, António and Aristotle Kallis (eds). 2014. Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Duggan, Christopher. 2013. Fascist Voices. An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy. London: Vintage. 87

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Eatwell, Roger. 1992. ‘Towards a New Model of Generic Fascism’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 4, 2, pp. 161–194. Eatwell, Roger. 2010. ‘The Nature of “Generic Fascism”: The “Fascist Minimum” and the “Fascist Matrix” ’, in Constantin Iordachi (ed.), Comparative Fascist Studies: New Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. Eatwell, Roger. 2011. ‘Ideology, Propaganda, Violence and the Rise of Fascism’, in António Costa Pinto (ed.), Rethinking the Nature of Fascism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Evans, Richard. 2007. ‘Coercion and Consent in Nazi Germany’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 151, pp. 53–81. Fischer, Conan (ed.). 1996. The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Class in Germany. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Gellately, Robert. 2001. Backing Hitler. Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gentile, Emilio. 1998. ‘Mussolini’s Charisma’, Modern Italy, 3, 2, pp. 219–235. Griffin, Roger. 2005. Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religions. London: Routledge. Griffin, Roger. 2007. Modernism and Fascism. The Sense of a New Beginning Under Mussolini and Hitler. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Harris, Victoria (ed.). 2012. Letters to Hitler. Cambridge: Polity. Kershaw, Ian. 1987. The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kershaw, Ian. 1998. Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris. London: Allen Lane. Kershaw, Ian. 2000. Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis. London: Allen Lane. Kornhauser, William. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe: The Free Press. Koshar, Rudy. 1986. Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg 1880–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1960. Political Man. The Social Basis of Politics. New York: Doubleday and Company. Longerich, Peter. 2015. Goebbels. London: Bodley Head. Mann, Michael. 2004. Fascists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merritt, Anna J and R. L. Merritt. 1970. Public Opinion in Occupied Germany. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Mühlberger, Detlef. 2003. The Social Bases of Nazism, 1919–1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rees, Lawrence. 2014. Hitler’s Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss. London: Vintage. Riley, Dylan. 2010. The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe. Italy, Spain and Romania, 1870–1945. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Steigmann-Gall, Richard. 2003. The Holy Reich. Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, Henry Ashby. 1996. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power. Boston: Addison Wesley.

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8 Maoism and charismatic domination Matthew D. Johnson

Introduction The bedrock patterns of political authority in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are defined by two characteristics: the charismatic leader figure of Mao Zedong and the totalistic mass movements which Mao’s charisma engendered. Although institutionalization of rationality in modern societies is premised on an assumed division between the political and religious spheres, politics in China is itself “religionized” (Klein, 2014: 52) due to enduring features of ritual, personality cult, and totalistic party-statism. As the ultimate source of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) legitimacy, Maoism fuses elements of politics and religion in ways which suggest a secular theology (Mitter, 2008) or theocracy. Mao’s image looms large over China’s history and present. Biographies portray him as responsible for every major event occurring in China’s post-1949 history prior to his death in 1976 (Chang and Halliday, 2005; Pantsov and Levine, 2007). Whether motivated by hunger for power, fidelity to Stalinism, or his own idiosyncratic revolutionary vision, Mao appears at the center of PRC historiography as its principal agent of change. Centralization of power in contemporary Chinese politics is often equated with Maoism’s reappearance in the form of “neo-Maoist” or “New Left” authoritarianism. Mao thus dominates China’s politics in a way that even current leader figure Xi Jinping cannot – as the founder of the country, an archetype of uniquely Chinese patterns of political authority, and inspiration for mass political movements around the world. In a manner that Weberian theories of charismatic authority would confidently predict, Mao’s power and legacy are seen as deriving in particular from his ability to inspire loyalty, and even fanaticism, in his followers. The history of the Mao Zedong Era (1949–1976), with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) as its emblematic moment, offers abundant examples of the importance of Mao’s leadership cult as a legitimizing force for political action, including opposition to the CCP itself. Moreover the “turmoil” of the GPCR – its Red Guards, mass rallies, and numerous instances of violence – further support categorizing the Mao cult as an instance of political religion based on the irrationality and destructive utopianism of those it inspired (White, 1989). The Mao Zedong Era provides a powerful example of a society ruled by charismatic domination and, at the same time, of how a leader believed to possess 89

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transcendent qualities can directly overthrow existing patterns of political order through direct interaction with credulous followers. Close scrutiny of Mao and the Mao cult also highlights less obvious patterns intrinsic to Maoism. Those within the CCP who sought to derive benefit from their proximity and access to Mao, such as his wife, Jiang Qing, and other “ultra-leftists” at the top of the political power structure, can be observed to have manipulated the symbols of Maoism to legitimate their own agendas (MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, 2006). Likewise, through demonstrations of loyalty to Mao and “Mao Thought,” ordinary people and protesters against the party-state have launched oppositional movements from at least the time of the GPCR onward. Through a combination of frenzied ritual worship and calculated self-interest, Maoism has seemingly spread to all corners of PRC society (Leese, 2011), while exceeding CCP efforts to contain its myriad meanings and effects. Despite obvious parallels with Stalinism (see also Walder, 2015) and other totalitarian movements, scholars of PRC history are only beginning to fully explore the comparative and global connections between Maoist charismatic domination and regimes beyond China. Earlier work focusing on internal dynamics of CCP authority, in particular the transformation of society through propaganda, have contrasted rational-bureaucratic and charismatic strains within Maoism (Teiwes and Sun, 1995; Cheek, 1997). More recent studies of the cultural dimensions of Maoism have noted the relevance of the Soviet example but emphasized instead the unique and affective elements of state-society relations during and after Mao’s rule (Perry, 2002, 2012). Points of similarity, however, remain abundant: visions of apocalypse and rebirth from crisis; emotional mobilization based on pseudo-scientific myth; focus on the leader as “godhead” though deployment of rituals and symbols; expressions of faith; revolutionary morality; selfsacrifice (Klein, 2014: 52). While numerous studies of PRC bureaucracy exist, political authority is inevitably associated with the figure of the leader – not only Mao, but also Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Analyzing Maoism through the lens of political religion has potential for not only revealing generic features but also providing a link between Mao-centered accounts of charismatic leadership and the social phenomenon of mass mobilization. Political religion has been defined by Emilio Gentile (2000) as a political movement conferring sacred status on an earthly entity which becomes the source of ultimate principle and provider of norms and ethics. Through this process, followers become activated and responsive to specific, transcendent political goals. The self-created reality of political-religious movements gives outsiders the impression that they are built on fiction. For those inside, however, it is the charisma of the leader, to whom is attributed the “supernatural ability to lead and transform,” that stirs the emotions of followers (Prophet, 2016: 36). While the psychological explanations for charismatic leadership are complex and uncertain, familiar themes include alienation, a sense of crisis, and the ability of the leader to address pressing concerns. Charismatic leadership is also inherently unstable, insofar as social energy it releases may resist the ability of the leader to direct it toward specific goals. During the GPCR, which broadly considered represented an elite coup against the status quo CCP government led by Mao himself, a multitude of local events took place which were not directed by Mao, even though participants asserted that they were acting according to his orders. Insofar as the GPCR has become an entry point into the phenomenon of charismatic leadership in China’s modern politics, it is important to remember that the dimensions of the Mao cult extended beyond the figure of Mao himself. Another important symbol was the “little red book” (Quotations from Chairman Mao [Mao zhuxi luyu]), which circulated both within the PRC and abroad. The Quotations were not meaningless propaganda but served as motivation and inspiration to GPCR participants and were considered sacred by adherents (Yang, 2014: 61). Their power was derived from the status of the Quotations and Mao’s image as holy symbols, 90

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as well as the entire tradition of pre-GPCR official cultural practice, which emphasized veneration of heroes, martyrs, and other exemplary figures associated with the CCP and People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Mao loyalists – “red guards” – imagined themselves as successors to this revolutionary heritage, and their pledges to protect Mao, the leader, took a variety of forms that political religion perspectives interpret as worship. These included study of the Quotations; frequently repeating and praising Mao Zedong Thought (Mao Zedong sixiang); denouncing the bureaucracy of the CCP party-state government; participating in mass rallies; producing public art and engaging in performance; undertaking pilgrimages; engaging in formalized selfcriticism; canonizing their own local heroes and fallen comrades; and publicly denouncing, humiliating, and violently persecuting enemies. Though these aspects of the GPCR and Mao cult are well known, particularly among specialists, tying them all together as evidence of the power of Mao’s charisma rests upon the assumption that followers believed in Mao’s supernatural abilities to create a better society. Reality was undeniably more complex, with “followership” attributable to motivations ranging from idealism to opportunism (Wang, 1995). Some followers went along out of fear of punishment; yet others, the so-called “wanderers” (xiaoyaopai), simply did not engage in GPCR activities at all. To further elucidate the mechanisms by which Mao’s charismatic leadership was built up into a mobilizing force by the CCP, while at the same time accounting for the coercive practices which made loyalty and fear increasingly difficult motivations to analytically distinguish, this chapter begins by examining theories linking charismatic leadership to totalitarian movements. It goes on to address the interaction of crisis, charisma, political religion, and threat of reprisal during key historical moments in Mao Zedong’s rise to preeminence. Finally, it considers the legacies of Mao’s charismatic leadership for patterns of political power, authority, and legitimacy in the PRC during the post-Mao era, culminating with the CCP leadership “core” represented by Xi Jinping today.

Charismatic leadership and totalitarian movements The sociology of Max Weber first explored the puzzle of charismatic leadership through the lens of charismatic domination, which was defined as obedience to a leader or leader’s orders based on trust (Willner and Willner, 1970: 225–226; Cavalli, 1986: 67–68; Weber, 1994: 28–46). Charismatic leaders were obeyed, or trusted, because of their extraordinary qualities; in modern times, trust in leaders appeared to be derived mainly from their personality and strength of their convictions. Extraordinary times were most likely to give rise to charismatic leaders of this type, due to the opportunity to demonstrate a visible sense of “calling” (i.e., mission or interior task) which appealed to others. Charismatic domination thus emerged from causes, or movements, which did not exist independently of the leader. In turn, total trust in the leader, the precondition of obedience, gave charismatic domination its particularly irrational and emotional qualities. Though ephemeral as a political form, it was also defined by revolutionary potential. Historically speaking, the appearance of the charismatic leader can be associated with a specific typology of situations, including the foundation of the nation-state and change of regime. The difference between totalitarian social orders incorporating charismatic leadership and their non-totalitarian counterparts lies in coercion and manipulation accompanying the charismatic process (Cavalli, 1986: 72). Cults of personality become particularly powerful in societies which lack a free media. Within these “closed” forms of society – the antitheses of the open society described by Karl Popper – patterns of thought are shaped through relentless emphasis on collectivism and the association of the charismatic leader with ultimate truth (Armbrüster and Gerbert, 2002). Totalitarianism and charismatic leadership become further intertwined through 91

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the former’s reliance on intellectuals to flank and secure the regime. (Despite the cliché that Mao hated and feared intellectuals, many intellectuals served Mao and the CCP as party cadres: engineers, propagandists, and managers for the regime [see Cheek, 1997]). Charismatic leadership thus becomes powerful through institutionalization within expansive political structures. Within totalitarian movements, charismatic leadership is typically institutionalized through the personality cult (Flew and Yin, 2017: 8; Horn, 2011: 100). The figure of Joseph Stalin was a model and inspiration to Mao (Walder, 2015), linking the CCP-led revolution to others movements associated with Nazism, fascism, and communism. Like Stalin, Mao and others within the CCP movement sought to construct an ideology-based political religion which required the destruction of competing truths in order to place Mao’s leadership and exaggerated role at the center of both political and nonpolitical life, distinctions between which became blurred as the CCP gained power. This domination of social life through values, myths, rituals, and symbols intended to create an aura of sanctity around Mao. Thus, this cult of personality links back to systems of political myths which sought to motivate the masses through irrational and quasi-mystical thought, and which achieved great presence and intensity in other totalitarian countries prior to the 1940s (see Gentile, 2000). While the rituals of Maoism such as veneration of Mao’s portrait and writings, worship rituals, loyalty dances, and other demonstration of obedience appeared unique, they were linked to broader patterns of transnational political authority and, in particular, totalitarian systems of authority and legitimation which existed in other times and places. The cult of personality and manufacture of charisma through media as well as more immanent forms of leader-led relationships was, in the writings of anti-totalitarian theorists such as Hannah Arendt, a critical means by which totalitarian mass leaders, movements, and organizations engaged with people who had otherwise lost, often through war or economic depression, social identity and emotional bearings. Arendt’s analysis, in particular, is instructive for understanding how charismatic leadership functions within the broader totalitarian political system. Militancy resides at the core of all totalitarian movements (Baehr, 2017: 225–230). Though Weberian charismatic leadership may partly explain their power, authority created by charisma cannot ultimately be explained without equal reference to violence, as in the cases of Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Individuals must remain permanently dislocated through the perpetual motion of the movement. Purges, secret police, and new political formations distinct from existing organizational hierarchies (e.g., during the GPCR, Mao’s “Central Cultural Revolution Group”) exist to keep other political actors unbalanced and fearful. Emphasis on ideological correctness and the existence of unseen enemies further enhances the sense of vulnerability for all members of society. Within the totalitarian movement of Maoism and “struggle,” charismatic leadership existed as both engine of transformation and technique  – buttressed by violence and supraorganizational systems of investigation and punishment – for engendering loyalty through the systematic elimination of competing standpoints.

Origins of the Mao cult Several overlapping historical-genetic explanations thus exist for the emergence of Mao Zedong as a charismatic leader: the CCP’s origins in 20th-century totalitarian movements, the legacies of China’s imperial past, and the development of a personality-centered political form serving functional goals of political and social discipline, state-building, and wartime mobilization. In 1917–1918 Mao emerged as a writer and thinker just as he reached his mid-twenties. He was present at the CCP First Party Congress held in 1921 but not immediately recognized as a leading figure. The first six years of the CCP’s existence showed little independence from the 92

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Comintern or from the Nationalist Party, with which the CCP was allied in an anti-warlord coalition. However, in 1927 Mao had begun to build a blueprint for rural revolution with the “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” while also gaining experience in armed conflict as a peasant movement leader and through his relationship with Zhu De, a military commander supported the CCP cause when Chiang Kai-shek attempted to decisively purge and eliminate communism during the 1927 “White Terror.” Setting up a new base of operations in the province of Jiangxi, Mao consolidated an independent position within the CCP through his own elimination of supposed counterrevolutionaries through formation of separate political security forces such as the Purging Counterrevolutionary Committees and Political Protection Section (Brazil, 2012: 89). During the Jiangxi years (1927–1934) Mao’s own ideas, further articulated through writings such as the “Report from Xunwu” (1930), which further developed the vision and strategy of a rural-based revolutionary program, became identified with a unique interpretation of Marxism by his supporters. Juxtaposed against the ineffectiveness of the underground Shanghai-based CCP Central Committee and its Comintern advisors, Mao’s role in preserving and growing the CCP was made evident through his success, along with that of Zhu De, in guerrilla military operations against the Nationalists. Though sporadically sidelined by Soviet-backed CCP leaders such as Zhou Enlai, Mao had attained credibility as a head of state; his personal power was buttressed through violent purges, one example of which was the 1930–1931 movement to eliminate the alleged “A-B Corps” conspiracy within the party and army which resulted in arrest of an estimated 3,000 CCP members and 4,400 army members, as well as subsequent executions (Brazil, 2012: 93). These events also marked the emergence of another key ingredient in the formation of the Mao cult: centralized political control. The 1931 formation of the State Political Protection Bureau gave Mao greater influence over the CCP and military hierarchy. Soon after, in the context of the CCP’s massive and catastrophic flight from advancing Nationalist forces  – the Long March  – Mao began to overshadow other CCP military leaders, including Zhou and Comintern advisor Otto Braun, ultimately taking full control of the Red Army. The Long March is seen by many historians as the moment in which the charismatic qualities of Mao’s leadership were unquestionably established. Identified with the salvation of the CCP, which survived to establish a new base in the northwestern stronghold of Yan’an, Mao’s apparently superhuman attributes as a strategist were given greater luster by his cultivation of a peasant base for the CCP-led revolution in the name of a distinctive revolutionary program linked to Maoism. Regardless of whether Maoism represented an original development in relationship to Marxist-Leninism, it unquestionably relied on peasant support for Mao’s authority as a main pillar (Kauppinen, 2006: 9). As in Jiangxi, internal CCP politics also favored Mao’s ascendance: former rivals like Zhou Enlai became Mao’s allies, while Soviet-trained returnee Wang Ming was rebuffed by Mao and relegated to political insignificance over the course of the War of Resistance to Japan (1937–1945), during which Mao’s hold over Yan’an grew. Other important elements of Maoism included political and wartime mobilization, in the course of which the CCP itself was employed as a tool of “emotion control” (Perry, 2002: 111); other accounts have stressed the role of coercive psychological tactics, or “brainwashing” (Lifton, 1969 [1961]) as well as the CCP’s control over the discursive environment of Yan’an through unceasing mass movement and propaganda activity (Apter and Saich, 1994). Group and state control reaching down to the level of the individual (Eggli and Hasmath, 2016: 4) was further institutionalized through the introduction of Stalinist social surveillance, counterintelligence, and secret-policing techniques, represented by the figure of Soviet NKVD-trained Kang Sheng, who served as Mao’s political enforcer within the CCP. 93

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During the 1940s, Mao’s charismatic leadership was adopted and refined, and followership ritualized through the CCP’s deliberate construction of a state cult with nationalistic subthemes. The January 1940 essay “On New Democracy” represented Mao’s effort to address the Chinese nation with a compelling vision of how political unity could be restored based on the traditions of China’s unique history, participation in war as a romantic and spiritual act, and the revolutionary role of the peasant mass base. In February 1941, reference was first made to Mao’s writings as “the thought of Comrade Mao Zedong” within the CCP (Klein, 2014: 65). The 1941–1942 Rectification Campaign, during which Mao’s leadership within the CCP became absolute, incorporated the familiar dynamics of a hunt for political enemies with novelties such as reform of party ideology according to “Mao Zedong-ism” (Mao Zedong zhuyi) and “Mao Zedong Thought” (Mao Zedong sixiang). In addition, party history was rewritten to foreground Mao’s unique genius – highlighting in particular the theoretical innovation of the “mass line” – and to place him at the center of all important decisionmaking; this too was studied as part of a “study movement in Party history” (Tokuda, 1971: 88–89). Maoism took on the trappings of a coherent system of thought, and a new system of CCP organization emerged that was centered on the heroic leadership of Mao (see Schram, 1967). Having begun during the 1930s as a minor movement within the party, the Mao cult became synonymous with the CCP itself by 1943; Mao Zedong Thought was elevated to the level of Marxism-Leninism and Bolshevism; Mao’s theories were praised widely in all CCP propaganda, and any remaining CCP leader-theoreticians, most notably Liu Shaoqi, made conspicuous reference to Mao in their own writings. Creation of the Mao cult was arguably a matter of necessity for the CCP, which faced encirclement by both Japanese and Nationalist forces during the war and therefore required an effective mobilizing device to secure internal loyalty and raise popular support for the CCP’s own patriotic movement (see Leese, 2011). Certainly it was intertwined with the CCP’s transformation into a more regimented and repressive organizational form which, through unceasing movements in the name of political (class) struggle and war, emerged simultaneously more unified and intertwined with society (Kauppinen, 2006: 80–81; Brazil, 2012: 23). At the CCP Seventh Congress held in April 1945, the Thought of Mao Zedong was added to the CCP Constitution as the party’s “guiding ideology.” Trappings of political religion, such as ritualized group study, mutual criticism, and public confession, coupled with reinvented popular traditions (patriotic song “The East Is Red,” supposedly inspired by local folk music, referred to Mao as a “great savior” [Klein, 2014: 62–63]) provided transmission vehicles through which Yan’an Maoism was spread to other social environments.

Maoism after liberation Mao’s charismatic leadership was institutionalized and spread through Maoism as developed in Yan’an; it combined elements of political religion and ritualized group behavior with policing through extrajudicial security forces and surveillance. The end of China’s war with Japan in 1945, and subsequent CCP defeat of the Nationalists, created conditions favorable for Mao and his followers to establish a new national government of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, in Beijing. By that point Mao’s plan for the new state and society – “New China” – was already articulated in a June 1949 article titled “On People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” which emphasized the creation of national unity through cultural transformation led by the CCP while positioning Mao as Sun Yat-sen’s heir and thus a founding figure in China’s modern political history. Mao’s apparent belief in the infinite malleability of the human mind and, by extension, society as a whole, became a defining feature of Maoism and articulated 94

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a sense of China’s unique mission in voluntaristic and utopian terms (Patterson, 1974: 21; see Meisner, 1982). During the early years of the PRC, Mao’s words were further canonized through the chronological arrangement, editing, rewriting, and publication of Mao’s major articles as the Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Mao Zedong xuanji), of which the first three volumes emerged between 1951 and 1953 (Kauppinen, 2006: 19). These texts represented Mao Zedong Thought as the collective ideology of China’s elite and sought to demonstrate the validity of Maoism as a superior ideological construction and perspective on history. Maoism was totalitarian insofar as it sought to influence every sphere of human activity under the pretext of creating a basis for action toward a communist utopia (see Schurmann, 1968). In practical terms, it was continuously pushed outward toward all members of society as a basis for interpretation and action through propaganda that idealized the wartime Yan’an experience. The “cult of the red martyr” (Yang, 2014: 68–69) was one manifestation of Mao-sanctioned hero worship; models appropriate to more specific class positions and national goals were, over the course of the 1950s, further developed as subjects of emulation (Farley, 2019) and contributed to the wartime revolutionary atmosphere. Though Maoism was totalitarian in scope and ambition, it was not entirely unbounded in practice. Mao’s iconoclastic leadership style was balanced, to a certain degree, by the more pragmatic, party-centered approach represented by Liu Shaoqi; Zhou Enlai appeared as the PRC’s lead negotiator and representative in the wider international community; in military affairs and within the socialist sphere, Mao relied on proven loyalists for advice. Moreover, Mao’s personal power was periodically challenged by ambitious subordinates such as Gao Gang (who committed suicide in 1954) and more conventional modernizers within the army such as Peng Dehuai (purged from the CCP in 1959). The internal party unity around Mao created during the 1942–1944 Rectification Movement remained relatively undisturbed after 1949, however, allowing the CCP leadership to focus instead on eliminating perceived threats from within the society they had conquered militarily and, subsequently, sought to transform. Thought reform, self-examination, criticism and self-criticism, and reform through labor were the primary tools of control by which wartime Maoism was imposed upon members of PRC society whose loyalties were deemed questionable (Eggli and Hasmath, 2016: 1). The context in which such practices were routinized and expanded was one of perpetual regime crisis and insecurity (Smith, 2017: 183). Immediately after 1949, the CCP faced armed resistance in China’s southwest, the threat of a hostile Nationalist government on Taiwan, and war with the United States in Korea. To overcome the challenges of weak internal governance, Mao’s internal security forces launched the 1950–1951 Suppress Counterrevolutionaries Campaign, which resulted in approximately 2,620,000 arrests and 712,000 executions. Like violent land reform in the countryside, the Suppress Counterrevolutionaries Campaign marked the start of continuous political mobilization lasting until Mao’s death in 1976 – at least 60 nationwide campaigns in all – which extended CCP power, struck fear into enemies, and changed norms and beliefs. Cultural policy and thought reform came to the fore again by the mid-1950s amid the Anti-Hu Feng Campaign, which targeted intellectual critics, and subsequent AntiRightist Campaign, during which 1.1  million people were branded “rightist” opponents of Mao’s policies. Labor reeducation increased nearly 13 times between 1957 and 1960, marking the culmination of the CCP’s effort to establish Mao Zedong Thought as a universally valid truth (see Schram, 1969). Competing values systems, such as organized religion, were co-opted and marginalized, with churches destroyed and other forms of worship driven underground (Wang, 2015). Maoism thus aspired to domination of the psychological environment as well as over individual behavior and was grounded in honed techniques of manipulation: confession of guilt for thoughts as well as actions, followed by CCP-led reeducation and remaking 95

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through collective study, mobilization, and the search for internal enemies both within society and the self. Mao’s leadership encountered perhaps its most serious ideological challenge in 1956, when Mao Zedong Thought was removed from the CCP Party Constitution during the Eighth Party Congress, and new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s “Report on the Personality Cult and Its Consequences” (the “Secret Speech”), delivered at the CPSU Twentieth Congress on February 25, 1956, as a repudiation of destructive tendencies within Stalinism, seemed to place the Maoist PRC on the outside of developments within the socialist camp. The Mao cult and Maoist dogmatism were criticized during the short-lived Hundred Flowers Campaign, which created an opening for dissenters to speak, leading Mao to strike back and attempt to seize initiative by launching the Great Leap Forward Campaign to transform China’s economy while seeking a developmental path separate from that of the USSR. In 1958, Mao also endorsed his own personality cult at a CCP Politburo meeting held in Chengdu, sanctioning the worship of “correct things”: Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Mao’s charismatic domination over society and the party itself was additionally upheld from below by provincial leaders for whom Mao’s patronage represented a pathway to promotion. When Peng Dehuai stepped forward to criticize the Great Leap Forward in 1959, from which 2.5 million people died for political reasons alone (Smith, 2017: 186), his ensuing political banishment further allowed Mao to regain control of the People’s Liberation Army through the support of state vice-premier and People’s Liberation Army marshal and war hero Lin Biao. Mao’s weighing in on the topic of his own personality cult in 1958 marked a turning point in China’s post-1949 politics. Mao again began to emphasize the correctness of his distinctive political vision against the opposition of critics, shifting the source of charisma and mass followership back away from the “bureaucratized” cult promoted by the CCP (with its parallels to the Stalin cult) and back toward himself (Cheek, 1997: 3, 202–203). As a result, the CCP began to undergo an internal schism, with new political actors such as Lin Biao and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, stepping in through the rift between charismatic and bureaucratic authority that Mao had created.

The cultural revolution Mao’s charismatic leadership survived the decade of the 1950s due in part to the role of the People’s Liberation Army following the purge of Peng Dehuai. The succeeding defense minister Lin Biao brought back group study of Mao Zedong Thought in a manner reminiscent of Yan’an, along with introducing other formalized rituals of Mao worship, focusing in particular on the “little red book” of Mao’s quotations. Increasingly during the 1960s, this Maoist revival spread into the media with the support of loyalists such as Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, as well as Kang Sheng and Shanghai party head Ke Qingshi. Positive popular responses were driven by a mix of peer pressure, heightened emotional experience, and the threat of potential punishment (Leese, 2011: 100), as members of society were taught to emulate Mao’s “good soldiers,” such as the widely circulated figure of Lei Feng. From a functional perspective, the revived Mao cult was both a reflection of Mao’s attempt to reassert supreme authority within the fracturing CCP and a means of ideologically addressing rifts between party and population: large-scale resistance along the western border of Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang (c. 1959–1962), the revival of religious “illegal activity” (c. 1963–1970 [see Patterson, 1974: 26]), and a lack of revolutionary consciousness among younger generations. Mao’s personal radicalization was also driven by the split between the PRC and the USSR, as well as a quixotic and destructive effort to renew class struggle and again deal with the specter of internal enemies. 96

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The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution emerged from this effort of Mao and his supporters to transform the whole of society into a “great school of Mao Zedong Thought” in emulation of the PLA. Mao was portrayed religiously in art as “red, bright, and shining” like the sun. Public struggle and criticism of disbelievers reappeared during the Socialist Education Movement, then took more widespread and extreme forms as Mao personally urged supporters to “bombard the headquarters” in August 1966. Mass receptions – eight in total – spread the image of Mao surrounded by fanatical, ardent followers. However, Maoists within the CCP could not control the process of mass participation in the Cultural Revolution or the actions of youthful “red guards” who joined the ongoing intraparty struggle between Mao and Liu Shaoqi, resulting in the latter’s imprisonment and, ultimately, death (Dittmer, 1974). Those labeled deviants were persecuted and destroyed rather than reintegrated (Eggli and Hasmath, 2016: 5–8). The rebirth of the cult of the state, as embodied by Mao, thus proved dangerous and unpredictable. Charisma generated social action, but Mao could not control it (Wang, 1995). Though the behavior of red guards and others was rational as well as belief-based, those who joined the Cultural Revolution pursued different interests based on divisions already existing within society, resulting in intensified factionalism and extensive conflict in the absence of a unified and effective central authority. Just as Mao’s struggle to reassert the power of his charisma over the bureaucratic forms of the CCP had created a power struggle at the top of the political pyramid, so too did the GPCR’s Maoist revival energize participants to involve themselves directly in class struggle, and thus to escape the bounds of tightly strictured political life and social convention. As a moment of anarchical civil strife, the Cultural Revolution was short-lived. There was little meaningful resistance to Mao’s leadership, as public security decrees issued in 1967 included the provision that anyone who attacked Mao or Lin Biao would be labeled an “active counterrevolutionary” (Wang, 1995: 24). Less than a year after the call to attack enemies within the CCP center, Mao began to quiet the Cultural Revolution with a directive to “trust the majority of the cadres and the masses.” Though this message was not immediately heard, and some conflict continued, the charismatic movement again settled on a more stable political form around Mao and the surviving members of the CCP elite. Beginning in 1967, the Mao cult took on yet another more stable form: the appearance of Mao status, halls of worship, revolutionary operas, and the ritual display of Mao’s image, calligraphy, and words (Dutton, 2004; Yang, 2014: 70). By the end of 1968 red guard organizations were effectively disbanded. The Cultural Revolution delivered what had not existed in any decade prior: a political religion which penetrated down to the level of the family and nearly every mass organization, taking the form of collective study of Mao Zedong Thought along with singing, rallies, and other organized ritual behavior. Some of these practices clearly harkened back to traditional ancestral cults and proscribed “superstition” and folk beliefs (Landsberger, 2002). However, control over the propaganda apparatus and centralized state penetration down to the level of the family unit were largely restored (Liu, 1971: xxi–xxv). Mao’s charismatic leadership and his personal efforts to preserve it birthed a new political culture in which Mao Zedong became almost synonymous with the CCP and its power. Mao’s image was omnipresent through the CCP’s well-developed propaganda system, while competing systems of belief were driven even more permanently underground. In 1969, a new CCP Constitution was drafted which repudiated collective leadership. During 1970–1971, the study of Marxism returned as a prelude to gradually returning the PRC to a more pragmatic path of development; though Lin Biao died in the midst of an alleged coup attempt on September 13, 1971, the military and public security forces provided an orderly base upon which the rest of government could be rebuilt. As in previous periods, however, the reassertion of Mao’s 97

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charismatic leadership was accompanied by successive waves of mass campaigns and violence, as represented by the 1968–1969 Cleanse Class Ranks Movement and 1970–1971 One Hit, Three Antis Movement. In the countryside alone, approximately 27 million people were interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned as military and political organs restored order (Smith, 2017: 188). Globally, the association of Maoism with violent release of social energies further inspired local “third world” movements to pursue radical anti-state agendas (see Cook, 2014).

Conclusion and future pathways The fact that charismatic leadership in China appears to be making a return will give researchers ample evidence to consider whether the Maoist legacy is one of anti-capitalist critique or mature totalitarian political form. In 2009, Mao’s picture again appeared as part of PRC National Day festivities (Bo, 2015). Bo Xilai, CCP leader of the mega-city of Chongqing, fused neo-Maoist iconography with a stinging anti-corruption campaign to win nationwide popular support from neo-Maoists, the New Left, and ordinary people as a viable option to status quo politics (Garnaut, 2012); Bo’s carefully engineered fall in 2012, along with that of his subordinates, seemed to represent a tacit admission by the rest of the CCP that Bo’s Mao-inspired charismatic leadership style represented a direct challenge to the authority of new party secretary Xi Jinping. Within a year, however, Xi also made sure to publicly align his leadership with Mao, with the CCP Central Committee issuing an April 22, 2013 communiqué against “historical nihilism” which rejected the disparagement of any prior revolutionary precursors and leaders, including the portrayal of CCP history as one of “mistakes.” Additional consolidation of CCP power under Xi has further triggered Western anxieties over the possibility of a renewed Maostyle personality cult (Flew and Yin, 2017: 2–3), given further fuel by the apparent return of anti-Western ideology to a prominent place in the CCP’s political vision, as well as Xi’s stifling and self-promoting manipulation of media and the internet. This state-driven veneration was in full visible swing in 2016, coinciding with Xi’s February 19 inspection visit to state media organs CCTV, Xinhua, and the People’s Daily. Like Bo’s “Chongqing model,” the Xi-centered leadership of the CCP relies on personal charisma generated by the image of Xi as a confident and iron-fisted enemy of corruption, as well as the claim that “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristic for a New Era” represents a visionary alternative to Western development and international order. Given the interdependent relationship between charismatic leadership and organized violence throughout China’s history, other future directions for research might include comparison between Maoism and other political movements and models, such as the praetorian state. There is now so much careful documentation of the Mao cult and Maoism’s contemporary resonance that the charismatic leadership approach may be threatening to close off other important paradigms for explaining the creation and exercise of political power. Was the Maoist movement truly exceptional in this regard? Can it reasonably be compared to other interwar charismatictotalitarian political movements of the 20th century? Is there anything that further distinguishes Maoism from more widely discussed instances of political religion? Another challenge thus facing history and other disciplines is thus the question of how to integrate China into other comparative and synthetic frameworks. Likewise, the apparent reappearance of Maoist charismatic leadership in technologically updated guise under Xi Jinping offers the opportunity to reach broader conclusions about how the political form of the personality cult can continue to thrive within an era of dispersed media networks. Whether Xiism represents an updating of Maoism, reflection of a contemporary “populist” moment in global politics, or both is another

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question of clear relevance to the analysis of charismatic leadership in the current and likely future setting.

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Lifton, Robert J. 1969 [1961]. Thought Reform and the Psychology Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. New York: W. W. Norton. Liu, Alan P. L. 1971. Communication and National Integration in Communist China. Berkeley: University of California Press. MacFarquhar, Roderick and Michael Schoenhals. 2006. Mao’s Last Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mao, Zedong. 1930. Report from Xunwu, trans. Roger R. Thompson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Meisner, Maurice. 1982. Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism: Eight Essays. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mitter, Rana. 2008. “Maoism in the Cultural Revolution: A Political Religion?.” In The Sacred in TwentiethCentury Politics: Essays in Honour of Professor Stanley G. Paine, ed. Roger Griffin, Robert Mallett and John Tortorice, 143–165. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pantsov, Alexander V. and Steven I. Levine. 2007. Mao: The Real Story. New York: Simon & Schuster. Patterson, George. 1974. “Mao, Marxism, and Christianity.” Religion in Communist Lands 2, nos. 4–5: 20–29. Perry, Elizabeth J. 2002. “Moving the Masses: Emotion Work in the Chinese Revolution.” Mobilization: An International Journal 7, no. 2: 111–128. Perry, Elizabeth J. 2012. Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Prophet, Ellen. 2016. “Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements.” In The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, vol. 2, ed. James R. Lewis and Inga B. Tøllefsen, 36–49. New York: Oxford University Press. Schram, Stuart R. 1967. “Mao Tse-Tung as a Charismatic Leader.” Asian Survey 7, no. 6: 383–388. Schram, Stuart R. 1969. The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung. New York: Praeger. Schurmann, Franz. 1968. Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Smith, S. A. 2017. “Rethinking the History of Maoist China.” In A Companion to Chinese History, ed. Michael Szonyi, 179–190. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Teiwes, Frederick and Warren Sun. 1995. “From a Leninist to a Charismatic Party: The CCP’s Changing Leadership, 1937–1945.” In New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution, ed. Tony Saich and Hans van de Ven, 339–387. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Tokuda, Noriyuki. 1971. “Yenan Rectification Movement: Mao Tse-Tung’s Big Push Toward Charismatic Leadership in 1941–1942.” The Developing Economies 9, no. 1: 83–99. Walder, Andrew G. 2015. China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wang, Shaoguang. 1995. Failure of Charisma: The Cultural Revolution in Wuhan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wang, Xiaoxuan. 2015. “The Dilemma of Implementation: The State and Religion in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1990.” In Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism, ed. Jeremy Brown and Matthew D. Johnson, 259–278. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weber, Max. 1994. Sociological Writings, ed. Wolf Heydebrand. New York: Continuum. White, Lynn T., III. 1989. Politics of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China’s Cultural Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Willner, Ann Ruth and Dorothy Willner. 1970. “The Rise and Role of Charismatic Leaders.” In Politics and Society: Studies in Comparative Sociology, ed. Eric A. Nordlinger, 225–235. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Yang, Guobin. 2014. “Mao Quotations in Factional Battles and Their Afterlives: Episodes from Chongqing.” In Mao’s Little Red Book: A  Global History, ed. Alexander C. Cook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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9 Charismatic leadership in African politics Sishuwa Sishuwa

Introduction The concept of charisma entered the lexicon of the social sciences more than a century ago and is credited to German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber considered charismatic authority as one of the three ideal types of authority, the other two being traditional and legal-rational authority (Epley, 2015). The term charisma often refers to an extraordinary quality of a leader and a person’s ability to create emotional dominance over a mass of people. Weber defines charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or exceptional powers or qualities” (quoted in Jentges, 2014: 5). In its pure form, charisma is associated with heroic deeds, extraordinary courage, and performance of miracles or possession of special powers of mind or oratory. Charismatic leadership is not only about what a leader embodies, but also what he is perceived to be. In other words, charismatic authority rests on followers’ belief that a charismatic leader possesses extraordinary powers or qualities that allow him or her to overcome existential crises or deliver on his vision (Schweitzer, 1974; Breuilly, 2011). In this chapter, I take a broad definition of charisma to cover both individual or personal qualities and the role of followers who perceive the leader as possessing extraordinary qualities. The concept of charisma originates from Weber’s study of religion and features prominently in the study of fundamentalist protestant Christianity (Cohen, 1972; Humeira and Lehmann, 2012). In recent years, however, it has also found currency in sociological and political analysis (Wolpe, 1968). There are, for instance, a considerable debate on the efficacy of charismatic leadership to nation building and a growing literature that recognizes charisma as an essential explanation for the development of authoritarian rule (Bretton, 1967; Apter, 1968; Iijma, 1998; Breuilly, 2011). In the context of developing countries, charismatic leadership emerged in conditions of distress or during times of crisis, dislocation, or struggle for liberation from colonial rule. In Africa, we can identify two phases in the emergence of charismatic leadership. The first phase involves the leaders who led the struggle against colonial rule, inspired by a vision for a better future. The second phase, often a reaction to the governance deficits created by first generation of leaders, is a leadership opposed to one-party, one-man, and 101

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military dictatorships. Both sets of leaders emerged under conditions of extreme repression and demonstrated extraordinary courage to challenge an entrenched system, were inspirational to their followers, and were endowed with exceptional oratorical skills, which emotionally connected them with their supporters. While charismatic leadership plays an important role in the short-to-medium term in mobilizing the masses for a particular cause, it tends to be transitory and soon loses its legitimacy. Failure to meet popular expectations and, in particular, the mutation of charismatic leaders into personality cults or unaccountable dictators have led to mass disillusionment resulting, in some cases, in their removal from office (Osaghae, 2010; Breuilly, 2011; Rotberg, 2012). There is nothing novel in the assumption that social and political processes can be explained in terms of the qualities and actions of individual “heroes” or charismatic figures. However, the concept of charisma has serious limitations when applied to African politics. Derived as it is from the idea of “religious devotion,” with very few exceptions (Hoffmann, 2009) charismatic leaders rarely institute transformative politics nor contribute to economic development of their countries. This chapter discusses the rise of charismatic leadership in Africa and contrasts the two phases of charismatic leadership and their influence on politics in postcolonial Africa. Following the introduction, section two reviews the literature on charisma and its relevance to explaining African politics. The third section discusses the phases of charismatic leadership in Africa, its relevance to democracy, and lessons for postcolonial Africa. The final section concludes the chapter.

Charisma and politics in Africa While there is considerable debate in the literature concerning the meaning of charisma or charismatic leadership, there is a general consensus that the concept refers to unique or exceptional qualities that make an individual stand out in society. Jentges (2014) observes that charisma refers to “an extraordinary quality of a leader and a person’s ability to create emotional dominance over masses of people.” According to Weber, followers accept the charismatic leader because they perceive the leader as possessing a certain extraordinary “gift.” The “gift” of charisma, while seldom specified, includes attributes such as courage, oratorical skills, and strong convictions toward an ideal. The literature on charisma attributes four personal characteristics to charismatic leaders: (1) high levels of self-confidence, (2) dominance, (3) strong convictions, and (4) inspirational leadership (Bretton, 1967; Dow, 1969; Schweitzer, 1974; Iijma, 1998). When the possession of these qualities exceeds what is normal in society, the individual is considered extraordinary, superhuman, or even exceptional. However, as Rotberg (2012) has argued, charisma can only be best understood as highly individualized qualities that are organically linked to followers. In other words, charisma is relational. This means that for a charismatic leader to flourish, he or she needs followers who have an emotional attachment to the charismatic figure. Rotberg (2012: 419) has observed that the “magnetism, fame, heroism or celebrity status” that a charismatic figure imposes on society can be both misleading and confusing. In this case, the adulation of a leader is not necessarily indicative of charisma, nor is popular appeal. It is only when charismatic leaders work together with their followers that they can achieve transformative goals. As argued by Rotberg (2012: 419–420): [C]harisma is best understood as the inspirational component of the bond between leaders and their political or organisational followers that allows them to act as if they are genuinely inspired to maximise what they presume or are led to believe are their own interests. 102

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According to Weber (1978), followers of charismatic leaders tend to show complete personal devotion to them or their authority based on the leader’s convictions, courage, or idealized vision of the future. This “complete devotion” has also led followers to assign messianic or savior status to charismatic leaders. Thus, it is not uncommon for founding leaders of national liberation or independence movements to be labeled messiahs or God-given leaders. The first generation of African nationalist leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) of Ghana and Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) of Tanzania, were revered figures, assigned larger-than-life status as the “saviors” of their countries from colonial rule (Apter, 1968; Breuilly, 2011). Bretton (1967) makes the point that Nkrumah was a Christ-like figure to which Ghanaians looked for redemption. In Zambia, at the height of the one-party state, Kenneth Kaunda was likened to God on earth. There was, for example, a common dictum among members of the governing United National Independence Party (UNIP) that “In heaven, it is God in charge; on earth, it is Kaunda.” In this sense, charisma rests not so much in the relevant individual’s recognition of the qualities that others find exceptional but “in the perceivers of [that] charisma that is, in the society, rather than in the personality of the object of their adulation” (Kershaw, 1998: xiii). Charisma, however, tends to be transitory and is not sustainable in the long term. Weber (1978:143) contended that charismatic authority was “inherently unstable,” as it tends to disappear with the downfall or death of a charismatic leader or becomes routinized and institutionalized into legal-rational or traditional rule. He maintained that it was virtually impossible to sustain charismatic authority. Osaghae (2010: 407–408) posits that charismatic leadership is predicated on the delivery of promised public goods. Failure to meet popular expectations, and particularly when charismatic legitimation develops into personality cults and unaccountable authoritarian rule, leads to loss of legitimacy and followership. As argued by Jentges (2014: 8) “[W]hen performance which re-invigorates a leader as charismatic becomes rare and when claims by followers asserting their leaders’ charisma become less frequent, charisma disappears and is lost.” In order to sustain charismatic authority, some leaders have tried to institutionalize it in government. This has been achieved through three methods  – development of personalized ideologies, creation of one-party states, and adoption of populist policies. In Africa, several leaders who were considered charismatic during the struggle for national independence devised in office personalized ideologies designed to sustain their popularity with the masses. Davidson (1994: 29) has described these beliefs as “political religions.” They include Nkrumaism in Ghana, Ujamaa in Tanzania, and Kaundaism (or Humanism) in Zambia, among others. These were ideologies of legitimation that tried to emphasize the indispensability of the founding leader and prescribed an idealized social system that would address social and economic problems. The second method aimed to transform personal charisma into what Weber described as the “charisma of office.” Often, this involved the creation of one-party states in which the leader and the party were perceived as one and the same thing. Through one-party states, charismatic leaders institutionalized their rule and routinized it in government. In countries such as Zambia and Tanzania, the sole ruling party was also the government. The famous formulation was “the party and its government,” where the party and government were inseparable both in theory and in practice, and the charismatic leader was the leader of both. Criticism of the party or government was perceived as criticism of the leader. Third, charismatic leaders adopted populist policies aimed at (1) alleviating poverty, hunger, and unemployment, and (2) providing universal education and health care. These populist policies were part of the struggle for independence or were used to delegitimize incumbents for their failure to deliver on their promises. In Nigeria, Kenya, and Malawi, leaders of the independence movement, such as Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904–1996), Jomo Kenyatta (1898–1971), and Kamuzu 103

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Banda (1898–1997), respectively, adopted capitalist policies and actively transferred personal charisma to charisma of office (Sender and Smith, 1986). In Mozambique, charismatic Samora Machel (1933–1986) transferred his personal charisma to the propagation of Marxist socialism as a way of delivering on people’s expectations (Wuyts, 1989; Serapicio, 2011). Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) in Zimbabwe attempted to establish a socialist system based on collectivization of agriculture. Leopold Senghor (1906–2001) of Senegal, Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) of Tanzania, and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda (1924–) propagated variants of African socialism, widely seen as based on the creation of an egalitarian society (Hatch, 1976; Akyeampong, 2017). There are several examples elsewhere where charismatic leaders have successfully transformed their personal charisma into charisma of office. Some of the examples include Mao Zedong in China and Fidel Castro in Cuba, who were able to sustain their personal charisma through the adoption of transformative policies for their parties and government. The achievements of their governments were not always attributed to them personally but to the collective leadership of their ruling parties and government. But in contrast, charisma of office was a reflection of personal charisma as the leader and the institutions (state and party) tended to intertwine. Arguably, the leader personified the party, and its policies were also considered to reflect the leader’s own thinking as opposed to a collective ambition or aspirations of party members and leaders. The most recent theorizing on charisma has tended to point to its limitations as a legitimating political force (Osaghae, 2010; Rotberg, 2012; Jentges, 2014). Charisma, with its emphasis on individual qualities, has potential to create personality cults. Charismatic leaders have often ended up being dictators, as they come to love the reverence and adulation they receive from their supporters and followers. They become intolerant to dissent and criticism and to competitors from within their ranks. Early charismatic leaders, from Nkrumah in Ghana and Nyerere in Tanzania to Kaunda in Zambia, ruthlessly crushed opposition to their rule and established oneparty states (Osaghae, 2010; Sishuwa, 2019). Sylla and Goldhammer (1982) observe that the main challenge confronting a charismatic leader is succession. The duo notes that “to speak of a mode of succession is really to speak of a mode of legitimation of power, for any mode of succession necessarily corresponds to some mode of legitimation” (Sylla and Goldhammer, 1982: 11). They suggest that democratization provides an institutional framework for the “routinization” of charisma, which involves the institutionalization of rule through legal-rational means in the party, public policies, and laws. The imposition of one-party states across several African countries in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s represented the attempt by the continent’s charismatic figures to manage succession wrangles within nationalist parties and perpetuate their stay in power.

Charismatic leadership in Africa: past and present A period of social upheaval or oppression that causes distress and dissatisfaction among a segment of the population is generally acknowledged as the typical environment within which a charismatic leader will arise (Friedland, 1964; Willner and Willner, 1965). Colonialism developed a repressive system that was highly resistant to change. The reaction by the majority of subject people to the repression and subjugation was for generations dominated by fear (Mamdani, 1996). So the solutions devised by ordinary individuals for their ultimate concerns in life were usually conservative, not aimed at dismantling the system. Charismatic leaders, on the other hand, even in the face of threats of repression and imprisonment, offered answers to the problem confronting the people. Because their problems turned out to be widespread, the charismatic leaders’ individual solutions to the people’s ultimate concerns met the standards of many others in the same society. This was especially the case when the charismatic leaders offered 104

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radical solutions to colonialism, such as immediate self-government or independence. Their strong convictions of the attainability of their vision of an alternative society inspired multitudes of people to follow and support them, and they were perceived as extraordinary individuals. Contradictions and eventual breakdown of the colonial system was precisely the appropriate sociohistorical moment that was necessary for charismatic leaders to emerge. Several studies of charisma (Friedland, 1964; Willner and Willner, 1965; Apter, 1968) have been carried out within the context of the breakdown of authority in the latter years of the colonial system. It is debatable whether charismatic leaders played a role in bringing an end to colonialism or whether colonialism collapsed on account of internal contradictions at home (Young, 2001; Babou, 2010). However, what is clear is that charismatic leaders were important catalysts in hastening the granting of political independence. In Africa, conditions of oppression and subjugation of subject peoples over decades provided the impetus for nationalism. Some of those who championed an end to colonial rule and demanded political independence were considered to possess extraordinary personal qualities of strong convictions to an ideal, courage, self-sacrifice, and eloquence (Adamolekun, 1985; Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997; Brecher, 2016; Cabbuag, 2016). They were prepared to go to prison to face the colonial repressive security forces in the pursuit of their goals. The courage with which they held their convictions in the face of repressive regimes earned them messianic or “savior” status and inspired many in their societies to follow them (Breuilly, 2011; Bryman et al., 2011). Two generations of charismatic leaders can be identified in Africa. The first comprised charismatic leaders who fought colonial rule and prosecuted the struggle for national independence and political freedom generally. The second generation of charismatic leaders consisted of those who emerged in the wake of the failure of the first generation of leaders to deliver on the promise of independence, and in the wake of autocratic rule and the deterioration in living conditions occasioned by economic mismanagement. The main distinction between the first generation of charismatic leaders and the second was on the possession of a transformative vision (Strange and Mumford, 2002). While the first generation of charismatic leaders emerged from crises occasioned by colonial rule and were inspired by a desire to bring about social and political transformation, this was not the case with the second generation of charismatic figures. The first generation of charismatic leaders were often anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and against forms of external domination. Its luminaries included Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah; Senegal’s Leopold Senghor; Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere; Congo’s Patrice Lumumba; and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda. These leaders were revered by many in their countries, pulled massive crowds to their pre-independence rallies, and generated emotional followership. There were at least four characteristic features that the first generation of charismatic leaders had in common. These were: (1) strong personal magnetism and dominant leadership style, (2) use of religious, especially Christian, symbolism in their political speeches, (3) highly idealistic vision of a future society and emphasis on attainment of high goals, and (4) personalized struggle for national emancipation. The application of these qualities and features helped delegitimize colonial rule and arguably accelerated a decolonization process that might otherwise have taken decades to one measured in years.

The gift of the gab The use of strong oratorical skills was a common feature of almost all charismatic leaders. Tiger (1964) notes that Nkrumah was a charismatic leader whose oratorical and organizational abilities shot him to political prominence. In Tanzania, Nyerere’s charisma was partly explained by 105

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his exceptional eloquence and persuasiveness, which earned him the revered title of Mwalimu (meaning teacher in Ki-Swahili). Specifically, Bienen (1967) describes Nyerere as a charismatic leader given his powerful use of words. Others in different degrees moved multitudes of people to join the struggle against colonial rule. But the power to move the masses was not the only quality that these charismatic figures possessed; they also had a magnetic and dominant personality. When they spoke, crowds got excited into frenzy akin to spirit possession (Aberbach, 1996). Others have even suggested that these leaders commanded a reverence similar to that given to prophets or spiritual leaders (Apter, 1968; Iijma, 1998). They embodied popular aspirations and possessed the language to articulate them to the masses. From Nkrumah to Kaunda, the people viewed these nationalist leaders as possessing extraordinary qualities, which made them almost superhuman.

The messiah The use of religious symbolism was evident in all the early charismatic leaders. Nkrumah persuaded his compatriots to seek first the political kingdom and the economic freedom would follow (Apter, 1968; Mulfils, 1977). Their speeches often took the form of sermons, where they talked of political freedom in terms of salvation and presented themselves as the messianic figures talked about in religious texts, such as the Bible. They cited biblical texts that justified and rationalized their struggle for freedom and independence. Iijma (1998) illustrates how Nkrumah effectively utilized Christian symbols to stamp his charismatic authority on the people as the one chosen by God. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda likened himself to a religious leader and ensured that public meetings started with prayer. Kaunda, with a deep-rooted Christian background, also regularly wept at public rallies and addresses when emphasizing the cruelties of colonial rule and, in doing so, linked himself to many Zambians, most of whom were Christian. So in their public pronouncements these nationalist leaders used Christian symbols as a way of generating the messianic syndrome, which was essential in motivating many people in their societies to participate in the nationalist struggle. The early African charismatic leaders, such Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda, used the Christian religion to mobilize the masses and present themselves as prophets who predicted the end of colonial oppression and the messiah the people were waiting for (Sylla and Goldhammer, 1982; Aberbach, 1996; Iijma, 1998). The people responded by referring to them as God-given leaders who had come to offer them redemption from colonial subjugation (Bretton, 1967). Their most enduring influence on the collective psyche of the colonized people was the hope they created that they would succeed in ending colonialism and establishing a system in which political freedom would culminate in the enjoyment of political, economic, and social rights.

Imagining a utopian society The early generation of Africa’s charismatic leaders provided an idealized vision of a future society. They professed an ability to create a society free of oppression in which African dignity would be restored. They romanticized independence to a level where people were convinced that colonial oppression would be replaced by an egalitarian society free of exploitation, where citizens would enjoy equal opportunities. Leading figures of this cohort, such as Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghour, and Kaunda went on to articulate political philosophies embodying these visions of an alternative society. While most of these visions were framed in socialist imaginations, the visions of others, such as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, were based on notions of freedom where individualism and enterprise would be promoted. 106

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They argued, for example, that Africans would be able to engage in economic activities that were hitherto an exclusive preserve of white European settlers (Sender and Smith, 1986). A common feature of the utopian futures that the charismatic African leaders envisaged was the lack of detail about their political policies and the structural factors underlying economic inequality in their societies. As Larmer (2013: 2) has argued, colonists were criticized not because of identified weaknesses in their policies but because they did not have the nation’s interests at heart: African nationalist campaigning sought to portray colonial administration not only as dysfunctional and unpopular, but also to depict colonial officials as inherently unable to reflect the wishes of African people. Whereas previous generations of moderate African leaders, both chiefly authorities and educated elites, had appealed to the colonial administration’s better nature and ability to intervene to improve people’s lives, late-colonial nationalists asserted that foreigners were incapable of understanding African grievances, which could only be effectively addressed by an authentic government of indigenous rulers. This continued right up to the moment of independence and was not incompatible with the fact that nationalist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Kenneth Kaunda took up senior positions within late colonial administrations, operating as ministers and working alongside colonial civil servants. All this was possible because many nationalist parties existed primarily as electioneering vehicles, rather than as institutions capable of debating and agreeing policies. Leaders were frequently not held to account for the positions they adopted and adapted for particular purposes. The lack of national media and the limited penetration of literacy in English or French meant that both local and national leaders were able to tailor their electoral message for mostly rural constituencies, utilising local idioms and discourses and making locally specific promises, thereby raising expectations of rapid post-independence development that were un-costed and, in retrospect, unrealistic. Such promises were in my view vital to the success of nationalist parties in mobilising popular support, made at electoral rallies held in the 1950s and early 1960s, which raised expectations of socio-economic change and linked these to the prospect of national independence. The sources of many of the thwarted expectations of independence in several African countries, and the populist figures that emerged in the wake of independence, are to be found in the latecolonial era. A particular source is the unrealistic promises that were made by the charismatic nationalists during the struggle for independence.

The personal embodiment of their nation-states The final characteristic feature of early charismatic leaders in Africa is to be found in the personalization of the struggle for political emancipation. Because of their dominance, these leaders personalized the struggle. They appropriated personal credit for the attainment of independence, and there was a perception that, without them, independence would never have been attained. For example, Nkrumah declared that: “This nation is my creation. If I should die, there would be chaos” (Carter, 1960: 134). In Senegal, Leopold Senghor argued that the President was the personification of God. In other words, the masses elected God through the people (Meredith, 2005: 165). This discourse, which was so dominant in immediate postcolonial Africa, was predicated on two premises. The first was that the attainment of independence was as a result of personal sacrifice and leadership of the charismatic leader. The second was 107

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that the charismatic leader, without whom the newly independent state would not survive, was indispensable. If anything, this latter argument tended to equate the nation with the leader and the ruling party as an embodiment of the leader. It was against this background that the early charismatic leaders were later to create one-party rule (Meredith, 1984; Meredith, 2005). In addition to the characteristic features outlined earlier, some of the early charismatic leaders also possessed high moral and personal integrity. They were exemplary in their leadership and resisted temptations to use their positions for personal gain. Hatch (1976), for example, notes that Kaunda and Nyerere possessed extraordinary integrity and personal moral discipline that were unusual on the continent at the time. On Kaunda, Greg Mills (2011: 173) writes that he was “a man of great integrity and parsimony in his economic dealings and policies, and generally did not exhibit self-interest.” The second generation of charismatic leaders was more externally oriented and lacked genuine vision for economic transformation. This latter leadership was largely created by elites within their societies in conjunction with international institutions or actors. Many of the successor African leaders who have assumed the reputation of charismatic figures were simply a product of an elite-constructed political strategy to install a messiah-like figure to fit a larger cultural narrative that “history is made of great men” (Jentges, 2014: 8). This latter set of charismatic leaders often emerged following periods of authoritarian rule and general deterioration in economic conditions. With the exception of Jerry Rawlings in Ghana and Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, who came to power through military takeover, most charismatic leaders, who graced the political stage after the founding leaders, were propelled to power by the special circumstances of authoritarian rule and the perniciousness of one-party states. In contrast to postcolonial scholarship that has devoted much time to the study of the charisma of African leaders who led their countries to independence and their efforts to establish viable and stable nation-states, there has been a dearth of literature on the leadership styles and attributes of those who replaced them. Much work was devoted to circumstances that led to military takeovers in the immediate post-independence period and the nature of military rule in those countries where this phenomenon was prevalent. But after the reconfiguration of the world system following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s, almost all countries in Africa adopted multiparty systems. The adoption of multiparty democracy and economic liberalization came as part of the conditionality of multilateral organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Importantly, some members of the elite emerged to champion the return of their countries to multiparty democracy from either military rule or one-party dictatorship. A few of those who led pro-democracy movements possessed charismatic qualities. Charismatic leaders who emerged leading a pro-democracy movement, or what Huntington (1994) has referred to as the “third wave” of democracy on the continent, include Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, and Morgan Tsvangarai of Zimbabwe. It is plausible to argue that the second generation of charismatic leaders in Africa arose out of the failure by the first cohort to bring prosperity or even economic gains to the large majority of the populations, but the general paucity of charismatic leaders in this period also reflects the institutionalization of politics across much of the continent since the 1990s (Sishuwa, 2020b). There are at least three characteristic features common to these latter African leaders. These include extraordinary oratorical skills; courage to challenge authoritarian one-party, one-man rule; and a reformist agenda that lacked long-term transformative visions for their countries. In much of Africa, the pro-democracy movement was a mass movement that was inspired by donor requirement of developing countries to liberalize their political and economic spaces. While poor economic conditions of the people and the need to end authoritarian rule rank 108

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among the leading motive forces for pro-democracy movements, the elite who led the campaign often had short-term goals – access to state power to fulfill short-term economic gains. Apart from Jerry Rawlings and Thomas Sankara, who embarked on a transformative vision of their countries after coming to power, most of the charismatic leaders who emerged after the collapse of military and one-party rule were strong only on rhetoric but weak on action. Late Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, emerged from the country’s labor movement to oppose Mugabe’s personal rule. He was a fearless champion of political freedom and condemned repression and economic decline. Tsvangarai was a charismatic leader who took personal risks and sacrificed himself to lead the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in a country not accustomed to criticism and political opposition. He is widely believed to have won Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential elections and was seen as having been robbed of victory in the 2008 elections, which he had won in the first round. However, like most charismatic leaders who emerged after the departure of the nationalist leaders, and despite his charisma, Tsvangarai lacked a transformative vision and was a reformist leader (Hudleston, 2005; Nyanda, 2017). In Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo was the first democratically elected leader (in free and fair elections) after the death of founding leader, Houphouet-Boigny (Tadjo, 2011). Gbagbo had been a critic of the one-party state and had organized strikes and student demonstrations during the early 1980s. Gbagbo was arrested several times for dissident activity. After a brief period in exile, he returned home in 1988 following the return of multiparty democracy and immediately assumed the leadership of the Ivorian Popular Front. Gbagbo used his charisma, especially his eloquence, to charm his followers and was elected president after defeating a military ruler, Gen. Robert Guei, who later fled the country. In office, Gbagbo was to face rebellion and civil war due to his style of leadership. He was removed from power in 2011 after refusing to concede defeat to Alassane Ouattara in the elections held in 2010. He was indicted for war crimes and sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) but was recently acquitted by the ICC (CoreyBoulet, 2019). Frederick Chiluba, on the other hand, emerged from the Zambian trade union movement, which he had led continuously for more than 15 years, starting in 1974 soon after President Kaunda declared the country a one-party state (Sishuwa, 2011). Fiery and eloquent, Chiluba’s magnetism was palpable during the subsequent campaign against the one-party state and Kaunda. He had a dominant personality and excited the imagination of thousands of followers with his fearless attack on Kaunda and promises of a better Zambia after UNIP’s ouster. Chiluba defeated Kaunda and UNIP in elections held in October 1991, with an overwhelming majority of almost 75 percent of the national vote. In office, Chiluba creatively used religion to legitimize his rule. For example, when assuming office, he declared Zambia a Christian nation in order to boost his support among evangelical Christians (Clifford, 1998; Phiri, 2003). Chiluba’s charisma gradually faded as his promises of repairing Zambia’s economy proved daunting, and by the time he left office, many commentators referred to his rule as a “lost decade” and the country’s democracy as having regressed (Rakner and Svåsand, 2005; Sishuwa, 2016; 2020a). Like Adolf Hitler in Germany, Chiluba was a creation of an elite-led coalition that, despite his tainted legacy as a labor leader, presented him as a fearless advocate of the workers, the poor, and the underprivileged. This claim proved misplaced following his assumption of presidential office. As Kimenya and Moyo (2011) correctly observe, “Chiluba will be remembered as a champion of democracy, who easily abandoned the principles of good governance to serve his own self interest of amassing power and wealth.” Both Gbagbo and Chiluba were propelled to power based on their personal charisma and strong oratorical skills. But they lacked a transformative vision of their respective societies, they adopted neoliberal economic orthodox policies as a panacea to the poverty and inequalities in 109

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their societies, and they were preoccupied with the acquisition of personal wealth (van Donge, 2008). In Ivory Coast, or Côte d’Ivoire, as it is popularly known, the emergence of Laurent Gbagbo did little to ameliorate the poverty of millions. If anything, among other charges, Gbagbo was accused of embezzlement and armed robbery (Campbell, 2011; Piccoli, 2012). The experience of both the first and second generation of charismatic leaders suggests that the concept of charisma is not useful in postcolonial politics. There are many African charismatic leaders who played significant roles in struggles both for political freedom from colonial rule and for democracy but still led their nations in wrong directions. Africa is replete with examples of colorful and romanticized ideologies ranging from pan-Africanism to negritude, authenticity, humanism, African socialism, and many others in between. However, these “political ideologies” have turned out to be political religions or mere slogans meant to legitimize the leader in power. There are many continuities between the old and the new charismatic leaders. Both, for instance, occupy a central role and epitomize the nation or the struggle. They also encourage the cultivation of personality cults, which promote hero worship and sycophancy. The personalization of power that arises from charismatic leaders promotes unaccountable leadership and has often led to the erosion of democratic ideals. In the era of the dominance of the neoliberal doctrine, the absence of original solutions to Africa’s problems is germane. A reliance on the West for ideological direction and a stamp of approval characterize the current supposedly charismatic leaders on the continent, a development that may be traced to the role that the international financial institutions played in their creation. The politics of old, which hero-worshipped the founder leader and assigned him the status of “Father of the Nation,” has continued with a penchant for intolerance of criticism and organized opposition. Competition for office, especially in political parties, is highly circumscribed, and often the president goes unopposed or is declared sole candidate by design. This is because the syndrome of equating the leader and the party as one has continued. Instances of opponents being blocked from competing for office, suppression of opposition protests, muzzling the media, and limiting democratic space are on the increase and are no different from the era of one-party dictatorship. While certain criticism may be considered as constructive and aimed to build, criticism generally has been misconstrued as unpatriotic, seditious, or even treasonable. Instead, African leaders have tended to place a premium on blind loyalty, as though they are royal dynasties that value their own preservation and power above all else. This unquenchable thirst for personal recognition (hero worship), an enduring legacy of the earlier set of charismatic leaders, has not only imperiled democracy; it has also hindered development in Africa. Instead of cultivating commitment and trust of democratic values and principles, African leaders have demanded loyalty from the people and have almost always sought reelection, sometimes over and above the constitutionally prescribed term limits, even when they have not delivered on their election promises. Elections themselves were routinely rigged, constitutions were tampered with, and oversight institutions were undermined to give the political leaders in power an upper hand (Cheeseman and Klaas, 2018). There have been a few cases where a highly charismatic figure has assumed power and maintained their charisma. With the exception of Nelson Mandela who used his extraordinary personal charisma to unite the racial groups in South Africa following his election to the presidency in 1994, most present-day leaders promote divisive and exclusionary politics, which center on preserving themselves in power. Although his colleagues in government constantly challenged him, Mandela, perhaps Africa’s most prominent charismatic leader since 1990, warmly tolerated dissenting opinions. He was able to do this, unlike other African leaders, because he used his experience of long incarceration that lasted 27 years to reconcile the nation. Mandela had the 110

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moral authority to campaign for racial harmony and came to symbolize freedom and national unity (Southern African History Online [SAHO], 2015). The literature on the advent of charismatic leadership in Africa is characterized by a remarkable focus on charisma as the bond between the leader and his or her followers; the forum for charisma is the mass rally, akin to an evangelical church service. Mandela’s ability to put together a coalition of disparate interest groups demonstrates a distinct use or role of charisma, in postcolonial Africa, in how leaders manage elites, including how they put together and maintain coalitions. Mandela, for example, was not a great public speaker, but many people agree that face-to-face, he was irresistible. In competitive, non-authoritarian African contexts, we tend to think of coalitions as forged through hard-nosed, opportunistic pursuit of self-interest, with elites haggling over the distribution of rents. But perhaps charisma matters within elite politics beyond the individual case of Mandela, a prospect that opens up a rich and potentially revealing area of further study outside the scope of this chapter.

Conclusion and future research This chapter has examined the concept of charisma and its efficacy in late-colonial and postcolonial Africa, the rise and fall of charismatic political leaders on the continent, and the historical conditions under which such figures emerged. The chapter has demonstrated that in 20th century Africa, two broad groups of charismatic figures emerged. The first group comprised nationalist leaders who came to the fore during the era of independence struggles. Many later assumed positions of “Father of the Nation” and saw themselves not simply as an embodiment of their nation-states but also as having a transformative impact over the societies they led. Notable among these were Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Patrice Lumumba (Zaire, present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Samora Machel (Mozambique), and Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe). The second group emerged largely in response to and in the wake of the failure of the first group of charismatic figures and their “nationalist project.” The era of Structural Adjustment Policies saw a dramatic narrowing of political ambitions. The leaders who came to the fore reversed the nationalist project, realigned their societies toward the West, and sought political mobilization and power to enhance their own personal interests and secure material enrichment. Examples of this cohort are Frederick Chiluba in Zambia, Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast), and Jerry Rawlings (Ghana). The chapter has shown that in both instances, the figures emerged in a context of a crisis: the collapse of colonialism, the disintegration of the oneparty state model, and lately, economic collapse. The chapter concludes that charisma and charismatic leadership has had a negative influence on African politics, as such leadership has encouraged the growth of personality cults, personalized and unaccountable leadership, and corruption. The subject of charisma and charismatic authority has received little academic attention from scholars of charisma in African politics. This chapter has discussed charisma’s limitations as a legitimizing force and shown how charismatic leaders, both in the late-colonial and postcolonial periods, end up personalizing power and developing personality cults. There is, however, need for further research on the influences of the economic and international environment on the rise and delegitimization of charismatic leadership in Africa. Future directions of research should also be directed at examining the interaction between (1) economic circumstances and the global political economy, and (2) the dynamics of charismatic leadership, especially as that interaction relates to the glue between leaders and their followers. Another under-studied area of research that has the potential to yield significant insights is the interaction between charisma and the ability of leaders to put together and maintain elite coalitions in competitive and nonauthoritarian African democracies. 111

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A brief overview of populism and charisma Before engaging with charismatic politics, it is important to briefly explain what I mean by populism and by charisma. Following Laclau’s theory (2005) but not his normative stance (Arato 2015), I understand populism as a political logic that aims to rupture existing institutions based on the antagonistic confrontation between the people and the oligarchy. For populism to be effective, a leader  – often charismatic  – becomes the avatar of the people’s liberation. Populists transform democratic rivals into existential enemies and assume that a section of the population is the real “people.” Those who are not included into their restricted definitions are the enemies of the people, the nation, and the leader. When seeking power, populists promised to include those marginalized because of their class and ethnicity. Once in power, the logic of populism leads to struggles against enemies that silence their critical voices in the public sphere and civil society. This chapter does not use charisma from a historicist point of view that relegates it to the sociology of religion of traditional societies. It instead follows Weber’s (1978, 1133) suggestion that “the three basic types of domination cannot be place into a simple evolutionary line: they in fact appear together in the most diverse combinations.” The concept of charisma hence has been used in Latin America to describe caudillo politics of the 19th century and populist politics from the 1930s to the present. Caudillo politics took place at a particular historical period, between the wars of Latin American independence and the 1870s. At that time, the state was weak and large-landowners dominated politics. Scholars argue that caudillo politics was a form of charismatic domination based on violence, the display of masculinity, and on the capacity to redistribute gifts to a loyal group of followers (Wolf and Edward Hansen 1967). Sociologist Gino Germani interpreted caudillo politics as a form of mobilization of the lower classes that demanded political participation. The link between leader and followers was charismatic, and followers “recognized in the leaders their own image, and an exaltation of their own values” (Germani 1978, 133). Some scholars overextend the notion of caudillismo to describe authoritarian charismatic leaders throughout the history of Latin America. For instance, historian Enrique Krauze (2011) analyzed Hugo Chávez as a “postmodern caudillo.” 115

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Differently from caudillos that did not respect or used elections, the source of populist legitimacy lies in wining elections. Classical populists such as Juan Perón expanded the franchise and fought against electoral fraud. Radical populists like Hugo Chávez used elections to displace traditional parties and to construct his hegemony. Populists from Juan Perón to Hugo Chávez attempted to become the center of the social order and built personalistic movements that aimed to redeem the people. The most interesting theoretical and empirical engagements with charisma in Latin American politics came from the vast literature on populism. A first generation of scholars interpreted populism as a phase in the history of Latin America. Germani analyzed it as a transitional period in the modernization of society, and his Marxist critics developed dependency theory as a set of nationalist and statist policies that promoted import substitution industrialization (Ianni 1973). Yet differently from caudillo politics, populism is not confined to a historical phase, as it reemerged in neoliberal and post neoliberal times.

The redemptive mission of the leader Differently from rational bureaucratic leaders whose legitimacy lies in their office, “the bearer of charisma enjoys loyalty and authority by virtue of a mission believed to be embodied in him” (Weber 1978, 1117). Charismatic leaders become moral archetypes, exemplary figures that ought to be followed (Zúquete 2008). According to Weber, leaders have to prove their charisma “in the eyes of their adherents” (Weber 1978, 1112). Having performed a heroic act often proves their charisma. Chávez led an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992 against president Carlos Andrés Pérez. After failing, he said two very important phrases that were remembered by Venezuelans: “I assume the responsibility” and “for now.” In their biography of Hugo Chávez, journalists Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka (2006, 75) explained the novelty of his words: “The former were a rarity in a country where politicians never seemed able to assume responsibility for anything.” The latter sounded like a threat or “a cliff-hanger to a cinematic thriller.” Chávez, the officer who led a failed coup, became the symbol of the democratic fight against a corrupt neoliberal political establishment. His military red beret became an icon of defiance against a failed and closed democracy, and many Venezuelans started to proudly wear it. Populist charismatic leaders, even when they don’t, claim to come from humble and workingclass origins. Due to their hard work, superior intelligence, and interest in serving their nations and their peoples, they acquire their extraordinariness. Eva Perón was an illegitimate child born in the Province of Buenos Aires. Like many of her contemporaries, she migrated to the city and became a soap opera and movie actress. Hugo Chávez was the son of lower middle-class schoolteachers. His social mobility is linked to his military career. In my volume Populist Seduction in Latin America, I analyze how populist Ecuadorean Abdalá Bucaram represented himself as a person from a humble background who not only understood the people but also belonged to el pueblo. Because he was the son of Lebanese immigrants, he was discriminated against by the elites who considered him a parvenu with poor taste and bad habits. Bucaram’s claim to be part of el pueblo was also illustrated by his way of speaking; his penchant for guayaberas and jeans; his passion for playing soccer; his way of eating with a spoon like the poor, rather than a fork and a knife like the rich; and by his love for popular Ecuadorian cooking. Like other populist leaders, Abdalá sought to make clear that even though he was of the pueblo, he was much more than the pueblo. He narrated in detail how his humble social origins had not prevented him from becoming a successful businessman, politician, sportsman, and lawyer. Because Bucaram came from humble origins, he shared the indignities and the oppressions of the poor. He is el pueblo because he, too, has suffered. He has been sued 116

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and incarcerated on phony charges, and poor people know the class bias of the justice system. The laws and jails are not for the rich. Thanks to his superior character and great manhood, Bucaram has sacrificed himself for the poor, and like many of them, he has become a martyr. In many speeches he said: “I paid my political dues, I was exiled, imprisoned, and sued.” His suffering and dedication to the needs of the people transformed him into the self-proclaimed “leader of the poor.” These two qualities  – his sacrifices for the poor and his simultaneous membership in el pueblo, but also his superiority to most common people – transform a man of humble social origins into a person who deserved to become the president of Ecuador. That is why in his 1996 presidential campaign he said, “I have the right to the presidency of the republic” (de la Torre 2010, 92). Populist charismatic allegations of out-of-the-ordinariness in some cases have more than a kernel of truth. Evo Morales grew up in abject poverty in his rural Bolivian indigenous community. According to his own accounts, as a child he dreamed of the luxury of perhaps one day riding on a bus and eating oranges and bananas. During his first months as president, giant propaganda was placed with the slogan “I am Evo.” According to sociologist Fernando Mayorga (2009), it meant that the leader could be any of us. Yet he is exceptional because he is the first indigenous to be president.

Charisma and myths Charismatic leaders invoke myths. Some are religiously inspired, others more secular. Feminist historian Marysa Navarro (1982) beautifully describes the myth of Eva Perón as the Mater Dolorosa in the following terms: Blond, pale, and beautiful, Evita was the incarnation of the Mediator, a Virgin-like figure who despite her origins, shared the perfection of the Father because of her closeness to him. Her mission was to love infinitely, give herself to others and “burn her life” for others, a point made painfully literal when she fell sick with cancer and refused to interrupt her activities. She was the Blessed Mother, chosen by God to be near “the leader of the new world: Perón.” She was the childless mother who became the Mother of all the descamisados, the Mater Dolorosa who “sacrificed” her life so that the poor, the old, and the downtrodden could find some happiness. The persona of Hugo Chávez symbolized the myths of Bolívar, the liberator, and of Jesus Christ, the Savior. His political movement, the new constitution, and Venezuela were rebaptized as “Bolivarian.” He was elevated by his followers into the carrier of Bolívar’s project of national and continental liberation. He asserted he was following in the footsteps of the “true Bolívar, the Bolívar of the people, the revolutionary Bolívar” (Torres 2009, 246). He even changed the old whitish images of Bolívar’s representations. Chávez’s Bolívar was portrayed with a brown skin color similar to his devotee’s, regardless of the fact that the liberator came from a family of slave owners. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his presidency, Chávez visited the tomb of Bolívar and asserted, “Ten years ago, Bolívar – embodied in the will of the people – came back to life” (Lindholm and Zúquete 2010, 24). Chávez constantly invoked “Jesus as ‘my commander in chief ’ and as ‘the Lord of Venezuela’ ” (Lindholm and Zúquete 2010, 33). He compared his leadership to Jesus Christ’s. In 1999 he asserted, “[T]rue love for other human beings is measured by whether you can die for others; and here we are ready to die for others” (Torres 2009, 230). His prophetic words of following Jesus’s example of giving his life to liberate his people were dramatically manifested 117

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when Chávez compared his agony with cancer with the passion of Christ. During a religious service broadcast by national television during Holy Week in 2012, he prayed out loud: Give me life. . . . Christ give me your crown of thorns. Give it to me that I bleed. Give me your cross. . . . Give me life because I still need to do things for this people and motherland. Do not take me. Give me your cross, your thorns, your blood. I will carry them, but give me life. Christ my Lord. Amen. (de la Torre 2016, 478) His followers made Chávez into a saint-like figure with the powers to heal. In 1999, an elderly woman grabbed him by the arm to beg, “Chávez help me – my son has paralysis.” A crying young man stopped him outside the door of Caracas Cathedral and told him, “Chávez help me, I have two sons that are dying of hunger and I do not want to become a delinquent, save me from this inferno” (Torres 2009, 229). After his death, his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, consecrated Chávez into a secular saint. Maduro buried Chávez in a newly built shrine, a pantheon that “symbolizes the renaissance of the homeland and the immeasurable life of the Eternal Commandant.” His coffin has the inscription “Supreme Commander of the Bolivarian Revolution.” Above his sarcophagus in the center there are two pictures of Chavez there, one on each side of Bolivar (González Trejo 2018, 139–141).

The charisma of rhetoric In Economy and Society, Weber (1978, 1130) wrote that stump speeches prioritize rhetoric over content and are “purely emotional.” Rhetoric, he wrote, “has the same meaning as the street parades and festivals: to imbue the masses with the notion of the party’s power and confidence in victory and, above all, to convince them of the leader’s charismatic qualifications.” Weber (1978, 445) also differentiated between scientific and political speeches. He wrote, “[T]he enterprise of the prophet is closer to that of the popular leader (demagogos) or the political publicist than that of the teacher.” Elaborating on Weber’s distinction, José Álvarez Junco (1990) explains that because the goal of political speeches is to motivate people to act, well-reasoned arguments are less useful than emotional appeals. Political discourse does not inform or explain but persuades and shapes attitudes. Populist Manichaean rhetoric divides society in two antagonistic camps: the people versus the oligarchy. Mass meetings are the spaces where charismatic leadership is recognized through the repetition of a series of rituals. For example, in the 1940s, Colombian leader Jorge Gaitán closed all his rallies by shouting pueblo, and the masses responded “against the oligarchy” (Braun 1985, 103). Weber (1978, 242) also argued: “[I]t is the recognition on the part of those subject to authority which is decisive for the validity of charisma.” Mass meetings are the arenas in which the populist leader is recognized and acclaimed by followers. With the repetition of songs, slogans and banners, mass meetings aim to create political identities or to at least differentiate the in-group from the out-group. I studied the mass meetings, stump speeches, and campaign trails of several elections in Ecuador (de la Torre 2010). My ethnography of Abdalá Bucaram showed that his electoral strategy was based on the performance of political spectacles that combined the show of el loco (the crazy one) that sings and dances with the emotion of attending a concert to chant with familiar melodies. Through humor, music, and mockery, he transformed political rallies into spectacles of transgression in which he challenged the elite’s power and privileges. Bucaram’s transgression 118

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was ambiguous. On the one hand, he questioned the social order when, for instance, he referred to ladies of high society as “a bunch of lazy old women that have never cooked or ironed.” He contrasted what he labeled as the effeminate men of the oligarchy to the people’s and his own virility. He portrayed working-class women as the standard-bearers of truthful womanhood, in contrast to the women of the oligarchy who do not work or take care of their children. On the other hand, he also accepted and strengthened the structural bases of patriarchal and other forms of domination. He believed in neoliberalism, professing that it would benefit the poor. He used misogynist and homophobic tropes to differentiate the truthful people from elites. Moreover, Bucaram’s authoritarian appropriation of the people’s will, which he claimed to embody, posed fundamental dangers to democracy. Rafael Correa’s campaign strategy in 2006 was also based on mass rallies where common people were in close proximity to the candidate and sang along with him to revolutionary music of the 1960s and 1970s. Even though his music was retro, Correa’s political rhetoric was innovative. Unlike the long and boring speeches of his rivals, Correa blended music and dance with speech-making. He spoke briefly, presenting a simple idea, music was played, and Correa and the crowd sang along to the campaign tunes and danced. When the music stopped, Correa spoke briefly again followed by music, songs, and dance. These innovations allowed people to participate and brought feelings that Correa and his followers were part of a common political project, a “citizens’ revolution” against traditional parties. This was also a good strategy for young people who get bored listening to speeches, and for television and YouTube viewers who were presented only a snapshot of his rallies. Love is the link between leader and followers. Bucaram said: “I  am the crazy man who loves.” He loved his people, his nation. The only ones not deserving his love were those of the oligarchy, a flexible term that could include anybody who was critical or disloyal to him. Hugo Chávez always talked about how much he loved his people. In the 2009 campaign to change the constitution with a referendum to allow for his permanent reelection, the following reasons were given to vote for Chávez’s proposal: “because Chávez loves us, and we have to repay his love; because Chávez loves us and will not harm us; because Chávez and us are one” (Torres 2009, 231). Most populist gatherings I  attended in Latin America were fiestas to celebrate the leader and in which followers felt part of the same political community. For instance, when I attended Chávez’s 2012 campaign in Caracas amid a tropical rain he danced with his people, who for the most part were poor and nonwhite and had gathered by the thousands in downtown Caracas. Lucia Michelutti (2017, 241) argues that charisma is replicated and reproduced by local leaders. She uses the term mini-Chávezes to explain how the leader’s charisma was replicated and routinized. These leaders performed his divine kinship repertoire (made up of words and government programs) at the local level. Therefore the words and performances of the leader in public spaces are debated at local associations and in poor people’s spaces of residency. Because the aim of populist meetings is to reinforce the identity of the people against its enemies, there was always the possibility of violence. For instance, Bucaram claimed that his rivals would try to assassinate him and his followers, and Chávez’s male followers displayed their masculinity by aggressively riding their motorcycles.

The body of the leader Weber (1978, 1112) wrote that charismatic leaders are “bearers of specific gifts of the body and mind that were considered ‘supernatural’ (in the sense that not everybody could have access to them).” The leaders claim their superiority because of naturally endowed powers, revolutionary 119

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ideas or the capacity to become the center of the social order. It seems that Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa never slept during their long presidential tenures. They called their advisors and ministers at any time of the night, started their days very early and finished late at night, and claimed that they were always working to liberate their people. Juan Perón and Hugo Chávez created new political ideologies to transcend the failures of both Communism and capitalist liberal democracies. Justicialism in the 1950s and 21st century Socialism were advocated as the new panaceas for their nations, and these leaders aimed to export their models of political and socioeconomic change to the rest of Latin America and worldwide. The body of the leader became omnipresent. Sociologist Juan José Sebreli (2008) explained that for seven years Eva Perón was present everywhere. Her face was on millions of billboards in streets and in stores, the state radio broadcasted her speeches daily, and she had a prominent role in the weekly news shown in all Argentinean movie theaters. In the same way, Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa put their images or slogans from their regimes in visible spots along highways and cities. They used mandatory TV and radio messages to constantly broadcast their images and to make their bodies seen in newspapers, television, and on social media, as they were constantly on Twitter and Facebook. They had weekly television and radio shows where Chávez talked for about six hours and Correa for about three. Journalists obsessively focused on their words and performance, and hence these leaders influenced what the media were going to focus on for the coming week. In their shows, they announced important policies, attacked the opposition, and entertained their audiences with music and jokes. The body of the leader is a site of antagonistic confrontation. Latin American societies that overvalue whiteness were polarized by discussions about the color of skin and the nonwhite features of populist leaders. Historian Herbert Braun (1985) argues that Colombian populist Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in the 1940s presented his physical appearance as a challenge to the political norms of white, elite-run restricted democracy. His teeth were seen by elites as symbols of animal aggression, his dark skin represented what white elites referred to as the feared malicia indígena (Indian wickedness). In sum, the image of “el negro Gaitán” was seen as a threat to “decent society.” In addition, in contrast to the cleanliness and serenity of the politicians in the Conservative and Liberal establishment, during his speeches Gaitán sweated, shouted, and growled. Similarly, white and elite Venezuelans were repelled by Chávez’s body, and especially by the visibility of his poor and nonwhite supporters. They called Chávez a monkey and made fun of his supporters’ poor dental health. Evo Morales’s chompa (sweater) and hairstyle were discussed in the Bolivian media as not fit for a head of state. As in a play of mirror images, followers viewed favorably what elites considered as affronts and denigrations for decent society. Some populists matched their words with deeds. Evo Morales transformed Bolivia’s public sphere from monocultural mestizo to multiethnic and multicultural, with indigenous people serving in the government and in the legislature. Some populists failed to be convincing in their performance to be the embodiment of popular culture. Abdalá Bucaram represented himself as the leader of the poor. The upper middle-class and elites read his actions and performances as the personification of barbarism. For instance, Bucaram explained his shows of dancing and singing at his public meetings and as president on television by comparing himself to Argentinean president Carlos Menem, who sang tangos, and to president Bill Clinton, who played the saxophone. He also asked his critics: “What man has not charmed a woman by singing a serenade?” Now, using Los Iracundos, the pop group with which he captivated his wife, Bucaram was attempting to seduce the Ecuadorian people. His opponents had a different reading. For instance, the well-respected journalist Francisco Febres Cordero wrote: “The singer [Bucaram] gathered all the filth from the most 120

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pestilent sewers to throw it at the face of his audience with no other intention than to perform a spectacle.” When thousands marched against Bucaram’s administration, many explained that he had debased the presidency with his vulgar performances. Bucaram became the repugnant “other” and was overthrown by Congress with the rationale that he was crazy, alas without medical proof of his alleged mental incapacity to govern. The leader offers his body to be touched by followers. Juan and Eva Perón, Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, and Evo Morales constantly toured their nations and met, talked, and were touched by common people. Populists also use their bodies to brag about their hyper-­ masculinities. Abdalá Bucaram said that one of his rivals had watery sperm and of another that he had no balls. Populist leaders use their personal success in business, the media, mass culture, the military, or sports to show their extraordinariness. Fernando Collor used his success in the world of sports. Perón and Chávez presented themselves as brilliant military men who sacrificed their careers for their nations. Perón referred to his followers as Peronist soldiers, and Chávez organized his supporters in battalions and squads for epic wars against imperialism. The image most populist leaders share is their claim to be the fathers of their homelands. Getulio Vargas claimed to be “the father of the poor,” while Lázaro Cárdenas was “tata Lázaro.” The father metaphor, as Karen Kampwirth (2010, 12) wrote, “turns citizens into permanent children. It turns a politician into someone who understands the interests of citizens — even when they do not — and who may punish wayward children who fail to recognize their ­wisdom.” The job of a father never ends, and populists from Perón to Chávez attempted to stay in power indefinitely.

The body of the people Populists construct the people as a homogenous body with one will and interest. A  diverse population with distinct interests, demands, and proposals is homogenized into a single unitary body. The pars pro toto dynamic of populism symbolically expels those who do not agree with the leader from the people and the nation. Even former fellow travelers can become enemies. The image of the people of populism is quite different from the democratic body of the people. Building on Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies, Claude Lefort showed the different images of the body of the people in monarchies, democracies, and totalitarian regimes. According to Kantarowicz, the King, like God, was “omnipresent, for in himself he constituted the ‘body politic’ over which he ruled. But like his son whom God sent to redeem mankind, he was man as well as God; he had a ‘body natural’ as well as his body politic, and the two were inseparable like the persons of the Trinity” (Morgan 1988, 17). The king’s body was mortal and time-bound, as well as immortal and eternal. It was imagined as individual as well as collective. Once the immortal body of the king and the body of the politic were decapitated during the revolutions of the 18th century, the space occupied by the religious political body of the king was opened up. Claude Lefort (1986, 303) wrote that power was no longer linked to a body. “Power appears as an empty place and those who exercise it as merely mortals who occupy it only temporarily or who could install themselves in it only by force or cunning.” Under democracy the image of the people remains indeterminate and cannot be embodied in an individual like a King or a leader regardless of how popular she is. Benjamin Moffitt (2016, 64) writes that populism is an attempt “to re-embody the body politic, to suture the head back on the corpse. And provide unity in the name of the people through the leader.” It aims to get rid of the uncertainties of democratic politics by naming a leader as the embodiment of the people and nation. Yet this attempt is different from fascism, which abolished democracy altogether. The vote for populists is the only legitimate tool to 121

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legitimately get to power, therefore democratic uncertainty is not fully abolished and populists left open some restricted spaces for their opponents. The two most paradigmatic populist regimes, those of Perón and Chávez, failed to create Peronist or Bolivarian national populist citizens. Their policies were resisted by intellectuals, journalists, middle-class sectors, social movement leaders, and organizations of civil society, some leftist parties, and by politicians from the opposition. Their attempts to be the only voice of the people were also contested by sectors of their coalitions, and by sympathetic social movements that used the opening up of the political system to push for their autonomous demands. Peronist workers and many Bolivarian organizations did not succumb to the will of their leaders but instead strategically supported their policies and pushed these leaders to fulfill their democratizing and redistributive promises. Even though Peronism and Chavism were not able to create homogeneous national communities, they polarized their nations into two antagonistic and irreconcilable camps. Populists and their detractors saw each other not as democratic adversaries but as enemies. The opposition, which felt marginalized and with little opportunities to get back into power using democratic institutions, plotted military coups against Perón and Chávez. Populists, for their part, excluded those who did not uncritically accept Perón or Chávez as the only and truthful voice of the people.

The revolutionary and autocratic perils of charisma and populism Weber (1978, 1117) wrote: “[C]harisma is indeed the specifically creative revolutionary force of history.” Yet he had ambivalences about the democratizing effects of charisma and recognized the dangers of charisma without the mediations of political parties and parliamentary institutions. In the absence of parties and democratic institutions that socialize leaders into the politics of democratic compromise, Weber (1978, 268) wrote, “[T]he leader (demagogue) rules by virtue of devotion and trust which his political followers have in him personally.” Populists have historically destroyed limited democracies and included those excluded on the condition that they accept their leadership. Its inclusionary credentials worked better in democracies that were increasing the size of the electorate and in conditions of acute inequalities and undemocratic privileges. Yet under populism, elections were lived as plebiscites on the leader. Politics was transformed into moral-religious struggles, infringing upon the plurality of opinions and interest of complex societies. Plebiscites transformed politics into confrontations between two antagonistic camps. Populist regimes selectively limited the rights of the opposition to express different points of view. They did not always respect the rule of law or the notion of accountability. Weber (1978, 1116) argued that charisma revolutionizes men from within. Populist identities generated by charismatic movements can transform the attitudes and worldviews of followers. To be a Peronist, or a Chavista, means to have a vision of politics and society based on a Manichaean struggle between the people and its enemies in which all conflicts are dramatized as antagonistic confrontations between two camps. Peronist and Chavista identities could last over time because these movements institutionalized charisma into parties and organizations of civil society. When charisma was not routinized in parties or organizations of civil society, serial populism emerged. After the breakdown of political parties in Ecuador or Peru, a series of populist leaders whose rule did not last over time succeeded each other in office. The relationships between charismatic populist leaders and liberal democracy are complex. Populists incorporated excluded groups that are humiliated by elites. Populism is a politics of cultural and symbolic recognition. Paraphrasing Jacques Rancière (2010, 38), “[I]t consists in making what was unseen visible, in making what was audible as mere noise heard as speech.” 122

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Those who are excluded and stigmatized with categories such as “the poor,” “the informal,” and “the marginal” become “the people,” conceived as the incarnation of all virtue. And those who constantly humiliate them become the oligarchy. Populists also materially include the excluded by redistributing favors and privileges to supporters. Despite its democratizing effects, populism is based on what Weber described as plebiscitary acclamation. In the absence of parties and solid institutions, populism can open the door for a perception of the exercise of political power as a possession rather than as occupancy. In contrast to politicians who work on the premise that they will not always remain in power, populists concentrate power and reduce institutional spaces for the opposition under the assumption that their government will stay in power until the jobs of transforming the state and society are done. Even though their legitimacy was grounded in winning elections, populists might have a hard time accepting that they could lose popular elections. In order to win elections, Perón and Chávez, for example, skewed the electoral playing field. As incumbents, they had extraordinary advantages such as using the state media, selectively silencing the privately owned media, harassing the opposition, controlling electoral tribunal boards and all instances of appeal, and using public funds to influence the election. When these presidents won elections, the voting moments were relatively clean, but the electoral processes blatantly favored incumbents. Populist leaders like Perón, or Chávez did not see themselves as ordinary presidents elected for limited terms in office. On the contrary, they perceived themselves as leading the refoundation of their republics. Perón boasted of securing 60 years of Peronist power, yet he was removed by a military coup, and only cancer prevented Chávez from becoming Venezuela’s permanently elected president for life. Michelutti (2017, 244) writes, “in his last public appearance, on December 8, 2012, Chávez told the crowd, ‘We are all Chávez’ ” and went on to name his successor in the manner of Weber’s original charismatic leader. Yet charisma is not transferable, and without Chávez’s charisma and in a context of profound economic and social crises, Nicolás Maduro’s power base is the military and Venezuela is no longer a democracy. Maduro used cronyism, repression, and widespread corruption to keep his coalition united.

Conclusions Differently from caudillo politics, that is a concept restricted to a particular time period, populism has been present in Latin America since the 1930s until the present. This chapter used Weber’s concept of charisma to explain how followers build particular individuals into their avatars and redeemers. It showed how the charismatic link is reproduced in mass meetings. Following Weber’s apprehension, the chapter showed how despite its inclusionary promises, populism excludes those who do not accept the leader as their savior, and how populism transforms democratic politics into struggles between friend and enemy. Yet despite its historical failures, populist promises of redemption would continue to challenge restrictive democracies and societies built on extreme social inequalities. Populists have come in all ideological colors. Some have relied on the state to address inequalities, others on the market. Some have promised better forms of political representation, yet the newly elected President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro promised law and order and the reconstruction of a nostalgic patriarchal and heterosexual past. Also in 2019, the election of Manuel López Obrador in Mexico contradicted pundits who see a right-wing populist wave replacing the previous Bolivarian and anti-imperialist populist wave. When sectors of the left are advocating for left populism to stop the rise of xenophobic and racist right-wing variants, scholars and activists should learn from history that populism, even when it includes “enemies” does not lead to the construction of democratic societies (de la Torre 2019). 123

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This chapter illustrates the advantages of using Weber’s concept of charisma to understand populist politics focusing on the charismatic link or bond. Contrary to premature obituaries to charisma, this chapter and volume illustrate the relevance of studying past and contemporary politics worldwide. There is a renaissance of theoretical and methodological engagements with charisma (Zúquete 2013; de la Torre 2016; Pappas 2019). The challenge continues to study it as a social process without reducing politics to irrationality, or to limit it to instrumental rationality forgetting the importance of emotions. Weber’s work on charisma allows to integrate emotions and reasons.

References Alvarez Junco, José. 1990. El Emperador del Paralelo. Lerroux y la Demagogia Populista, Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Arato, Andrew. 2015. “Political theology and populism,” in Carlos de la Torre (ed.), The Promise and Perils of Populism, Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 31–59. Braun, Herbert. 1985. The Assassination of Gaitán. Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. de la Torre, Carlos. 2010. Populist Seduction in Latin America, Athens: Ohio University Press. de la Torre, Carlos. 2016. “Los avatares del carisma en el estudio del populismo latinoamericano,” in Álvaro Morcillo Laiz and Eduardo Weiz (eds.), Max Weber en Iberoamérica, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 469–495. de la Torre, Carlos. 2019. “Is left populism the radical democratic answer,” Irish Journal of Sociology 27 (1): 64–71. Germani, Gino. 1978. Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. González Trejo, Mariana. 2018. Pueblo y democracia e el populismo venezolano. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/tesis?codigo=150228. Ianni, Octavio. 1973. Populismo y Contradicciones de Clase en Latinoamérica, México: Era. Kampwirth, Karen. 2010. “Introduction,” in Karen Kampwirth (ed.), Gender and Populism in Latin America, University Park: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1–25. Krauze, Enrique. 2011 Redeemers. Ideas and Power in Latin America, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Laclau, Ernesto. 2005. On Populist Reason, London: Verso. Lefort, Claude. 1986. The Political Forms of Modern Society. Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, Cambridge: MIT Press. Lindholm, Charles and José Pedro Zúquete. 2010. The Struggle for the World. Liberation Movements for the 21st Century, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Marcano, Cristina and Alberto Barrera. 2006. Hugo Chávez, New York: Random House. Mayorga, Fernando. 2009. Antinomias. El azaroso camino de las reformas políticas, Cochabamba: Universidad Mayor de San Simón. Michelutti, Lucia. 2017. “We are all Chávez. Charisma as an embodied experience,” Latin American Perspectives 44 (1): 232–250. Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The Global Rise of Populism. Performance, Political Style, Representation, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Morgan, Edmund. 1988. Inventing the People. The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America, New York and London: W.W. Norton&Company. Navarro, Marysa. 1982. “Evita’s Charismatic Leadership,” in Michael Conniff (ed.), Latin American Populism in Contemporary Perspective, Alburqueque: University of New Mexico Press, 47–67. Pappas, Takis. 2019. Populism and Liberal Democracy. A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rancière, Jaques. 2010. Dissensus. On Politics and Aesthetics, London and New York: Continuum. Sebreli, Juan José. 2008. Comediantes y Mártires. Ensayos contra los Mitos, Buenos Aires: Editorial Debate. 124

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Torres, Ana Teresa. 2009. La Herencia de la Tribu. Del Mito de la Independencia a la Revolución Bolivariana, Caracas: Editorial ALFA. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, Berkeley: University of California Press. Wolf, Eric, and Edward Hansen. 1967. “Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 9 (2): 168–179. Zúquete, José Pedro. 2008. “The Missionary Politics of Hugo Chávez,” Latin American Politics and Society 50 (1): 91–122. Zúquete, José Pedro. 2013. “Missionary Politics  – A  Contribution to the Study of Populism,” Religion Compass 7 (7): 263–271.

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Section III

Religion

11 Charisma and shamanism Eric Michael Kelley

Origins “Charisma” and “shamanism” are contested categories that social analysts use to imagine origin stories in diverse fields, including anthropology, sociology, religion, politics, psychology, medicine, and the arts. Conceptualizations of both categories have been inspired by Greek metaphysics and Christianity (cf., Reddekop, 2010), as well as historical Western imaginaries of the “Other,” frequently mirroring analysts’ own distorted images that are further refracted in their analyses (cf., Bastra, 1994; Kuper, 2019; Ramos, 1998). Max Weber wedded the concepts “charisma” and “shamanism,” casting “the shaman” as prototype of his category, “primary charisma,” in which charismatic leaders form powerful emotional bonds with followers that are sustained so long as the relationship is nurtured. Weber created this “ideal type” based on limited reliable ethnographic data (Kelley, 2013), imagining “the shaman” dramatically erupting on the social scene, attracting followers through the intensity of inspired performances, demonstrating direct connection to the spirits, thus legitimating divinely inspired authority as the “original sacred experience” (Lindholm, 2013). Weber’s concept of charisma inherits a Lutheran metaphysics of the will, in which shamans are called, receive divine gifts of body and spirit, and then successfully grapple with conflicting value positions, thereby demonstrating the genuineness of the inspired charismatic leader’s cause through the recognition of followers (Reddekop, 2010:351–352). This concept is, of course, firmly rooted in the Pauline conceptualization of charisma, through a revision of Sohm, in a secularization of the embodied divisions of charisma that Paul strategically distributed throughout the congregation in order to strengthen the emotional bonds of charismatic group members (Falco, 2010:7–9; cf. Petaros et al., 2015). In willfully resolving the torturous contradictions in the value positions, the shaman is a natural leader, having overcome the struggle in the wilderness, as it were, born again through divine gifts. Healed, Weber’s prototypical charismatic leader bestows these healing gifts on the community (Reddekop, 2010:352). Some read Weber as overemphasizing the individual over the collective, while most argue charisma is inherently a group experience (cf., Falco, 2010:9; Lindholm, 2013). Building upon Weber’s concept of charisma, ideal types have been critiqued as teleological and evolutionary by ethnographers of charismatic healers who follow Csordas in attempting to find the particular locus of charisma 129

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within an individual blessed with some quality of alterity that confers legitimacy upon them (Lindquist, 2001:3–4). Combined with his secularization of Pauline conceptions of charisma as supernatural gift bestowed upon the shaman, Weber built upon Herder’s ideas that Flaherty (1992) traces to Herodotus. Herder opined that Orpheus was a shaman in one of the earliest German uses of the borrowed Tungus ethnonym, portraying shamans as the originators of the various disciplines that led to the development of all civilizations (Flaherty, 1992:138–153). The emphasis here was also on the shaman as willful self, performing a “self-induced cure for a self-induced fit,” that captured the Western imagination (ibid.:12). Others have similarly associated Asclepius, the “wounded healer” with shamans, who are masters of the imagination themselves, healing through a variety of altered states of consciousness (Achterberg, 1988:122–123; cf., Hockley and Gardner, 2011; Petaros et al., 2015; Peterson, 2017). Weber imagined the charismatic shaman as a way to cope with the disenchantment of modernity and stultifying bureaucracy (cf., Reddekop, 2010), following Nietzsche, who influenced the “shamanic-Orphic discourse of modernity” (von Stuckrad, 2010:87), later inherited by Eliade. Like Weber, Eliade privileged the altered state of consciousness, or “ecstasy,” performed by shamans as the essential feature of “shamanism” in his ethnological volume (1974 [1964]). Like Weber, Eliade emphasized the uniqueness of shamans, defining them as those who have willfully mastered the spirits, demonstrated through their control of soul flight, in contrast to those who are possessed by spirits (ibid.:5–6). Like Weber, Eliade inherited the same history of thought and shared a similar discontent with modernity’s ills, exemplified by his desire to “escape from history” (von Stuckrad, 2010:94–98) through the crafting of his aspirational model. Eliade, therefore, privileged the ascent to the sky in his writing, as well as soul flight over possession, though the primary ethnographic source on Tungus shamanism (Shirokogoroff, 1935) documents all of these (cf., Humphrey, 1996; Lewis, 1996 [1986]; Siikala, 1978). Despite privileging ascent, Eliade considers Orpheus to display various characteristics of a “Great Shaman” (Op. cit.:391), in keeping with inherited thought. Eliade’s definition and ethnology continue to serve as an entry into the scholarly literature on shamanisms. Although many have critiqued his model, it remains influential on subsequent conceptualizations, enjoying few adherents among contemporary ethnographers who emphasize the diversity of shamanisms in time and space, focusing on particular cases in their historical contexts (Atkinson, 1992). The following section briefly discusses the diversity of shamanisms, both in terms of actual sociocultural phenomena and conceptualizations that seek to either explain these or use them as resources for personal growth. Eliade’s conceptualization continues to influence practices that have been dubbed “neoshamanisms” (cf., Christensen, 2015; Kraft et al., 2015; Langdon and Santana de Rose, 2012; Lewis, 2015; Townsend, 2005; von Stuckrad, 2002), “Western” shamanisms (Crockford, 2010; von Stuckrad, 2002), and less favorably by some scholars, “New Age Medicine Men” (Lewis, 2015), “White Shamans” or “Plastic Medicine Men” (cf., Green, 1988; Kehoe, 2000, 2001), and more recently, “Pretendians” (Nephin, 2019), guilty of cultural appropriation, ethnocentrism, erasure of Indigenous people’s lived experiences, and racism. Also briefly discussed in the following section are major contemporary scholarly conceptualizations of shamanisms that consider the diversity of practices as phenomena worthy of serious ethnographic study, despite inherited biases, contested categories, and contemporary identity politics.

Shamanisms Eliade’s work influenced several ethnographically informed conceptualizations of shamanisms that have maintained his influence both within and beyond academia. Despite Eliade privileging 130

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shamans possessing willful mastery of ecstasy, arguing that “real shamans” did not use drugs to enter trance states – again at odds with Shirokogoroff’s prototypical Tungus ethnographic data (cf., Basilov, 1997 for more Siberian examples) – his work influenced the growing interest in hallucinogens connected to the historical moment. Carlos Castaneda helped birth psychedelic anthropology, controversial due to the questionable validity of his ethnographic “data” that was the likely product of his imagination, a hoax that both forced him out of the academy and influenced followers that he attracted through the cultivation of his own charismatic leadership (Boekhoven, 2011:206–211). His colleague, Barbara Myerhoff, was also searching for shamanic utopias through a shared interest in consuming hallucinogens within the context of ethnographic fieldwork as was Peter Furst (Op. cit., 212–217), each presenting authentic ethnographic cases that fed growing public interest in psychedelics within mainstream culture, especially in connection with the efflorescence of esoteric interests frequently lumped under the broad New Age umbrella, thus providing shelter from disenchantment associated with mainstream modernity. Here the emphasis is on individual consumers engaged in idiosyncratic bricolage, who combine elements from disparate religions and appropriated Indigenous cultural traditions in search of spiritual healing, authentic religious experience, or willful self-actualization, whereas Indigenous shamanisms frame the shaman as mediator between the spirit world, including ancestors, and the living community (cf., Boekhoven, 2011, 2013; Green, 1988; Townsend, 2005). It was Michael Harner’s ethnographic research into hallucinogens in connection with shamanisms, however, followed by his subsequent theorizing about “core shamanism,” which ironically eschews the use of drugs to enter and maintain trance states (after Eliade), that became arguably the most influential conceptualization of shamans to this day. Like other psychedelic anthropologists, Harner, a US anthropologist, stressed the importance of firsthand experience with hallucinogens in the context of ethnographic field research, arguing this permitted a privileged understanding of the shamanic experiences studied (Boekhoven, 2011:217–221). Some scholars refer to Indigenous varieties as “traditional” shamanism (Townsend, 2005), or in the case of Siberian cases like the Tungus discussed by Shirokogoroff, as “classical shamanism” (Siikala, 1978), while other scholars prefer local ethnonyms associated with particular cases rather than the term “shamanism,” (Kehoe, 2000) which Taussig (1989:59) characterized as an invented, modern Western analytical category. Harner developed the School for Shamanic Studies in conjunction with his Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The Foundation is dedicated to preserving and teaching about Indigenous shamanisms, while the School has a curriculum teaching what Harner, due to his privileged experiences, views as the underlying “Core Shamanism” he discerned that is universal to all humans, conveniently making it appeal to Western individuals (Boekhoven, 2011; Fotiou, 2016; Townsend, 2005) seeking do-it-yourself transcendence (cf., Boekhoven, 2013; Crockford, 2010). Harner transformed from an academic anthropologist studying Indigenous shamanisms to a charismatic leader of sorts, taking care to avoid guru status (Townsend, 2005:3) while teaching the techniques he learned and reframed for a Western audience. His numerous schools continue to train and certify people in his techniques worldwide posthumously. Harner’s influence has waned among contemporary ethnographers, though they frequently write against his work, and sometimes cite his ethnography. His work is more influential with scholars pursuing ethnological research that seeks to develop evolutionary typological models based on Eliade and Harner’s imaginings of universal human phenomena (e.g., Winkelman, 2000). Many of the attributes primarily associated with the so-called “classical” cases that Eliade privileged leading to Harner’s model were discussed above. Based on his observations of Tungus shamans’ practices, however, Shirokogoroff had reservations that they could be accurately 131

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considered to represent a static tradition. He therefore concluded that the word “shaman” did not necessarily apply to earlier practitioners, nor to all types of Tungus religious practitioners that he observed. Even in these prototypical cases used for much model-building, there was diversity at the time the data was collected, suggesting further changes to come (Shirokogoroff, 1935; Siikala, 1978). There was, in other words, a routinization of improvisation associated with Weber’s “primary charisma” (Kelley, 2013). The historically particular “traditional” or “classical” cases were encountered in the context of social upheaval due to contact with new peoples creating novel crises associated with colonialism, begging the same question Codere asked regarding the potlatch, paraphrased here as, “why do scholars assume that what was observed was unaffected by the sociopolitical context undergoing rapid disruption?” (Codere, 1950). Contemporary shamanisms are similarly diverse and inconstant, whether Indigenous or Western, eluding simplified essentialist categorizations. If “shamanisms” are inherently improvisational (Kelley, 2013) and frequently syncretic as shamans combine elements from other religions that may be accepted by followers through a process of collaborative improvisation and acceptance (or rejection) of novel alterity, all exemplars might be argued to be “new,” thus deserving of membership in the category, “neoshamanisms,” at least while in their formative stages. The category “neoshamanisms” most commonly indicates contemporary Western varieties. As with most analytical categories, a diversity of opinions exists, in this case regarding how to best differentiate between kinds of “shamans” (cf., Hoppál, 1993), adding “terminological confusion to an already compromised situation” (Townsend, 2005:2; cf., Balzer, 1993). Terminological confusion is the logical conclusion of scholarly struggles for authority in the academic field of shamanisms (cf., Boekhoven, 2011). Given the ubiquity of the idea of the “shaman” throughout Western society, it is unlikely that the term will be discarded as some advocate (Kehoe, 2000, 2001; Taussig, 1989). Many contemporary ethnographers acknowledge that a single universal definition may be elusive, but continue using the term due, in part, to its familiarity (cf., Thomas and Humphrey, 1996:3; Whitehead, 2002:202). Modern Western neoshamans not only tend to draw from courses that are often based in Harner’s core shamanism but also draw from diverse religious traditions, as well as from romanticized or idealized popular essentialist conceptualizations of Indigenous “shamans” (Boekhoven, 2013), thereby inventing traditions through acts of shamanic bricolage (Townsend, 2005:4). Townsend further subdivides the category into “traditionalists” who hew to Harner’s core shamanism, “modernists” who combine aspects from “traditional” shamanisms with input from contemporary practitioners, and “eclectics” whom she characterizes as “the quintessential bricoleurs” including those who try to be “Indian” or “native” while glorifying the “idealized shaman” (ibid.). Some (Crockford, 2010; von Stuckrad, 2002) consider these practitioners to be varieties of “Western shamans,” since the category is a Western analytical category that holds “disenchantment” and “resacralization” to be an inherent dialectical process of modernity (von Stuckrad, 2002). In contrast, some ethnographers consider contemporary Indigenous shamanisms that persist in villages and urban areas in inner Asia to be “urban shamans” (Balzer, 1993; Townsend, 2005:2; cf., Kendall, 1988). Some ethnographers apply the category neoshamanisms to observed Indigenous practices with active adoption of borrowed traditions, as in the case of Guaraní on the coast of southern Brazil, who have incorporated ayahuasca, an Indigenous psychoactive plant medicine associated with Indigenous peoples in upper Amazonia, via the more proximal Santo Daime religion, into their syncretic practices (Langdon and Santana de Rose, 2012). Neoshamanisms is used by others to categorize Indigenous peoples engaged in the revitalization of practices that have been suppressed or lost, as in the case of the Sami (Fonneland, 2017; Kraft et al., 2015; Lewis, 2015). Indigenous shamanisms worldwide combine elements from external religions and cultures with 132

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which they come into contact, recalling the importance of the quality of alterity in cultivating charismatic authority in shamanic healing noted by Lindquist. This may even include the strategic redefinition of particular local shamanisms, as “shamans” strategically shift their role from traditional mediation between members of their visible and invisible communities, to mediating between their communities and the state (cf., Conklin, 2002; Kelley, 2013; Thomas and Humphrey, 1996). Would-be neoshamans or other seekers of authentic Indigenous knowledge to appropriate for their individual self-actualization increasingly engage in tourism to learn from or be treated by authentic Indigenous shamans. In Amazonia, the influence of psychedelic anthropological research has led to a booming ayahuasca tourism industry, resulting in what Fotiou (2016) dubs “shamanic tourism.” These tourists typically appropriate only those aspects of Indigenous traditions that suit their purposes, ignoring those considered undesirable. Black or “dark” aspects, including sorcery, are often associated with shamanisms since the power to cure and curse are complementary and often come from the same source (Brown, 1988; Fausto, 2004; Fotiou, 2016; Kopenawa, 2013; Whitehead, 2002; Whitehead and Wright, 2004; Wright, 2013). Tourists are similarly drawn to Sami spiritual entrepreneurs’ festivals (Fonneland, 2017), film (Christensen, 2015), and to the web portal developed to attract foreign spiritual clientele seeking authentic Sami knowledge, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08003831.20 13.844422 (Fonneland, 2013). The Sami experience differs from that of shamans in Amazonia in that contemporary Sami began revitalizing their suppressed traditions after being exposed to Harner’s core shamanism and New Age essentialist views concerning universal Indigenous spirituality (Lewis, 2015). While some scholars dismiss contemporary Sami Noaidi (“shamans”) as New Age or white shamans (Ibid.), Sami draw on their language and oral history in combination with adopted external elements in their revitalization process. Sami festivals welcome a variety of shamanic practitioners from around the world to capitalize on opportunities for both spiritual cross-pollination, and income from tourists in a globalized world (Fonneland, 2013, 2017). Noaidi strategically decide what knowledge is shared with outsiders while simultaneously welcoming alterity that may contribute to the legitimation of their charisma in their efforts to attract and retain followers.

Dis-eased social bodies: disharmony, disenchantment, and disintegration Shamanisms, are often analyzed as proliferating during times of trauma and crisis, though there are subtle nuances in particular cases that might be overlooked by this characterization (cf., Buyandelger, 2013:31). Furthermore, while the distinction between Indigenous shamanisms and neoshamanisms has often hinged on the emphasis in exemplars of the former on community, whereas exemplars of the latter are construed as individualist practices, social theorists’ emphasis on community may overlook disagreement, social discord, and the disintegration of social ties (Buyandelger, 2018). While community often connotes harmony, individual clients seeking to be healed may suffer from disharmony caused by life losing meaning, feelings of disconnection, and soul loss requiring shamanic intervention in extreme cases (Achterberg, 1988:122). Much discussion of charisma and shamanism is focused on the political dimension, sometimes at the expense of the healing of individual patients by shamans who may otherwise be analyzed through the archetype of Asclepius, the wounded healer. Shamans are those who are often characterized as having overcome a severe personal illness, sometimes involving their own soul loss and retrieval, or even spiritual death and rebirth. The individual experience is unique, but typically involves extreme disharmony that is survived by the wounded healer, who 133

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is thereby transformed, becoming wiser about the spirit realm in the process (Ibid.:116–18). Increased interest in seeking shamanic cures by Western clients is partially explained by dissatisfaction with biomedical approaches to physical and mental health (Ibid.:117). Medical school cannot replicate the process of being wounded and healed, and the biomedical practitioner’s bedside manner may be weaker as a result. Their rite of passage is taking the Hippocratic oath to not harm patients, rather than the process of being wounded and healing themselves. Between the wounded healer and the client, “an invisible bond of power” (ibid.:122) may develop, that is arguably a charismatic relationship in which the willful wounded healer cured themselves, learned privileged wisdom, and this is then used to heal clients, and ultimately the community that the shaman serves. “Some call this bond love” (Ibid.:122). Shamans are masters of the imagination, knowing the power of symbols to both heal and cure (Ibid.:122–24), much like biomedical practitioners and their placebos. Belief in the efficacy of cures plays an important role in their outcome, so powerful emotional charismatic bonds constructed between healers and clients contribute to the collaborative improvisation of the cure of those with faith in the practitioner’s powers. Lindquist (2002) takes a slightly different approach to charismatic healers in the context of her ethnographic research in Russia’s multiple medical field. In her examination of the experience of a client, Vera, who sought the services of various types of healers to cure her daughter, Lindquist similarly foregrounds the importance of dyadic love as similar to that between leaders and a community of followers (Lindquist, 2002:339). Following Lindholm, who discussed romantic bonds between lovers through the lens of charisma, Lindquist sees the charismatic bond between healer and patient as interpersonally created, rather than as inherent in an individual (Ibid.:340). Dissatisfied with the attempts of various types of healing practitioners to treat her daughter’s lupus, Vera was hopeful for success after hearing a lupus ward nurse tell of a suffering boy who was completely cured by Maria, a charismatic healer (Ibid.: 349). Vera took her daughter to meet Maria at the house of the family of the boy that she had cured, and began a process of testing Maria’s powers, not unlike communities regularly testing their shamans to prove their retention of charismatic power (Cf., Basilov, 1997). These tests of Maria’s power developed intimate emotional bonds by enabling Maria to surreptitiously scrutinize Vera’s subtle bodily responses, resulting in the co-construction of Maria’s charisma, and ultimately, an efficacious cure (Ibid.: 349–353). Unlike other practitioners Vera consulted, Maria’s legitimacy was not conferred by any particular tradition or science, but by the power she possessed through pure energy that was part of her strong personality (Ibid.:353). Her reputation of success at healing a client with a similar illness further legitimated her charisma to Vera and her family, as demonstrated by physical sensations produced through Maria’s touch and energy. More importantly, Maria was skilled at navigating the psychology of intersubjective relations, demonstrated by her keen observation of Vera’s subconscious body movements that nearly resulted in her fainting and falling (Ibid.). The swaying that nearly produced the fall was clearly connected to objects touched by Vera’s mother-in-law, who lived with the family. Maria channeled Vera into realizing this connection for herself through repeatedly producing similar negative effects via multiple objects. This enabled Vera, as the primary meaning-maker in the co-construction of both charisma and cure, to conclude that the mother-in-law was the cause of her daughter’s illness. Her husband accepted the diagnosis that “old people emit negative, cold energy which is bad for the ill child,” (Ibid.:350) leading to the disintegration of social ties that would have otherwise been unbreakable, enabled by Maria’s intervention (Ibid.: 354). It was the agency conferred on Vera in resolving her own power struggle with her mother-in-law, her participation in the collaborative improvisation of both charisma and cure, in other words, that distinguished Maria as a 134

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more efficacious healer than those previously consulted. Disharmony and disintegration are related to Weberian disenchantment with modernity, arguably, in the examples discussed earlier. While few contemporary ethnographers discuss Indigenous shamanisms within the Weberian conception of charisma, similar phenomena are discussed by means of different terminology, as suggested in the examples presented earlier. Likewise, concepts related to disenchantment are promising in understanding contemporary Indigenous shamanisms (cf., Reddekop, 2010) though their disenchantment is historically particular and they are frequently differentially positioned in the global social hierarchy as compared to published social theorists. Mapuche machi (“shamans”) deal with discrimination against them both ethnically and as deviants who transgress dominant social norms, particular regarding gender. Like shamans elsewhere, machi collaboratively improvise with clients in the co-construction of their legitimacy, which may be explicated in terms of Weber’s model of charisma, similarly to the case of Maria discussed by Lindquist. Bacigalupo (2004) discusses the case of Marta, who was born Bernardo, but became a woman machi through divine gender transformation. Most Mapuche are baptized in the Catholic Church and have produced syncretic healing epistemologies in response to the vicissitudes of relations with the Chilean government. Marta dreamed of the Virgin Mary and was possessed by his great-grandmother during his initiation that created her identity as a woman. As mediators, shamans are individuals who possess the power to cross various boundaries at will that others cannot, such as through soul flight. Accordingly, they are often marginal or transgressive figures, such as the machi Marta who while successful for some time at indelicately performing the identity of a woman both while enacting her role as a machi and in her quotidian affairs, elicited disgust and disapproval due to overtly macho behavior deemed inappropriate for a woman. This, combined with her arrest and subsequent incarceration in the men’s prison led to the loss of her precariously cultivated transgressive identity. Other male machi typically performed their role as women, but were otherwise socially male. Not Marta. Her improvisation was accepted by some, and during this time it may be argued that she and her clients were collaboratively improvising her transgressive gender performance. Due to the legitimacy conferred on her as a woman through her dream of the Virgin Mary, Marta was briefly successful in gaining some community acceptance in the co-construction of her charisma. After excessive hypermasculine behavior for a machi and the revelation of her “public secret” due to her arrest and police discovery of her penis, resulting in disgust and dissolution of her tenuously co-constructed charisma as a machi, Marta was disrespected publicly by those whom she had previously served (Ibid.: 450–51). Colonial disruption and displacement led to Mapuche disenchantment that both enabled Marta’s improvisations within the shifting gender dynamics of machi, and that led to her loss of status within the community. Eventually, Marta reestablished herself as a woman machi in another, urban, community where she stressed those aspects of her womanhood over that of rural Mapuche women (Ibid.:452). Marta’s experience of disenchantment is exemplified in that she “belongs nowhere. She is excluded from all gendered paradigms available to Mapuche and lacks a culturally recognized gender category” (Ibid.:453). A master of resiliency despite her disenchantment, Marta was certain that further displacement would always lead to acceptance by another community in need of her services (Ibid.). In other words, Marta is a willful machi, confident in her powers to attract followers and collaboratively improvise her charisma anew. Similarly concerned with social disharmony in connection with community, Buyandelger discusses the case of Altaa, a Buryat woman who was expected by community members to become a shaman, but Altaa rejected the community’s wishes. In this case, rather than leading to the cultivation of charisma through collaborative improvisation, Altaa’s rejection of the call was a rejection of history. Socialism in Mongolia had led to much forgetting among Buryat and 135

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the rise of shamanic practices often aimed at collaboratively constructing collective memory (cf. Buyandelger, 2013). In contrast, Altaa was more interested in focusing on the exigencies of the present and forgetting the past, while other community members insisted on remembering that which Altaa sought to forget, leading to the disintegration of communal ties. This case evinces the diversity not only of particular historical instances of shamanisms, but paired with the Mapuche case of Marta, shows that community does not always connote harmony. Analyses of primary charisma, therefore, might examine the relationships and emotional bonds not only between successful shamans and their followers but also through disharmonious cases leading to community disintegration, such that comparison of many cases may better elucidate the intricacies of charismatic relationships.

Future directions/research Indigenous shamans in disparate contexts have also begun seeking to extend their charisma to a wider community of followers, potentially to readers worldwide through their collaborative improvisations with Western ethnographers in the production of ethnographic texts. The Mapuche machi Francisca was initiated by the forces of the world when she was called to be a thunder shaman during the earthquake of 1960 (Bacigalupo, 2016). Francisca collaborated with Bacigalupo in the production of her “bible.” Among other objectives, this ‘bible’ seeks Mapuche agency through the incorporation of the colonizers into Mapuche history, and Bacigalupo calls this collaborative contribution to the decolonization of knowledge production “shamanism in action.” While Buryat have not yet written a similar collaborative text, they seek agency to control both their history and destiny by means of shamanic ritual remembering through discursive collaborative improvisation (Buyandelger, 2013). Mandu, the only Baniwa jaguar shaman to reach the level of wise man, which Wright (2013) considers to be a prophet, enjoyed the recognition by community members of his possession of both wisdom and the power of constant communication with the divinities. Similar to the case of Mapuche machi Francisca’s bible, the first chapter of Wright’s ethnography was coauthored with Mandu, who also collaborated with Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies in the construction of the Baniwa House. Both of these, arguably, seek to preserve Baniwa knowledge, and to extend Mandu’s charisma to descendants, as well as potentially to a global readership, and viewership of online videos made in collaboration with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, who is often referred to as the “Dalai Lama of the Rainforest,” collaborated with anthropologist Bruce Albert on the publication of The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. This is a collaborative work of both auto-ethnography that serves to extend the reach of Kopenawa’s charisma globally and to warn Westerners about the dangers of the Western lifestyle centered around material goods that threatens to destroy the Amazon rainforest home of Yanomami and other Indigenous Amazonians. He also warns that the Western lifestyle will eventually cause the sky held up by shamans to fall, affecting all life on earth. Kopenawa travels tirelessly in his fight for the rights of his people, and in 2019 he was recognized with the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” Despite his celebrity status, Kopenawa regularly returns home to his community. His dedication to living like other Yanomami while in their villages, combined with his masterful incorporation of knowledge of diverse varieties of alterity into his wisdom and leadership ensures his retention of the support of his Yanomami followers, who regularly elect him to the office of the Yanomami political organization, Hutukara. Along with Wright using the category “prophet” in connection with Mandu, some scholars have brought Weber’s borrowing of the Pauline conception of charisma full circle by arguing 136

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that Jesus might be analyzed as a prophet/healer (Davies, 1996) or shaman (Craffert, 1999, 2011). Basilov discusses Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and Muhammed in terms of shamanism (1997:35–36), while Rudolph recently (2019) published a book focusing on Moses as a shaman. At the same time, other scholars have analyzed the title character from the television series, House, as a wounded healer, utilizing Jung’s conception of ‘mana’ for analysis (Hockley et al., 2011), while Jordan Peterson (2017) considers Jung to be a shaman. As this chapter has shown, the Western scholarly and popular category “shaman” has generated diverse imaginaries of ideal origin stories, or, as Lévi-Strauss (1963 [1962]:89) might say, shamans are good to think (cf., Garber, 2012:96–103, on the widespread misuse of this phase). Most contemporary ethnographers, however, do not seem to find charisma particularly good to think in connection with shamanisms. Those who do tend to problematize primary charisma (Kelley, 2013; Lindquist, 2001, 2002; Reddekop, 2010). As suggested, one may reanalyze ethnographic cases via Weber’s model. Future ethnographic research might profit from a deeper examination of the qualities associated both with charismatic leaders and their followers, the character and maintenance of their collaborative improvisation of charisma, and increased focus on the shaman as healer. Other scholars might benefit in their theorizing through familiarization with ethnographic cases to better understand primary charisma associated with Weber’s prototypical exemplar.

References Achterberg, Jeanne. 1988. “The Wounded Healer: Transformational Journeys in Modern Medicine.” In Shaman’s Path: Healing Personal Growth, & Empowerment. Edited by Gary Doore. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Atkinson, Jane M. 1992. “Shamanisms Today.” Annual Review of Anthropology 21:307–330. Bacigalupo, Ana Mariella. 2004. “The Mapuche Man Who Became a Woman Shaman: Selfhood, Gender Transgression, and Competing Cultural Norms.” American Ethnologist 31(3):440–457. Bacigalupo, Ana Mariella. 2016. Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Chile and Patagonia. Austin: University of Texas Press. Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. 1993. “Two Urban Shamans: Unmasking Leadership in Fin-de-Soviet Siberia.” In Perilous States: Conversations on Culture, Politics, and Nation. Edited by George E. Marcus. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Basilov, Vladimir N. 1997. “Chosen by the Spirits.” In Shamanic Worlds: Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia. Edited by Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, pp. 3–48. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Bastra, Roger. 1994. Wild Men in the Looking Glass: The Mythic Origins of European Otherness. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Boekhoven, Jeroen W. 2011. Genealogies of Shamanism: Struggles for Power, Charisma and Authority. Eelde: Barkhuis Publishing. Boekhoven, Jeroen W. 2013. “Public Individualism in Contemporary Dutch Shamanism.” In Religion Beyond Its Private Role in Modern Society. Edited by Wim Hofstee and Arie van der Kooij. Leiden: Brill. Brown, Michael F. 1988. “Shamanism and Its Discontents.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly New Series 2(2):102–120. Buyandelger, Manduhai. 2013. Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Memory, and Gender in Contemporary Mongolia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Buyandelger, Manduhai. 2018. “Asocial Memories, ‘Poisonous Knowledge’, and Haunting in Mongolia.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 25(1):66–82. Christensen, Cato. 2015. “Sami Shamanism and Indigenous Film: The Case of Pathfinder.” In Nordic Neoshamanisms. Edited by Siv Ellen Kraft, Trude Fonneland, and James R. Lewis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Codere, Helen. 1950. Fighting with Property: A Study of Kwakiutl Potlatching and Warfare, 1792–1930. American Ethnographical Society, Monograph 18. New York: J.J. Augustin. 137

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Conklin, Beth. 2002. “Shamans Versus Pirates in the Amazonian Treasure Chest.” American Anthropologist 104(4):1050–1061. Craffert, Pieter. 1999. “Jesus and the Shamanic Complex: First Steps in Utilising a Social Type Model.” Neotestamentica 33(2):321–342. Craffert, Pieter. 2011. “Shamanism and the Shamanic Complex.” Biblical Theology Journal 41(2):59–67. Crockford, Sussanah. 2010. “Shamanisms and the Authenticity of Religious Experience.” The Pomegranate 12(2). Davies, Stevan. 1996. “The Historical Jesus as a Prophet/Healer: A Different Paradigm.” Neotestamentica 30(1):21–37. Eliade, Mircea. 1974 [1964]. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Falco, 2010. Charisma and Myth. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Fausto, Carlos. 2004. “A Blend of Blood and Tobacco: Shamans and Jaguars Among the Parakanã of Eastern Amazonia.” In In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia. Edited by Neil Whitehead and Robin Wright, pp. 157–178. Durham: Duke University Press. Flaherty, Gloria. 1992. Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fonneland, Trude. 2013. “Sami Tourism and the Signposting of Spirituality: The Case of Sami Tour: A Spiritual Entrepreneur in the Contemporary Experience Economy.” Acta Borealia: A Nordic Journal of Circumpolar Societies 30(2):190–208. Fonneland, Trude. 2017. “The Shamanic Festival Isogaisa (Norway): Religious Meaning-Making in the Present.” In Handbook of Indigenous Religion(s). Edited by Greg Johnson and Siv Ellen Kraft. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, volume 15. Leiden: Brill. Fotiou, Evgenia. 2016. “The Globalization of Ayahuasca Shamanism and the Erasure of Indigenous Shamanism.” Anthropology of Consciousness 27(2):151–179. Garber, Marjorie. 2012. Loaded Words. Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press. Green, Rayna. 1988. “The Tribe Called Wannabe: Playing Indian in America  & Europe.” Folklore 99(1):30–55. Hockley, Luke and Leslie Gardner, eds. 2011. House: The Wounded Healer on Television: Jungian and PostJungian Reflections. New York: Routledge. Hoppál, Mihály. 1993. “Shamanism: Universal Structures and Regional Symbols.” In Shamans and Cultures. Edited by Mihály Hoppál and Keith D. Howard. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Humphrey, Caroline. 1996. “Shamanic Practices and the State in Northern Asia: Views from the Center and Periphery.” In Shamanism, History and the State. Edited by Nicholas Thomas and Caroline Humphrey. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Kehoe, Alice Beck. 2000. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, Inc. Kehoe, Alice Beck. 2001. “ ‘Shaman’: Bad Etics, Ethics.” Anthropology News 42(1):4. Kelley, Eric Michael. 2013. “The Routinization of Improvisation in Avá-Guaraní Shamanic Leadership.” In The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions. Edited by Charles Lindholm. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kendall, Laurel. 1988. “Healing Thyself: A  Korean Shaman’s Afflictions.” Social Science Medicine 27(5):445–450. Kopenawa, Davi and Bruce Albert. 2013. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Kraft, Siv Ellen, Trude Fonneland and James R. Lewis, eds. 2015. Nordic Neoshamanisms. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuper, Adam. 2019. “Deconstructing Anthropology.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 9(1):10–22. Langdon, E. Jean and Santana de Rose. 2012. “(Neo)Shamanic Dialogues: Encounters Between the Guarani and Ayahuasca.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 15(4):36–59. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963 [1962]. Totemism. Boston: Beacon Press. Lewis, I. M. 1996 [1986]. Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 138

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Lewis, James R. 2015. “New Age Medicine Men Versus New Age Noaidi: Same Neoshamanism, Different Sociopolitical Situation.” In Nordic Neoshamanisms. Edited by Siv Ellen Kraft, Trude Fonneland and James R. Lewis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lindholm, Charles. 2013. “Introduction.” In The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions. Edited by Charles Lindholm. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lindquist, Galina. 2001. “The Culture of Charisma: Wielding Legitimacy in Contemporary Russian Healing.” Anthropology Today 17(2):3–8. Lindquist, Galina. 2002. “Healing Efficacy and the Construction of Charisma: A Family’s Journey Through the Multiple Medical Field in Russia.” Anthropology & Medicine 9(3):337–358. Nephin, Leandra. 2019. “Pretendians.” https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/bts/2019/01/25/pretendians/ Petaros, Anja et al. 2015. “Historical and Social Evolution of the Healers’ Charisma.” Collegium Antropologicum 39(4):957–963. Peterson, Jordan B. 2017. “Carl Jung Was a Modern Shaman.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EM COG5E9mk Ramos, Alcida Rita. 1998. Indigenism: Ethnic Politics in Brazil. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Reddekop, Jarrad. 2010. “Shamanism and Charisma: Reflections on the Problem of Enchantment in Modernity.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 10(3):349–361. Rudolph, Janet. 2019. When Moses Was a Shaman. FlowerHeartProductions. New York: Rockville Centre. Shirokogoroff, Sergei Mikhailovich. 1935. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Siikala, Anna-Leena. 1978. The Rite Technique of the Siberian Shaman. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica. Taussig, Michael. 1989. “The Nervous System Part 1: Homesickness & Dada.” In Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers Nos. 69–70. Berkeley: The Society. Thomas, Nicholas and Caroline Humphrey. 1996. “Introduction.” In Shamanism, History, and the State. Edited by Nicholas Thomas and Caroline Humphrey. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Townsend, Joan B. 2005. “Individualist Religious Movements: Core and Neo-Shamanism.” Anthropology of Consciousness 15(1):1–9. von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2002. “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and NineteenthCentury Thought.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70(4):771–799. von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2010. “Utopian Landscapes and Ecstatic Journeys: Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, and Mircea Eliade on the Terror of Modernity.” Numen 57:78–102. Whitehead, Neil L. 2002. Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death. Durham: Duke University Press. Whitehead, Neil L. and Robin M. Wright. 2004. In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery in Amazonia. Durham: Duke University Press. Winkelman, Michael. 2000. Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Wright, Robin. 2013. Mysteries of the Jaguar Shamans of the Northwest Amazon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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12 Charisma and Judaism David Aberbach

A vital force in Jewish history Though Jewish history has a number of outstanding charismatic leaders – Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Rabbi Akiba, Bar-Kokhba, Shabbetai Zevi, and Theodor Herzl, among others – Judaism is deeply suspicious of charisma, and with good reason. In Jewish literature, the charismatic, however remarkable, is often described as being little better than the people he leads, in some ways worse – Moses: an ineffectual stutterer; Saul: a slave to irrational impulses; David: a poor father; Amos: merely a shepherd and “dresser of sycamore trees” (7: 14); Jeremiah: an unwilling prophet-priest in the Temple in Jerusalem; and in later Jewish history, Akiba: a mere ignorant shepherd; Shabbetai Zevi: a dysfunctional manic-depressive; the Baal Shem Tov: a humble children’s teacher; and Herzl: a charlatan.1 Yet charisma is a vital force in Jewish history, from the prophets to the rise of Zionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jewish history reveals a complex interrelationship of gifted individuals and a nation, and the biblical prophets are, in particular, as Weber describes them, archetypal charismatics, possessing a “gift of God,” the original meaning of charisma. The authority of charisma originated not with any institutional power but with the power of the message and the prophets’ passionate faith and ability to convince others that they were mouthpieces for God. The Hebrew prophets in countless translations have been among the most original and influential poets in history. They stress moral principles, justice above all – “seek justice”; “do justice, love kindness, go humbly with your God”; “I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, mercy and love.”2 The power of the prophets lies in the expressiveness of their language, their ability to communicate a universal message: “He hoped to grow grapes, but they turned out rotten”; “Fallen, fallen is Babylon, all her idols smashed to earth”; “Rachel weeps for her sons. She won’t be consoled, for they are gone”; “Can these bones live?”; “As to a wife, abandoned and aggrieved, I call you, wife of my youth, once despised”; “Your king comes for you in triumph, a poor man, riding on a donkey”; “and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”3

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Distrust of charisma From the time of Bar-Kokhba until the 19th century, Jews were a pacifist people, led by rabbis and guided by dialectical halakhah (law). Kings, priests, politicians, and warriors gave way to educational leaders and masters of sober legal debate.4 Though Judaism has an exceptionally rich aggadic tradition (aggadah referring to all that is not halakhah in the rabbinic tradition, particularly homiletics and including legend and folklore), messiahs and mystics have tended to be marginalized in Judaism, and some founders of charismatic movements in Judaism, such as Jesus and the Baal Shem Tov, evidently did not see themselves as mass leaders. Distrust of charisma in Jewish life reflects centuries in which leaders promised redemption and left broken hopes. Jewish wariness of personality cults has proved fully justified in modern times, as millions of people gave uncritical support to tyrannical mass murderers such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Unlike the Gospels and the Koran, the Hebrew Bible is not built around the life of one man, a model of faith. It focuses less on charismatic individuals than upon one people, warts and all. The Hebrew Bible abounds with failed leaders, kings, priests, and prophets who misled the people, at times to moral collapse, defeat, and exile. In the millennium of ancient Jewish statehood, from Saul, first king of Israel, to Bar-Kokhba, last ruler of an independent Jewish state in the land of Israel (died c. 135 CE), few leaders are remembered with admiration. Even Moses is subjected by his people to constant attacks for bringing them into the desert to die.5 Moses is eulogized movingly at the end of Deuteronomy – “No prophet arose in Israel like Moses” – but in his lifetime the Israelites see him as a hapless leader, a target of their constant complaints about the miserable food in the desert and the shortage of water. His people even blame him for leading them from (not to) a “land flowing with milk and honey,” depriving them of tasty Egyptian fish, onions, garlic, and cucumbers!6 Moses’s own misgivings when he receives the divine call to lead – “They will not believe in me and will not listen to me” (Exodus 4:1) – proves to be largely justified: his people spoil even his moment of triumph as lawgiver at Sinai by worshipping the golden calf. Aaron, high priest and brother of Moses, is condemned for making the golden calf. With the exception of the reformer kings, Hezekiah and Josiah, who purged the Temple of idolatry, the Hebrew Bible vilifies most kings of Israel and Judah, too, as well as the so-called “false prophets,” chiefly for misleading the people into idolatry.7 The Bible concedes reluctantly the need for a king but tries to curb his power: he must not have too many horses or wives, or too much gold and silver “that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandments” (Deuteronomy 17: 20). Samuel unwillingly anoints Saul as the first king of Israel, cautioning the people that they can overcome this “wickedness” only by doing God’s will (I Samuel 12: 20). Most biblical kings are described as moral failures, ultimately bringing the nation to ruin. Even David, the most prestigious biblical king, who freed Israel of the Philistine threat and made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and the putative author of the Psalms, is described as a deeply flawed character, a murderer and adulterer, a vengeful “man of blood” (I Chronicles 22: 8). Jeroboam I, who led the revolt by which the kingdom of Israel was created, is remembered chiefly as an idolatrous sinner (I Kings 14). As for prophets from Isaiah to Malachi (c. 750–500 BCE), it is unclear what influence they had in their lifetime: Amos was driven from the sanctuary at Bethel, Jeremiah was imprisoned, Ezekiel was exiled, and many others were put to death. Anti-charismatic theology originating in the Bible expands in rabbinic literature and onward in reaction against the prophets and particularly against messianic movements, such as those of Jesus, Bar-Kokhba, and Shabbetai Zevi, which brought immense hope followed by bitter disappointment – and lasting distrust of charisma in Jewish society. In rabbinic literature, this

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condemnation extends to religious leaders, including Moses and Isaiah. Talmudic rabbis were distrustful and hostile toward prophets and messiahs because of their perceived failures: prophets, as they effectively libeled Israel, God’s Chosen People; messiahs, as they failed to achieve redemption of their people. The rabbis stress Jewish pride, not Jewish shame. They see the Jews as the chosen people still, beloved of God though broken and humiliated after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, deserving of loving respect and sympathy, as a suffering, vulnerable minority exposed to a frequently hostile majority. The rabbis were used to conflicting opinions, debate, and constructive national self-criticism. But they were also sensitive to the corrosive effects of loss of national morale, to which the prophets and messiahs inadvertently might have contributed, leading to Jewish hostility to Jews and Judaism. Ambivalence of rabbinic Judaism toward charismatic leadership was strongly conditioned by the disastrous consequences of messianic Judaism in the first and second centuries CE. Christianity, originally a Jewish messianic movement, developed an ideology of anti-Jewish hatred and the calumny that the Jews were collective deicides to be punished by unceasing persecution. The lasting bitterness toward charismatic leadership left by Bar-Kokhba (whose detractors mocked him as “Bar-Koziba” = “son of the lie” or “liar”) may be linked to the rabbinic attribution of the miracle of the exodus in the Passover Haggadah entirely to God (“I and no messenger, I and no other”) – with no mention of Moses.8 Perhaps for similar reasons, the Talmud excludes mention of the military achievements and charismatic leadership of the Hasmoneans (second century BCE): the sole rabbinic source for the celebration of the festival of Hanukkah is the miracle of the Temple oil lasting eight days.9 There were other notable charismatic failures: after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, David Reubeni and Solomon Molcho were a painful reminder of Jewish vulnerability in crisis; and after the 1648–49 Chmelnicki massacres in Poland, Shabbetai Zevi became the embodiment of the dangers of charisma in Jewish life. Wariness of such movements is evident in the Hasidic movement starting from the Baal Shem Tov: though Hasidism sometimes elevated the rebbe to a supernatural level, it tended to curb personality cults through rivalry among different groups and by keeping these cults within closed circles of devotees.10 Historic failures of leadership might be linked, too, to rabbinic hostility even to the biblical prophets. In the shadow of catastrophic national defeat, as Christianity broke away from Judaism, Hellenistic anti-Semites viewed Jews collectively as a band of superstitious lepers, enemies of humanity, hated by the gods. Christians and the Church used the Jewish defeats as proof that God had abandoned his chosen people: Jewish Scripture was holy but Judaism was finished, superseded by Christianity; the Jews survived only in their stiff-necked refusal to embrace Christianity; curses and denunciations in the biblical prophetic works were directed by Christians against the Jews; blessings and messages of hope and redemption were reserved for the followers of Jesus. In attacking Judaism, the early Christians had lethal ammunition in Holy Writ. They cited the prophets to “prove” that God had abandoned sinful Israel. Was the Hebrew Bible meant to provoke and justify anti-Semitic persecution and denigration? Foreshadowing the medieval and modern periods, when assimilated and baptized Jews included leading anti-Semites, Hellenized Jews and Judaeo-Christians in the first and second centuries CE were among the fiercest critics of their own people, and vulnerable to self-hatred. So painful was the loss of state and Temple, so fierce the polemics in the early Christian era – reaching a tragic climax in the gospels with the fateful charge of Jewish deicide, “His blood on our hands” (Matthew 27: 25) – that prophetic diatribes and threats against Israel, with their divine authority, at times seemed odious.11 The rabbis saw that their defeated people needed not angry judgments but words of comfort, hope, and love. The Midrash comments on the verse in Song of Songs (6: 1), “Do not look 142

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upon me that I am black”: “The Congregation of Israel said to the prophets: Do not look for blackness [moral flaws] in me.”12 The rabbis recoiled from the prophetic role of “telling Israel his sins.”13 They attack biblical prophets: Samuel and Elijah, for their alleged arrogance, slander or lack of respect and compassion for Israel; Isaiah, for comparing God’s beloved people to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and describing them as “impure of lips”; Hosea, for attacking Israel as an adulterous harlot, humiliated together with the children of her adultery; Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for slandering Israel by showing Jerusalem her “abominations”: “Before you look at Jerusalem’s scandals, face your mother’s own disgrace.”14 Even Moses stands accused, of slandering God’s chosen people by doubting them – “they will not believe in me” (Exodus 4: 1). Moses should have loved Israel, not insulted them – “Hear me, you rebels” (Numbers 20: 10). His punishment: leprosy and death before he reaches the Promised Land.15 The rabbis opposed Jewish self-hate, self-flagellation, self-criticism, and self-estrangement, which they felt the prophets encouraged, and to which the failure of messianic movements in the first and second century CE contributed. To the rabbis, prophetic attacks on Israel’s alleged immorality go too far. The rabbis emphasize love, not strife, between God and Israel. Some idealized the Jews as favored above all peoples, even above the angels.16 They sought to rid Judaism of its more extreme charismatic elements by normalizing Jewish education in which a positive Jewish self-image would be a primary aim.17 The basic view in rabbinic Judaism is that Torah study is the main activity of the loyal Jew, and all other commandments are in effect included in it;18 the only true leader is the uncharismatic Torah teacher. Those who devote their lives to Torah are qualified to lead by teaching.19 In the Mishna, the first codification of Jewish law (c. 200 CE), Judaism is based on religious practice, not prophetic visions or messianic hopes. If in the aftermath of the destruction of the Jewish state and the Temple in Jerusalem, the enemies of the Jews could not be cured of prejudice, if justice and fairness could not be established on earth, the Jews could at least try to teach their own children the positive values of Judaism, to encourage them to take pride in and love their Jewish heritage.20

The rabbinic view of uncharismatic leadership After the Romans destroyed the Jewish state, the rabbis gave much thought to the qualities of uncharismatic leaders. Which leaders are good and which are bad? How should they be ­chosen? How should their power be curbed?21 The ideal leader in the rabbinic view was totally selfless, serving his people for their own sake, out of duty and love, not lust for power and self-­ aggrandizement. Leaders must be appointed by public consent, on the basis of their righteousness and wisdom:22 “All who engage in public service should do so for the sake of heaven.”23 Leaders should not seek power but have power thrust upon them: “All who run after power, power will run from them; all who flee power, power will chase them.”24 According to one view, three leaders should be chosen, to avoid putting too much power in the hands of one man.25 Those who know the Torah are superior to leaders deficient in knowledge: “A wise man precedes a king.”26 A good leader will gain the World to Come for his followers and himself.27 The rabbis have much to say about good leadership, but overall they are more concerned with preventing bad leadership, generally taking the view, as Lord Acton put it, that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Even Moses, described in the Talmud as one of two or three good leaders (parnasim) of the people of Israel,28 is barraged with criticism and accused of a whole series of sins against his people. The rabbinic view is that Moses was dispensable, unlike other founders of religions, such as Jesus or Mohammed: “Ezra was worthy of giving the Torah [to Israel], if Moses had not come first.”29 In a midrash on the golden calf episode, God attacks Moses: “Get off your high horse! Did I not make you great only for the 143

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sake of Israel? Now they have sinned, what do I need you for?”30 Moses, fallible and mortal, is forced to seek the forgiveness of the people of Israel before his death.31 There was even a rabbinic view that “Moses never went up to heaven.”32 Poor leadership in crisis left lasting distrust of leadership in Judaism, as we have seen, and perhaps no other ancient civilization taught that leaders must accept that they are liable to suffer at the hands of their followers. In the Midrash, Moses and Aaron are warned that they should expect their followers to curse and stone them.33 When the Israelites commit the sin of worshipping the golden calf and God seeks to destroy the entire people, Moses intercedes for them and God relents (Exodus 32: 11–14); but when Moses strikes the rock rather than speak to it, as God commands, and is punished by dying before entering the Promised Land (Numbers 20: 7–12), none of his followers speaks up for him. The greatest rabbi of the Talmudic age, Rabbi Akiva, expresses typical reluctance to be a communal leader, “cursed and despised” by his followers.34 The rabbis follow the biblical prophets in condemning corrupt or ineffective leadership.35 As all are equal in the eyes of God,36 arrogant leaders are intolerable,37 causing God to weep.38 Preferable to such leaders are men with a history of scandal and public shame: “Communal leaders should have a box of impure creatures hanging behind them so that if they behave arrogantly they can be admonished: look behind you.”39 Tyrannical leaders are accursed: their victims would eventually punish them,40 and they would be afflicted with sons ignorant of the Torah.41 The lust for power was fatal: “Woe to power that buries those who wield it; each prophet saw four kings destroyed.”42 Power as a corruptor of morality was practically a death sentence; happy the leader who served his time without corruption (“naked as when he began”).43 People are better off in a leaderless void than led by wicked flatterers.44

Charisma, politics, and free will Modern definitions of charisma have expanded to include, among others, political leaders. Yet in the premodern world, charisma in its theological meaning invariably had political significance. Moses, for example, is not just a prophet and lawgiver at Mount Sinai but also, in effect, a freedom fighter who leads his nation out of bondage. The prophet Isaiah is not just a visionary who predicts the messianic age when “the wolf will lie down with the lamb” (11: 6), but also a political observer and advisor to kings who, during the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (c. 701 BCE), counsels Hezekiah not to surrender. Akiba is not just the leading rabbi of the Talmudic age, making dozens of legal rulings on many aspects of Jewish life, but also a participant in the Bar-Kokhba revolt, the final Jewish revolt against Rome (132–135 CE). Charisma is linked with the philosophical question: does an individual make a difference? Perhaps the best-known negation of individual agency is in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, in which even Napoleon is a puppet, controlled by external forces. Mainstream Jewish thought tends to accept that although human beings are subject to collective destiny, they have free will and can individually change the world. This is a persistent theme in the Hebrew Bible, from the exile from Eden at the beginning of Genesis until the exile to Babylonia at the end of Chronicles: both exiles are depicted as punishment for sin, which at least has the virtue of demonstrating freedom of choice. Paradoxically, as Akiba puts it, human beings are both subject to divine providence and have free will.45 Charismatic power is itself morally neutral and can be employed as human beings choose. Ideally, the choice should be determined by the will of God, by divinely sanctioned moral principles, but this is not usually so in reality: even Moses follows the will of God only so far, in taking the Israelite slaves out of Egypt, enabling them to survive in the wilderness, leading them to the Promised Land – but he is an individual for all that, his very failings, lapses in character, a sign that he has a mind of his own. The fallibility of his free 144

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will is stressed in the nature of his punishment and death: again, he climbs a mountain, this time in Moab, to be shown the Promised Land glistering in the haze across the Jordan, “but there you will not cross” (Deuteronomy 34: 4). The purely personal experience of the prophet and lawgiver is consistently underscored: in the basket hidden among the reeds of the Nile, beside the burning bush, atop Mount Sinai, on the mountains of Moab, Moses is alone. He is alone even in death, and the place of his death is unknown.

The reluctant leader Moses’s reluctance to accept the role of leader and prophet (Exodus 3: 11, 4: 1) is mirrored among the later prophets, notably Jeremiah: I am broken by my people’s ruin, I am filled with dark dismay. In Gilead is there no medicine, no doctor? Why are my people not healed? If my head were a store of water and my eyes a fountain of tears I would cry day and night for the slain of my people. If only I had an inn in the desert, I would abandon my people, treacherous adulterers . . . (8: 18–9: 1) Similar uncertainties are found among other charismatics in Jewish history, whether they are prophets or messiahs, religious leaders or generals: these include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Judah Maccabee, Jesus, Akiba, Bar-Kokhba, Shabbatai Zevi, and the Baal Shem Tov.46 Moses, however uncertain and flawed, is nevertheless the preeminent charismatic leader in Judaism: he galvanizes an unruly slave people, leads them to freedom, directs them to accept their own laws, and forges them into a nation with a system of beliefs and a territory of their own. Yet what he does right is in accordance with the will of God; what he does wrong is on his own account. From Moses onward, Judaism conceives of a great dramatic human struggle to determine the will of God, and to obey. Leaders might be needed to give direction, but they are prone to waywardness and corruption.

Charismatic homogamy Though Weber describes charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional qualities” (1968: 48), there is also evidence that just as individual relationships may be based on homogamous traits, so also in charismatic relationships.47 Charismatic homogamy evidently derives from an unusual convergence of individual and mass psychopathology, galvanized in crisis. The biblical prophets illustrate unforgettably (1) ways in which psychological traits of the charismatic mirror salient general characteristics of his society 145

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at a particular time, and (2) the correspondence of private experience with that of the group. Some charismatics, including Moses and the Baal Shem Tov, were traumatized by severe loss or upheaval in childhood which, to many, would be a chronic handicap; but they often seem able to transform trauma into creative motivation which can be of social and political use. The disruption of affectional bonds, apparently connected in many cases with a consequent sense of being chosen by Destiny to achieve great things, is a salient characteristic of charisma.48 Hosea’s marriage to a prostitute symbolizes the “prostitution” of ancient Israel; Jeremiah’s childlessness represents national loss and barrenness and brings home the fact that procreation on the eve of mass slaughter and exile by the Babylonians is futile; the death of Ezekiel’s wife is a symbol of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, to which the Judeans were “wedded” in faith.49 The principle of homogamy helps unravel a paradox of charisma: from Moses to Herzl, charismatics are identified with the nation or the group they lead, yet they are often outsiders. Moses is the Israelite infant raised in the Egyptian court who came to represent a nation of slaves; Herzl was the secular elegant West European Jew, whose followers were mostly East European Jews whose language, Yiddish, he hardly knew. Why should a nation in crisis identify itself with such outsiders or misfits who, in some cases, are also potentially dangerous, given the power to lead to bloodshed, disaster, and defeat? An explanation may be found precisely in the alienation and uncertainty which crisis breeds. These forces may bond a group with a charismatic who has already encountered them on a private, psychological level and has constructed defenses against them. Perhaps the classic expression of the correspondence between the tortured individual and the group is in the book of Isaiah, where the “suffering servant” is symbolic of the impoverished nation – “he bore our sickness, suffered our pain, he was the victim of our sins, we were healed because he suffered” – and becomes a light of salvation to all nations.50

Crisis and charismatic psychopathology Crisis  – war, revolution, famine, disease, the threat of annihilation  – can create conditions analogous to those with which the charismatic is familiar from childhood. Crisis might, therefore, trigger charismatic relationships in which the inner world of the charismatic intersects with external social and political reality. Crises which bring charismatics to power are not entirely new to them but might have far worse parallels in their former lives. The attachment of group to leader in crisis may eliminate, or at least mitigate, alienation and anomie.51 Anomie of the grief-ridden individual, the residual anger and depression, idealization and alienation, suddenly emerge as a microcosmic correlative and symbol of a specific, usually transient, social condition. Just as in personal relationships, individuals repeat (or transfer) childhood patterns of behavior and attitudes to the present, so also, it seems, in the political relationship between the charismatic and the public or nation. Moses, uprooted from his family in infancy, uproots his people from Egyptian bondage, seeking a return to its place of origin, its motherland. The Baal Shem Tov, an orphan, seeks above all union (devekut) with God, a kabbalistic teaching which resonates with Jews from the 18th century onward, who seek a new, stronger spiritual mooring in the modern world.52 Much as individuals silently bond with each other on the basis of shared trauma, so also a society and leader may bond together when external crisis intersects with private trauma. Crisis triggers off mass attachment behavior with the charismatic as its focal point – Moses in time of national enslavement; Amos against the Assyrian conquest; Jesus and Bar-Kokhba amid Roman rule; Shabbetai Zevi after the massacres of Eastern European Jews in 1648–49. The Hasidic movement associated with the Baal Shem Tov in some ways reacted to the turmoil of 18th-century Polish-Jewish life, the impact of the Sabbatean heresy and Frankism upon Eastern 146

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European Jews, the decline of Jewish communal organizations, the increasing gap between rich and poor, and between educated and ignorant, and the reactions against the dry scholarship of Talmudic study, as well as against rationalism and the Enlightenment. The Zionist movement led by Herzl responded to 19th-century European nationalism and racial anti-Semitism. The charismatic, recognized as one schooled in crisis, is therefore seen as capable of directional leadership, thereby reducing widespread uncertainty and fear. Political crisis may in some charismatics revive unresolved personal crisis. It can offer a second chance, as it were, a symbolic means of abreaction and symbolic resolution. In childhood crisis, the charismatic-to-be is overwhelmed by unfamiliar, uncontrollable circumstances. This time he is – or tries to be or to appear to be – ready and in control. Solutions nonexistent in the inner world may offer themselves in the public role. The degree to which political charismatics are conscious of the trauma which motivates them is generally unclear. Firsthand biographical information on their childhood is extremely scanty, and it may be that this blacking out of the past is part of their mass appeal. The psychopathology of Jewish messianism is unusually clear in the case of Shabbetai Zevi, as there seems little doubt that he was, as Gershom Scholem writes, a manic-depressive whose cycle of “illumination” and “the dark night of the soul” became meaningful to the Jewish people in the 1660s when projected onto the ancient hope for national redemption from exile.53 In Shabbetai Zevi, the link between mental illness and creative stimulus is evidently crucial in the emergence of the charismatic bond, as large numbers of Jews, rich and poor, young and old, educated and uneducated, European and Oriental, believed in him and many set out for the Land of Israel in the belief that redemption was at hand. Uniquely in crisis, the emotional handicaps of Shabbetai Zevi and self-schooling in trauma were widely perceived as having social value: depression was the national condition of exile, mania the wild enthusiasm for salvation. Crisis created a “fit” between the charismatic and the external world: he became “normal” and, indeed, his emotional incapacities became a source of public strength and a symbolic representation of sociopolitical reality. The bubble burst when Shabbetai Zevi arrived in triumph in Constantinople in 1666: arrested and imprisoned by the Grand Vizir of the Sublime Porte, he was given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. His conversion largely destroyed the movement, but the brief moment when the Jewish world believed in him exposed the depth of longing to return to Zion from exile. Though the man was a fake, the longing was real, and it continued, giving life to modern Jewish nationalism.

Zionism and secular charisma All premodern Jewish charismatics, however individual and eccentric, claim divine inspiration; however, in the modern Zionist movement, the authority of charismatic leaders comes less from religion than from the secular political sphere. Suspicion of charismatic leadership survived in Jewish society to modern times and hampered the Zionist movement, though Zionism produced a number of remarkable leaders, including Herzl, Jabotinsky, and Ben-Gurion. Each was curbed, however, by his followers or opponents, by fear of giving one man too much power or credence, and each endured widespread criticism, mockery, and scorn. Herzl, a true leader, combining vision and political practicality, had relatively little support at first.54 Some even suspected him of messianic pretentions, a resurrected Shabbetai Zevi.55 Herzl created the Zionist Organization but in the absence of support was forced to pay for it out of his own private funds,56 and he died prematurely in 1904. It is debatable whether or not the Zionist Organization would have emerged without him; Herzl himself declared the key ingredient to Zionism to be anti-Semitism – “the force we need.”57 An irony of modern Zionism is that Herzl – who knew relatively little about Judaism and was an unobservant Jew ready to seek a Jewish homeland 147

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in countries other than the Land of Israel – did more for the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland than the traditional rabbis. They were immersed in piety and devoted to the law and lore of ancient Israel, in the Bible and Talmud, committed to exile until the messianic age, and consequently powerless to achieve anything practical in the modern political arena.58 Still, there is in Herzl an occasional visionary gleam familiar from the ancient texts, and it is striking how as leader of a secular political movement Herzl found himself increasingly drawn to traditional Judaism, with unexpected growing empathy for Orthodox Eastern European Jews, those who, unlike their assimilated Western European brethren, preserved the biblical and rabbinic love of Zion. Charisma tends to attract paradox, and a paradox of Herzl’s charismatic identity is that he was a thoroughly assimilated European rationalist, a university-trained lawyer, who became totally and passionately committed to a movement often seen in his lifetime and after as irrational;59 in contrast, his notable opponent, Ahad Ha’am,60 from an observant Eastern European Hasidic background, immersed in traditional Jewish learning in the heartland of irrationalism (as it was seen by its detractors) nevertheless provided the most cogent rational critique of Herzl in the early years of the movement. Yet Herzl’s ability to create a bond with the masses proved more powerful than Ahad Ha’am’s wary intellectualism. It was, perhaps, characteristic of the two opponents that Ahad Ha’am largely abandoned Zionist polemics for private life in business, whereas Herzl used up his family fortune to keep the struggling Zionist movement going, and he remained single-mindedly devoted to his cause to the day he died.

Future research Future directions of research on charisma in Jewish culture will in all probability be influenced by the fundamental ambivalence toward leadership and skepticism toward charisma in Jewish life, with roots already in the biblical and Talmudic periods. Jewish scholarship is likely to continue to be critical of charismatic phenomena, as symptoms of social and psychological malaise. At the same time, scholarship is unlikely to ignore healthy aspects of charisma, particularly in dramatizing Jewish national unity, a common heritage and destiny, and a desire for change in a troubled world.

Notes 1 For examples of the ordinariness and seeming ineffectuality of charismatics before they come to prominence, see Aberbach (1996: 2–3). 2 Isaiah 1: 17; Micah 6: 8; Hosea, 2: 21–2. The phrase “justice and righteousness” is repeated many times in the Hebrew Bible, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Psalms, and Chronicles. 3 Isaiah 5:4; 21:9; Jeremiah 31: 14; Ezekiel 37:3; Isaiah 54: 6; Zachariah 9:9; Isaiah 2:4. 4 On the shift from prophecy to learning, see Fisch (1997). On the transformation by the time of the Mishna (c. 200 CE) of the Jewish people from a military State and Temple-bound people to a pacifist people guided by rabbis committed to the survival of Judaism through Torah education, see Aberbach (2019). 5 For examples of Moses’s difficulties as a leader, see Exodus 14: 11–12; 16: 3; Numbers 20: 4; 21: 5. The Israelites treat him sarcastically, even at times with contempt: “aren’t there enough graves in Egypt that you’ve brought us into the desert to die?” (Exodus 14: 11). 6 Numbers 13: 5; 16: 13. 7 On false prophets, see Deuteronomy 13: 1–5. 8 A similar case of Moses’s absence where one would expect him is in Psalm 90, “A prayer of Moses.” 9 Shabbat 21b. Talmudic references are to the Babylonian Talmud, unless indicated otherwise. 10 The outstanding charismatic figure in Judaism since 1945, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe (1902–1994), was and is believed by some of his followers to be the messiah, but the movement itself, which has chosen no new rebbe since his death, is engaged mainly with practical activities, notably in restoring Jewish life to Eastern Europe. 148

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11 Christian anti-Semitism often involved citation from the many biblical passages critical of the children of Israel as fixed and unchanging for all time. The rabbis responded with wariness toward the Bible, evidently contributing to its relegation to a secondary importance, far below the intensive give and take of Talmudic debate. This skewed intellectual hierarchy lasted to modern times and continues in many yeshivot today. 12 Song of Songs Rabbah 1, 6, 1. 13 E.g., Micah 3: 8; Isaiah 58: 1; and Ezekiel ch. 16. There was a rabbinic view that the Israelites, if not for their sinfulness which required prophetic reproof, would have been given only the Five Books of Moses and the book of Joshua at Sinai (Nedarim 22b). 14 Song of Songs Rabbah 1, 6, 1; Jerusalem Talmud, Ta’anit 3, 4, 66c; Berakhot 31b; Mekhilta, Exodus 12: 1; Pesachim 66b, 87a, 87b; Sanhedrin 92b, 107b; Yevamot 49b; Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, Buber edn., 112a, 115; Megillah 25b. 15 Deuteronomy Rabba 9, 6. 16 Hullin 91b. 17 On the transformation of state-based Judaism to education-based Judaism after the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, see Aberbach (2019). 18 See Shabbat 127a. 19 Rabbinic literature nevertheless warns against towns whose leaders are Torah scholars: their immersion in study may lead to neglect of practical duties. 20 See Hullin 89a, 91b. 21 Even prior to the Jewish revolts, there was the view that power was hateful. Avot 1: 10. 22 Sifre Bamidbar 140, Devarim 13. 23 Avot ii 2 24 Eruvin 13b. In a similar vein, see also Tanhumah Vayikra 3; Sifre Vayikra 95; and Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Schechter edn., version 1, ch. 11, p. 46. 25 Jerusalem Talmud, Peah 8, 7, 21a. 26 Horayot 13a. 27 Sanhedrin 92a. 28 The others are: David (Yoma 86b), or Aaron and Miriam (Taanit 9a). 29 Sanhedrin 21a 30 Berakhot 32a. 31 Tanhumah Va-etchanan 6. 32 Sukkot 5a. 33 See Sifre Bamidbar 91. In the modern age, Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, was subjected to intense criticism and mockery, and he, in turn, was none too impressed by his followers whom he described, not without affection, as a rabble of schnorrers, beggars and schmucks. 34 Jerusalem Talmud Peah 8, 7, 21a. 35 See, for example, Ezekiel ch. 34 and Zachariah ch. 11 on the “bad shepherds” of Israel. 36 Tanhumah Nitzavim 2 37 Pesachim 113b. 38 Hagigah 5b. 39 Yoma 22b. 40 Song of Songs Rabbah 6, 11. 41 Rosh Hashanah 17a. 42 Pesachim 87b. On the idea that power shortened one’s life, see Berachot 55a, Sotah 13b; and Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 1, 9, 30d. 43 Yoma 86a. 44 Deuteronomy Rabbah 5, 9. 45 Avot iii 19. 46 Baal Shem Tov: “Master of the Good Name [of God],” popular name of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer c. 1700–1760), founder of the modern Hasidic movement. 47 See Aberbach (1995). 48 Ibid., 3–5. 49 Hosea ch. 1; Jeremiah 16: 1–4; Ezekiel 24: 15f. 50 Isaiah 42: 6; 49:6; 53: 3–4. On the “suffering servant” in the context of charismatic prophecy, see Aberbach (1993: 99–101). 51 See Aberbach (1995). 149

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5 2 On loss in the psychology of Bialik and Ben-Gurion, see Aberbach (1996: 9–10, ch. 6). 53 On manic-depressive elements in Shabbetai Zevi’s behavior, see Scholem (1975). 54 For a broad range of scholarly views on Herzl, see Shimoni and Wistrich (1999). 55 On messianic perceptions of Herzl, see ibid., 336f. Literary works reflecting fear of undue messianic hopes created by Zionism include I.B. Singer’s Satan in Goray (1933) and Stefan Zweig’s The Buried Candelabrum (1936). 56 “The Zionist organization was so poor, the income from subscriptions so small, that the executive kept its finances secret for years in order to avoid ridicule” (Laqueur 2003: 108). Later Zionist leaders were constrained in different ways. Jabotinsky formed the militant Revisionist wing of the Zionist movement in the 1920s, but his party did not achieve power until long after his death in 1940. Ben-Gurion led the newborn state of Israel in war but was subject to the curbs of democratic government. 57 Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz (1995: 536). 58 There were exceptions among Eastern European rabbis, such as Yehuda Alkalai and Zvi-Hirsch Kalischer and, later, Abraham Isaak Kook, who were unusually sympathetic to and supportive of Zionism, but Zionism was essentially a movement led by non-religious and, in some cases, anti-religious Jews. 59 To his first biographer, Reuben Brainin, Herzl related a childhood dream in which the Messiah carried him to Moses, who said that he was the child for whom he prayed (Pawel 1989: 23). In Der Judenstaat, Herzl admitted that Jewish national identity was inseparable from Judaism: “Wir erkennen unsere historische Zusammengehörigkeit nur am Glauben unserer Väter” (1896: 57). 60 “One of the people,” pen name of Asher Ginsberg (1856–1927).

References Aberbach, D. 1993. Imperialism and Biblical Prophecy, New York and London: Routledge. Aberbach, D. 1995. ‘Charisma and Attachment Theory: A Crossdisciplinary Interpretation’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76, 4: 845–855. Aberbach, D. 1996. Charisma in Politics, Religion and the Media: Private Trauma, Public Ideals, New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan. Aberbach, D. 2019. Nationalism, War, and Jewish Education, New York and London: Routledge. Fisch, M. 1997. Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Herzl, T. 1896. Der Judenstaat, Leipzig and Vienna: M. Breitenstein. Laqueur W. 2003. A History of Zionism, London and New York: Tauris Parke, EJPS. Mendes-Flohr P. and J. Reinharz, eds. 1995. The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 2nd edn., New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pawel, E. 1989. The Labyrinth of Exile: A Life of Theodor Herzl, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Scholem, G. 1975 [1957]. Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676, R. J. Zvi Werblowsky (transl.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shimoni, G. and R. S. Wistrich, eds., 1999. Theodor Herzl: Visionary of the Jewish State, Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Weber, M. 1968 On Charisma and Institution Building, S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.), Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

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The collective invocation of the divine “They just can’t see the connection.” Maeve, a lithe woman of about 60  years, pondered the rolling Atlantic through a paned-glass window. Her face alight, eyes bright, she recalled the independent religious school at which she taught Pentecostal children alongside Roman Catholics. “Some people can’t understand how those ‘holy rollers’ could be of any interest to me, an old-school Catholic,” Maeve said with amusement. I was doing ethnographic fieldwork with American contemplative Christians at a retreat in a rustic fishing village on the coast of Maine. Influenced by Benedictine monasticism, the group of laypeople spent hours each day in silence – meditating or doing physical labor – as well as chanting and studying mystical texts, all in an effort to become more attuned to the divine they believed was everywhere around them. Their stillness and quiet seriousness were aesthetically distinct from the exuberant expressiveness of “spirit-led” Pentecostal devotion, yet Maeve felt a strong kinship with those “other” Christians. “After all, we want the same thing,” she said. “We just want to feel God’s presence here and now.”1

Maeve saw a connection between the charismatic, invocative energy of contemplatives and Pentecostals where contemporary scholars of Christianity often see difference. More than a study of charismatic religious authority, this chapter looks at the social and phenomenological effects of ritual devotion in two distinctive global movements of Christianity, Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative. Such charisma is a ground of collective and personal transformation toward powerful experiences of intersubjective unity that Christians often take as a sign of divine presence. Although broad global categories will always be a blunt tool at the level of local cultural nuance, this study shows how a common desire for proximity to the divine motivates many Christians around the world to enact ritual as a means of generating the charismatic energy that fuels enthusiastic participation and the growth of religious movements. Detailed ethnographic studies suggest wider trends, illuminating the similarities and differences between Pentecostal/ evangelical and contemplative Christian genres. Though they use different rhetorical and ritual methods – one primarily exuberant and ecstatic, the other primarily inward and enstatic – both 151

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movements practice collective invocation of the divine, as well as recognize certain individuals’ special “gifts of the spirit.” Included here is a discussion of the role of active cataphatic and ambiguous apophatic ritual forms, the latter being a characteristic particular to contemplatives. Though Christians themselves most often point to “grace” (or divine will) as their source, instances of profound experiential interconnectedness are very much the result of participants’ capacity for learning and embodying performative ritual techniques, particularly skills of attention, whether consciously or implicitly. Some learn this “performative knowledge” to a high degree, becoming charismatic virtuosos who often serve their communities and sometimes amass a body of devotees. Whether modestly or profoundly skilled in ritual invocation, Christians are united by their desire to make contact with the divine. Their impulse to generate charisma through ritual performativity has stimulated enormous social change, both globally and locally. Charismatic energy inspires compelling and awe-inspiring sensations of group unity that can derive from ritual techniques, ritualized living, and an immense desire for the divine. Based on her research with Romanian Orthodox Christians, Forbess (2010: 132) describes charisma as “the active principle that makes . . . knowledge [of the divine] possible”; Christians expect that energy “to transform those it enters in both a physical and spiritual sense.” This power has individual and corporate effects. Lindholm (2013: 1) rightly states, “Charisma is arguably the most important driver of religious transformation.” Charisma, however, means different things to different scholars and in different cultural contexts. An etymology especially applicable to Christianity, the Greek word charisma was introduced by Paul of Tarsus in the first century to describe fellow apostles’ compelling religious energy. He called their magnetism a “gift of the spirit” (Sohm cited in Lindholm 2013: 6). Those early Christians, similar to many Christians around the world today, believed that through prayer and grace (that is, divine will), people can invoke the Holy Spirit (the third force in the triune Christian godhead) and become conduits that draw divine energy into the midst their communities. This understanding of charisma as a mysterious but responsive and relational divine force is an extension of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, a foundational concept of Christianity which attests that Jesus was the human embodiment of God (Heo 2018b). Such charisma exists in both Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative Christian movements. Unfortunately, “charismatic Christianity,” a popular term for Pentecostals and evangelicals of various types, implies that charisma does not exist in other kinds of Christianity. Though it too has limitations, I  therefore opt instead for the nomenclature Pentecostal/­evangelical, or P/e, that more precisely defines the exuberant-Christianity movement, as suggested by Coleman and Hackett (2015). Robbins (2004b: 117, 120) offers a history of the 19th- and 20th-century global spread of Pentecostal, evangelical, and charismatic varieties of Christianity (including a history of sub-movements and their names), characterizing the movement as a “form of Christianity in which believers receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit” through patterns of “enthusiastic worship [that are] relatively unscripted and egalitarian in offering the floor to all those who the Spirit calls.” Coleman (2006: 40) adds this movement’s prevalent use of sanctified words, providing an example from his research with Swedish Word of Life Prosperity evangelicals, whose religious gatherings include “dauntingly fluent verbosity combined with an exuberant demeanor.” The P/e movement as a whole has a strong orientation toward ecstatic rites and enthusiastic expressiveness, with worship often revolving around scripture and the spoken word. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a report in 2011 on the statistical data of the geographic spread of global Christianity, revealing that together Pentecostals and charismatics then made up 8.5 percent of the world’s population and 26.7 percent of the world’s Christian population. These numbers rose to 12.6 percent and 39.8 percent when including 152

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the older category, the evangelical movement.2 Given the vast number of adherents worldwide, a considerable amount of scholarship has been devoted to understanding why P/e Christianity is so fast-growing and far-reaching and how it has caused social change around the world (e.g., Coleman 2000; Coleman and Hackett 2015; Hefner 2013; Jacobsen 2011). Being an emerging analytic category, the contemplative Christianity movement has no equivalent statistical data and far fewer anthropological or sociological studies. For the purposes of this chapter, contemplative Christianity as a category includes many adherents of varieties of Christian monasticism3 of both the so-called Western and Eastern churches (Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox), as well as non-monastic adherents who practice the contemplative arts, often learned from monks, nuns, and mendicants (e.g., Asad 1993; Corwin 2012; Hann and Goltz 2010; Lester 2005; Irvine 2010; Luehrmann 2018; Mermis-Cava 2009). Although ritualized speech, scripture, and theology are extremely important, contemplatives tend to be more practice-oriented than word-oriented. They emphasize mystery and the unknown, using repetitive formalized rites, stillness, silence, chant, and meditation practices, such as icon gazing and lectio divina, as methods of attunement to the divine. While Pew gives global data for Orthodox and Roman Catholic membership, together making up 62 percent of the world’s Christians,4 this is not an adequate way to account for the contemplative movement. A somewhat hidden and amorphous population, contemplative Christians are not necessarily definable by denomination since their ways are a matter of practice, aesthetics, ideas, and intentions rather than institutional adherence. A Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Christian may or may not be a practicing contemplative. Moreover, a considerable number seem to have fluid or nonexistent institutional membership, quietly practicing on their own or in small unaffiliated groups and often belonging to far-reaching networks. Some are even interreligious, drawing from the practices and teachings of other religions, like Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Islam (Pryce 2018: 10–22). A poor substitute for worldwide data, the umbrella organizations of a few widely practiced Roman Catholic monastic-inspired forms of Christian meditation give a tiny glimpse of the world’s population of contemplative Christians. The website of the London-based Benedictine World Community of Christian Meditation says that it has active groups in over 120 countries, as well as online practicing communities,5 while New York-based Contemplative Outreach, the main organization of the Trappist Centering Prayer meditation network, has 120 active chapters in 39 countries, with 800 prayer communities in the United States alone.6

What is charisma in Christianity? An historical European fascination with “great men” has skewed the scholarly literature on charisma toward questions about leadership and religious authority. Certainly, “charismatic pastors [can be] prime channels for divine power” (Meyer 2010: 753). Individuals such as Pentecostal pastor Bishop F.K. Akwaboah of the Ghanaian Christian Faith Ministries (McCauley 2012) and Austrian-born Roman Catholic Benedictine monk Br. David Steindl-Rast of the interreligious Network for Grateful Living7 (Ingram 1990) have had profound impacts on creating influential and far-reaching religious movements. They emerge as leaders only in part because of personal talent, however, for their success very much depends on how well they are supported by factors like sociopolitical circumstances and economic, gendered, and kin-based social structures (Hefner 2013; Marshall 2009). One who did focus on individual leaders, Max Weber (1946), is perhaps the most prominent social theorist who wrote on charisma. Weber developed his ideas about the sociopolitical power of religious figureheads from his observations about European Christian history. Writing 153

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on the impact of the potent emotional connection between attractive religious leaders and their followers, Weber distinguished primary and secondary varieties of charisma. Primary charisma refers to an iconoclastic ideal type of prophet that devolves into an institutionalized secondary charisma of priests, which Weber described as ultimately becoming overly bureaucratized and devoid of any of the original movement’s fire (Lindholm 2013). Versions of Weber’s primary and secondary charisma certainly exist in P/e and contemplative Christianities, yet the research of a number of scholars, including my own, shows that revolutionary prophet and conservative priest are not necessarily discrete categories (e.g., Engelke 2006; Forbess 2010; Wu 2013). Keping Wu’s study of charismatic Catholics in Boston, MA, for example, depicts a popular priest named Father Tom who keeps orthodox institutional sacraments while at the same time orchestrating innovative ecstatic healing rites that devotees believe invite a “direct corporeal connection with God” (Wu 2013: 37). Complex charismatic leaders who bridge between Weber’s two ideal types are not uncommon, and such individuals can be an important source of political power, institutional renewal, and social change, as well as a factor in the global spread of P/e and contemplative Christianities. As important as social authority and individual leadership are in understanding Christian religious movements, the invocation of charismatic energy is always collective and relational. That is, charisma is a productive form of communication between ritual actors (Engelke 2006). A number of social theorists examine the power of the collective in producing such religious dynamism. In the early 20th century, Émile Durkheim (2001) developed his influential ideas about collective effervescence and solidarity from secondhand accounts about the ritual lives of Indigenous Australian peoples. He said that ecstatic experiential collectivity results from people’s communal ritual devotion to totemic symbols and a potent sense of identification with the group. Half a century later, Victor Turner (1969) noted how Ndembu ritual in Zambia (then Rhodesia) prompted a powerful intersubjective bond he called communitas. Turner theorized that communitas can result from a ritual process of upending and leveling social categories and hierarchies to foster experiential unity between fellow participants. Basing his ideas on ethnographic research with American charismatic Catholics, Thomas Csordas (2002) added to our understanding of ritual solidarity with his theory of embodiment. Csordas developed the idea of embodiment partly to account for synchronous ritual behavior, such as the simultaneous movement and glossolalia that he encountered in his fieldwork. He noted that ritual performance and the unconscious adoption of habitualized cultural behaviors changed people’s perception, prompting phenomenological experiences of unification. These three theorists show some of the ways that ritual and prayer techniques generate charisma, group solidarity, collective behavior, and an experiential sensation of oneness with all things. Along with the relationality and responsivity between ritual actors that are highlighted in these theories, the concept of charisma further emphasizes the important effect – whether latent or active – of influential ritual adepts. Contrary to popular stereotypes about religious enthusiasts (apparent in Maeve’s ironic reference to “holy rollers” in this chapter’s opening vignette), religious production of charisma is not anarchic, irrational frenzy. In fact, charismatic worship can be thoughtful and silent, jubilant and playful, or any number of possibilities in between. Even when they appear spontaneous and unruly to outsiders, Christian practices (like any culturally ascribed practices) follow rules of a local ritual “grammar” (Coleman 2006) or “ritual textuality” (Tomlinson 2014). Returning to the biweekly Boston charismatic Catholic healing services of Father Tom, seemingly individualized “displays of heightened emotion” like dancing and jumping, laughing, crying, speaking in tongues, and convulsing on the ground are actually learned, habitualized ritual components of “interactional synchrony” and modes of communication between participants 154

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that are incorporated into a set rhythm within a larger organizing liturgical structure. Above all, participants’ actions expressed to the collective “the notion that God’s force is channeled through the person who is praying” (Wu 2013: 46, 49, 54n2). Scholars have long discussed Christian notions of transcendence and dualism, that is, God’s distance and separateness from humanity, especially among Protestants (e.g., Cannell 2006; Hovland 2018; Olson 2010; Robbins 2004a). However, many Christians experience God as very near indeed – if not always, at least some of the time. The global practice of charismatic ritual shows that many Christians not only have a strong desire for their God, but have also developed varieties of prayer and ritual practices as a means to make contact with their immanent God. Illustrations from the P/e Christian pool show how Christians sometimes interpret intersubjective energy as an unmediated link to the divine. Engelke’s ethnography (2006, 2007) among Masowe Apostolics in Zimbabwe, for example, describes how adherents experience an exuberant “live and direct” relationship with God through the charismatic force of ritualized speech, songs, and dream-telling of certain prophetic leaders, and Luhrmann’s research (2012: 302) shows that members of the American Vineyard Christian Fellowship use stylized, creative prayer dialogues to encounter their “vividly present” and “supercharged God.” From the contemplative side, Heo’s work (2018a: 163) with Coptic Orthodox Christians in Cairo describes baraka, a tangible charismatic force that is evident in the places where the Virgin Mary and the Christ child are said to have stayed during their flight to Egypt. Accessed through performative rites of veneration, baraka “is treated like an interpersonal substance, not unlike the Melanesian magic of mana. . . . Fluid and tactile, baraka is conveyed via media like water, oil, dust, air, electricity.” A more tempered, graduated version of divine immanence, Naumescu’s South Indian study (2018) depicts “sacred mysteries” in variable degrees of presence and hiddenness among Syrian Orthodox Christians in Kerala. Their human-divine interaction is potentially deepened by spiritual training in attentiveness and attunement through practices like the Hesychasm prayer, an Orthodox mantra that is repeated, often silently and ideally continually, in an effort to transform consciousness toward increasing awareness of God’s presence, which may ultimately bring practitioners to theosis (full union with the divine). These communities’ experiences with sensations of connectedness through prayer and ritual show that many Christians believe God can be very much present on earth.

The varied techniques of collective effervescence: ecstasy and enstasy in Christian charismatic ritual and prayer This general desire to draw near to the divine through ritual and prayer reveals a strong commonality between our two Christian genres (cf., Luhrmann 2012; Meyer 2010). Even so, there are obvious differences to anyone observing P/e or contemplative ritual and prayer life. Hinted at in the foregoing ethnographic descriptions, the two varieties’ distinctive aesthetic qualities may be differentiated by the terms, ecstasy and enstasy.8 As noted previously, Pentecostal/ evangelical rites are generally ecstatic  – seemingly spontaneous and emotionally expressive, performed with outwardly energetic actions like hand waving, whirling, and dancing, and animated speech forms, such as glossolalia, rousing sermons, and personal testimonials. By contrast, contemplative rites are generally enstatic, emphasizing inwardness, silence, and stillness, as well as measured speech, such as repetitive chants, and prescribed liturgical actions, like bowing, processing, blessing the altar with incense, and making the sign of the cross. Of course, P/e ecstasy and contemplative enstasy are heuristic divisions rather than hermetically sealed realities. Examples of crossover aesthetics include Fr. Tom’s invitation to his charismatic Catholic congregation to observe silence and stillness in the midst of his energetic healing services (Wu 2013: 47), and 155

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the ardent, physically vigorous Sufi-turning practices of some non-monastic contemplatives in my own research (Pryce 2018; cf., Pop 2018). Two brief ethnographic vignettes illustrate how different varieties of ritual life work to foster collective effervescence in their respective communities. First, a vigil at an American Episcopalian monastery in my research exemplifies enstatic ritual aesthetics: There was very little light and a pungent aroma of frankincense permeated the air. With so few candles, the monastic chapel’s gilt icons and granite arches were barely perceptible. We were approaching the conclusion of a lengthy nighttime rite in Holy Week. Toning a rhythmic Latin chant, more than two hundred people – monks and their non-monastic adherents – recessed in almost complete darkness from the cloister’s high altar. The resonant a cappella chant continued for perhaps twenty minutes as the congregation slowly moved stream-like through the wrought-iron cloister gate towards a lesser altar in the antechapel. Gathering there, the collective voice developed into a cyclical, seamless pulse that flowed, swelled, and receded like the breath of a solitary creature at rest. The chant had a visceral quality, deep vibrations thrumming through the bodies of everyone present. Then without any signal, not even a slowing of tempo, every single person ceased the chant simultaneously. The contrast of the lulling inward tones to the newly born silence was breathtaking. Utterly still, the assembly listened as reverberations of sound gradually dissipated into the rafters. (cf. Pryce 2018: 147) Compare this scene with the aesthetics of P/e ritual life. Ecstasy seems to predominate in the example of a Fijian “crusade” of United Pentecostal Church International, which Tomlinson (2014: 22–23) describes in this way: As I arrive, the choir is already singing and swaying, accompanied by buoyant keyboards, guitar, and drums. I sit high in the park’s grandstand to get a good overview and, I confess, to minimize the chance that I will be yanked into a place of ritual prominence. Before long, an energetic crowd has arrived, probably more than a thousand people in all. . . . As the crowd grows, so does the energy. Soon the central worship space is rushed by people in constant motion. Children dart into it, running in delight. Adults whirl small towels, clap, and thrust their hands toward heaven. . . . This raucous Pentecostal affair . . . is an e­ xplosion – a riot. . . . By now, people have been swaying, jumping, whirling, and ­whooping for more than an hour, using the choir as a musical drive toward spiritual ecstasy. People are caught up in each moment, thrust forward to a succession of peaks. The worshipers seem tireless, their bodies like waves that keep cresting but never crash. Borrowed from Orthodox Christian theology, the analytical concepts of cataphasis and a­ pophasis greatly assist our understanding of ecstatic and enstatic ritual forms like those in the ethnographic examples earlier (Pryce 2018: 7, 137–138, 182–183, 2019; cf., Forbess 2010; Louth 2012; Luhrmann 2012: 161–167). First, cataphatic religious devotion is the doing of ritual and prayer, the active aspects of movement, vocalization, and thought. Both P/e and contemplative Christians perform cataphatic practices, whether exuberant or quiet. Any thought or action is cataphatic, even sitting in a still meditation posture and inwardly repeating a mantra. The use of the imagination is an illustration of a thought-oriented cataphatic ritual technique in both P/e and contemplative Christian genres. Heo (2018b) describes the role of the imagination in icon gazing among Egyptian Coptic Christians, for example, and Luhrmann (2012) writes 156

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about American Vineyard evangelicals’ “God-dreams,” a variety of prayerful daydreaming that is a means of prompting sensorial experiences of the divine. Episcopalian monks in my research (Pryce 2018: 115–116) also taught the power of creative thought in prayer, encouraging the practice of the sixteenth-century Jesuit Ignatian spiritual exercises that invite people to use their imagination and senses to enter the “sacred drama” of gospel scenarios. Active cataphatic rites, such as these image-oriented prayer techniques, are widespread methods of cultivating experiential union with the divine and raising charismatic energy. Second, in contrast to cataphatic doing, apophatic prayer is the not doing of ritual life. Sometimes called unknowing or holy mystery, apophasis is the ambiguous aspect of ritual and prayer that contemplatives in my research have described as “nothingness” and “that unknown place beyond what is” (Pryce 2018: 17). Enacted through the inward psychophysical practice of kenosis (a Greek New Testament word meaning self-emptying, humbling, or letting go), apophasis is more a state of consciousness than an action. Nevertheless, embodied ritual action is the anchor of its genesis. For instance, the act of chanting the psalms is a cataphatic form through which a person can perform the inner ritual gesture of self-emptying, potentially catalyzing intersubjective union with the divine and all things (Pryce 2018: 43–47, 182–183). Although many adherents are keen students of scripture and theology, their apophatic practice points to a prevalent characteristic of contemplative Christianity, that is, recognition of the frailty of human knowledge and an intention to be receptive to that which is beyond knowing. As far as I am aware, apophasis is not intentionally practiced by P/e Christians, and indeed, many have expressed a distrust of the contemplative pursuit of self-emptying and unknowing as a means of unification with the divine, possibly due to the key theological importance of scripture and words (Luhrmann 2012: 167–168). Because of the esteemed place of mystery, unknowability, and apophatic practices, contemplative Christians may in certain regards have a greater affinity with Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist practitioners than with other varieties of Christianity (Merton 1985).

Exemplary charismatics: virtuosos, prayer warriors, and the art of charismatic invocation Whether apophatic or cataphatic, the charismatic arts are techniques that people learn to varied degrees. From my research among American contemplatives, I developed the idea of performative knowledge to account for those differences. The theory of performative knowledge uses a metaphor of musicianship to describe the diverse range of participants’ abilities to invoke charismatic energy, from ordinary players to virtuosos who act as powerful conduits of the divine for their communities (Pryce 2018: 187–197, forthcoming). Bringing together individual agency and established cultural forms, performative knowledge theory shows how variables like attentiveness, intention, seriousness of purpose, and experience impact the degree to which practitioners generate the charismatic phenomenological intersubjectivity that Christians often interpret as divine presence. A  particularly important factor is a capacity for attention. While Christians commonly say that grace (rather than talent or skill) explains why some groups or individuals are luminaries and others are unexceptional, the extent to which people can learn the charismatic arts has much to do with their ability to hone culturally specific techniques and forms. Some of those who have mastered ritual grammar use their charisma to garner sociopolitical power and religious authority. However, many do not. They instead work to amplify a communal sense of connectedness to the divine by using their specialized skills to stabilize the prayer life of others, encourage those who suffer, and energize and inspire their communities. One contemplative Christian in my research, Brigid, showed her uncommon skill in a rather modest situation. At a contemplative retreat on the grounds of an American Benedictine 157

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monastery, participants learned how to practice “conscious work” as a form of prayer. Ritualizing everyday cataphatic actions like raking the lawn or washing the dishes, they practiced the inner ritual gesture of kenosis (contemplative self-emptying) to heighten their attention to an immanent divine. A  Benedictine oblate and a spiritual director with an advanced degree in World Religions, Brigid recounted her experiences with conscious work at an evening gathering. She was intently focused and took deliberate care with her words to reflect on the simple act of cutting cucumber in the kitchen that day. Brigid’s voice trembled slightly as she described how she had paid close attention to bodily sensation and movement as a way of “being present to the divine.” She said that the colors and textures had seemed alive and vibrant, and that the perfect circles of cucumber had inspired her to recall a beloved Sufi poem about “seeds at the center.” When the retreat master asked Brigid to cut the pieces smaller, she had initially resisted. But she had noticed her wary response, remembering that resistance is the opposite of apophatic self-emptying and a willingness to enter the unknown. So instead of clinging to her desire for ideal forms, she had gone ahead and started slicing. Brigid described how, in the midst of trying to keep cucumber pieces from flying off the cutting board, she had suddenly had an experiential realization of divine presence. “Abundance!” she exclaimed with quiet force and glinting eyes, “a gravitational outpouring of abundance everywhere around us!” Brigid told her tale with intensive, compelling energy. All motion seemed to have been arrested by the concentration with which she conveyed her intentional kitchen work. The way she spoke and the rapt attention of her listeners together profoundly changed the atmosphere of the room. Both the conscious work exercise itself and Brigid’s descriptive speech were cataphatic anchors for apophatic inner gestures that garnered profound intersubjective energy. Brigid’s listeners clearly recognized her charismatic virtuosity, for no one made a sound and the room was absolutely still. People seemed to be in awe. In time, the retreat master said in a whisper, “Someone’s paying attention. Wow.” Another woman close to me leaned over and said, “Our very own T.S. Eliot” (cf. Pryce 2018: 180). Brigid’s example highlights how any action and any situation, even ordinary life tasks, can be a locus for the performative knowledge that generates charismatic energy. Compare Brigid’s aptitude for apophatic-oriented practices with the image-based cataphatic prayer of a Vineyard evangelical named Sarah in the ethnographic research of Tanya Luhrmann (2012). Sarah’s community described her as a “prayer warrior,” one who, like Brigid, had the unusual skill to act as a source of charismatic energy for her community. Sarah said praying is something that requires practice; it is like “opening up your perceptions and tuning them up in a different way so that even just walking down a street and looking at flowers took on new significance” (Luhrmann 2012: 135, 139). She developed her skills, especially her capacity for attention, by spending hours each day in prayer that focused on the “images and sensations” she sought as sources of guidance from God. Sarah illustrated the importance of prayerful cataphatic imagery in her description of how paying attention to a bed of tulips, to the intricacy of their colors and shapes, ultimately became a form of inspiration when she prayed with a woman later that day. Sarah said, While I was praying for this woman, those images came up. So we prayed that it would be God’s timing that would open up those flowers, that she wouldn’t try to push a bud open before its time, that she would know what color she was going to be in and things like that. Those things might have come to my mind anyway, but I’d really opened myself up for that in the morning for God to really be planting whatever images I was gonna need in the afternoon. (quoted in Luhrmann 2012: 136) 158

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Sarah described the state of consciousness derived from concentrated imagistic practices as “like being in a different dimension, being on a different plane of existence. I can see what’s going on around me, I can hear the things that are going on around me, but I’m removed from it. It’s sort of – to put it in a maybe new age kind of term – it’s like an out-of-body experience almost sometimes. And that’s the Holy Spirit dimension of God.” Members of Sarah’s Vineyard community recognized her special gifts of the spirit and sought her intercessory prayer. They called Sarah a prayer warrior because they saw her as one who could muster charismatic energy and do battle on behalf of God (Luhrmann 2012: 137, 139). Attention clearly matters in the charismatic arts. Although they used culturally different methods (one self-emptying and apophatic, the other image-oriented and cataphatic), the ­masterful prayer techniques of Brigid and Sarah both develop attention practices as a common route to divine invocation. According to Luhrmann (2012: 152, 312), the development of “attentional habits” are a primary source of experiential connectedness to the divine. She says that vibrant religious expressions in the contemporary era depend in part on participants’ intensive attention to their “intimate and personally real God.” Vineyard evangelicals in Luhrmann’s research “pay constant attention to [their] mind and world, seeking God’s presence.” Similarly, Brigid’s contemplative retreat master taught “You energize what you pay attention to.” Brigid was adept at “keeping attention,” whether cutting cucumber or speaking to a group. Brigid and her cohort spent hours meditating, chanting, and performing conscious work exercises, all in an effort to train themselves in the art of attention and attune themselves to the divine and one another. The compelling force of charisma, like that procured by Brigid and Sarah, has prompted remarkable change in individuals, communities, and far-flung networks. Although they are participants in distinct global movements, each with tremendous internal diversity, both Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative Christians desire experiential contact with an immanent God, and both use ritual and ritualized living to make that contact. In so doing, they set in motion the phenomenological underpinnings and motivation for expansive religious movements and significant social change. Participants learn these techniques to varying degrees, however. A common denominator for those who are adept at their craft is learning culturally specific ritual techniques (whether ecstatic or enstatic, cataphatic or apophatic) and performing them with seriousness of purpose. Charismatic artistry is thus less an inherent personal characteristic than it is performative knowledge, a matter of how well one learns, listens, and refines culturally specific ritual grammar, particularly skills of attention. For those who are determined in their efforts, ritual provides an opportunity to follow Paul of Tarsus’s instruction to “pray without ceasing” and invoke an immanent divine with charismatic gifts of the spirit.

Future directions/research To improve our understanding of the impact of charismatic ritual on world Christianities, particularly among Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative genres, scholars of religion will need to undertake new research, such as: • • •

studies on the intricacies of local production of charismatic energy to better understand ritual technologies as factors in the rapid global spread of Christian movements studies on how social media and online ritual are used in the production of charismatic energy and their contribution to the global spread of Christian movements studies that seek to understand broad similarities and differences of the role of charisma in Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative Christianities as well as other religious movements. 159

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•

•

detailed ethnographic research on contemplative Christians in order to bring data to a level where Pentecostal/evangelical and contemplative movements may be more easily compared statistical studies on the global contemplative Christian movement

Acknowledgments: My gratitude goes to Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Professor of Religion at the University of Toronto, for his helpful guidance, and to Charles Lindholm, University Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Boston University, for continued inspiration and support.

Notes 1 Please note that all uncited quotations are drawn from notes taken during fieldwork. This encounter took place in June 2018 at a gathering of Christian contemplatives on the coast of Maine. 2 See Pew’s “Christian Movements and Denominations” for 2011 statistics and definitions of ­Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Evangelical Christianities, www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianitymovements-and-denominations/#defining, accessed June  15, 2019. Charismatic Catholics make up some part of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement, meaning that these numbers are actually greater than the total of Protestants (including non-P/c Protestants) in the Pew data. Because of the cross-­ identification, Roman Catholics, Orthodox churches, and the Pentecostal/charismatic/evangelical movement cumulatively amount to 102  percent of the world’s Christians. Note that Pew does not include the global contemplative Christianity movement as a category in its study. 3 Not every form of monasticism is intentionally contemplative. For example, the Roman Catholic Church has active and contemplative orders of avowed religious. 4 See “Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population” at www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/, accessed June 15, 2019. Refer to endnote 2 for reasons why the numbers of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Pentecostal/ charismatic Christian movements together make up more than 100 percent of the world’s Christian population. 5 www.wccm.org/content/about-world-community-christian-meditation, accessed April 2, 2019. 6 www.contemplativeoutreach.org/about-us, accessed November 28, 2016; cf. Pryce 2018: 296n13. 7 See www.gratefulness.org. 8 The term, enstasy, is not commonly used to discuss Christianity, but can be readily found in studies of Hindu and Buddhist contemplative arts (e.g., Pandit 2006).

References Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Cannell, Fenella. 2006. “Introduction: The Anthropology of Christianity.” In The Anthropology of Christianity. pp. 1–50. Fenella Cannell, ed. Durham: Duke University Press. Coleman, Simon. 2000. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coleman, Simon. 2006. “When Silence isn’t Golden: Charismatic Speech and the Limits of Literalism.” In The Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity. pp. 39–62. Matthew Engelke and Matt Tomlinson, eds. New York: Berghahn Books. Coleman, Simon, and Rosalind I.J. Hackett, eds. 2015. The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. New York: New York University Press. Corwin, Anna I. 2012. “Changing God, Changing Bodies: The Impact of New Prayer Practices on Elderly Catholic Nuns’ Embodied Experience.” Ethos. 40(4): 390–410. Csordas, Thomas J. 2002. Body/Meaning/Healing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Durkheim, Émile. 2001 [1912]. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Engelke, Michael. 2006. “Clarity and Charisma: On the Uses of Ambiguity in Ritual Life.” In The Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity. pp. 63–83. Matthew Engelke and Matt Tomlinson, eds. New York: Berghahn Books. Engelke, Michael. 2007. A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church. Berkeley: University of California Press. Forbess, Alice. 2010. “The Spirit and the Letter: Monastic Education in a Romanian Orthodox Convent.” In Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective. pp. 131–154. C. Hann and H. Goltz, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hann, Chris, and Hermann Goltz, eds. 2010. Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hefner, Robert W., ed. 2013. Global Pentecostalism in the 21st Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Heo, Angie. 2018a. “Baraka: Mixing Muslims, Christians, and Jews.” In Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. pp. 163–164. Sonja Luehrmann, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Heo, Angie. 2018b. “Imagining Holy Personhood: Anthropological Thresholds of the Icon.” In Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. pp. 83–102. Sonja Luehrmann, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hovland, Ingie. 2018. “Beyond Mediation: An Anthropological Understanding of the Relationship Between Humans, Materiality, and Transcendence in Protestant Christianity.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 86(2): 425–453. Ingram, Catherine. 1990. In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual Social Activists. Berkeley: Parallax. Irvine, R.D.G. 2010. “How to Read: Lectio Divina in an English Benedictine Monastery.” Culture and Religion. 11(4): 395–411. Jacobsen, Douglas. 2011. The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Lester, Rebecca J. 2005. Jesus in Our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lindholm, Charles. 2013. “Charisma in Theory and Practice.” In The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions. pp. 1–29. Charles Lindholm, ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Louth, Andrew. 2012. “Apophatic and Cataphatic Theology.” In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. pp. 137–146. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luehrmann, Sonja, ed. 2018. Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Luhrmann, T.M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Marshall, Ruth. 2009. Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McCauley, John F. 2012. “Africa’s New Big Man Rule? Pentecostalism and Patronage in Ghana.” African Affairs. 112(446): 1–21. Mermis-Cava, Jonathan. 2009. “An Anchor and a Sail: Christian Meditation as the Mechanism for a Pluralist Religious Identity.” Sociology of Religion. 70(4): 432–453. Merton, Thomas. 1985. Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns. W.H. Shannon, ed. New York: Farrar-Straus-Giroux. Meyer, Birgit. 2010. “Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and Pentecostalism’s Sensational Forms.” South Atlantic Quarterly. 109(4): 741–763. Naumescu, Vlad. 2018. “Becoming Orthodox: The Mystery and Mastery of a Christian Tradition.” In Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. pp. 29–53. Sonja Luehrmann, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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Olson, Glenn. 2010. The Turn to Transcendence: The Role of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Pandit, Moti Lal. 2006. The Disclosure of Being: A Study of Yogic and Tantric Methods of Enstasy. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Pop, Simion. 2018. “Orthodox Revivals: Prayer, Charisma, and Liturgical Religion.” In Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. pp.  216–241. Sonja Luehrmann, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pryce, Paula. 2018. The Monk’s Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Pryce, Paula. 2019. “Forming ‘Mediators and Instruments of Grace’: The Emerging Role of Monastics in Teaching Contemplative Ambiguity and Practice to the Laity.” Religions. 10(7): 405. Pryce, Paula. forthcoming. “Disunity and ‘Unitive Being’: Uncertainty, Social Structure, and the Variability of Performative Knowledge in Contemplative Christian Ritual.” Special issue of Anthropological Theory. R. Kesselring and A. Christian, eds. London: Bloomsbury. Robbins, Joel. 2004a. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Robbins, Joel. 2004b. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology. 33: 117–143. Tomlinson, Matt. 2014. Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance. New York: Oxford University Press. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Wu, Keping. 2013. “Performing the Charismatic Ritual.” In The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions. pp. 33–57. Charles Lindholm, ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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14 Constructing Muslim charisma Jonathan E. Brockopp

Introduction Issues of leadership and authority have been a central concern for Muslim thinkers since the death of the Prophet Muhammad fourteen centuries ago. And as the Muslim world expanded beyond the confines of Arabia, succession to the Prophet’s political and religious authority only became more complex. Today, Muhammad’s genealogical descendants claim political leadership in Morocco and Jordan, while most Shiites argue that authority properly adheres to a different descendant, the hidden 12th Imam. Muhammad’s spiritual authority is likewise dispersed among religious scholars, Sufi masters, and others. Many more examples could be cited, and each of these groups has a unique way of theorizing the transmission of Muhammad’s authority. Researchers grappling with this history face two significant challenges. First, both Muslim and non-Muslim authorities reduce this complexity to simple narratives about Muhammad’s “essential” nature, whether that of warrior, peacemaker, mystic, or some other quality. Second, a lack of empirical studies (and ignorance of those that exist) allows these essentialist narratives to flourish. Since the mid-20th century, many European and North American scholars have tried to address these challenges by utilizing Weber’s concept of charisma to better understand these notions of leadership and authority. As I will describe here, this project has not always been successful, and some scholars have explicitly rejected Weberian categories as inappropriate for the study of Muslim figures. Others have offered important modifications of Weberian concepts that reveal intriguing lines of intersection among leadership types; their work should be useful to all scholars of religion. In this chapter, I will first describe the many ways that scholarship on Muslim leadership and authority informs and challenges our definitions of charisma, beginning with Max Weber’s own problematic understanding of Islam. Second, within this overview I will pay special attention (1) to the ways that Weber’s categories of pure and routinized charisma have been modified, and (2) to new understandings for the role of the charismatic community. Third and finally, I offer my own modifications to these categories by suggesting that history plays a key role in defining Muslim leadership and authority and that the very process of remembering Muhammad’s charisma helps to create space for extraordinary acts of leadership in subsequent generations up to our own day. 163

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The study of charisma Making sense of scholarship on Muslim charismatic authority can be difficult, because scholars focus on specific manifestations of the vast Islamic tradition and because they approach their subjects from different disciplinary perspectives, such as sociology, anthropology, history, and other fields. The Arabic terms baraka and wilāya are most often cited as equivalents to the term charisma, but as I will discuss later, there are others. This variety of subjects and methodologies is understandable, but it risks conceptual anarchy, to repurpose a phrase coined by sociologist Kojiro Miyahara (1983, p. 383). To some extent, however, we must blame Max Weber himself for this “anarchy.” Not only does he offer numerous, not always consistent, discussions of charisma but his understanding of Islam was seriously deficient.

The Weberian background Following the vogue of his day, Max Weber regarded Muhammad as an “ethical prophet” who motivated followers by force of law rather than force of personality (Weber, 1993, p. 55). This is in contrast to his notion of the “exemplary prophet,” such as the Buddha, whose every action is regarded as something to be emulated. In this, Weber followed writers such as Voltaire, Thomas Carlyle, and Ernest Renan, who considered Muhammad to be a great man, a rational, political leader. Weber regarded cosmic miracles and the doctrine of Muhammad’s sinlessness to be a later theological overlay, and Sufi perspectives altogether were to be regarded as of Persian or Indian origin (Weber, 1993, pp. 264–265). In other words, Weber separated out the “historical Muhammad,” who was a political leader, from other forms of Muslim belief that were dismissed as ahistorical accretions or foreign impositions. Weber’s view of Muhammad has been influential both among specialists in the study of Islam and in the way that the tradition has been understood in the general public. But Weber’s view also had implications for the way that charismatic authority was understood to function within Muslim traditions. Until quite recently, for example, the study of Sufism was depicted as a kind of irrational or folk religious practice that deviated from the “norm” (Sharify-Funk, Dickson and Xavier, 2017). These prejudices have been enforced by both colonial regulations and also Muslim neocolonial regimes. But if the irrationality of Sufi traditions was overemphasized in many 19th- and early 20thcentury studies, the ‘ulamā’ (the learned Muslim scholars) are still too often depicted as responding to purely rational, bureaucratic motivations (Brockopp, 2011). These are just two examples of the many ways that the perception of Islam has been riddled with prejudice and misunderstanding. We have the work of anthropologists foremost to thank for correcting many of these misconceptions, and literary and historical scholars have applied some of their insights to new readings of foundational texts (as well as to the many early texts that have been newly published), yet these misunderstandings persist. Nevertheless, because of this new scholarship, we are able to understand the complexity of Muslim traditions on a level quite inaccessible to Max Weber in the early 20th century. This chapter cannot address all these changes, but it is important to recognize that the study of Islam and Muslim cultures in Weber’s time was still in its infancy, and like his contemporaries Weber seemed unaware of the fact that the received version of Muhammad’s life was itself heavily influenced by the social and political context of those who wrote it down centuries after the Prophet’s death. But we should not be too quick to gloss over Weber’s prejudices; already in the 1970s Bryan Turner argued that Weber should have applied his own methods of verstehende sociology to the materials available, arguing “Weber inconsistently applied in practice those 164

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methodological and philosophical principles which he declared were crucial to an adequate sociological approach” (Turner, 1974, p. 3).1 As we will see, a more complex understanding of Muslim traditions goes hand-in-hand with modifications to Weber’s theories, resulting in important insights as to the nature of charismatic authority.

Early work by Watt, Turner and Geertz Perhaps the first to describe the early Muslims as a “charismatic community” was W. Montgomery Watt in an article that focused on the Kharijite movement (Watt, 1960). While Watt does not discuss Weber’s theory directly, he uses Weber’s language to explore the religious motivations that informed early Islamic leadership, extending his musings to the role of scholarly elites in determining law. Watt is at his most creative in a book that appeared the following year, 1961, Islam and the integration of society. Here, he suggests that two scholarly institutions, decision by consensus and authentication by isnād, are best explained through charisma. On consensus he writes: “[I]t arises out of an intense belief in the community, a belief that the community is in some way supernatural, is a divinely instituted and divinely ordered community, in brief, that it is a ‘charismatic community’ ” (Watt, 1961, p. 204). Regarding the isnād, he observes “[I]t gave the main body of moderate Muslims a justification for holding that the Shariʿah which they were following had a charismatic origin in the words and acts of Muhammad himself ” (Watt, 1961, p. 227). Watt’s notions of a charismatic community seem to depart from Weber’s concepts in two ways: (1) by emphasizing the role of the charismatic follower as someone who shares the specialness of the charismatic experience with the leader, and (2) by suggesting, however vaguely, a way that this charisma continues forward through a kind of communal salvation. Typically for Watt, all this is more suggestive than clearly articulated, and Bryan Turner is quite right to point out that “[T]he theoretical framework of his discussion is not capable of bearing the weight of the rich empirical detail” (Turner, 1974, p. 32). Indeed, Watt glosses over the difficult question of Muhammad’s own charisma and so never fully explains the relationship between Muhammad and the scholarly specialists who first exercise the authority of the Sharia centuries after Muhammad’s death. Whether being a member of this “charismatic community” is itself a kind of routinization (Veralltäglichung) in the Weberian sense, is not clarified by Watt. I will return to these questions later. Bryan Turner’s lengthy meditation on these issues in Weber and Islam moves well beyond the subject of charisma, but he is one of many to argue that issues of leadership and authority need to be understood first in terms of the explanations offered by the religions themselves.2 In his chapter on the Sufi shaykh, Turner argues strongly that the word saint is too closely connected to Catholicism and so cannot be applied to Sufism, concluding that “given the specific sociological nature of Islam and its cultural traditions, Islam did not and could not have social roles corresponding to the Christian saints” (Turner, 1974, p. 71). Yet this argument for the specificity of Muslim context is problematic in two ways. First, it minimizes the specificity of Christian contexts. While it is true that the Catholic Church has a very clear set of rules for the official recognition of someone as a saint, rules that do not exist in Islam, it does not follow that the actual roles of saints in the cultural traditions of Christianity are any less diverse than those of Islam. Second, the fact of difference does not itself defeat the usefulness of the comparative project (Cornell, 1998, p. xxix). Weberian ideal types, such as charisma, are not meant to map perfectly onto any specific cultural instance but instead to open up questions and, as Turner himself points out, “to emphasize some things differently than usual” (Turner, 1974, p. 4). Turner’s overall project in his book is not actually leadership but instead to explain why capitalism did not arise as a force in the Muslim world. But in the opening chapters, he directly 165

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addresses charismatic authority, especially as regards Muhammad. Helpfully, Turner points out a contradiction in Weber’s own writings that seems to suggest that the charismatic leader both rejects and breaks down the structures of his world and yet also depends on their structures to get across his message (Turner, 1974, p. 25). In the case of Muhammad, then, Turner writes that he provided “a particular interpretation of existing social frameworks rather than a creation of radically new world-views” (Turner, 1974, p. 26). And following Peter Berger, Turner argues that “Weber’s theory is modified in that, rather than considering charisma as emerging in socially marginal positions, we now view charisma as erupting within highly traditional and central social institutions” (Turner, 1974, p. 28). This is certainly correct regarding the evidence of the Qur’an and also of Muhammad’s life, since both depend on Late Antique, Arab, and biblical notions of authority. But it misses the fact that Muhammad is sometimes remembered as having produced just such a radical break with the past (Dabashi, 1989, pp. 1–16), so much so that later theologians term the pre-Islamic era as the jāhiliyya, an age of ignorance. I find these contradictory accounts – of Muhammad as both central and marginal, as both drawing power from local norms as well as rejecting them – to signal an important way that religious traditions deal with authority. Modification of Weber’s theories continues in Clifford Geertz’s 1977 analysis of the charisma of Moroccan kings, where Geertz suggests that the “study of personal authority narrows to an investigation of self-presentment and collective neurosis; the numinous aspect fades from view” (Geertz, 1977, p. 150). Yet as an ethnographer he argued that “there remains the possibility of articulating just what it is that causes some men to see transcendency in others, and what it is they see” (Geertz, 1977, p. 150). It is important to note that unlike Turner and Watt, who were interested in the routinization of Muhammad’s authority among the first generations of Muslims, Geertz is focused on charismatic leaders alive now or in the recent past. As such, his evidence challenges Weber’s claim that “the holders of charisma . . . must stand outside the ties of this world, outside of routine occupations, as well as outside the routine obligations of family life” (Eisenstadt, 1968, pp. 19–21, 253). Instead, Geertz joins Shils (1965) in regarding charisma as essential to institution building, emphasizing that charisma “is a sign, not of popular appeal or inventive craziness, but of being near the heart of things” (Geertz, 1977, p. 151). Furthermore, he pointed out that “such centers are cultural phenomena and thus historically constructed” (Geertz, 1977, p. 152). Finally, Geertz transfers Weber’s language of charisma into a more Muslim idiom, connecting it to the concept of baraka. Writing about the Moroccan kings, he describes baraka as a gift of power more than natural which men, having received it, can use in as natural and pragmatical a way, for as self-interested and mundane purposes, as they wish. But what most defines baraka, and sets it off somewhat from these similar concepts, is that it is radically individualistic, a property of persons in the way strength, courage, energy, or ferocity are and, like them, arbitrarily distributed. (Geertz, 1977, p. 152) As a God-given quality, baraka may seem to be a good translation for charismatic gifts, but its linguistic range is broader. For example, baraka can adhere to objects and be transferred by touch (Turner, 1974, p. 67), such as the baraka conveyed by the black stone embedded in the Ka’ba in Mecca. Also, however, to receive baraka is not to receive any particular powers of leadership or authority; in fact, the efficacy of baraka may be in the afterlife, more than this present one. Several other words have been used to convey the concept of charisma in Muslim worlds, such as walāya (sainthood), wilāya (designation), wāhī (revelation), and even ʿilm (knowledge), leading 166

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to some confusion about the phenomenon researchers are trying to address (Cornell, 1998, pp. xxiv–xxv). Yet, Geertz’s ethnographic approach raises significant questions for historians: could the depiction of a charismatic leader as an outsider, as a breaker of tradition, be an artifact of historical memory? If so, then might the break between “pure” and “routinized” charisma also be a construction of the historians?

Dabashi’s reworking of Weberian categories Hamid Dabashi’s 1989 book is a partial answer to these questions. Returning to early Islamic history, he looks again at the narratives of the Prophet Muhammad’s charismatic authority and its routinization among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kharijites. This study comprises a creative application of Weber’s ideas, as well as an important revision of some of Weber’s central claims. First, while Dabashi agrees with Weber that, if charismatic leadership is to be more than a passing phase it must institutionalize and perpetuate itself, he argues that “routinization” of charisma is too thin of a concept. Second, Dabashi argues that routinization, as Weber understood it, can best be found within the Sunni majority, but that here it is compartmentalized, with different aspects of Muhammad’s authority represented by political, legal, or military leaders (Dabashi, 1989, p. 93). Third, and most important, Dabashi argues for a new category of perpetual charisma. Within Shiism, for example, he finds that charismatic authority is not routinized, but continues from pure charisma to pure charisma: “[T]he same charismatic force that had animated Muhammad’s time perpetuated itself in the course of Islamic history” (Dabashi, 1989, p. 120).3 Finally, for Kharijism, Dabashi suggests that Muhammad’s charisma is dispersed, though he rejects Watt’s application of the notion of a “charismatic community” both because of a lack of institutionalization among Kharijites and also because, in his reading of Weber, the idea of a charismatic community should be restricted to those who surround the charismatic leader, not later generations (Dabashi, 1989, pp. 141–142). Dabashi’s complex arguments and extensive citation of primary texts provide the most satisfying discussion of charismatic authority in the Islamic tradition to date. But if Turner erred on the side of giving too little attention to the miraculous and disruptive nature of Muhammad’s authority, Dabashi gives it too much. His text is in many ways a corrective to Orientalist and positivist conceptions of history, and Dabashi is keen to emphasize that his study is based on narratives produced by the community in retrospect.4 But the creative contributions of these communities in producing charismatic authority are under-theorized.

Recent case studies To my knowledge, no one since Dabashi has attempted such a significant reimagination of both pure and routinized charismatic authority within Muslim traditions, though several important studies discuss charismatic authority as it applies to specific cases, both historical and modern. Already in O’Brien (1977), Donald Cruise O’Brien applied the language of both charismatic leadership and charismatic community to Sufism, specifically to the Mourid community of West Africa. This is an important extension of the term in Muslim contexts, though O’Brien does not address Turner’s concerns about the unique sociological position of the Sufi Shaykh, nor does he engage Weber directly. In a co-edited volume that appeared a decade later, he offers a bit more discussion of the problems of terms such as baraka and wilāya, ultimately preferring charisma to these indigenous terms (O’Brien and Coulon, 1988).5 Importantly, O’Brien introduces the problem of literary sources, specifically biographical dictionaries, and the tendencies to enhance the miraculous, bluntly asking, “[H]ow are we to avoid the charismatic confidence trick?” (O’Brien and Coulon, 1988, p. 6) 167

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This key issue of literary sources is taken up by Linda Kern in her 1996 analysis of the biography of Umar b. al-Khattab, an important early Muslim leader. The theoretical portion of her dissertation is limited, but Kern offers a few helpful insights. First, while she notes that literary accounts are full of contradictory evidence, she argues that these contradictions are not a problem to be solved but a key component of charismatic authority. Second, she suggests that when modern readers choose one or another of these accounts, we “scholars of religion thereby unwittingly contribute to the process of the Veralltäglichung of charisma as well” (Kern, 1996, p. 7; see also Brockopp, 2011, p. 128). In other words, by removing these figures from their enigmatic past, reducing their multifarious nature to a single, correct account, we bring them down to the level of the “everyday.” Finally, as Kern points out, focusing on the literary qualities of historical accounts is not necessarily to doubt the historicity of these characters but to correctly acknowledge the creative work of our narrators (Kern, 1996, p. 10). More recently, Pnina Werbner and Helene Basu have used Weber’s ideas in their 1998 analysis of ethnographic accounts of living Sufi Shaykhs in South Asia. Similar to both Geertz and Shils’ revisions of Weberian theory, they argue for a personal charisma among Sufi Shaykhs that “embodie[s] centrality and the capacity for ordering” (Werbner and Basu, 1998, p. 15). However, Werbner and Basu go farther and point out that charismatic individuals often take advantage of their peripheral positions within the larger social polity, suggesting that “embodied resistance to the centre’s values draws on the same fund of charismatic symbols which the centre attempts to appropriate for itself ” (Werbner and Basu, 1998, p. 15). In the same year, however, Vincent Cornell’s extensive study of Moroccan Sufism offered a trenchant critique of scholars attempting to modify Weberian paradigms, which he termed “reifying ineffabilities” (Cornell, 1998, p. 275). In contrast, following French theorists, he argues that “the Moroccan saint was above all else an empowered person – empowered to perform miracles, empowered to communicate with God, empowered to help the weak . . . to affect the behavior of other holders of power” (Cornell, 1998, p. 273). Cornell does not cite Kern, but he appears to be struggling with the same concern about literary texts. While biographies of saints might be based on “real roles played by real people,” the memory of their actions “reflected the collective recollection of social experience” (Cornell, 1998, p. 276). Cornell elaborates, “Once categorized as the bearers of normative tradition, they were no longer real individuals but ideal types that, in a process of circular logic, reconfirmed the values of their creators” (Cornell, 1998, p. 276). He concludes by identifying eight “role typologies” that can be found in these hagiographies (Cornell, 1998, pp. 277–285). Although he does not specifically refer to Dabashi in this book, Cornell has in many ways extended Dabashi’s notion of “perpetual charisma” to the realm of the saint, likewise rejecting the attenuation of charismatic authority that seems so central to the Weberian paradigm. Two recent books on early Shiism by Liyakat Takim (2007) and Maria Masse Dakake (2008) also continue Dabashi’s modifications of Weberian theory, without, however, adding much to his structure and largely missing Kern’s and Cornell’s focus on the literary qualities of the sources.6 My own work on the early legal tradition has sought to extend Dabashi’s notion of perpetual charisma to Muslim scholars in the Sunni tradition, offering a detailed account of the role of biographers in “creating charisma in retrospect” (Brockopp, 2005, p. 130). And not surprisingly, charismatic authority has been marshaled to help explain the rise of radical and militant leaders in Muslim societies in recent history (Lindholm, 2012; Ingram, 2013).7 With this overview, it is evident that scholars of Muslim cultures continue to find the category of charismatic authority useful in their analyses, while at the same time continuing to question and modify Weber’s original insights. It is, perhaps, a vain task to draw any conclusions from these wide-ranging studies, and I have undoubtedly omitted others that might be 168

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included. But some general observations may be warranted. First, Turner’s cautionary note from nearly 50 years ago still rings true: it is essential to undertake thorough empirical study and to pay attention to the problems of applying theoretical terms derived from one culture onto another. Second, there is still a remarkable dearth of empirical studies of Muslim texts, material cultures, and societies, and we need to be very cautious about drawing any conclusions about a religious tradition as large and as complex as this one. Weberian types can be useful in promoting cross-cultural discussions, but these should be applied as much within the diverse Islamic tradition as across various religious traditions. Third, cross-cultural knowledge should run both ways, and modifications of Weberian terms that arise from empirical studies of Muslim leaders should be considered by students of charismatic authority in other cultures. Specifically, Dabashi’s notion of perpetual charisma, Cornell’s expansion of eight “role typologies,” and Dakake’s description of a charismatic community deserve to be widely read.

Charisma in history In 2005, I  argued that any theory of charismatic authority ought to incorporate a temporal dimension, one that can set the process of creating and recognizing charisma into motion. This proposition resulted from my own work on Muslim scholarly authority (Brockopp, 2001) and heavily influenced my study of Muhammad’s biography (Brockopp, 2010). In these, I  have sought to understand why, over time, historical accounts of charismatic individuals tend to develop and enhance their charismatic qualities. This phenomenon was known already to Weber, who acknowledged that charismatic leaders seem to be more common in the past, “the farther back we look in history, the more we find this to be the case” (Eisenstadt, 1968, p. 18). However, I posit a causal relationship between past and present: figures in the deep past have more features of Weber’s pure charisma because of a dynamic relationship with leaders in the more recent past. As discussed earlier, Weber regarded Muhammad as an ethical, lawgiving prophet based on European notions of a “historical” Muhammad. Yet Muslim historians in the classical period regarded him as an “exemplary prophet,” emphasizing his perfect nature and his sinlessness (Gleave, 2010, pp. 115–117). Muslim historians also recorded accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s supernatural powers, including his miraculous Night Journey, ascension into heaven, and his splitting of the moon such that “one part of the moon was seen above Mount Abū Qubays and the other above Mount al-Suwaydāʾ” (Rubin, 2010, p. 50). Miracles also attended Muhammad’s birth, as a light is said to have emerged from his mother’s womb that illuminated the castles of far-away Syria (Guillaume, 1978, p. 69). Muhammad’s association with light was even extended to a preexistent nūr Muḥammadī (Muhammadan light), which was the first thing that emanated from God’s self, and from which all creation has its origin (Bowering, 1979, pp. 49–50; Schimmel, 1985, pp. 123–143). To this day, Muhammad’s most mundane activities (how he brushed his teeth, cut his hair) are remembered as sunna, examples to be emulated by the community. These various views of Muhammad must all be considered together, lest we ourselves, as Kern argued, contribute to the process of Muhammad’s routinization by emphasizing only one element of his biography. It is also important to note that all these accounts present Muhammad as a powerful leader, chosen by God, and universally recognized by his followers. A contrasting view of Muhammad is presented in the Qur’an itself, where it cites consistent opposition to Muhammad among Jewish tribes, Pagans, and even Muslim “hypocrites” who followed him politically but did not believe in his message. Muhammad in some early biographical sources is described as a man who initially doubted his mission, sought advice from others, and consistently refused to perform miracles (Rubin, 2010, pp.  45–46). The Qur’an 169

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reinforces this view, describing Jesus’s miracles at length while bearing witness that Muhammad is only a messenger (Q 3:144). What’s more, researchers have shown that Muhammad’s supposed “charismatic” qualities were not the basis of early claims to leadership after Muhammad’s death (Brockopp, 2017, pp. 29–31). Instead, traditional forms of tribal election were the basis for early leaders, with a family dynasty (the Umayyads, a related clan strongly opposed to Muhammad’s leadership) taking power 50 years after Muhammad’s death. These leaders, in fact, made their own bold claims to religious authority (Crone and Hinds, 1986). It is true that religious specialists collected stories of his words and actions from an early point, but it would take another 100 years before these were cited as the basis for Islamic law, and even then, this claim was not universally accepted (Brockopp, 2001). In other words, Muhammad’s charismatic authority may have been quite real, but it was only one of many competing sources of authority for the early Muslim community, with Byzantine, Sassanid, Jewish, and other influences playing significant roles (Brockopp, 2019). There was no radical break from the past, and for the first 300 years, Islam was a minority religious tradition in the Middle East (it remained a minority tradition in its western and eastern borderlands). This is important, because incorrect accounts of early Islamic history lead to faulty explanations of the routinization of Muhammad’s charismatic authority. It is true that stories of Muhammad’s sinless nature and miraculous deeds gradually became popular, but only among those leaders (Shiites, Sufis, and scholars) who opposed the authority of the caliphal dynasties. Leaders among these groups performed extraordinary acts of resistance and martyrdom, claiming all the while to be the true followers of Muhammad’s example. As the claims of these figures were advanced, the biography of Muhammad had to be modified in order to render him yet more extraordinary. For example, the Prophet’s grandson Husayn was killed resisting the Umayyad caliph at the battle of Karbala in 680 CE. He and other Shiite Imams were held by their followers to be sinless, perfect leaders of their community, so in retrospect Muhammad must also have been without sin. Muslim scholars, such as Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855), and Sufi masters, such as al-Hallaj (d. 922), were tortured by unjust rulers. They also performed miracles (karamāt) by the leave of God, received divine wisdom, and discerned the meaning of ambiguous passages in the Qur’an (Brockopp, 2017, pp. 140–142), so in retrospect Muhammad must also have done these things. Political leaders, Sufis, Shiites, and legal scholars all saw (and see) themselves as preserving and representing the heart of the tradition, and they do so by remembering Muhammad differently. Warriors depict Muhammad as being “sent with the sword . . . to ensure that no one but God is worshipped” (Brockopp, 2015, p. 39). Sufis tend to emphasize Muhammad’s mystical visions, such as his night journey, thereby depicting him as the first Sufi. Legal scholars, in contrast, do not deny this event, but see it as less central than Muhammad’s role as lawgiver and community leader. Shiites, in turn, incorporate aspects of both these views, but claim that God granted Muhammad a dispensation of perfection (ʿiṣma) that was, in turn, passed down through his family to the 12 (or seven, or five) imams. In this way, Muslim charismatic leaders can all be said to derive their authority from Prophetic example, even if their views of Muhammad diverge significantly. Derivative forms of charismatic authority are, in fact, in a dynamic relationship, a creative tension, with the original charisma of the Prophet.8 History, therefore, is essential not only for defining the boundaries of emerging charismatic leaders but also for redefining the original charismatic event. So one task is to explain how the line of original, pure charisma continues into the future, whether routinized into daily life or in a perpetual series of new charismatic leaders. But this very process separates and defines routine from “pure” charisma, which is the second task: as we recede in time from the Prophet, more individuals claim his example as inspiration for their acts of leadership, and so more signs and miracles are attached to him and 170

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the more revolutionary he appears in comparison with his local contexts. This separation seals off pure charisma from its antecedents and also renders it unattainable for anyone else, but at the same time the ever-higher position of the prophet makes room for new leaders as it places him above the most far-reaching claims, of subsequent caliphs, saints, and scholars who exercise real power. This dynamic role for history helps to account for the fact that religions emphasize the uniqueness of the originating charismatic event, be that Prophet Muhammad’s revelations, Jesus’s theophany or the Buddha’s enlightenment, while at the same time recognizing that the charismatic cycle never quite ends. In my view, the fact that subsequent accounts of the charismatic event tend to increase in miraculousness is not merely a matter of nostalgia, or some natural human tendency to glorify the past; these accounts actually produce the conceptual space necessary for new forms of charisma to reside within the same religious tradition. On the one hand, this process ensures that any future instances of charisma must necessarily pale in comparison with the originating events, but on the other hand, derivative cycles of charisma help establish new parameters of acceptable charismatic behavior and thereby reinterpret the originating event. This dynamic view of history also offers some account of the creative role of followership. Observational studies of emerging religious traditions provide compelling evidence that the first generation of followers are actively involved in a creative relationship with the charismatic figure (Oakes, 1997, p. 129). I argue we should extend that insight into history, tracing out the role of followers in subsequent generations as they reinterpret the role of the divine in the original event and in their own lives.

For further research As mentioned previously, we are in need of many more empirical studies of charismatic leadership in both past and present Muslim cultures. This is a general comment on the state of research in Islamic studies, with many thousands of texts unanalyzed and many manuscripts still unidentified. Likewise, whole Muslim societies, such as those in Tibet, are only now being researched (Atwill, 2018). It is good to be at the point in the study of Muslim societies where we no longer privilege one set of narratives over others, but this puts an increased burden on scholars to research and publish studies of the many diverse expressions of Islam and to outline their similarities and differences. In terms of charismatic leadership specifically, however, a few areas stand out as being of particular importance. First, in my mind, is the role of gender. There are many examples of female leaders in all areas of Muslim life, from Sufi shaykhas to military leaders to scholars. I suspect that history plays a key role in preventing these women (with a few notable exceptions) from being examples for men. But some serve as examples for other women. Much more work needs to be done to see if they participate in the central story of Muslim charismatic leadership, or if they present an important alternative account.9 Likewise, the Prophet’s masculinity is undertheorized as a component of his charisma; exemplary Sufis, warriors, scholars, and others may present very different concepts of manly ideals. A second area of future research would be the role of tangential religious movements, such as the Druze, Baha’i, and Ahmadiyya. I name these three because they all challenge the centrality of Muhammad’s role in establishing charismatic authority. Yet to what extent do these movements interact with the central narratives of Islamic history, and what constitutes the key break in authoritative leadership? Related to this is the emergence of modern militant groups that draw on the same symbols of Muhammad’s leadership, even while being rejected by most other Muslims. If these militant movements last, will they spin off into their own, separate religious 171

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traditions? Or will they radically transform the meaning of Muhammad for Muslims today? Along these lines, what is the role of non-Muslim students of militant movements – could their arguments for relevance reinforce a transformative interpretation of the Muslim past? Finally, the role of followers in producing the authority of the charismatic leader is underexamined and therefore under-theorized. In some cases, it seems that their creative role is so powerful that the actual personality and gifts of the charismatic leader are irrelevant (Miyahara, 1983). If the community is the more important partner in creating charismatic authority, then what attributes are essential to their effectiveness, and can these attributes also be described as a type and applied to other cultural contexts? The contention in my model is that the community is limited in its ability to redefine the charismatic leader, yet what is the extent of these limitations and who enforces them?

Notes 1 On p. 23, Turner is more specific, “By ignoring Muslims’ interpretations of events and by imputing sexual permissiveness to Muhammad, Weber not only abandoned some of the essential principles of his own verstehende sociology, he also accepted without question the common nineteenth-century reductionist interpretation of Islam.” 2 In fact, Marshall Hodgson published his magisterial Venture of Islam in that same year, although he avoided Weberian language altogether when discussing key issues of leadership (Hodgson, 1974, vol. 2, pp. 186–188, 448–455). 3 Elsewhere (p. 97), he emphasizes that this authority is “on a lower scale” in comparison with Muhammad’s charismatic authority. 4 See his introduction to the paperback edition, pp. ix–xviii. 5 In his introduction on p. 3, O’Brien defines charisma as “a miracle at the point of origin, recognized by a clientele in the grip of profound social crisis, saintly authority becoming traditional in the Sufi brotherhood,” and Baraka is “taken as designating a power relation of the charismatic type.”   Despite the promise of their titles, books by Paul Sander (Sander, 1994) and John Willis, (Willis, 1990) do not delve deeply into the theoretical application of charismatic authority, though Willis, like Margaret Malamud (1994) does emphasize the importance of the imitation of the Prophet Muhammad as a hallmark of Islamic leadership. 6 Takim hardly cites Dabashi at all, and like Dabashi does not fully realize the significance of the literary qualities of his sources. Dakake is more sophisticated and does make a significant contribution to defining the role of a charismatic community within Shiism (see esp. pp. 10–11). 7 See also Ingram’s contribution to this volume. 8 To be within the Muslim tradition is to claim the authority of the Prophet Muhammad, but the ties that bind these charismas can break, in which case are formed “heresies” such as the Kharijites, or new religious traditions, such as the Baha’is. 9 My thanks to the anonymous reader for pointing me to Rkia Elaroui Cornell’s excellent new book on Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya (Cornell, 2019). Cornell touches on some of the points I raise here, such as Rabi’a emulating the Prophet (pp. 75–76) and female exemplary figures as historical tropes (pp. 213–216), but this study only underscores how much we have yet to learn.

References Atwill, D. 2018. Islamic Shangri-la: Inter-Asian Relations and Lhasa’s Muslim Communities, 1600 to 1960. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bowering, G. 1979. “The Prophet of Islam,” in The Message of the Prophet. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, pp. 48–60. Brockopp, J. 2001. “Competing Theories of Authority in Early Mālikī Texts,” in Weiss, B. (ed.) Studies in Islamic Legal Theory. Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 3–22. Brockopp, J. 2005. “Theorizing Charismatic Authority in Early Islamic Law,” Comparative Islamic Studies, 1(2), pp. 129–158. 172

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Brockopp, J. (ed.). 2010. The Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brockopp, J. 2011. “Contradictory Evidence and the Exemplary Scholar: The Lives of Sahnun b. Sa’id (d. 854),” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43(1), pp. 115–132. Brockopp, J. 2015. “Muhammad the Peacemaker; Muhammad the Warrior: Contesting Images of Islam’s Prophet After 9/11,” in Khan, R. (ed.) Muhammad in the Digital Age. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, pp. 35–56. Brockopp, J. 2017. Muhammad’s Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities, 622–950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brockopp, J. 2019. The Rise of Islam in a Judeo-Christian Context, Orfali, B. and J. Elias (eds.) Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering. Leiden: Brill, pp. 25–44. Cornell, R.E. 2019. Rabi’a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam’s Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya. London: Oneworld Academic. Cornell, V.J. 1998. Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Crone, P. and M. Hinds. 1986. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dabashi, H. 1989. Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Dakake, M. 2008. The Charismatic Community: Shi’ite Identity in Early Islam. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Eisenstadt, S.N. (ed.). 1968. Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Geertz, C. 1977. “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in Ben-David, J. and T.N. Clark (eds.) Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 150–171. Gleave, R. 2010. “Personal Piety,” in Brockopp, J. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 101–120. Guillaume, A. 1978. The Life of Muhammad: A  Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Hodgson, M.G.S. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3 vols. Ingram, H. 2013. The Charismatic Leadership Phenomenon in Radical and Militant Islamism. Farnham: Ashgate. Kern, L.L. 1996. “The Riddle of ʿUmar bin al-Khaṭṭāb in Bukhārī’s al-Jāmiʿ aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ (and the Question of the Routinization of Prophetic Charisma),” Ph.D. Diss, Harvard University. Lindholm, C. 2012. “Charisma and Community in Islam: Two Routes to Jihad,” Religion and Society, 3(1), pp. 177–184. Malamud, M. 1994. “Sufi Organizations and Structures of Authority in Medieval Nishapur,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 26(3), pp. 427–442. Miyahara, K. 1983. “Charisma: From Weber to Contemporary Sociology,” Sociological Inquiry, 53, pp. 368–388. Oakes, L. 1997. Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. O’Brien, D.B.C. 1977. “A Versatile Charisma: The Mouride Brotherhood 1967–1975,” European Journal of Sociology, 18(1), pp. 84–106. O’Brien, D.B.C. and C. Coulon (eds.). 1988. Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rubin, U. 2010. “Muhammad’s Message in Mecca: Warnings, Signs, and Miracles,” in Brockopp, J. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 39–60. Sander, P.  1994. Zwischen Charisma und Ratio: Entwicklungen in der frühen imāmitischen Theologie. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Schimmel, A. 1985. And Muhammad Is His Messenger. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Sharify-Funk, M., W. Dickson and M. Xavier. 2017. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. 173

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Shils, E. 1965. “Charisma, Order, and Status,” American Sociological Review, 30(2), pp. 199–213. Takim, L. 2007. The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi’ite Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press. Turner, B. 1974. Weber and Islam, a Critical Study. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Watt, W.M. 1960. “The Conception of the Charismatic Community in Islam,” Numen, 7(1), pp. 77–90. Watt, W.M. 1961. Islam and the Integration of Society. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Weber, M. 1993. Sociology of Religion. E. Fischoff (trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press (repr.). Werbner, P. and H. Basu (eds.). 1998. Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults. London: Routledge. Willis, J. 1990. In the Path of Allah: The Passion of Al-Hajj ‘Umar: An Essay into the Nature of Charisma in Islam. Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers.

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15 Charisma in Hinduism Amanda Lucia

Acceptance and veneration of charismatic authority In Indic religious traditions, charisma has been a recognized concept for millennia. Initially attached to the innate power of the king, it was conceived of as a form of divine energy (tejas) present in extraordinary human beings.1 In the Purāṇic period (200 BCE to 500 CE), it was translated into the possibility of the earthly presence of an avatāra or prādurbhāva (divine incarnation). It was later consolidated into the social figure of the ācārya or guru (religious teacher), who was envisioned to be imbued with this presence and agency from the Gupta period (319 to 543 CE) onwards. Hindu traditions also regard iconographic forms, natural objects, and sacred geographies as embodiments of divine presence and agency. Like charismatic humans, they exhibit charismatic qualities, and subsequently express charismatic authority. This chapter begins discussion with an analysis of Weberian charismatic authority as illustrated by the figure of the Hindu guru and then concludes with the more expansive Durkheimian understanding of charismatic authority resembling that which is endemic to Hindu traditions. Hinduism is a religious tradition with ancient roots, with Vedic textual sources ranging from 1750–1000 BCE and many Hindus arguing for an even older genesis of the tradition. Even the term “Hinduism” is often viewed as a colonial construction, with many practicing Hindus preferring the term sanātana dharma, or the eternal religion. The antiquity of Hindu religions complicates any inquiry into charisma because, in India, only lasting religious institutions have been retained in the historical record. Friedhelm Hardy laments the historical erasure of the personal charisma of the Āḻvārs, Vaiṣṇava Tamil saints of the ninth and tenth centuries, in the following passage: To analyze charisma as a special and unique personal quality is only possible on the basis of detailed information about that individual. We have to know his or her biography, manner of attracting people, communication skills, etc., quite apart from what precisely the charismatic individual actually said or taught. Such information has simply not been retained in traditional India. Instead, we witness the almost instantaneous transformation of personal charisma, with all its unique and idiosyncratic features, into something ‘objective’, i.e. a culturally evolved pattern. We are offered a more or less stereotypical picture which

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allows us to do little more than study the character and types of such patterns. What is handed down is already a perception, and not the more immediate details, of a charismatic life, and later generations develop merely the former, not the latter. No doubt the history of Śrīvaiṣṇavism has been activated by charismatic individuals  – the Āḻvārs, Rāmānuja, Veṅkaṭanātha, Maṇavāla mā muṉi, etc. – but they are more or less lost to us as historical individuals.2 Following Hardy’s thinking, it is clear that charisma, as an analytical frame for the study of Hinduism, has a tendency to privilege actors in the contemporary period. To access charisma, in the sense of “a spark of divine presence flashing into ordinary life and legitimizing leadership and change”3 scholars must rely primarily on hagiographies, devotional accounts, which are purposeful constructions of historical events written with particular aims (Manring 2005: 17–29). Even today the activities of famed charismatic gurus are filtered through the interpretive lenses of their devotees, who recount and publicize their miracles, life stories, and teachings with the intent to garner followers. It is still as Vasudha Dalmia writes of the seventeenth century hagiographies of the Puṣṭimārg, “The guru is represented as omnipresent and closely associated, if not identical, with the great Vaiṣṇava deities: he is capable of divining thoughts, forecasting events and performing any number of miracles almost casually. . . [Ācāryaji’s] primary task in the vārtās is to attract and hold followers.”4 Contemporary hagiographies depict the exceptional lives of religious leaders, sages, and prophets through tales of miracles, healing, and revolutionary teachings. They justify religious innovation by identifying a particular historical figure with the divine agency of charisma. Despite the loss of individual personalities, the sectarian fracturing among and within Hindu traditions can be read as revealing its propensity toward the veneration of charismatic authority, which frequently serves as an initiator of social change. Charisma rejuvenates existing tradition through its fracture; it is often innovative and occasionally revolutionary in its effects. As Heinrich von Stietencron writes, “[B]oth charisma and canon serve the same end, namely the defeat of kāla, time, and its degenerating effect.”5 In the sociology of religion, Max Weber asserts that the bearer of charisma “in its most charismatic forms [it] has inverted all value hierarchies and overthrown custom, law and tradition” (Weber 1978: 1117). In the South Asian context, Stietencron argues that charisma fractured and diversified Hindu religious worlds in ancient India. He writes, “The danger, and indeed the dominant, historical fact, was rather that charisma inaugurated fresh and compelling authority outside the existing community, thereby weakening instead of strengthening it.”6 Charisma and the veneration of charismatic authority created multiplicity and the proliferation of sectarian groups. The Hindu tendency to accept and venerate charismatic authority is based in the fundamental assertion of the permeability of natural and supernatural worlds. In the Vedas, the cosmic order (ṛta) is maintained by the sacrifice; in the Hindu epics, the divine routinely intervenes in human affairs by assuming human form. As stated in the famed lines of the Bhagavad Gītā 4:7–8, “Whenever sacred duty [dharma] decays and chaos [adharma] prevails, then, I  create myself, Arjuna. To protect men of virtue and destroy men who do evil, to set the standard of sacred duty, I appear [sambhavāmi] in age after age” (Miller 2004: 52). In practice, this notion fosters an expansive religious tradition marked by myriad appearances of charismatic persons, events, and places. These polyvalent forces unite to create the extensive diversity of amalgamated sectarian forms loosely held together under the umbrella term, Hinduism.

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Charisma in human form It is easy to recognize contemporary gurus as emblematic of Weber’s notion of charismatic authority. Weber “had a pronounced tendency to segregate the object of attributed charisma, to see it almost exclusively in its most concentrated and intense forms, and to disregard the possibility of its dispersed and attenuated existence” (Shils 1965: 202). For Weber, charisma is a unique form of social authority, embodied in and exuded by an individual, who enacts an authority distinct from traditional and legal-rational forms. He uses the category of charismatic authority to refer specifically to charismatic heroes, those who are supplied power and authority by their followers because of their belief in their miraculous powers. These charismatic prophets must prove their special abilities in practice, lest their followers lose faith in them, and their authoritative status decline. According to Weber, the charismatic hero, “must work miracles, if he wants to be a prophet. He must perform heroic deeds, if he wants to be a warlord. Most of all, his divine mission must prove itself by bringing well-being to his faithful followers; if they do not fare well, he obviously is not the god-sent master” (Weber 1978: 1114, emphasis in original). Charismatic leaders are “bearers of specific gifts of the body and mind that were considered ‘supernatural,’ ” those who “practiced their arts, and [they] exercised their authority, by virtue of this gift (‘charisma’) and, where the idea of God had already been clearly established, by virtue of the Divine mission inherent in their ability” (Weber 1978: 1112). Weber viewed charismatic authority as “naturally unstable” (Weber 1978: 1114), in part, because it must be supported by those who venerate the charismatic hero as special, if not wholly supernatural. If that veneration falters, then the charismatic authority is undermined. Charismatic authority flows from the charismatic leader’s “highly personal experience of divine grace and god-like heroic strength and rejects all external order solely for the sake of glorifying genuine prophetic and heroic ethos” (Weber 1978: 1115). The charismatic prophet leads by example, and garners a following based in his or her experience. In Weber’s phrasing, “Hence, in a revolutionary and sovereign manner, charismatic domination transforms all values and breaks all traditional and rational norms: ‘It has been written . . ., but I say unto you’ ” (Weber 1978: 1115). But while charismatic authority may foster a following initially, it is wholly dependent on the positive convictions of followers to maintain it. “The bearer of charisma enjoys loyalty and authority by virtue of a mission believed to be embodied in him” (Weber 1978: 1117). Thus, charismatic leaders must continually prove their exalted status by demonstrating their special gifts, in the religious field, most commonly through miracles, prophecy, and by ensuring the continual well-being of their followers. The gurus who are famous throughout India today first began to attain their exalted positions in the medieval period. Their rise in social status can be traced to the conjoined revolutionary social and religious impact of Tantra, the bhakti movement, and the religious foment fostered by the encounter with Islam. The ascent of Tantra, with the potential divinization of the human through ritual and sādhana (practice), opened pathways for religious figures who were considered to be superhuman. The popularization of the bhakti movement also created a class of special persons, who had become such exemplary devotees that they attained siddharūpa, perfected devotional bodies, and were understood to be both eternal and nonmaterial. The rise of sant traditions in North India emerged during the period of Mughal rule and was influenced by the Sufis and their tradition of venerating living saints. Daniel Gold argues convincingly that as the Indian population was increasingly torn between Hindu and Muslim identities, independent gurus proffering universalistic and ecumenical theologies provided a third

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option (Gold 1987: 4). Deified gurus transitioned from mere religious teachers to the status of prophet, or even that of a supreme God. Gold writes, “No longer holy men like others, these leaders appear as special personages whose links to a singular personality give them a supreme status among living beings” (Gold 1987: 7). In the medieval period, gurus also began to exert influence as independent personas, often operating outside of the confines of traditional religious institutions (maṭha-s) and without the buttressing of their authority traditional religious lineages (saṃpradāya-s). This independence provided these new, contemporary gurus with extraordinary latitude with which to innovate, in their soteriology and ritual practices. Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, they developed uniquely branded religious, social, and political platforms that elevated their messages and their personae onto the global stage. Traversing colonial networks, gurus became activists for Indian self-rule, Hindu missionaries, and advocates for the Indic “sciences” of yoga, Ayurveda, and jyotish (Vedic astrology). In presenting themselves as such, they became active collaborators in the processes of designing new forms of modernized, global Hinduism. The advent of globalization and the rapid acceleration of technological advances coincided with India’s postindependence era and the loosening of restrictive immigration laws in the West. These factors worked together to catapult charismatic gurus into a new importance in the representation of Hinduism globally. Particularly since the mid-20th century, gurus have established themselves as representatives of global Hinduism and have founded international institutions based in their charismatic leadership. Gurus present themselves as spiritual masters and avatārs (divine incarnations). They attract followers by highlighting the specialness of their life experiences and their miraculous feats; they also engage in forums in which the public can experience their charismatic personae. Through these public forums, and increasingly through global media, modern gurus advocate for their particularized religious messages and demonstrate their branded specialness through the exhibition of charisma. There are numerous examples, but one might call to mind Sathya Sai Baba, who held large-scale darshan programs and can be found performing miracles in dozens of YouTube videos recorded by his followers.7 Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) travels the globe in an incessant schedule of public programs wherein she hugs tens of thousands of people each day, a physically taxing feat that many devotees view as evidence of her divinity (Lucia 2014). Pilot Baba has performed public exhibitions demonstrating his yogic mastery over his physical body (Pilot Baba 2010) and his spiritual partner, Yogi Mata, was buried underground in a pit for several days and emerged unscathed to mass celebration at the Kumbh Mela in 2013 (Benazzo and Day 2004). Highly visible “hyper-gurus” (Copeman and Ikegame 2012: 293) have also become increasingly powerful in Indian society. Swami Nithyananda and Jaggi Vasudev have grown globally famous through their online spiritual discourses. Baba Ramdev has developed his own corporation, sponsoring yogic and Ayurvedic products. Sri Ravi Shankar of The Art of Living Foundation has developed an app through which one can follow his travel schedule and learn his spiritual teachings. These modern gurus are extending the global networks established by their predecessors during the expansion of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Swami Muktananda, Swami Satchidananda, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and so on. As did their predecessors, many contemporary global gurus also gain fame by transferring their spiritual power to their followers in rituals of initiation (śaktipat and diḳsa), darshan (seeing and being seen by the divine) and exposure to their embodied presence. This transference, and more precisely, devotees’ belief in the gurus’ capacity for this transference, is one of the primary ways in which gurus provide evidence for their charismatic authority.

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But contemporary gurus also problematize Weber’s understanding of charismatic authority in two primary ways. First, many Hindu gurus garner religious authority through their charisma, but that charisma does not dissipate as they develop bureaucratic institutions in their names. Instead, the institutions are bolstered by the guru’s charisma and vice versa; a symbiotic relationship develops wherein each reinforces the other. Second, the guru is able to transmit his charismatic presence without his actual physical presence and posthumously; in essence, the charisma of the guru extends far beyond the physical body. Both of these facets challenge Weber’s notion that charisma is inherently unstable and prone to erasure through routinization. In contrast, Hindu traditions exhibit numerous lasting institutions and sectarian movements that are largely fueled by the charismatic authority of their founders, even long after their deaths. Gurus’ charismatic acts: miracles, revelations, and performances of divine presence, serve to reinforce the power of the bureaucratic institutions that they have founded. They are both charismatic authorities and CEOs, accompanied by their personal staff, who serve in their inner circle and function as the “charismatic aristocracy” (Weber 1978: 1119), rationing access to the guru so as to regulate and maintain the high-value of proximity (Lucia 2018). For example, Mata Amritanandamayi routinely performs Devī Bhāvas, special darshan events during which devotees believe she reveals her true form as the goddess. During these bhāvas (emotive states), she is believed to be able to transfer her divine śakti (energy) to others even more intensely than usual. They also serve an organizational purpose by reinforcing her claims to religious authority (Lucia 2014: 95). The personal charisma she exudes through her performance of the goddess reinforces devotees’ belief in her divinity, while simultaneously justifying the mission of her multinational organization and ratifying her position as its leader. Similarly, many other contemporary gurus exist as primary authorities at the helm of religious institutions wherein their charisma and their intersect and reinforce one another, for example: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and The Art of Living Foundation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and TM (Transcendental Meditation), A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Many of these institutions continue to be based in guru devotion to their founders; the guru, believed to be omnipresent and omniscient, continues to guide and influence the mission of the organization. This continued posthumous charismatic presence challenges Weber’s theory that charisma cannot survive the death of the charismatic authority and inevitably decreases through its routinization and bureaucratization. The commonplace Hindu belief that divine presence can inhere in material objects means that the guru’s charismatic authority continues to act, even in the guru’s absence or after his or her demise. For example, Srinivas Aravamudan writes, “A communion with the gurus’ photograph becomes a functional substitute for darśan, and the photograph begins to acquire magical properties, generate sacred ash, and come alive for the believer. The photograph become the material support for spiritual experiences and visual communion with the guru (Aravamudan 2010: 226).” Devotional communities continue to thrive even after the guru’s death, based in the charisma that resonates in photographs of the guru, as well as his or her material possessions, writings, and samādhi (burial place) (Aymard 2014). Hindu belief in the permeability and receptivity of both the self and the material world to divine presence unfurls the boundaries of the human in the transmission of charisma. Many devotees believe that even a guru who has left the physical body can communicate messages through dreams, visions, meditation, and by influencing material objects. For these devotees, the guru’s charisma becomes an active presence, shaping the world even in the absence of tangible human actors. But even without the belief in the supernatural, the advent of modern technology, particularly mass media, means that devotees are increasingly able to access their guru through photographs and video; virtual

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satsaṇgs (congregational gatherings) draw together devotees around the globe and sanctify the guru’s continuing charismatic authority.

Expansive charisma: iconographic forms, natural objects, and sacred geographies But in Hinduism, human persons are only one small portion of the religious actors who are understood to embody and exude charisma and, by extension, charismatic authority. One could write of countless examples of divine intercession through the manifestation of charisma in Hindu traditions, at the minimum one for every murti, pilgrimage destination, and aniconic manifestation of the divine around the world. Such an analysis turns away from Weber and toward a broader Durkheimian usage of the term charisma. For Durkheim, these presences are the apotheosis of the sacred, drawn from the social fact that “society never stops creating new sacred things” (Durkheim 1995 [1912]: 215). As I have noted elsewhere (Lucia 2018), in Durkheim, mana, orenda, and wakan are all terms used to refer to the diffuse and transferable forces of the sacred that can be concentrated in either material objects or individuals.8 Mana, a Melanesian word denoting supernatural power, was believed by early anthropologists to signify a transferable energy, an “invisible but palpable” force (Mazzarella 2017), a cosmic substance that infused all things, and was particularly present in some more than others. In this sense, Hindus’ belief in the supernatural power that inheres in the material forms of deities and the sacred lands in which they are embodied are charismatic elements. For example, the Hindu deity Krishna is a quintessentially charismatic figure; his charisma is transferred to iconographic representations of him and to the lands in which is believed to have lived. Devotees ingest that charisma through the consumption of prasād (blessed food)9 at his temples and through contact with the earth of his sacred geography. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa narrates Krishna’s līlā (divine play), his playful pranks and his lovemaking with the gopīs (cowherdesses) in the land of Vraja. In these tales, he “lures his companions . . . bewitching and intoxicating them, inspiring then to break the boundaries of social convention and join with him in his play” (Holdrege 2015: 28). The power of Krishna’s divine presence permeates the land of Vraja, and even in the present day, devotees make pilgrimages to circumambulate the region barefoot, convinced that the dust of the earth in this place is consecrated with his divinity (Haberman 1994). As Barbara Holdrege explains, “They revel in Kṛṣṇa’s bodily presence in the sacred terrain of Vraja with their own bodies, embracing the ground through full-body prostrations, rolling in and ingesting the dust, touching the stones, hugging the trees, bathing in the ponds – engaging with their bodies every part of the landscape consecrated by the body of the divine cowherd” (Holdrege 2015: 30). Even the stones (śilās) of the sacred Mount Govardhana are believed to be an embodiment of Krishna; they need not be consecrated by brahmin priests to invest them with the deity’s presence. Instead, these aniconic mūrtis (divine forms) are worshipped by Vaishnavas regularly through pūjā (ritual offerings) (Holdrege 2015: 33). Furthermore, throughout Vraja, there are other iconic mūrtis that are considered svayam-prakaṭa (self-manifested) by Krishna. “These self-manifested mūrtis are venerated as Kṛṣṇa’s living bodies in which his real presence spontaneously dwells, and thus in contrast to sculped images fashioned by artisans, they do not require rites of installation” (Holdrege 2015: 33). In Shaiva lore as well, there are svayam-prakaṭa mūrtis self-manifested by Shiva, in which the powerful ascetic deity is believed to reside. For example, at the Gauri Kedarnath temple in Varanasi, locals believe that the Shiva liṇga located in the central womb (garbh-gṛhastha) of the temple arose of its own accord. It is also famed because of its resemblance to the liṇga at Kedarnath temple in the Himalayas, another liṇga that is believed to be an embodiment of the 180

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lord Shiva. Like Krishna manifests in Vraja, “Shiva’s presence in Kedarnath specifically is ‘selfmanifest’ (Sanskrit: svayambhu). He dwells, not in a form created by human hands, but rather in a form that was always already there” (Whitmore 2018: 4). Shiva is manifest in particular sacred geographies, in aniconic natural forms, and in artisan-constructed murtis. His charismatic presence is believed to be immanently at work in the world, interceding on behalf of his devotees in their daily lives. A foundational premise of Hindu ritual conceives of the divinity as an active presence, the power of which can be transferred in the material world. For example, the fundamental Hindu ritual of darshan, the ritual exchange of seeing and being seen by God, is made possible because of the belief in the divine presence of the deity that resides in the aniconic form or the iconic mūrti.10 During darshan, the divine grace of the god or goddess is transmitted to the worshipper and afterwards, it is ingested through the consumption of prasād. In Hindu traditions, mūrtis are not only worshipped, but they are ritually awakened, bathed, clothed, fed, and put to sleep. Hindus have also leveraged the agentive charisma of material objects and sacred geographies in legal matters. For example, Richard Davis writes of the case of the Pathur Naṭarāja, the iconic mūrti of Shiva engaged in his cosmic dance, who represented himself in a British court.11 Courts also debated legislation considering whether the Ganga and the Yamuna Rivers should be legally viewed as “living entities” (BBC News 2017). Most recently, the 2019 Ayodhya verdict viewed the Hindu god Rama as a “juridical person” whose birth at Ayodhya was a historical fact (Abi-Habib and Yasir 2019). The charismatic authority of the aforementioned examples is sustained by the laity; sacred geographies, sites, and murtis are not static sites of divine presence. Their charismatic authority is unstable, just as that which inheres in human actors. Sacred geographies can be destroyed by natural disasters (Whitmore 2018) and sacred sites must be maintained by human actors, as witnessed in the continuing political contestations over Ayodhya (Mehta 2015). The divine presence within the murti is likewise dependent upon human action for its consecration and maintenance. As Richard Davis explains, “[B]efore returning to ritual life a damaged or displaced icon must first undergo a reconsecration (jirṇoddhāra, literally a ‘rescuing of what is worn out’),” since “a worn liṅga that does not undergo the ritual of jirṇoddhāra may become a refuge for demons” (SP 288). The reduced intensity of divine presence in an untended image creates a vacuum that undesirable spirits may exploit (Davis 1997: 254). Like their human counterpoints, the social authority of these charismatic elements must be maintained by human agents. Following Weber, Pierre Bourdieu argues that it is the laity, through a process of misrecognition, who ascribe superhuman qualities onto charismatic authorities (Bourdieu 1991: 9). It is the human veneration of the charismatic authority that renders it powerful.

Permeability of the Hindu self and material objects Weber’s notion of charisma is based in the notion of “divine gifts” embodied within persons, who are then regarded as special because of the recognition of those gifts. As discussed, in Hindu traditions, this notion can be expanded ad infinitum because of the agency attributed to nonhuman materials, both objects and sacred geographies. Special rocks, trees, rivers, and mountains are all imbued with divine presence. They are not only envisioned as sacred landscapes but are often personified with agency and humanistic qualities. Even the land of India is personified as Bharat Mata (Ramaswamy 2011) and the Ganges River as the maternal goddess, Ganga. David Haberman writes of how locals celebrate the Yamuna River on Yamuna Jayanti and explain the occasion as “Yamuna-ji’s Happy Birthday” or even with phrases like “It is my mother’s birthday today!” (Haberman 2011: 96). Hindu gods and goddesses become manifest in trees, stones, 181

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and rivers, sacred geographies, iconographic images, and holy persons; demons and goddesses possess humans; and humans are receptive to such entrances as they receive blessings and curses from these suprahuman actors. This underlying principle enables both the fundamental Hindu belief in the ability of divine presence to manifest in the world and the capacity for human gurus to be embodiments of gods and goddesses. At the most fundamental level is a Hindu understanding of self and material objects in which transference and ontological transformations are made possible because of their permeable boundaries. McKim Marriott famously reasoned that in Hindu traditions, the human body is generally represented as “dividual” instead of the Western conception of the “individual” body. This dividual body is “a constellation of substances and processes that is connected to other bodies through a complex network of transactions.”12 Frederick Smith’s seminal work on possession in South Asian contexts that Vedic texts present an Indian notion of self that is both “permeable and multivalent” (Smith 2006: xxiii). Tracing this permeable self to its roots, he argues even the very foundations of Vedic religion relies on the ṛṣis (seers) having seen or cognized the eternal mantras of the Vedas. The Pūrvamimāṃsā uses the term apauruṣeya, (nonhuman) knowledge, to suggest that the divine sūtras that comprise the Vedas flowed through the ṛṣis, representing the “tendency toward disembodied manifestation” (Smith 2006: 177). This notion of transference and receptive permeability also informs the relationship between guru and disciple, god and devotee. Repeated exposure to divine presence has the capacity to shape the aspirant into its own image; charisma is immanently transferrable. Whitmore writes, “In many ways, serious devotion to and worship of Shiva place the practitioner on the path of becoming a Shiva, a multiform of God” (Whitmore 2018: 4). In the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition, a dualist Shaivite sect of the 6th to 10th century, the ācārya is represented as a godlike figure, who embodies Śiva’s presence during initiation. As the South Asianist Jörg Gengnagel explains, During the ritual of initiation the Ācārya becomes a vessel for Śiva’s presence (sādhikaraṇadīkṣā). He reaches a state in which he is Śiva and acts as Śiva. The Ācārya mentally envisages this state during the samayadīkṣā: “I am connected with the qualities omniscience etc., I am standing above all paths (adhvan), a part of me is the place of the union [between the soul and Śiva], I preside over the great sacrifice, I am Śiva!”13 In the Hindu guru-disciple relationship as well, the disciple is gradually transformed into the guru’s image. Art historian Tamara Sears analyzes a sculpted scene depicting a guru dispensing instruction (śikṣādāna) and she writes, The shifts in bodily representation are quite striking here – as the disciples move up the initiatory ladder and acquire higher ritual status, their bodies become more like that of their head teacher. This is not a surprising development when considering the larger ritual context. As textual scholars have shown, the relationship between guru and disciple – from the moment of initiation onward – was rooted in rituals that were believed to bring about ontological transformations in the body. (Sears 2014: 21–22) Thus, just as a true devotee becomes more like Shiva, a true disciple becomes more like the guru. Similarly, in the Trika Śaiva tradition of Kashmir, in the 9th to 11th centuries, Tantric understandings of human embodiment similarly envisioned that through practice (sādhana), the material body (bhautika-śarīra) is transformed into the divinized body (divya-deha) (Holdrege 2015: 66). 182

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In the contemporary guru field, the “divine spark” signifying the presence of charisma transfers between the gods and gurus, and then between gurus and their followers, each shaping the other to more closely resemble divinity. Some contemporary gurus have exemplified this through their claims to be incarnations of deities or famed antecedent gurus. Other gurus claim special knowledge or techniques for the attainment of spiritual goals. Many of these gurus surround themselves with a charismatic apparatus, meaning structures to demonstrate, accentuate, and augment the display of the guru’s charisma. Examples of charismatic apparatus might be special clothing, seating, displays, food, silence, emotive states, special lectures, Hindu rituals such as darshan and prasād, restricted access and proximity to the guru’s physical body, private audiences, and a cadre of charismatic aristocracy who govern these structures. Many contemporary gurus have become such celebrities that their public presence is usually accompanied by massive infrastructures signifying their charismatic apparatus, such as stadium seating, street closures, banners, decorations, film crews, political officials, parades, marches, public demonstrations, and rallies.

Conclusion and future research The most visible examples of charismatic authority in Hinduism are the gurus, those who build institutions and create fractures sparking new sectarian movements. However, their undeniable influence should not eclipse the myriad ways in which Hindus revere even nonhuman entities because of their charismatic qualities. Millions of murtis, understood to be the powerful and immanent presence of the deity are bathed, dressed, and put to bed each day by Hindus. Indian cities and villages support an extensive tradition of processionals that parade these murtis through the streets, with onlookers rushing to be in their presence and receive their blessing as they pass by. Travelers kiss the ground of Bharat Mata upon arrival in their home country and pilgrims ingest the dirt in Vraja. The Ganga and Yamuna Rivers are worshipped as living mother goddesses and the Shiva Nataraj and the Hindu deity Rama defend themselves in court as juridical persons. In each case, nonhuman entities are believed to be embodiments of divine presence imbued with charismatic authority; they are believed to act in the world immanently. Such a view extends the Weberian notion of charisma as limited to and concentrated within embodied humans. It is dependent upon the Hindu belief in the recurrent divine intervention in human worlds and the permeability of boundaries between the natural and the supernatural. Because of this fundamental concept in Hinduism, the more conventional forms of charismatic authority, namely the gurus, do not necessarily demonstrate the volatility and instability of religious authority that Weber concluded charismatic leaders would exhibit. Instead of being challenged by the constant threat of bureaucratic routinization, their religious bureaucracies thrive, even in their physical absence and after their death. The principles of transference, permeability, and the notion that the divine can intercede in the material world expands their abilities to convey their charismatic authority even in disembodied and mediated forms. While guru organizations may become bureaucratic and institutional, there is always the potential for supernatural intervention: the vibhutī ash accumulating at the base of the guru’s photograph or the holographic guru who appears in devotees’ dreams. In Hindu traditions, charismatic authority pierces the veil of the routinized world and operates expansively beyond the boundaries of the human. There is a vast open field of potential scholarship for future studies of charisma in Hindu traditions. The field of guru studies has deepened in recent years, but there are still hundreds of gurus whose lives, teachings, and organizational legacies are only superficially accounted for in the historical record. Scholars can also contribute importantly to analyses of posthumous 183

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charisma, the continuation of charisma in the presence of bureaucratic routinization, and charisma that is activated virtually through new media technologies. Furthermore, there is considerable space for continued theorization of the charismatic lives of material objects and the ways in which they become meaningful and agentive interlocutors for Hindus.

Notes 1 Heinrich von Stietencron, “Charisma and Canon: The Dynamics of Legitimization and Innovation in Indian Religions”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 18. 2 Friedhelm Hardy, “The Formation of Śrīvaiṣṇavism”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 55. 3 Stietencron, “Charisma and Canon”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 15. 4 Vasudha Dalmia, “Forging Community: The Guru in Seventeenth-Century Vaiṣṇava Hagiography”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 136. 5 Stietencron, “Charisma and Canon”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 17. 6 Stietencron, “Charisma and Canon”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 20–21. 7 Srinivas 2008, 2010. See also this example of Sathya Sai Baba miracles producing a golden Shiva linga: https://youtu.be/oZFnYPz1Ogk, accessed October 22, 2019. 8 Lucia 2018: 968, citing Durkheim 1995 [1912]: 206. 9 For more on the gift exchange in the ritual of prasād, see Pinkney 2013. 10 On darshan, see Eck 1998; Lucia 2014: 37–75. Darshan also occurs when the laity interacts with humans who are believed to be divine incarnations, such as avatār-gurus, as will be discussed in the following section. 11 Davis 1997: 248–252. As Davis explains, “[T]he fundamental premise underlying Hindu temples and image worship in medieval and modern south India is that a god comes to inhabit a properly consecrated physical icon and makes himself or herself present and accessible to human devotees. The icon lives and has a personality through the deity’s presence in it. . . . In the medieval Hindu universe, Śiva is owner of all temple property not as a juristic personality but as a divine person.” Davis 1997: 249. 12 Holdrege 2015: 59–60, citing Marriott 1976. 13 Jörg Gengnagel, “The Śaiva Siddhānta Ācārya as Mediator of Religious Identity”; Dalmia, Malinar, and Christof 2001: 86.

References Abi-Habib, Maria and Sameer Yasir. 2019. “Court Backs Hindus on Ayodhya, Handing Modi Victory in His Bid to Remake India.” New York Times, November 8. Aravamudan, Srinivas. 2010. Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Aymard, Orianne. 2014. When a Goddess Dies: Worshipping Ma Anandamayi After Her Death. New York: Oxford University Press. BBC News. 2017. “India’s Ganges and Yamuna Rivers Are ‘Not Living Entities.” Online. Available HTTP: www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40537701 (accessed 23 October 2019). Benazzo, Maurizio and Nick Day. 2004. Shortcut to Nirvana: On Pilgrimage to the Kumbh Mela. DVD. New York: Zietgeist Films. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field.” Comparative Social Research, 13: 1–44. Copeman, Jacob and Aya Ikegame. 2012. “Guru Logics.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(1): 289–336. Dalmia, Vasudha, Angelika Malinar and Martin Christof, eds. 2001. Charisma and Cannon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Davis, Richard H. 1997. The Lives of Indian Images. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Durkheim, Émile. 1995 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Karen E. Fields, trans. New York: The Free Press. Eck, Diana. 1998. Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. New York: Columbia University Press. 184

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Gold, Daniel. 1987. The Lord as Guru. New York: Oxford University Press. Haberman, David. 1994. Journey Through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna. New York: Oxford University Press. Haberman, David. 2011. River of Love in an Age of Pollution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Holdrege, Barbara. 2015. Bhakti and Embodiment: Fashioning Divine Bodies and Devotional Bodies in Kṛṣṇa Bhakti. New York: Routledge. Lucia, Amanda. 2014. Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lucia, Amanda. 2018. “Guru Sex: Charisma, Proxemic Desire, and the Haptic Logics of the Guru-­ Disciple Relationship.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 86(4): 953–988. Manring, Rebecca. 2005. Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Ācārya and Gaudiya Vaishnavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. Marriott, McKim. 1976. “Hindu Transactions: Diversity without Dualism.” In Bruce Kapferer, ed., Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Mazzarella, William. 2017. The Mana of Mass Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mehta, Deepak. 2015. “The Ayodhya Dispute: The Absent Mosque, State of Emergency and the Jural Deity.” Journal of Material Culture, 20(4): 397–414. Miller, Barbara Stoler, trans. 2004. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. New York: Bantam Classic. Pilot Baba, Yogi. 2010. Discover Secrets of the Himalaya. New Delhi: Mahayog Foundation. Pinkney, Andrea. 2013. “Prasāda, the Gracious Gift, in Contemporary and Classical South Asia.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81(3): 734–756. Ramaswamy, Sumathi. 2011. The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sears, Tamara. 2014. Worldly Gurus and Spiritual Kings: Architecture and Asceticism in Medieval India. New Haven: Yale University Press. Shils, Edward. 1965. “Charisma, Order, and Status.” American Sociological Review, 30(2): 199–213, April. Smith, Frederick M. 2006. The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press. Srinivas, Smriti. 2008. In the Presence of Sai Baba: Body, City, and Memory in a Global Religious Movement. Leiden: Brill. Srinivas, Tulasi. 2010. Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism Through the Sathya Sai Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society, Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds., vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whitmore, Luke. 2018. Mountain, Water, Rock, God: Understanding Kedarnath in the Twenty-First Century. Oakland: University of California Press.

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16 Charisma in new religious movements Erin Prophet

Introduction New religious movements (NRMs) stretch the boundaries of standard definitions of charisma. They change form rapidly, exploit new technologies, draw from established religion as well as folklore, popular culture, and indigenous traditions, and often bear similarities to both corporations and political institutions. Max Weber’s writings confusingly suggest that charisma arises from the personal qualities of a leader but is also socially constructed. Sociologists, building on both Weber and Émile Durkheim, generally consider the case for social construction to be closed (see Wallis 1993; Bromley 2014). However, a lingering suspicion remains that personal qualities are necessary even if not sufficient components of charismatic leadership (Dawson 2006) and that the phenomenological aspects of the attribution of charismatic authority should not be overlooked (Palmer 2008; Kripal 2017). This chapter summarizes major work on charisma in NRMs from a variety of academic perspectives. It addresses the question of conversion, identifies common legitimation strategies used to bolster charismatic authority, and examines the role of charismatic authority in millennialist events. It then explores in detail the concept of diffused charisma (Wilson 1975), first through a case study of Falun Gong, the Chinese qigong movement that was banned from China in 1999, and then in two additional movements that formed around new texts and films – the 1975 Christian-oriented metaphysical scripture A Course in Miracles and the Star Wars film franchise (1977–).

Theoretical overview Past work on charisma and NRMs has focused on questions such as why people obey charismatic leaders, what makes a group more likely to follow a leader along a disastrous course, and how charismatic authority transforms religious traditions and meets deep individual and societal needs by providing powerful and immersive experiences.1 Attempts at explaining charisma have generally taken either a psychological or a sociological approach. Early psychological explanations viewed the acceptance of charismatic authority as an irrational process, rooted in unconscious emotion (Freud 1949). Theorists have tended to focus on either the leader or followers, 186

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or their connection in a psychologically conditioned “charismatic bond” (Madsen and Snow 1991). They often identify a specific lack in the follower, such as self-esteem, and portray modern humans as alienated and particularly vulnerable to charismatic leadership (Freud 1949; Lifton 1963; Lasch 1979). Some psychological explanations favor leader-oriented unipolar theories in which a charismatic bond is initiated and controlled entirely by the leader through “brainwashing,” hypnosis, or “mind control.” However, data to support such models is lacking (see Lewis 2016; Anthony and Robbins 2004; Zablocki and Robbins 2001). A drawback of many psychological approaches is that they focus on stereotypical or idealized relationships and do not explain the wide variation in charismatic manifestations. Contrary to popular conceptions, researchers have not been able to identify a particular personality type that is attracted to “cults” or new religions. However, individuals with certain backgrounds and personality traits may find some groups more attractive than others, based on specific compensators (see Saliba 2016). Anthony and Robbins note that “the evidence for the selection of certain personality types as well as the absence of serious psychopathology undermines the extrinsic brainwashing and induced pathology models” (2004, 268). Sociological theories of religious charisma build upon Weber’s foundational work, which defined charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (1968, 48). Weber’s focus on “qualities” and “powers” left vague whether charisma was innate or socially constructed, but he clearly acknowledged the importance of a leader’s recognition by followers and achieving success on their behalf (1968, 20, 50). Durkheim agreed, writing that, despite the tendency to describe the nobility of political leaders as an innate quality, it is rather “solely the result of public opinion” (2001, 160). Charismatic leadership is therefore seen as both situational and interactive, requiring participation from followers and a message that resonates with contemporary issues (Wallis 1982; Lewis 2003; Joosse 2014). Stephan Feuchtwang has proposed that in the case of religion, Weber’s definition of charisma be expanded to include not just the power to lead, but the power to alter religious belief and practice, specifically to innovate. Feuchtwang directs attention back to social context and the leader’s use of existing tradition, “what is already authoritative,” such as a new “scripture” that builds on the old (2008, 93). One of the ways new religions stretch standard definitions of charisma is through so-called “diffused” charisma, in which the locus of authority is decentered, and traditions are transformed through a seemingly leaderless process. Bryan Wilson was the first to articulate this formulation, as further explored later. He argued that charismatic leaders were a relic of a more primitive time and that in the future, charisma would exist only in “diffused,” “derived,” or “leaderless” forms such as therapeutic groups (1975, 125). Definitions of charisma that focus on context may see the group itself as the source of charismatic authority. Benjamin Zablocki, in his landmark study of American communes, defines charisma as a collective state resulting from an objective pattern of relationships in a specific collectivity that allows the selves of the participants to be fully or partially absorbed into a collective self . . . this absorption . . . is based upon the human capacity to invest the self into other persons or larger collectivities. (1980, 10) The group, argues Zablocki, creates a “charismatic potential” that can be activated by a leader. More recently, Stephan Feuchtwang and Wang Mingming, building on Peter Worsley’s 187

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anthropological work with cargo cults, have defined charisma as “an expectation of the extraordinary, which produces authoritative messages and stories of a great leader” (2001, 16). They redirect attention to followers and the expectations that embolden them to bring about personal and social transformation (2001, 16). Other theorists have described collaboration between leader and followers in generating a collective myth (Tumminia 2005), as well as the use of drama to create, sustain, and manage the charismatic relationship (Gardner and Avolio 1998). Leaders of NRMs have also been compared to entrepreneurs (Bainbridge and Stark 1979). Management theory offers rich possibilities for deepening the understanding of religious charisma. Research shows that followers’ psychological and personal characteristics shape their reaction to leaders (Bass and Riggio 2005; Howell and Shamir 2005). The attribution of charismatic authority by followers is neither uniform nor static. Eileen Barker argued for the importance of examining internal processes and demonstrated that followers may undergo “charismatization,” by which other followers help them to appreciate the leader’s true significance (1993). The first tier of followers become a sort of “charismatic aristocracy” (Weber 1978, 1119), who have an incentive to defend a leader from portrayals based on “some earlier identity” as well as to protect themselves from competition from inside or outside the group (Wallis 1982, 37). Researchers have identified four primary ways that followers influence a charismatic relationship, or bond: (1) elite followers help to develop and maintain charisma, (2) ordinary followers come to accept the leader’s charisma through charismatization, (3) followers bring their own histories and natures to the bond, and (4) the individual perceptions that followers acquire during their involvement may change the bond over time (Coney 1999; Wallis 1982). Charismatic authority is an inherently unstable form of leadership, and researchers have also identified causes of shifts toward violence and chaos (Wessinger 2000; Dawson 2002). Violence is a symptom of larger structural difficulties in “routinizing” charisma, a term used by Weber to describe the process by which institutionalization of authority takes place as a movement seeks continuity (1978). Both leaders and followers face particular challenges at each stage of what can be called a charismatic cycle, which begins with the leader’s initial declaration of authority and gathering of followers, continues as the leader seeks to maintain and legitimate authority, and usually ends when the leader dies or transfers authority to a charismatic or institutional successor. Interesting work has focused on the question of what makes the cycle rough or smooth (Wessinger 2012). Before examining our case study, we will review research on legitimation of authority, the types of variation in followers’ experience of charisma, and some of the difficulties that can accompany routinization.

Leaders’ legitimation strategies Weber writes of “pure” charisma as entirely outside the bounds of the other two types of authority he identified: traditional (based on respect for the past) and rational-legal (based on mutual acceptance of a set of normative rules). However, he saw that these types were often mixed. Canny charismatic leaders solidify their claims through appeal to traditional and rational­ legal authority. All three types of authority use legitimation strategies, as described by Lewis (2003). Some common strategies are: appeal to tradition, production of new scriptures and revelations, and appeal to rationality. Tradition is invoked when leaders enhance their biographies with stories of contact with revered religious figures, which establishes them in a hallowed lineage. For example, Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012), who founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954, 188

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claimed that Christ appeared to him and asked him to complete his mission (Barker 1993). Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, is alleged by the Chinese government to have changed his official date of birth to correspond with the Buddha’s traditional birthday (Penny 2003, 652). New scriptures and visionary experiences that build upon existing faiths often appeal to tradition. A Course in Miracles quotes or references the Bible more than 800 times but claims to hold the key to true interpretation of biblical revelation (see Gallagher 2014). The production of new scriptures often incorporates a more primal form of legitimation, the demonstration of divine power, since these revelations are usually claimed to have been produced by extraordinary means. Demonstrating charisma directly through superior powers and wisdom such as insight and healing is, of course, one of the forms of legitimation recognized by Weber. Contemporary examples are the extraordinary powers for healing and other miraculous occurrences believed to be possessed by Chinese qigong masters (see Palmer 2008). An early biography of Li Hongzhi credits him with holding off a rainstorm, and his presence for i­ nducing various light phenomena and bodily sensations in his students, who reported viewing “balls of light as big as basketballs” and “a Buddha image” surrounding their teacher (Penny 2003, 650, 660). A third type of legitimation is through appeals to reason and rationality, “common sense,” and even the authority of science (Lewis 2010). This strategy has been used not only by groups whose name include “science,” such as Scientology, but by many other NRMs. Encouraging followers to “test” the principles for themselves is a common appeal to rationality. The qigong movement that began in China in the 1980s also appealed to science. As Palmer writes, “famous masters were labeled as life scientists, their healing lectures as scientific experiments, and their methods as forms of scholarly activity,” which for a time enjoyed official support under Deng Xiaoping’s modernization program (Palmer 2008, 83). Legitimation strategies may help manage the inherent instabilities of NRMs (see Lewis 2003; Dawson 2006). They also come into play when leaders and followers interact to transform traditions, as discussed in the case study presented later in this chapter.

Variation in followers’ experience of charismatic authority Converts are usually introduced to a group by other followers. The follower may display perhaps “a muted form of charisma” (Rambo 1982, 101). Such followers play an important role in “charismatization,” which Barker identified as instrumental in bringing new followers to accept a leader’s charisma. She developed the term while studying the Unification Church in the early 1980s after realizing that the church founder, Sun Myung Moon, with his “bellicose tone” accented by “ferocious gesticulation” was neither charming nor magnetic from a Western perspective (1993, 185). She points out that many charismatic leaders are not, on first impression, attractive, but that followers learn to perceive them as such. Respect for charismatic authority, then, may be a learned behavior passed along among followers. But similar socialization does not guarantee a uniform perception of a leader’s nature. Judith Coney, studying responses to Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi (1923–2011), leader of Sahaja Yoga, learned that while some members perceived her as a world savior and manifestation of the great goddess, even creator of the universe, others saw her simply as an “insightful person” with healing powers (1999, 100). Followers’ views were transformed not only through charismatization but also through their personal experiences and confirmatory visions. Additional variations in the charismatic bond were uncovered by Barker, who found that due to Moon’s remote presence in the organization, followers had “a certain degree of freedom in which to construct an image of Moon that will fit or resonate with their own values 189

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and ideals.” Charismatization was neither “inevitable” nor “irreversible.” Some followers had “ambivalent feelings” toward Moon; some even expressed “deep dislike for and distrust of the man, yet they . . . stayed in the movement (at least for a while) for other reasons” (1993, 197). Nor were they always compliant with Moon’s advice on marriage or career choices. These findings are at odds with the stereotype of uniformly obedient followers. Research shows that variation in follower experience is influenced not only by other followers but also by an individual’s own personality and experience. Both Barker (1993) and Lewis (2003) report that, at one time or another, they experienced an emotional connection with a group leader, even though they had no interest in joining. Lewis recounts an experience he had while interacting with the author’s mother, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant, while visiting her community in Montana during the 1990s. He reported that “she seemed to be radiating a tangible ‘magnetism’ – a field of force that marked her off from other people as someone special” (2003, 9). He interprets the experience as arising out of his own conditioning by the followers he had met at the church’s headquarters, who also revered her. He argues that the “personal aura of power” is often “the critical element that makes everything else ‘work’ ” with respect to charismatic authority (2003, 10). Lewis did not share the myth but rather a desire to understand the milieu. Jeffrey Kripal recounts the experience of William Barnard, a professor of religion who, during the 1970s, experienced transcendence at the touch of a peacock feather wielded by the Indian guru Swami Muktananda (2017). Groups use such reports for the purpose of legitimation and charismatization. An example from the author’s own tradition shows how both social construction and personal attitude play a role in the experience of charisma. Landor Thompson (pseudonym) described a vast difference between his first and subsequent experiences of Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Although initially put off by her appearance and manner, he persevered in study and practice until he felt “divine love” and other experiences that convinced him to become one of her closest followers (See Prophet 2016, 42–44). Followers themselves often report feeling some kind of transformative power or energy in the presence of religious leaders, which raises the question of the nature and role of religious experience in the attribution of charisma. The topic of religious experience is large and contested across disciplines; interesting recent work has been done in the subfield of the cognitive science of religion (see Clements 2017). It provides additional reason for theorists to take into account the lived experience of both leader and followers. Transformative experiences may occur spontaneously in mundane settings but are also more commonly reported in the context of religious practice. As Feuchtwang points out, religious traditions themselves encourage rituals that employ symbols and bodily disciplines that are often associated with trance states and visionary experience (2008). Traditions also provide a context from which to view such experiences, such as belief in angels, divine beings, and spirit guides. David A. Palmer proposes the term “somatized charisma” to describe the bodily sensations that accompany qigong exercises in a Chinese context, which “make ‘extraordinary’ powers accessible to ordinary people.” These feelings then are contextualized within the particular paradigm of the qigong master or group (2008, 77). The qigong group is just one of many possible settings for study of “somatized” charisma.

The perils of routinization A final insight derived from research on followers is that the authority they grant the leader is neither absolute nor irreversible. The charismatic bond must be periodically refreshed and may deteriorate or disappear altogether. Charisma is unstable, like a radioactive isotope. Contrary 190

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pressures affect the institutionalization process. On the one hand, followers generally support “routinization,” which will permit a more orderly life, and the “aristocracy” desire solidification of their privilege. Leaders also recognize the need for continuity and may begin to create traditional authority by establishing churches and organizations to systematize their work and transferring authority to scriptures or procedures (see Bromley 2014, 112–116). Yet there are opposite pressures on leaders to disrupt this process. Routinization requires the leader to relinquish control and hence status; leaders may resist by introducing new teachings, making increased demands on the followers, and attacking middle management. In realistic organizations, a smooth transition may be effected when both leader and followers support institutionalization. Where that transition does not happen, crisis often ensues. Although it may appear that the responsibility for instability rests with the leader alone, sociologists have identified additional causes. Robbins and Anthony argue that instability and violence arise from a combination of exogenous and endogenous factors. Exogenous factors are “related to the hostility, stigmatization, and persecution that ‘religious outsiders’ often receive at the hands of forces in the social environment in which they operate.” Endogenous factors include “properties of a movement: its leadership, beliefs, rituals, and organization” (1995, 237). Dawson argues that it is not charismatic leadership that leads to instability but “the mismanagement of certain endemic problems of charismatic authority that are rooted in the problematic legitimacy of charisma.” The problems he evaluates are “(1) maintaining the leader’s persona, (2) moderating the effects of the psychological identification of followers with the leader, (3) negotiating the routinization of charisma, and (4) achieving new successes” (Dawson 2002, 81). Groups that have difficulty in these areas – for example, Aum Shinrikyo, which had not achieved predicted success (Reader 2002) – may tend toward violent action to rescue the leader’s credibility. An example in which mismanagement of charismatic leadership along with other internal and external factors led to disaster is the failed 1993 FBI siege of the Branch Davidian property near Waco, Texas. Catherine Wessinger blames the tragedy on the collision of the FBI’s mismanagement with Davidian leader David Koresh’s “intense commitment to maintaining his charismatic identity” (2012, 93). Had the FBI assisted Koresh in formulating a rhetorical strategy that would have allowed him to maintain credibility, or had he and his followers been less committed to his identity, she argues, the tragedy could have been averted. The FBI used different tactics in 1995 to manage a standoff with Montana “Freemen,” which was deescalated nonviolently (Wessinger 2000). Although exogenous factors play a role, it seems that when charismatic authority is at issue, the spotlight returns to the leader’s personality, motivation, and concern for followers. Outside factors aside, the leader usually has authority over crucial decisions. But followers are not absolved, particularly the charismatic aristocracy, who have greater influence. The lessons of violence led Wessinger to propose that charisma may be managed responsibly or irresponsibly (2012). Diffused charisma may provide new possibilities for taming charismatic authority.

Diffused and leaderless charisma Since the 1960s, the concept of diffused charisma as either a sharing of authority or the spontaneous eruption of new doctrines out of mass movements has been explored through the lens of new religious movements. In 1965, Edward Shils described a “dispersed and attenuated” charisma that existed in “categories or strata of the members of a society” (202). For Shils, the “charisma of the people” maintained a tension with charisma of elites and a transcendent order (212–213). Bryan Wilson first used the term “diffused charisma” to describe a democratization 191

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of religion in which “supernatural power [is] available to all,” as has been attributed to the descent of the Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition. But he argued that democratization results in the attenuation of authority such that the revelation of a single individual may become “inconsequential” (1975, 119–125). The notion of diffused charisma bears affinity to Durkheim’s “sacred,” and Frances Westley reminds us that Durkheim also predicted a democratization and personalization of religion in a “cult of man” in which “everyone increasingly follows his own path.” Certain NRMs correspond to this paradigm, she remarks, in that they consider “the location of sacred power within each individual, as opposed to outside of him” (1978, 137). She suggests that groups established on this basis may promote greater respect for the individual and for human rights in general. Diffused charisma is explored later in the context of contemporary groups. Recent experience suggests that “diffused” charisma is a multivalent concept that explains some of the dynamics of NRMs but does not automatically lead to democratization.

Followers and the interactive transformation of traditions: the  case of Falun Gong Falun Gong arose out of the qigong milieu that opened up during the 1980s and early 1990s when the Chinese Communist Party reversed a ban on traditional qigong exercises. Tens of millions of Chinese began to practice under a variety of teachers (see Palmer 2008). One of the most popular teachers was Li Hongzhi (1951–), who began publicly teaching falun gong in 1992. He quickly attracted millions of followers and his 1996 book became a nationwide bestseller. Falun Gong began as an apolitical health and exercise program focused on personal cultivation but it evolved into a politicized millennialist and utopian movement with fundamentalist moral teachings. In 1996, the Chinese state banned Li’s book. In April 1999 it began suppressing public practice of Falun Gong exercises and by July, had banned the movement. In spite of the banning and a brutal suppression campaign, the movement continued underground in China and spread through the internet. Li emigrated to the United States in 1998, and continues to issue guidance both directly and through an official website. The dispersed organizational structure has made it difficult to track the movement’s size but its website offers official versions of doctrine and translations in 45 languages (see www.falundafa.org). We will here evaluate an instance of diffused charisma that occurred between 1999 and 2000 when Li disappeared from public view for almost a year. His unavailability and the lack of organizational structure provided opportunities for followers to assert their own authority in ways that were, for a time, at odds with the leader’s stated goals. Eventually, Li transformed and spiritualized the followers’ innovations, as described by Andrew Junker (2014), providing an example of diffused charisma and the charismatic dynamic between leaders and followers. Between the prohibition of Li’s books in 1996 and the official banning of the movement in 1999, Li had issued conflicting directives to followers as to whether they should actively defend the movement or simply practice personal cultivation without engaging in “politics or political power.” Junker argues that the confusion “created an ambiguous doctrinal context that may have enhanced opportunities for follower agency” (2014, 427). During the year of Li’s withdrawal, loyal followers engaged in mass protests and even began to see martyrdom as a path to better karma. They interpreted their activism as a form of “cultivation,” or religious practice, which they claimed ultimately came from Li. Their new grassroots doctrine came to be known as Clarifying Truth, and initially posed problems for Li since it seemed to contradict his directive to avoid politics. The difficulty was resolved when the organization’s official website recast the persecution in a millennialist framework, and agreed with the 192

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practitioners who believed their activism was advancing them toward salvation, which, Junker observes, effectively made the doctrine “less overtly political” (2014, 437). Li thus “solved his problem by revising doctrine to accommodate the facts on the ground: he made Clarifying Truth into a canonical part of his religious doctrine,” Junker concludes. “In this sense, Li followed the lead of his followers. Yet at the same time, he also appropriated Clarifying Truth to strengthen his authority” (2014, 419). Li’s new millenarian theology refocused attention on him and reconcentrated the diffused charisma. The example of Clarifying Truth demonstrates that diffused charisma can temporarily empower followers. However, it was unstable, and in the end, the followers came in line, adhered to Li’s new revelations, and the authoritarian structure was restored. Shils argued that tensions between leaders and “populace” over “the ultimate locus of charisma” were endemic to modern society (1965, 213). But follower agency can also lead to a more networked and less hierarchical structure. Junker suggests that “we should expect to see more follower agency when situations are novel or ambiguous and activism is decentralized and autonomous” (2014, 421). Such is the case in some fiction-based and metaphysical religions that legitimate themselves through the empowerment of individuals.

Diffused charisma and democratization: Jediism and A Course in Miracles A Course in Miracles is a New Age scripture that presents a psychologized metaphysical Christianity. Since its publication in 1975, it has attracted millions of followers and been translated into 25 languages. Two official foundations support its dissemination, but the Course lends itself to individual study and participation in loosely organized networks, out of which have arisen a number of prominent teachers such as Marianne Williamson and Gerald Jampolsky. The 1,200-page Course is distilled from 2,000 pages of notes written down by research psychologist and professed atheist Helen Schucman (1909–1981). She had been exposed to metaphysical Christian religion while growing up in an eclectic household of parents who were each half Jewish. The final manuscript was prepared by three editors – Schucman, her colleague and fellow psychologist William Thetford (1923–1988), and Kenneth Wapnick (1942–2013). Wapnick became one of the foremost interpreters of the Course. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Course attracted a worldwide following, and two foundations were set up to promote it, the Foundation for Inner Peace and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles according to Olav Hammer, set up the “beginnings of a new orthodoxy” (2004, 443). Although its world-rejecting philosophy may be off-putting, several legitimating strategies have contributed to the success of the Course. First, the editors crafted the work to appeal to tradition, in this case, Christianity. They obscured the Course’s roots in more contemporary (and less accepted) developments such as American harmonial religion and humanistic psychology. Second, Schucman enhanced the perceived supernatural origins of the message by distancing herself from its content. She denied authorship and claimed to be an atheist who was reluctant to listen to the voice (often seen as Jesus) that directed her writing. The text became the foundation of a milieu in which charisma was diffused to secondary authors who legitimated themselves in various ways, often through appeals to reason. Some popularizers transformed the dour aspects of the Course philosophy through, as Hammer observes, “hopeful and inspiring thirdperson narratives” (2004, 450). The diverse milieu created by the loose network of independent Course practitioners has allowed the diffusion of charismatic authority in multiple leaders so long as they are not perceived by followers as departing too far from its “original” message. 193

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However, the Course does illustrate the possibilities for disagreement and schism even in cases of weaker or diffused charisma. For example, dissension arose when followers realized that the text was not as stable as previously believed. In 2000, pre-edited versions of the Course were made available, which exposed the extensive editing process. Simon Joseph observes that these revelations “caused some confusion in a new movement that had grown accustomed to viewing the Course as a fixed ‘scriptural’ text” (2017, 100). One of these early manuscripts, the so-called Urtext, is “more of a dialogue between Helen and ‘Jesus’ than the monologue of the published Course” (2017, 100n34). Subsequent disagreements among Course interpreters, Joseph observes, have revealed “deep-seated divisions . . . within this inchoate community,” including questions such as whether God is aware of the separation between creator and creation, and whether the Course is compatible with the Bible (2017, 113). Regardless of doctrinal difficulties, the Course is vague enough to permit multiple interpretations yet specific enough to provide continuity among groups, much like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Twelve-step groups based in AA as well as Course study groups both serve to activate a field of charismatic potential. More recently, this potential has been boosted by the internet, which has facilitated diffused charisma by removing the need for geographical continuity between leaders and followers, lowering the bar for publication of new interpretations, and reducing the stakes in conflict by making it easier for followers to assert their own diffused charisma when they are dissatisfied with current teachers. Such phenomena are even more visible in the case of Jediism, in which a diverse set of groups has emerged to celebrate and practice a way of life based in the Jedi knights of the George Lucas Star Wars film franchise, which began in 1977. The charisma of group leaders is muted by the larger-than-life personas of the film characters, and followers exercise a great deal of agency. Jediism draws not only from the films but from Asian philosophies such as Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and martial arts, which are viewed as an inspiration for the films’ fictional religion. Jediism emerged out of immersive role-playing games of the late 1980s, according to Debbie McCormick. These games “created a fertile environment for discussions that would contribute to the establishment of a doctrine and the genesis of Jediism.” Fans immersed in Jedi roleplaying began to also apply the philosophy to their everyday lives. By the late 1990s, “a transition from fans to followers was firmly established” (2012, 170, 172). The groups, which are primarily located in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia, can be distinguished from fandom by their religious culture, including the belief in “the Force” as an ontological reality and pursuit of traditionally religious goals such as a social ethic and personal fulfilment. Markus Altena Davidsen has proposed “fiction-based religion” to describe Jediism and other faiths consciously inspired by fictional representation (2016, 377). The Temple of the Jedi Order is incorporated as a church in the state of Texas, and The Order of the Jedi in Canada. Affiliation is loose and individuals are not required to give up other faith traditions. This milieu has evolved through “mostly online conversation and negotiation,” writes McCormick, and groups may differ as to the types of offerings they provide, and their level of allegiance to the films (2012, 177). Fiction-based religion has thus provided another testing ground for diffused charisma. However, between 2001 and 2006, a hazard of diffused charisma emerged. After a survey prank in which hundreds of thousands of people declared their religious affiliation as Jedi, many of them only in jest, the diverse groups began to feud and many sites closed down (see McCormick 179–180). Although Jedi groups persist, it remains to be seen how and whether they will survive the continued evolution of the milieu through new films and fans.

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Conclusion – charismatic transformations Is it possible to identify in advance what produces “good” or “bad,” “responsible” or “irresponsible” charisma? Is diffused charisma always associated with greater freedom and individual expression? Revolutions in communications technology have made possible both greater fragmentation and greater control over official messaging and provide new examples of the exercise of diffused charisma. Falun Gong shows the power of centralized charismatic authority to manage diffused charisma. However, it is conceivable that globalization and increased understanding of the charismatic bond may tame and continue to diffuse charismatic authority. The low-key doctrinal clashes seen in Jediism and followers of A Course in Miracles show that conflict may not take on the same urgency in a loosely organized movement without a great deal of money or real estate at risk. Such contemporary groups approach the ideal of Durkheim’s “cult of man” and Wilson’s diffused charisma but nevertheless show the need for further investigation of these concepts. In the quest for ways to stabilize the inherently volatile exercise of charisma, NRMs have the advantage of the flexibility offered by small size, which allow them to modify or discard problematic doctrines that would weigh down a larger organization. Their experiences may help to write a new chapter in the charismatic cycle. As laboratories of innovation, they continue to give us a greater understanding of the taxonomy of charismatic authority and the possibilities for human interaction.

Note 1 Portions of this chapter were published previously as “Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements,” in James Lewis and Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, eds. Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, vol. 2, 36–49, 2016. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com

References Anthony, Dick, and Thomas Robbins. 2004. “Conversion and ‘Brainwashing’ in New Religious Movements.” In James R. Lewis, ed. Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 243–297. Bainbridge, William S., and Rodney Stark. 1979. “Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models.” Sociological Analysis 40(4): 283–295. Barker, Eileen. 1993. “Charismatization: The Social Production of ‘an Ethos Propitious to the Mobilisation of Sentiments’.” In Eileen Barker, James Beckford, and Karel Dobbelaere, eds. Secularization, Rationalism and Sectarianism: Essays in Honour of Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 181–201. Bass, Bernard M., and Ronald E. Riggio. 2005. Transformational Leadership, 2nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bromley, David G. 2014. “Charisma and Leadership: Charisma and Charismatic Authority in New Religious Movements (NRMs).” In George D. Chryssides and Benjamin E. Zeller, eds. The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 103–116. Clements, Niki, ed. 2017. Mental Religion. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference. 2017. Coney, Judith. 1999. Sahaja Yoga. Richmond: Curzon. Davidson, Markus Altena. 2016. “From Star Wars to Jediism: The Emergence of Fiction-Based Religion.” In Ernst van den Hemel and Asja Szafraniec, eds. Words: Religious Language Matters. New York: Fordham University Press.

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Dawson, Lorne. 2002. “Crises of Charismatic Legitimacy and Violent Behavior in New Religious Movements.” In David Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 80–101. Dawson, Lorne. 2006. “Psychopathologies and the Attribution of Charisma: A Critical Introduction to the Psychology of Charisma and the Explanation of Violence in New Religious Movements.” Nova Religio 10(2): 3–28. Durkheim, Émile. 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Edited by Mark S. Cladis. Translated by Carol Cosman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feuchtwang, Stephan. 2008. “Suggestions for a Redefinition of Charisma.” Nova Religio 12(2): 90–105. Feuchtwang, Stephan, and Wang Mingming. 2001. Grassroots Charisma: Four Local Leaders in China. London: Routledge. Freud, Sigmund. 1949. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Translated by James Strachey. The International Psycho-Analytical Library 6. London: The Hogarth Press. Gallagher, Eugene. 2014. Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, William L., and Bruce J. Avolio. 1998. “The Charismatic Relationship: A Dramaturgical Perspective.” Academy of Management Review 23(1): 32–58. Hammer, Olav. 2004. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Leiden: Brill. Howell, Jane M., and Boas Shamir. 2005. “The Role of Followers in the Charismatic Leadership Process: Relationships and Their Consequences.” The Academy of Management Review 30(1): 96–112. Joseph, Simon. 2017. “ ‘Knowledge is Truth’: A Course in Miracles as Neo-Gnostic Scripture.” Gnosis 2: 94–125. Junker, Andrew. 2014. “Follower Agency and Charismatic Mobilization in Falun Gong.” Sociology of Religion 75(3): 418–441. Joosse, Paul. 2014. “Becoming a God: Max Weber and the Social Construction of Charisma.” Journal of Classical Sociology 14(3): 266–283. Kripal, Jeffrey. 2017. Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lasch, Christopher. 1979. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W.W. Norton. Lewis, James R. 2003. Legitimating New Religions. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Lewis, James R. 2010. “The Science Canopy: Religion, Legitimacy, and the Charisma of Science.” Temenos 46(1): 7–29. Lewis, James R. 2016. “Brainwashing and ‘Cultic Mind Control’.” In Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, edited by James Lewis and Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, vol. 2, 174–185. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lifton, Robert Jay. 1963. Thought Reform: A Psychiatric Study of “Brainwashing”. New York: W. W. Norton. Lucas, George. 1977. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. New York: Lucasfilm Ltd. Madsen, Douglas, and Peter Snow. 1991. The Charismatic Bond. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McCormick, Debbie. 2012. “The Sanctification of Star Wars; From Fans to Followers.” In Adam Possamai, ed. Handbook of Hyper-Real Religions, pp. 165–184. Leiden: Brill. Palmer, David A. 2008. “Embodying Utopia: Charisma in the Post-Mao Qigong Craze.” Nova Religio 12(2): 69–89. Penny, Benjamin. 2003. “The Life and Times of Li Hongzhi: ‘Falun Gong’ and Religious Biography.” The China Quarterly 175: 643–661, September. Prophet, Erin L. 2016. “Charisma and Authority in New Religious Movements.” In James Lewis and Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, eds. Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, vol. 2, pp. 36–49. Rambo, Lewis. 1982. “Charisma and Conversion.” Pastoral Psychology 31(2): 96–108.

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Reader, Ian. 2002. “Dramatic Confrontations: Aum Shinrikyo Against the World.” In David Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 189–208. Robbins, Thomas, and Dick Anthony. 1995. “Sect and Violence: Factors Enhancing the Volatility of Marginal Religious Movements.” In Stuart A. Wright, ed. Armageddon in Waco. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 236–259. Saliba, John. 2016. “Psychology and New Religious Movements.” In James Lewis and Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen, eds. Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, vol. 2, pp. 84–97. Shils, Edward. 1965. “Charisma, Order, and Status.” American Sociological Review 30(2): 199–213. Tumminia, Diana G. 2005. When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a Flying-Saucer Group. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wallis, Roy. 1982. “The Social Construction of Charisma.” Social Compass 29(25): 25–38. Wallis, Roy. 1993. “Charisma and Explanation.” In Eileen Barker, James Beckford, and Karel Dobbelaere, eds. Secularization, Rationalism and Sectarianism: Essays in Honour of Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 167–179. Weber, Max. 1968. On Charisma and Institution Building. Edited by S.N. Eisenstadt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Edited by Guenther Roth. Translated by Claus Wittich. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wessinger, Catherine. 2000. How the Millennium Comes Violently. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Wessinger, Catherine. 2012. “Charismatic Leaders in New Religions.” In Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein, eds. The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 80–96. Westley, Frances. 1978. “The ‘Cult of Man’: Durkheim’s Prediction and New Religious Movements.” Sociological Analysis 39(2): 135–145. Wilson, Bryan R. 1975. The Noble Savages: The Primitive Origins of Charisma and Its Contemporary Survival. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Zablocki, Benjamin. 1980. Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes. New York: The Free Press. Zablocki, Benjamin, and Thomas Robbins. 2001. Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Section IV

Politics

17 Charisma and democratic discourse Tom F. Wright

The travels of charisma The concepts that help us comprehend democracy often seem possessed of a solemn historical fixity. These explanatory tools can seem like timeless pivots around which all arguments turn. Just occasionally, however, genuinely new ideas arrive that appear fully formed and inevitable, meeting clear needs and describing things that cried out for definition. Rapidly taking on a velocity of their own, they become what German historian of ideas Reinhardt Kosselleck calls “basic concepts” without which we can barely recognize and interpret social and political reality. (Kosselleck, 2002) “Charisma” might appear to be one such idea. As the chapters in this book remind us, it is a surprisingly young addition to our conceptual vocabulary, traceable back only to the 1900s, when Max Weber dusted off an obscure theological phrase for “gift of grace.”1 In the century since, it has become an indispensable explanatory crutch. Its threadbare ubiquity and its status as cliché obscures its remarkable centrality to popular and scholarly models of human psychology. Political scientists, behavioral psychologists, and management gurus alike draw confidently upon the idea to explain contemporary phenomena. For historians, it helps explain early modern kingship or the careers of Napoleon or Bolivar, while for literary scholars the concept unlocks new dimensions to Classical literature or Shakespearean drama.2 The term has had a remarkable career, and it continues to flourish. Yet even the most apparently novel of concepts never emerges from a vacuum. “Charisma” is no exception. Rather than the independent creation of one thinker at the start of the 20th century, Weber’s term should be seen as the product of fin de siècle intellectual ferment, just one among many conceptual responses to the growth of democracy and an age of “politicization,” responses to which “charisma” interacted in productive ways. As the Dutch cultural theorist Mieke Bal has put it, all ideas inevitably “travel” in that they migrate from field to field, taking on new life as they evolve (Bal, 2002). This chapter argues that “charisma” is a distinct type of traveling idea. That is to say that the forces and dynamics that Weber was attempting to describe had long possessed shifting labels in different cultures at different times. In his choice of label, he may have ultimately opted for the language of the

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early Christian Church, but this was only one of many available styles of thought, and languages under which charisma traveled avant la lettre.3 But what were these concepts that filled the “pre-charismatic” linguistic gap? How were authority, appeal, and crowd dynamics discussed or conceptualized? Was Weber naming something substantively “new” in liberal democracies or simply giving new shape to something far more venerable? The aim of what follows is to answer these questions by exploring some of these names under which “charisma” traveled in English and French during the century before Weber. This chapter presents some preliminary findings from a book project exploring this counter-archive of precursors, in social thought, scientific and literary writing. It does so through three themes: languages of heroism and idols; second, terms drawn from ideas of energy and magnets; and finally, labels that emerge from “primitive” ethnography. Some terms provide a clear connection with those that follow. Others reveal fascinatingly distinct values. By taking a rhetorical approach to the history of concepts, by taking the conceptual tools of earlier periods seriously, we can begin to rethink our relationship to the explanatory power of charisma in contemporary discussions of democracy.

Languages for 19th century authority When writing about 19th century politics and culture, I have often been struck by a fascinating linguistic gap. When reading firsthand sources about dynamic figures in the democratic drama on both sides of the Atlantic – from William Gladstone to Frederick Douglass or Lajos Kossuth, and from British suffragettes such as Emmeline Pankhurst or Chicago anarchists such as Lucy Parsons – the key term “charismatic” was entirely absent in descriptions of their impact on their peers (Berenson and Giloi, 2013). This absence was striking, but also instructive. The space where “charisma” should have been is revelatory, because it helps bring into focus the conceptual creativity of 19th century democratic discourse. Describing the effects of peculiarly compelling individuals is a fascination as old as literature. Analyzing what the impact of such appeal might be for society has been a concern of political thinkers since at least Plato. The period stretching from the age of Atlantic Revolutions to the World War I did, however, present qualitatively new dramas upon which individuals could act. The newly expanded electorate in the United States was a compelling experiment, and even in the more glacial political systems of Europe, the role of leaders and crowds was shifting. As Gareth Stedman Jones has put it, a defining feature of the period was that “inherited political categories were thrown into disarray” (Jones and Claeys, 2015). One of the key categories was that of authority. Mass movement politics and the beginnings of modern celebrity culture offered unprecedented forms of authority centered on personality, and an older stoic model of restraint seemed poised to be replaced by a new focus on emotional availability (Young, 2016). New conceptual tools and labels were badly needed. As many commentators realized, though, finding an adequate descriptive register was no simple matter. When British socialist William Morris watched Gladstone’s pioneering stump tour of 1886, he concluded that the effects created by “the stupefying influence of his kingship; which stops people’s qualms of conscience, relieves them of their sense of responsibility, and gives them just one duty to fulfil – shouting out for their leader” was ultimately a “complicated problem” best suited to the “study of the dramatist or novelist” (Morris, 1884). It was not merely the exclusively political or the more dryly empirical who were drawn toward theorizing about the role of democratic leadership. Finding a language for charismatic connections became a shared project that engrossed novelists, neuroscientists, satirists, and ethnographers alike. Modern lexical scholars call this process onomasiology: the process of concept-naming.4 And such terminological creativity was 202

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central to the cultural energies of this age of taxonomy, measurement, system-building – this task was one of extraordinary terminological creativity. Some brandished new labels in order to praise what they saw as valuable new forms of leadership. To such writers, describing emotionally charged leader-follower relationships was a way of celebrating the outstanding actors of the democratic age and their methods for securing redemptive order. On the other side, anxious commentators were skeptical of the manipulation, hysteria, and oppression that such styles of mass politics brought in its wake. Their attempt to analyze and give name to “charisma” was the product often of anxieties about crowd passions and the fundamentally dangerous antidemocratic, unequal force that demagoguery and idolatry represented. These writers were obliged to either invent new terms or repurpose older labels. Both approaches were controversial. Amid the rush of Rousseauian neologizing, French Royalist Antoine de Rivarol argued that bestowing new political meanings upon familiar words was “like moving the furniture around in the room of a blind man” (Rivarol, 1797).5 A century later, Matthew Arnold warned his fellow “Condition of England” writers against the “literary” imprecision resulting from their ransacking of theological writings to describe the new politics, while Edward Lear mocked such coinages as merely another brand of contemporary nonsense (Arnold, 1883).6 To students of democratic history, however, these coinages and styles of analysis offer invaluable windows into shifting understandings of democracy. There were many strands at work, offering overlapping but subtly distinct versions of the same set of ideas about authority and power. For the rest of this chapter I consider three of these clusters of terms, beginning with some of more familiar and ancient.

Idolatry, heroism, and prestige Some of the most prominent concepts of 19th century political theory were those that clustered around ideas of heroism and “greatness.” During the period, conventional categories were frequently imbued with new meaning by habits of 19th century celebrity. Coming at the end of a long tradition of glorification of military leaders and the aristocracy, this involved borrowing from a language associated with kingship to talk about democracy. It was in part a language of mystification, a way of conceiving democratic authority through the verbal relics of feudal, preindustrial devotion and obedience. In the political theory of the early American republic, a key term was that of idolatry. The young John Adams frequently used the term to capture what he saw as the harmful mass passions directed at unfit leadership, lamenting on June 13, 1771 “the mad Idolatry of the People, always the surest Instruments of their own Servitude” (Adams, 2006). As Revolution came, the Adams of August 2, 1776 looked more favorably on a people in whom “Idolatry to Monarchs, and servility to Aristocratical Pride, was never so totally eradicated, from so many Minds in so short a Time.” (Adams, 2006)7 In The Federalist Papers, this key concept of democratic passion centered on ideas of despotism, with Alexander Hamilton warning in the very first piece of the “introduction of despotism” and how “a dangerous ambition more often links behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people” (Hamilton et al., 2003). “The eloquence of few,” the authors warned in no. 58, “seem to act with force” (Hamilton et al., 2003); in piece 55, they reminded readers that those whose appeal relied upon cultivating emotional followership, could exploit the “the confusion and intemperance of the multitude” (Hamilton et al., 2003) In the decades that followed, in which a party system had developed, others saw these fears realized, as new partisan media frenzies and a culture of celebrity enabled an unprecedentedly emotionally charged style of leadership. Adams himself already counted many figures whose 203

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brazen courtship of public opinion distracted from others’ superior claims to legitimate leadership: a list that included Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Paine.8 As the politics of the young republic coalesced into a party system, Adams and his son John Quincy Adams saw the problem of individualized politics only compounded, with deliberate appeals to the “passions” of voters rather than to good judgment. “It is melancholy to observe,” the younger Adams lamented in a letter to his father in April 1790, “how much even in this free country the course of public events depends on the private interests and passions of individuals” (Adams, 1913). The cultivation of celebrity was bringing on genuine peril for the republic. Personal charisma should not be allowed to edge out proven judgment. For Tocqueville, the key word to describe such operation was that of prestige. As he observed in the opening pages of Democracy in America (1835), the arrival of democratic culture was an emotional as well as political shift: “The spell of royalty is broken, (“Le prestige du pouvoir royal s’est évanoui”) but it has not been succeeded by the majesty of the laws; the people has learned to despise all authority, but fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience than that which was formerly paid by reverence and by love” (Tocqueville, 2004). Mass suffrage, Tocqueville feared, would merely lead to mediocrity, He doubted that charismatic leaders could emerge in conditions of social equality  – greatness or gloire belonged to an aristocratic age. Instead, he was fascinated by what we might now call the charisma of the majority, the influence of the greater number, that would coalesce into the dynamism of the “Social power” that he argued “is superior to all others.” This was intended both in the sense that democracy had destroyed the existence of “individuelles” who could resist tyranny, and in the sense that publics would resist the allure of charismatic leaders who would simply fall back to earth as if dragged down by their own weight.11 In a review of the writings of Alfred de Vigny from April 1838, John Stuart Mill was entertaining similar fears in similar language, writing of “The prestige with which” Napoleon “overawed the world is the effect of stage-trick” (Mill, 1996). Others saw such personalized popular devotional of prominent politicians as more positive. The most important intellectual tradition was that associated with the Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle, who repurposed the concept of the hero worship for a democratic age. A series of famed lectures he delivered in London in 1840 was published in the immensely influential book On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841), the culminating chapter of which dwelt on the “last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship”: The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of Heroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do. He is called Rex, Regulator, Roi: our own name is still better; King, Konning, which means Canning, Able-man. (Carlyle, 1993) Though a nuanced discussion of the psychology of leadership, Carlyle’s ideas are often simplified as inaugurating the Great Man Theory of history.9 But central to his importance for pre-charismatic theory is anxiety about what he sees as illegitimate uses of hero worship and false leadership. His critique of the “sham master” or “sham hero” is another way of worrying about elements of compulsion in the emotionally charged followership relationship.10 Carlyle urged audiences to choose their heroes well and not be seduced by “charisma” alone. 204

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Through submission and surrender to the power of the commanding individual, the democratic collective can transcend its fate. And it is certainly clear that Carlylean heroism maps onto various strands of Weber’s charismatic typology, and its religiosity means that it almost works as a theocracy. There was also a conservative tradition that urged the harnessing of charismatic politics to fend off popular upheavals. A key word here is that of brilliance, which was an important part of British editor and conservative political philosopher Walter Bagehot’s thought. His English Constitution (1867) reaffirmed the importance of “the emotional element” and “direct personal influence” in politics, framing a scene of persuasion in which the orator creates “the greatest impression by appealing to some vague dream of glory, or empire, or nationality”: The ruder sort of men – that is, men at one stage of rudeness – will sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, themselves, for what is called an idea – for some attraction which seems to transcend reality, which aspires to elevate men by an interest higher, deeper, wider than that of ordinary life. But this order of men are uninterested in the plain, palpable ends of government . . . the elements which excite the most easy reverence will be the theatrical elements – those which appeal to the senses, which claim to be embodiments of the greatest human ideas, which boast in some cases of far more than human origin. That which is mystic in its claims; that which is occult in its mode of action; that which is brilliant to the eye. (Bagehot, 2001) As he put it in an important essay, “On the Emotion of Conviction” (1871), it was the “peculiar brilliancy” of both people and ideas that compelled “conviction” in followers and voters, something achieved through “direct personal influence” (Bagehot, 1915). And when in a piece entitled “Mr. Gladstone and the People,” Bagehot saw such influence in action in the form of that Prime Minister’s pioneering 1870s campaigning style, he saw immediately that it marked a “new era in British politics” defined by the ability of leaders to “reach” the masses “directly by the vitality of his own mind” and activate the “reserve power” of mass emotional enthusiasm (Bagehot, 1915).

Magnetism and energy In addition to giving names to the phenomenon of emotional followership, a key conceptual role was played by metaphors. Two of the chief metaphorical frameworks were those of magnets and energy, both of which became ubiquitous.12 The most famous example of the former came from the ideas of the German physician Franz Mesmer, whose influential ideas about “animal magnetism” saw his name become an inescapable part of our language. From the mid-1770s onwards, his experimental ideas regarding the control of the human body through energy forces, as outlined in his elaborate practical demonstrations in Paris, became the most prominent of the many systemes du monde popular in pre-Revolutionary France, claiming to control invisible energy fields surging through the universe.13 “Mesmerism” seemed to prove that both individuals and groups could lose their powers of independent judgment through electrical or magnetic processes. Having taken France by storm, disputes over its veracity in the late 1780s saw Mesmer exiled to Switzerland, and the fad fell from favor by the 1800s. However, mesmerism experienced remarkable periodic revivals internationally, becoming particularly popular in Britain in the 1830s and remained ubiquitous in the United States from the middle of the century to its end. The essence of mesmerism’s fascination was that it cast doubt 205

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about the source of intellectual authority and raised questions about their potential for magnetic control. Who was really in charge of our bodies and minds? From the earliest days, “mesmerism” was therefore ripe for use as a symbol in democratic discourse. The magnetic experiments of Mesmer could be scaled up as ways of thinking about the workings of the body politic, leadership, and group dynamics. To some it became a simple byword for the sinister coercion of duped masses. In a lecture from 1795, Samuel Taylor Coleridge poured scorn on “William Pitt, the great political Animal Magnetist” (Coleridge, 1971).14 This is the essence of satiric depictions such as that in Figure 17.1 of British Prime Minister Robert Peel, in which he is depicted mesmerizing the passive lion of state, and the accompanying biting satire in Punch from September 23, 1841: Peel is the Lafontaine of political mesmerism – the fountain of quackery – and every pass he makes with his hand over poor John Bull serves to bring him into that state of stupefaction

Figure 17.1  “Mesmerising John Bull” (c.1841), National Library of Medicine 206

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in which he may be most easily victimised . . . as the French quack holds lucifers to the nostril, Peel plays the devil under the very nose of the paralysed sufferer. One resorts to electrics, the other to election tricks, but each has the same object in view – to bring the subject of the operation into a state of unconsciousness. (Punch, 1841) As we see here, mesmerism’s exotic French associations made it a way of talking about the importation of dangerous foreign political doctrines. Similarly, its medical origins allowed it to frame charismatic relationships as pathological, a common trope that runs through Carlyle’s dismissal of the “paralysing spell” of certain forms of false leadership.15 Elsewhere, the language might be even simpler. For example, when powerful American political orators such as Maine Republican “Magnetic” James G. Blaine could be depicted by Thomas Nast as a giant magnet (see Figure  17.2) and caricatured for their mesmerizing control over parties, groups and crowds.16 There was also a crucial gender component here. On one level because such metaphors centered around the figure of the paralyzed woman. Also, because, in this first age of feminist reform, female spiritualists and mesmerists became cause for public alarm and depiction, for example, of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great satire of utopian reform culture, The Blithedale Romance (1841). In the pre-charismatic world of passive subjects, magnetic political powers, unstable and divisive outcomes all found expression through this simultaneously mechanical and medical set of tropes. A broader language of energy was also a crucial way in which charismatic political relationships were imagined. We have already seen how Gladstone’s crowd appeal was described by Bagehot in terms of an electric form of “reserve power” through which leadership was framed

Figure 17.2  “The Magnetic Blaine,” May 8, 1880, Harper’s Weekly 207

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in terms of the vitality of the central mind radiating out through the masses (Bagehot, 1915). Other writers across science, sociology, and fiction were attempting even more elaborate theories about democratic energies. One of the sources for engagement with ideas about the future of democracy in 19th-century writing was in the genre now known as science fiction. One of the most fascinating such examples was the work of British conservative politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The theme of political “energy” and vitalist power recurred throughout his political writings, in part through a Carlylean understanding of leadership (Mitchell, 2003).17 But this concern with energy reached its pitch in his 1871 novel The Coming Race, a popular sensation that gave birth to a fascinatingly resonant piece of pre-charismatic terminology. It is a novel about mesmerism and evolution, and a Swiftian satire on the fate of democracy. The protagonist, an American mining engineer, discovers a secret underground civilization known as the “Vril-ya” whose supernatural powers come from their success at harnessing the power of “vril,” an quasi-electrical energy force that provides them with power to control reality, exact obedience, and establish order over their society. In a manner typical of 19th-century science fiction, the narrative turns on a series of conversations with spokespeople for the “coming race,” allowing them to explain the role that vril has played in their development from what seemed to be democracy to what seems an eerily controlled and superficially tranquil system of order. They look back on what they call “Koomposh” – their word for democracy – as a “crude and ignorant experiment” marked by nation “envy, hate and strife” (Bulwer-Lytton, 1871). They tell of the degeneration of democracy into popular passions of ferocity, a world of orators and conquerors, popular assemblies, warring passions, and rivalry. The “coming race” then discovers and manages to harness vril. This force brings the democratic chapter of Koomposh to a close through its “remarkable influence on social policy.” Its nonviolent coercion allows for the attainment of unity: moving beyond the “predominance of few over many,” to a benevolent autocracy and a single supreme magistrate presiding over one united and affectionate family. As our American narrator explains: There is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies . . . that by operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force, &c., but applied scientifically, through vril conductors, they can exercise influence over minds, and bodies animal and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romances of our mystics. To all such agencies they give the common name of vril (Bulwer-Lytton, 1871). Lots of Bulwer-Lytton’s interests come to the fore here. Not least his fixation on the metaphor of energy in political analysis and the idea of a pre-charismatic force as a solution to and countervailing influence against democratic degeneration. Particularly important is how the word comprehend here resonates in multiple senses: inclusion (as in “it includes”) and cognition (as in “it actively shapes understanding”). I want to hold on to this as a way of thinking about conceptual labels. The sense that certain phrases “comprehend” for us, possess knowledge, and act as vehicles for thought, serving to fuse and aggregate ideas and concepts that are disaggregated. When the novel became a popular sensation, the word vril duly became shorthand for animistic, occult, abstract force and allowed various types of thinking. The idea of a futuristic commodity through which superior individuals could transcend the present and achieve an orderly, organically unified politics made vril an object of desire. Some sought to undertake serious 208

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investigation to discover its real-world existence. Others saw it as a marketing opportunity. Searching for a name for his new beef-based liquid drink, the British businessman John Lawston Johnston combined the words bovine with the fashionable word vril to create the iconic English brand Bovril, a story that represents a fascinating overlooked chapter in the story of primitive charisma (Hadley, 1974).

Primitivity The final of the three strands I want to focus on in this chapter relates not to metaphors but to a more racialized orientalist form of mystification. A key source for ways of talking about the new emotionally charged democratic politics was through ideas drawn from Western ethnographers’ writings about “primitive societies.” Like the mystifications of mesmerism or gloire, it was an abstraction. But in this case, it was a mystification whose power rested upon the exotic otherness of the labels, on the supposed “primitivity” of the model of social organization. The first level upon which these ideas worked was that of analogy. This involved the borrowing of terms such as totem or shaman to draw analogy with styles of Western democracy. In this way, charismatic politics might be caricatured or depicted through reference to elected leaders as chiefs or tribal leaders, with their appeal compared to that of supposedly supernatural forces found in “primitive” societies. In this way we see democracy time and time again referred to using these ideas about tribal simplicity, susceptibility. This was in part a product of the dual function of Western ethnography – both explaining the workings of “primitive” societies throughout the world and using this supposedly atavistic ancient way of life to understand the new developments in democratic society. This was a running thread through British ethnographer Richard Henry Codrington’s 1890s writings on Polynesian supernatural beliefs. It was used even more prominently as a way of understanding the indigenous peoples of North America (Codrington, 1891). The example of the “ghost dance” and 1890s US politics provides a fascinating extended example of how this worked. That decade was marked by the Battle of Wounded Knee, the turning point traditionally seen as the closing off of possibilities for Native American independence. And one of the forces that had led to that moment was a new indigenous religious movement that had flourished in the northwestern states. It focused on the charismatic figure of “Wovoka,” a Paiute spiritual leader who traveled the region urging tribes to embrace a new form of religious observance that became known as the “ghost dance” or the “messiah craze” (Andersson, 2009).18 The ghost dance was a collective ceremony in which participants summoned up visions of a returned utopia. Other such messianic revivalist movements had occurred during previous decades, but this new ghost dance was far larger and more significant. The phenomenon received lavish national coverage, discussing “the millennial craze,” “the outbreak,” the “Indian lunacy” and agitation, with much coverage focused on the supposed authority of a murky magnetic leader at its heart.19 The phrases “ghost dance” and “messiah craze” duly took on a new life in the symbolic economy of political language. Both phrases were used to demean or depict political schemes that promised a return to an imagined superior past through a radical break with current practices. But they also became far broader reference points for those skeptical of the cults of personality and methods of publicity that were increasingly part of the texture of US electoral politics. To those who saw these new methods as dangerous to independent judgment, the ghost dance became a readily available symbol.20 In the 1896 presidential election, for example, both major parties were depicted in this way. Shelby Cullom, prospective Republican nominee, was attacked as leading “ghost dances” in his stirring up of his supporters.21 But the most “charismatic” 209

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figure of the campaign was the celebrated orator and three time ­ Democrat candidate William Jennings Bryan, whose barnstorming speaking style was c­ ompared repeatedly to Lakota religion: a September 1896 cartoon in the South Dakotan Aberdeen Daily News depicted “Big Medicine Bryan” leading a circle of “howling warriors” in a “Cheap Dollar Ghost Dance” (see Figure  17.3); an account in the Los Angeles Times from July of that year spoke of a ­“Democratic Ghost Dance” described “Pale-Metal People Prancing ­Furiously. . . . Proceedings are Characteristic of the Party of Pugnacity and Ungovernable Oratorical Impulses.”22 In these ways, the visionary emotional style of popular democracy was rendered atavistic and strange. However, on a more conceptual level, the century before Weber was also marked by a tendency to import more overarching ideas and concepts from indigenous bodies of knowledge.

Figure 17.3  “The Cheap Dollar Ghost Dance,” Aberdeen Daily News, September 29, 1896 210

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The distance of these ideas from Western metaphysics seemed to offer new ways of thinking about crowd dynamics and leadership powers. A  popular example that maps onto the prehistory of charisma were those ideas that held the cosmos as made up of seamless dynamic fields of energy. A particularly clear example of this attempt to project outwards might be the long and overlooked career of the Native American linguist J.N.B. Hewitt. Of mixed Tuscarora and European heritage, Hewitt proposed, from his studies of Iroquois languages that one of the languages’ key terms might provide a useful way of talking about the “mystic potency” through which leaders exerted power over crowds: The reality of this subsumed mystic potency, this reified figment of inchoate mind, human experience in all times and in all lands owes some of its most powerful motives and dominating activities. Now this subsumed mystic potency has no name in the English language that adequately define it. . . . It is suggested that the Iroquoian name for the potency in question, orenda, be adopted to designate it. (Hewitt, 1902) Reaching for an already existing but obscure abstract noun to account for structures of authority is strikingly similar to the outcome of Weber’s own project of the period. Weber repeatedly cited Hewitt’s as an analogy for charisma drawn from authentic indigenous knowledge and it is important to note Weber’s concern in his writings of the 1890s with tribal structures of indigenous North America, and his decision in 1904 to foreswear an invitation to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt in favor of heading to Oklahoma to witness Native American society and culture firsthand (Scaff, 2011).

Conclusion: rethinking charisma’s authority Authority is mediated through keywords. The overlapping, competing labels discussed here enact on a micro scale broader profound struggles to comprehend 19th-century democracy. Conceptual archaeology of this type helps unravel the theoretical structures in which concepts like “charisma” are embedded. Such an approach allows us to see how ideas and conceptions about authority travel, morph, stretch, and deform, heading up and down what theorist of concept-formation Giovanni Sartori called the “ladder of abstraction” (Sartori, 1984). The book that I am writing aims to explore further the fuller range of ways in which charisma traveled before Weber. But there are some broad conclusions that can already be drawn. My central contention is that we arrived at our contemporary shibboleth of charisma through a 19th-century contest between rival approaches to knowledge. On the one hand, the “gift” of grace and authority became not an inexplicable attribute but something ­comprehensible through the new experiential language of neuroscience and positivist social theory. On the other hand, there was an increasing tendency to analyze audience behavior through forms of mystification, using concepts drawn from either early theology or the study of indigenous cultures. The result was an interplay between a tendency to understand modern social relations through secular analytical fidelity and the attraction of an often racialized re-enchantment. The range of alternative labels also reveal a number of other tensions. The first is that of attitude toward the past. As Kosselleck stresses, all concepts are temporally marked, and with this in mind we can see a conflict in pre-charismatic language between labels oriented toward futurity and newness  – with a commitment to democracy’s modernity  – and those oriented toward the past – conceiving of liberal democracy as a revival of older timeless forces (Kosselleck, 2002). The second is the attitude toward the relationship between the individual 211

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and the collective. Some conceive of the gift of authority and attraction as a possessive and personalized, something that individuals have that makes things happen, and that returns always to that individual. Those that figure the same force as atmospheric, dynamic, or collective present a very different model in which it is rather that the individual makes possible a mutual, collective energy or force. Certain abstract nouns and conceptual labels win out for definite reasons: they meet a clear need, they coincide with broader intellectual currents, and they take root in popular culture.23 In the case of “charisma,” it has served important needs at different stages in its career. In the fin de siècle moment in which it first arose, it allowed Weber and others to think through ways in which democracy might be revitalized, or the role of emotions in a transcendental politics. Since then, it has become ever more useful for ways of talking about the relationship of individual liberty to coercive democratic leadership. It is no surprise that the term takes on a life of its own in the postwar decades, amid an intense hunger for explanatory accounts of totalitarianism and coinciding with the rise of celebrity culture as a new form of hero worship and presaging an era of popular psychology (Lindholm, 1990). In this way, the story of charisma during the century since Weber tells another story of “travel.” Its legacy is partly one of growth, enlarging beyond its intended political usage to become a way of talking about fame, celebrity, and “attraction” more generally. As an idea, it has also shrunk in scale, shifting from the geopolitical to the interpersonal. Just as the personal has become political, charisma has shifted from a tool of use for explaining crowds and mass appeal to one for describing everyday interactions with unusually compelling people. This conceptual stretching risks stripping the term free of its value and diluting its explanatory value. At its worst, such uses of the term serve only to lend glamour and pseudo-sociological specificity to outmoded individual-driven models of history. Exploring the prehistory of charisma in this way can help us rethink our relationship to this far-too-often unexamined concept. It is instructive to recall that charisma has been constructed as much through humanistic and creative disciplines as through the social sciences. This is important, first, because this might help us acknowledge the inevitable, literary looseness of conceptual apparatuses that profess to scientific power. Second, because it reveals the term’s historical contingency. Our current overreliance on the term is far from inevitable. Many of our keywords are far less stable, far less explanatory, and far more arbitrary, than we often seem to pretend. This is more than just a critique of jargon, however. Instead, it is a way of offering new routes through social problems. Entering back into older styles of thought obliges us to think seriously about alternative models for society, authority, and the role of the individual. Reworking charisma away from its status as individual possession can help us rethink democracy as a dynamic, mutual, and collective process.

Notes 1 For a broad account of the word’s career as a theological term, see John Potts, A History of Charisma (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 2 See Henry Allen Myers, Medieval Kingship (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1982) and the special volume of Religions journal on “Charisma, Medieval and Modern”; Gary Dickson and Peter I. Kaufman, eds., Charisma (London: Shu-Kun Lin, 2012); Avner Falk, Napoleon Against Himself: A  Psychobiography (Charlottesville, VA: Pitchstone, 2007); Stephanie Jones and Jonathan Gosling, Napoleonic Leadership: A Study in Power (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015); Raphael Falco, Charismatic Authority in Early Modern English Tragedy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Kristin Bezio, Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays: History, Political Thought, and the Redefinition of Sovereignty (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015).

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3 Weber explicitly adopted his use of the Greek word “charisma” from its use in German church historian Rudolf Söhm’s Kirkenrecht (1892). For a full account of Weber’s debts to Söhm, see Peter Haley, “Rudolph Sohm on Charisma,” The Journal of Religion, vol. 60, no. 2 (April 1980), pp. 185–197. 4 The term is a borrowing from the German, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the study of language which deals with the identification of a preconceived meaning or concept by name or names.” 5 Antoine de Rivarol, Discours préliminaire au nouveau dictionnaire de la langue français (1797) quoted and translated in L.M. Findlay, ‘The Genius of the French Language: Towards a Poetics of Political Reaction During the Revolutionary Period,” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 28, no. 4 (1989). 6 For discussions of this, see Wolf Lepenies, Between Literature and Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). See Daniel Brown, The Poetry of Victorian Scientists: Style, Science and Nonsense (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 45–50. 7 John Adams to Richard Cranch, The Adams Papers (Cambridge, MA: Historical Society, August 2, 1776), online. 8 See Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burnstein, The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality (New York: Viking, 2019). 9 See Robert Faulkner, The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). 10 See Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, eds. Michael K. Goldberg et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 160. See also Jonathan Taylor, Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 17–19. 11 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Library of America, 2004), vol. II, part III, ch. 21, p. 751. 12 For energy metaphors in the culture of the period see Barri Gold, Thermopoetics: Energy in Victorian Literature and Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010). 13 For the story of the phenomenon in France, see Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). For its role in British culture, see Roy Porter, “ ‘Under the Influence’: Mesmerism in England,” History Today, vol. 35, no. 9 (September 1985). 14 See Tim Fulford, “Conducting and Vital Fluid: The Politics and Poetics of Mesmerism in the 1790s,” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 43, no. 1 (2004). 15 See Nina Auerbach, Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 16 On Blaine as a charismatic figure, see Jeremy Young, The Age of Charisma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 28–33. 17 Leslie George Mitchell, Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters (London: Bloomsbury, 2003). 18 For a broader account of these events, see Alice Kehoe, The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2006). 19 From “The Messiah Craze: Interesting Facts About Its Origin and Extent,” New York Times, November 24, 1890; ‘The Cheap Dollar Ghost Dance’, Junction-City Republican, 9 October 1896. 20 Particularly after anthropologist James Mooney’s famous firsthand work on the phenomenon, The Ghost Dance and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 was published in 1896. James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896). 21 “Cullom’s Ghost Dance,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 1896; “The Foraker Ghost Dance,” New York Times, February 16, 1891. 22 “The Cheap Dollar Ghost Dance,” Aberdeen Daily News, September  29, 1896; “Democratic Ghost Dance,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1896. 23 See Stella Vosniadou ed., International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 23–25.

References Adams, John Quincy. The Adams Papers. Cambridge, MA: Historical Society, 2006, online. Adams, John Quincy. Writings of John Quincy Adams, vol. 1, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Andersson, Rani-Henrik. The Lakota Ghost Dance of 1890. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

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Anon., ‘Matinee Mesmerique’, Punch, 23 September 1841. Arnold, Matthew. Literature and Dogma. London, 1883. Bagehot, Walter. The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 5. London: Longman, 1915. Bagehot, Walter. The English Constitution, ed. Paul Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Bal, Mieke. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Berenson, Edward and Eva Giloi. Constructing  Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in  NineteenthCentury Europe. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. The Coming Race. Edinburgh: Blackwood and Sons, 1871. Carlyle, Thomas. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, eds. Michael K. Goldberg et al. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Codrington, Robert Henry. The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore. New York: Clarendon Press, 1891. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures on Politics and Religion, eds. L. Patton and P. Mann. London: Routledge, 1971. Darnton, Robert. Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Hadley, Peter. The History of Bovril Advertising. London: Bovril, 1974. Hadley, Peter. ‘Rudolph Sohm on Charisma’, The Journal of Religion, vol. 60, no. 2 (April  1980), pp. 185–197. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison and John Jay. 2003. The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus, ed. Terence Ball. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hewitt, J.N.B. ‘Orenda  and a Definition of Religion’, American Anthropologist, vol. 4, no. 1 (January–March 1902). Jones, Gareth S. and Gregory Claeys. 2015. eds.  The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 4. Kosselleck, Reinhard. 2002. The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lindholm, Charles. 1990. Charisma. New York: Wiley. Mill, John Stuart. 1996. Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: I. Autobiography and Literary Essays, ed. John Robson. London: Routledge. Mitchell, Leslie George. 2003. Bulwer-Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters. London: Bloomsbury. Morris, William. 1884. “Uncrowned Kings,” Justice, 6 September. Potts, John. 2009. A History of Charisma. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rivarol, Antoine de. 1797. Discours préliminaire au nouveau dictionnaire de la langue français. Hambourg: Fauche. Sartori, Giovanni, ed. 1984. Social Science Concepts: A Systematic Analysis. New York: Sage. Scaff, Lawrence A. 2011. Max Weber in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2004. Democracy in America, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Library of America. Young, Jeremy. 2016. The Age of Charisma: Leaders, Followers, and Emotions in American Society, 1870–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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18 Charisma in liberal democracies Jean-Claude Monod

Introduction The term “charisma” long used only in the field of the organization of the Christian churches, has become a usual term for commenting on the political life of democracies after the term’s diffusion from use in Max Weber’s political and religious sociology to American sociology, political science, and journalism. This suggests that, despite the fact that we frequently associate charisma with authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, its very birth as a category of politics has not primarily concerned such regimes but has been considered in relationship to liberal democracies. And it could be argued (Monod, 2012) that it is indeed precisely in liberal democracies that the question of charisma has become so central: in a monarchy, the king is designated by virtue of his blood. He can, of course, be judged a good or bad king, he can create an enthusiasm in “his” people or a disappointment, but charisma does not play a key role in his qualifications. The same would paradoxically be true in a totalitarian regime: the question whether Hitler was a charismatic leader or not is much discussed by historians (see for instance Kershaw [1991] for a view of Hitler as charismatic leader, and Herbst [2010] for a critical perspective on this view; see also Eatwell in this volume), but it is generally admitted that Stalin had no personal charisma before the machine of propaganda built his character of “father of the people.” Once in power, the leader of a totalitarian regime can use “total” propaganda and terror instead of charismatic leadership in order to create a mandatory cult of his personality. So a classical author about totalitarianism such as Hannah Arendt considered that the analysis of the Nazi or the Bolshevik regimes as “charismatic” regimes was a wrong direction (Arendt, 1951). It would then be essentially in the democratic regimes that charisma would play a key role, because it is a kind of regime governed according to the principle of free competition for power, in which “personal” qualities matter, in order to convince the electors that you are able to become the best leader of a party or of the country itself. But this entails many questions, both normative (is charisma necessary for liberal democracy?) and concerning the evolution of the place of charisma in liberal democracy. In this chapter, I  will argue that (1) charisma is indeed a possible ingredient of liberal democracy, and even a necessary one, especially in times of crisis, as diverse examples from the 20th century show, but (2) charisma can be a part of democracy only on the condition that this 215

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charisma remains in the framework of a liberal constitution and does not seek to destroy it and the balance of powers it implies in order to impose a “direct” relationship to the people that would negate any other law. Is a distinction between democratic charisma and authoritarian charisma needed for a defense of charisma in liberal democracy (Lloyd, 2018)? I will ­discuss this thesis. Turning, then, toward the present evolution of liberal democracies, I’ll inquire (1) why charisma seems to be increasingly associated with populist and authoritarian tendencies in the West as well as in several countries of Eastern Europe, and (2) whether this evolution is compelling.

The place of charisma in liberal democracy: the Weberian paradigm The idea that charisma is not necessarily antinomic with liberal democracy has been defended by the very instigator of the use of the concept as a term of political sociology, Max Weber. The problem here is that Weber is not always seen himself as a “liberal,” so that this origin is at the same time the source of a doubt: when Weber defended the value of charisma, was it not the first step in a weakening of the liberal democracy that tried to be established in the postWorld War I period in Germany? The nature of Weber’s own views on politics and charisma is addressed in different parts of this Handbook. I will not discuss the role played by Weber’s nationalism or by his “nietzschean irrationalism” in his praise of charisma as a tool for the self-assertion of a country or as the expression of the fact that the political is “an individualized form of action,” in which decision, character, intuition, personal charm, and speech play an important part. Let’s just notice that this last argument can be defended without any nationalistic or “irrationalistic” predilection, just as a realistic observation of the nature of politics. Is this “realism” contrary to the liberal conviction that a good city must obey laws more than men, and does it imply a balance or separation of powers (following Montesquieu’s motto: “que le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir”)? Here a definition of liberalism is at stake. If liberalism implies a mere selforganization of society, only governed by impersonal norms and laws, political charisma has nothing to do with liberalism and is necessarily contrary to it; Weber didn’t believe in such a self-organization and considered that it was an illusion to believe that liberty and democracy could be warranted by the so-called “laws” of the market in the late capitalistic economy (Weber, 1994, 64). Hence, Weber defended a form of political personal responsibility and decision, and of a leadership, through which the “masses” could promote their interests in front of the capitalistic and bureaucratic forces. But this defense was not doomed to ruin the liberal care for a balance of power, pluralism, and constitutional checks, as a way of avoiding that the “man of confidence of the masses” would become a tyrant. “Liberalism” here is one component – best represented by the English tradition of parliamentarism and “checks and balances” – in a “liberal democracy” in which a strong personal power is also needed, for instance, that of a President of the Republic, who at that time Weber sees represented in the political model of the United States. So it can be argued, following many specialists of Weber’s work (such as Stefan Breuer, 1994, or Hinnerk Bruhns, 2000, or of liberalism at the birth of the Weimar Republic, such as Jens Hacke, 2018), that Weber tried to promote a kind of “realistic liberalism” just after World War I, when he published his famous reflections for a new constitutional order, a new organization of the roles of the President as well as of the Parliament in a “reorganized Germany.” In this perspective, charisma was one element that was supposed to warrant the possibility of quasi “revolutionary” changes in a liberal democracy, whereas the two other main forms of 216

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domination (rational-legal, embodied by bureaucracy, and traditional) were inherently “conservative.” This quality has been both confirmed and disputed, especially because of what followed in Germany: on the theoretical level, a dissociation of charisma and reason in the form of an apology of decisionism and Führertum, such as one can find it in Carl Schmitt’s radical critique of liberalism. On the historical level, the destruction of democracy by a personal domination and a “national” revolution. As Raymond Aron put it: with these events, from a liberal democratic point of view, “[W]e’ve learnt to fear the promises of demagogues more than the banality of the rational organization” (Aron, 1967, 570). Nevertheless, the question of an “extraordinary” and personal element, without which liberal democracies would be dull and conservative, remains.

Some positive charismas in times of crisis or in processes of democratization The first difficulty of the question of charisma in liberal democracy is, then, that those who have defended the necessity of charisma and, often, of a strong political leadership in liberal democracy have often done so through a criticism of a naive liberalism, in which too much confidence was placed in the immanent mechanisms of the market economy and of civil society. The French constitutionalist René Capitant, who participated in the elaboration of the French Constitution of the 5th Republic, opposed in that way the “strong State of the republicans” to the “weak State of the liberals” (Capitant, 2004). Nevertheless, one might consider that the distinction between republicanism and liberalism is far less important than the opposition between democracy and totalitarianism, so that republicans and liberals are “on the same side” against this common enemy. Significantly, during World War II, the liberal Raymond Aron criticized, in London where he had joined the “France libre,” what he perceived as De Gaulle’s “bonapartist” and excessively personal view of power (Aron, 1990). But both were united against the totalitarian Nazi threat. De Gaulle has become, in France, the example par excellence of political charisma in the 20th century; even if his role as “soul” of the French Resistance against the German occupation is undeniable, one could argue that he was less a defender of liberal democracy than of “a certain idea of France” which could be but free. Nevertheless, the period of post-World War II has shown the importance of political charisma (e.g., Churchill or Roosevelt) in order to embody the spirit of resistance of liberal democracies against the totalitarian threat. The defense of democracy in a state of war or radical crisis is but one situation in which the personal charisma of the leader seems to be of crucial importance when set against the totalitarian leaders and their machines of propaganda. But the role of charisma in a context of war or crisis seems to be linked to “exceptional” circumstances, and one might wonder if charisma is to play any role in “normal” times of the life of liberal democracies. I have suggested (Monod, 2012) that De Gaulle could also be cited as an example of “charisma of foundation” for his influential role on the Constitution of the 5th French Republic, which has been called by the American constitutionalist Bruce Ackerman an “institutionalization of De Gaulle’s charisma.” The 5th Republic is a presidential, republican, form of liberal democracy, with some quasi monarchist aspects: it is well known that De Gaulle wanted to build a kind of synthesis of an absolutist monarchy (a strong personal power, seen as an “embodiment” of the nation in one man) and of a liberal democracy. The 4th Republic, where the Parliament and the political parties were the real basis of power, was submitted to a continuous change of government and seemed to lack a principle of legitimacy and of continuity. De Gaulle’s charisma can be used as a confirmation of the necessity of charisma in order to endow a modern democracy with a 217

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personal and non-formal legitimacy. Ackerman has applied this schema of a link between charisma and constitutionalism to American history and the Founding Fathers: George Washington led a revolutionary movement that declared its independence from the British Empire. Washington’s movement, moreover, aimed to establish an Enlightenment Republic, and repudiate the very idea of hereditary monarchy. What is more, Washington was true to his word. He used his charismatic authority as the first President of the Republic to reinforce the constitutional order that his movement had sacrificed so much to create. (Ackerman, 2020; see also Ackerman, 2019) If Washington’s charisma was used to build a centralized order, Ackerman notices that other charismas in American history had the opposite effect, creating a balance of centralization and decentralization, unity and federalism: Nevertheless, in Thomas Jefferson’s view, Washington’s constitutional construction centralized far too much power in Washington D.C. – and Jefferson successfully organized a new “Republican” political movement which radically shifted the balance of authority in the direction of the member states of the Union. (Ackerman, 2020) Of course, times of foundation are, themselves, exceptional. But one might think that in more peaceful or ordinary situations, charisma can also play an important role in what one could call, following Etienne Balibar, a “democratization of democracy”: a better implementation of its core values, liberty, and equality, a challenging of its limits and borders (Balibar, 2010). The very dynamics of democracy, as grasped – in a mix of admiration and fear – by some c­ lassical authors of the liberal tradition, such as Tocqueville, is the “equalization of conditions.” The ­people, leaders of social movements, parties, or unions, who succeed in “equalizing” the conditions of subaltern people (for instance the women, the Black people in the United States, the gay and lesbian people, and so on), are often gifted of a charisma which fosters emancipation. The paradigmatic example of this charisma is certainly Martin Luther King, whose charisma significantly roots in the mastering of the pastoral talk, the preaching, and whose most famous speeches played on the immanent “promises” of equality contained in the ideal of democracy. Although the effectiveness of the “democratization” attached to his presidency is partly doubtful, Barack Obama’s style and the kind of charisma displayed during his first election campaign, was clearly echoing this Black-American tradition of a “popular-pastoral” charisma reinvested in the secular realm of democratization; this certainly played a part in Obama’s capacity to bring back to elections people who didn’t care for or “believed” in politics anymore – ­including some parts of the American people who had rarely been named in a “victory speech” of a newly elected American president: Indians, Latinos, Black people, gay and lesbian, and so on. Nevertheless, Obama’s case suggests also that one should distinguish between charisma in campaigning for office and the deployment of charisma within an office: while in a – good, living, ­enthusiastic – campaign, the “I” of the candidate seems to be also connected with the “we” – “Yes, we can” – within the presidential office, charisma becomes both more personal and professional. As the French writer Charles Péguy noticed after the highest tensions of the Dreyfus Affair, the most intense moments of political struggles or of political life touch to a kind of “mystique,” but it never lasts very long, as the everyday political practices and intrigues gain the upper hand: “[E]verything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” But it might be a good

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thing that the enthusiastic and “mystical” link with a candidate does not go beyond the moment of mobilization, as it could lead to a cult of personality, typical of a totalitarian regime and at odds with the democratic principle of equality. It is significant that the model par excellence of a democratic charisma as opposed to an authoritarian charisma in Vincent W. Lloyd’s book, In Defense of Charisma, is that of Martin Luther King. How is “democratic charisma” defined, then? Lloyd describes it in contrast with an authoritarian charisma: Authoritarian charisma confirms social hierarchies and reinforces the powers that be. It is associated with fathers, with law, and with enchantment. Authoritarian charisma gives the audience what the audience desires. In contrast, democratic charisma invites an audience to develop new desires. . . . It points to the limits of the law and calls us to a higher sense of justice. Democratic charisma is contagious. (Lloyd, 2018, 5–6) This characterization merits discussion: in a way, an authoritarian charisma is also “contagious.” For instance, the effect of the Führerprinzip in Nazi Germany was to produce many “little” Führer at various levels of society: a contagion of authoritarianism, so to speak. But it is true that this contagion is limited by a very hierarchical view of society and order. The fact of challenging the law for the sake of a “higher justice” can also go in a antidemocratic direction, if, for instance, this “higher justice” is supposed to fit with an exclusive religious law (let’s think of the ayatollah Khomeini’s charisma) or with the superiority of a group or a “race.” The distinction between democratic charisma and authoritarian charisma might nevertheless be useful, in order to avoid the systematic suspicion of many critics and scholars against any charisma, particularly a charisma identified with only one form – the ­authoritarian form. A further difficulty is that a democratic charisma is not necessarily a liberal one. Indeed, one should include in the topic “charisma in liberal democracy” the charisma of leaders who can hardly be described as “liberal” but whose action has contributed to the dynamics of equality. An example here would be Malcolm X. Neither his ideology (black nationalism or separatism, before he turned to more universalistic and nonviolent views before his assassination) nor his type of charisma, more comparable to that of a warrior (a big source of political charisma in archaic times, according to Weber) or populist leader than to the one of a liberal member of a Parliament, belong to the register of liberalism. But it can be argued that his action contributed to liberalism through its very tension with the nonviolent and more “inclusive” path of Martin Luther King, to the successes of the civil right movement and, then, to a process of democratization, a change of law in the name of a “higher justice.” Starting from what was said about the “charisma of foundation” or the “charisma of equality,” about such various historical characters as De Gaulle or Malcolm X, it is clear that the scope of the topic “charisma in liberal democracy” must go beyond the circle of the political leaders who claim liberalism. Charisma in liberal democracy is much more varied and complex than the charisma of the – relatively rare – ­politicians who define themselves as liberals. Nevertheless, as we turn toward the present, we face an important process that we have to analyze: the growth of a critique of liberalism in (or outside) the liberal democracies on behalf of (a national) democracy, or the idea that liberalism today is an obstacle for a “real” democracy. As it occurred in the 1920s, this critique of liberal democracy calls on a more direct democracy in which the leader and the people would have a direct relationship.

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“Illiberal democracy” and “cold charisma”? Let us turn our attention to current – 21st century – political leaders. Viktor Orbán himself has coined the expression “illiberal democracy” in order to characterize the transformation that he intended to begin in Hungary: opposition of the nation’s people to the liberal elites (accused of a positive bias for ethnic or sexual minorities) or against the norms imposed by Brussels or by the European Court for human rights concerning the matters of asylum, the status of refugees, or free-speech rights. Orbán introduced himself as the champion of traditional Western values and of Christianity against Muslim immigration that would threaten, he believed, to overwhelm Europe. This right-wing neopopulism consists in “building the people” (to take up a concept coined by Ernesto Laclau, 2018, in order to grasp the populist “operation”) by creating an emotional attachment to a leader who represents himself as listening to the “real people,” the ethnos, the national people that should be defended against the stranger, the refugee, and the immigrant, by breaking with the ethical norms of a so-called intellectual and mediatic “liberal establishment,” in which one would find a “cosmopolitical” taste for the mixing of populations, a choice for a world without borders. But these choices would now be “unpopular” and “undemocratic.” The same ideological view of an illiberal and national democracy, represented in Italy by Matteo Salvini and in France by Marine Le Pen, has long been advocated by Vladimir Putin. The President of Russia lately made the headlines by claiming, in an interview to the Financial Times (June 27, 2019) that “liberalism has become obsolete” and that the “liberal idea” which had dominated the world since the end of the World War II had “outlived its purposes” as the public turned against immigration, open borders, and multiculturalism. Without explicit attacks on liberalism, the content of Donald Trump’s own rhetoric is close to this politically illiberal worldview which (paradoxically?) goes hand in hand with an apology of the market and of individual economical “success.” Trump does not speak so much as the figurehead of a party (which disliked him) than as a self-satisfied and bombastic “I”: “No one knows X or Y better than me.” An aspect of the charismatic domination such as thematized by Weber, the opposition to traditional or impersonal norms and the claim to give a new “law” from a personal source (“you have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you”), takes here an individualistic and histrionic form. But the enemy is indeed the set of social and ecological norms, the regulations that the federal state represents in the realms of public health, welfare state, and ecology. Nevertheless, Trump does not express directly hostility against liberalism, which can be seen as a fundamental “American” value, whereas Orbán theorizes his own so-called “illiberal democracy,” and Putin attacks liberalism as an obsolete and perverse ideology. Nevertheless, for our topic the question is: is there a link between, on the one hand, these forms or projects of illiberal (politically illiberal but economically ultra-liberal) nationalistic democracy and, on the other hand, charisma or “charismatic domination”? It is clear that the ideas of illiberal democracy are linked with an ideology of strong leadership, whereas classical liberalism is more a philosophy of rights and civil society – but as we’ve seen, it doesn’t exclude, in practice, various forms of charismatic leadership. Conversely, do strong leadership and illiberal democracy imply charisma? A remark made by Jan-Werner Müller in his book What is Populism? could be fruitful here (2016). The German political philosopher argues that populism does not require the presence of a “charismatic leader.” This characteristic has certainly appeared in populisms of the left (Chávez) as of the right (Pim Fortuyn). And it is incontestable that many populist movements are inextricably tied to their founding personalities (the Le Pen family, Beppe Grillo). But 220

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Müller is skeptical of attributing an exceptional charisma to any leader surrounded by a circle of partisans or cheered on by a crowd (think Eva Perón on her balcony). This popular adhesion does not necessarily derive from the judgment of the leader’s extraordinary character. It can be just as easily linked to his or her program, tactical skills, political gamesmanship, or electoral success. Should not the same be said about these illiberal leaders that we just mentioned? Despite Putin’s rejection of the Stalinist “cult of personality,” many elements of such a cult can be found in the actual scenery of power in Russia. But is it adequate to speak of Putin’s “charisma”? There is almost a public international discussion today on this topic on the web. “How is Putin an effective leader despite having hardly any charisma?” was a question raised on the Q&A platform Quora. A Russian participant to this public discussion claimed that the premise was wrong: Putin, at least in the last years and not at his beginnings, would have a kind of charisma that was appreciated in Russia, if hardly perceived in Western democracies. “What a Russian would see as a confident, calm, and solid outlook may be seen as exactly the opposite – reservedness due to lack of self-confidence and emotional poverty by an American or south European, for example,” argues this Internet user. Richard Tempest, a professor of Slavic languages and literatures who made a study of political leadership styles, speaks about a “Napoleonic ‘cold charisma’.”1 A classical difficulty of the use of the concept of charisma in social sciences is that it seems to lie upon forms of “recognition” and “habitus” that are socially and culturally diverse. This “affinity of habitus” (Bourdieu, 1987, 199) might explain the fact that the white male American middle class (the “angry white males” frustrated by the pro-minorities speech of the Democrats) seem to find Trump charismatic, whereas the white cultivated upper class as well as the Black middle class see in Obama the achievement of charisma. In any case, one may doubt that a polarity between “cold” and “warm” charisma have any consistency, in order to think a difference between a charisma fit to liberal democracy and a more “vertical,” imperial, and illiberal charisma. The attribution of a “cold” charisma to Putin seems to belong to an approximate psychology, and a prominent early 21st-century leader of a Western democracy, Angela Merkel, has been described as having a specifically democratic quality tied with the fact that she was calm, “cold,” and uncharismatic.2 The distinction, between “charismatic leader,” “ideological leader” and “pragmatic leader” (Mumford et al., 2006) could be useful here. Merkel is usually praised as a “pragmatic leader,” and pragmatism is usually associated with liberalism, as it implies a capacity to deal, to make compromises, to take the other’s point of view into account rather than hanging on to religious or ideological certainty. This is an aspect of liberalism which is linked with its theologicalpolitical background: one of the sources of liberalism is indeed the search for a coexistence of various faiths and churches in the same space, after the Reformation and the civil confessional wars. The idea that “interests” are a more peaceful dimension of social life than “passions” (Hirschmann, 1978), that tolerance, a sense of the relativity of the points of view and a bit of self-irony are favorable to social peace (Rorty, 1989). In the wake of Enlightenment, the enemies here are dogmatism and fanaticism, so that a liberal leader would avoid both and show his value through pragmatism and the ability to build compromises and to prevent too sharp conflicts, civil wars, and exterior wars. Jeremy Waldron’s work (2013) on civility as a “chilly” virtue would confirm this approach while referring less to the genealogy of liberal tolerance than to a “formal” virtue, linked with the model of judicial and political rhetoric. Civility, Waldron writes, “is a cold virtue, not a warm one, not really a matter of kindness and benevolence,” but something that has to be associated with “formality” (Waldron, 2013, 4). Civility is about 221

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abiding by the rules which distinguish enemies from opponents. People have to see their political opponent as a fellow citizen, committed like you to the common good. You need to have modes of engagement that allow you to argue, disagree, contradict each other, even involve a degree of political combativeness, without necessarily moving in steps that would intimate possible violence, possible personal denigration. (Waldron, in Rashbrooke, 2017) Indeed, the courtroom provides a model. Civilized society has made criminal justice not a matter of personal anger or revenge. It is not to be a place where vengeful anger vents itself. We have tried to substitute, not just complement, vengeance with criminal justice. . . . And I believe politics needs to be understood in the same way. The person who believes that their passion exonerates them from the requirements of civility, the person who believes that their self-righteousness exonerates them from the requirements of civility, is the most dangerous person of all. (Waldron, in Rashbrooke, 2017) A political leader like Merkel certainly fits with this view of civility; but she is often described as “uncharismatic.” Does it mean that charisma, seen by Weber as a “revolutionary force,” needs to have a passionate and potentially violent dimension? Civility, according to Waldron, doesn’t involve diminishing the level of opposition; it doesn’t involve “diminishing the level of condemnation. But it involves finding practices, forms of words, forms of engagement, that allow some degree of respect” (Waldron, 2013). We have to think how engagement, a legitimate anger, or a desire for justice, which can fuel a democratic charisma, have still to remain in a setting of respect of the opponent.

Hyperleaders and histrionic leaders at the digital age of liberal democracy Nevertheless, pragmatism, seriousness, and competency seem to be less and less the main qualities expected by a large part of the voters in the liberal democracies today. The rise and access to power of people seen as histrionic, not “serious,” deprived of specific competences in economy or history, “Tweeting,” and mocking on every subject, is a fact of the second decade of the 21st century, with Trump, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Matteo Salvini, Beppe Grillo, Volodymyr Zelensky (two former comedy actors, Zelensky being also, like Trump, a former TV star). This evolution seems to be linked with a growing skepticism toward the traditional parties and elites, and even toward representative democracy. A cause of it, among others, would be the rise of the internet and social media, as the new essential form of political communication. As Paulo Gerbaudo notes in a paper published on The New Stateman, [C]ontemporary leadership is histrionic and excessive when compared with the politics of old. Politicians of the early 20th century emphasized their professionalism, seriousness and reliability: quite the opposite of the self-narration and narcissism that are key ingredients for a successful social media persona today. (Gerbaudo, 2019)

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This change would be typical of a new era that would give more power to the personality of the leaders and less to the organization and the ideology of their parties. Gerbaudo adds, These modern “hyperleaders” invert the relationship between politician and party. In contrast to the representative model of democracy where politicians were figureheads and parties were the true repositories of power, the hyperleader may have a far larger social media base than their organization. They float above the party, lifting it into the air through their personal visibility. (Gerbaudo, 2019) Trump, but also the French President Emmanuel Macron (whose movement was created from nothing and won the presidential election in 2017 against the representatives of the “traditional” parties), Salvini, or even the left-wing US Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“A.O.C.”) would be good examples of these leaders of the digital era. They show that liberal democracies today give a lot of media coverage to characters who develop a “story” and a direct relationship with their followers, regardless of however fake this “directness” is. Good managers in online media communication are often acting behind these candidates. If the main political trend that seems to be promoted is right-wing populism, the rise of “progressive” and left-wing politicians fit to this digital era is not excluded. Could not “A.O.C.,” for instance, be a new figurehead of American social progressivism, promoting a “Green New Deal”?

Elitist neoliberal charisma vs. populist charisma? In any case, what is giving strength to the critique of liberalism today is certainly a form of “de-democratization” (Brown, 1995) of the countries in which several decades of neoliberalism have given the image of (willingly or not) weak governments, submitted to the interests of the market, the wealthiest people, the merchant banks and so on. Macron, who could certainly be described, in any meaning of the term, as a “liberal leader,” has been more and more perceived, in France, as the President of the wealthiest, and Forbes gave him the title of “leader of the free markets.” We attend today a worrying face-à-face (Balibar, in Confavreux, 2019, 189–213) between (1) a liberalism disconnected from some crucial aspects of democracy – if not the sovereignty of the people, at least the capacity of the people to decide the main lines of the governmental politics through the vote, and (2) a democracy disconnected from some crucial aspects of liberalism – the respect of pluralism, of basic human rights. If Orbán or Marine Le Pen, with their xenophobic defense of the national “ethnos,” embody the “illiberal democracy,” the “elitist” liberalism could be represented by Macron’s charisma: smart, cultivated, comfortable in speech, but close to banks, big business, and start-ups, often arrogant, scornful, unaware of the social realities of poor people. Macron has raised against him the anger of a part of the population which felt despised while, at the same time, the fiscal and economic policy of the government seemed to be very favorable to the employers and to the wealthiest part of the country. The rise of the anti-system popular movement Yellow Vests was, among other things, an expression of this perception. Historically, the main tendency of liberalism and neoliberalism has indeed considered that democracy was right only as long as it was contained and guided by a rational elite (Chamayou, 2018). Does this mean that the possibility of a “democratic charisma,” without this elitist trend,

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is an illusion? Is there not another alternative than elitist neoliberal charisma on the one hand, and populist charisma on the other hand? That’s an open question. And a great avenue for further research.

Notes 1 “Why Has Putin’s Napoleonic ‘Cold Charisma’ Made Him so Popular in Russia?”, interview by Craig Chamberlain, Illinois News Bureau, https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/260286. 2 See, for instance, Martin Kettle, “Angela Merkel: Uncharismatic Leader Who Dominates G ­ erman Politics,”The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/17/angela-merkel-germany-christiandemocrats.

References Ackerman, Bruce. 2019. Revolutionary Constitutions: Charismatic Leadership and the Rule of Law, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Ackerman, Bruce. 2020. https://precedens.mandiner.hu/cikk/20200106_the_role_of_popular_movements_ and_charismatic_leaders_in_american_constitutionalism_conversation_with_professor_bruce_ackerman Arendt, Hannah. 1951. The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, Schocken Books. Aron, Raymond. 1967. Les Étapes de la pensée sociologique, Paris, Gallimard. Aron, Raymond. 1990. Memoirs, English translation, New York, Holmes & Meyer. Balibar, Etienne. 2010. At the Borders of Citizenship: A Democracy in Translation, European Journal of Social Theory, 13(3). Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. Choses Dites, Paris, éditions de Minuit. Breuer, Stefan. 1994. Bürokratie und Charisma. Zur politischen Soziologie Max Webers, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Brown, Wendy. 1995. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution, New York, Zone Books (Reprint in 2015). Bruhns, Hinnerk. 2000. “Le charisme en politique: idée séduisante ou concept pertinent?”, Les Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Historiques [Online], 16 January 2009. http://journals.openedition.org/ccrh/1882; DOI:10.4000/ccrh.1882 Capitant, René. 2004. Écrits constitutionnels, Paris, Panthéon-Assas. Chamayou, Grégoire. 2018. La Société ingouvernable. Généalogie du libéralisme autoritaire, Paris, La Fabrique. Confavreux, Joseph, ed. 2019. Le Fond de l’air est jaune. Comprendre une révolte inédite, Paris, Seuil. Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2019. The Age of the Hyper-Leader: When Political Leadership Meets Social Media Celebrity. New Statesman, 8 March. www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/03/ age-hyperleader-when-political-leadership-meets-social-media-celebrity. Hacke, Jens. 2018. Existenzkrise der Demokratie. Zur politischen Theorien des Liberalismus in der Zwischenkriegszeit, Berlin, Suhrkamp. Herbst, Ludolf. 2010. Hitlers Charisma. Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias, Frankfurt am Main, S. Fischer. Hirschmann, Alfred. 1978. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Kershaw, Ian. 1991. Hitler: A Profile in Power, London, Blackwell. Kettle, Martin, 2011. Angela Merkel. Uncharismatic Leader Who Dominates German Politics. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/17/angela-merkel-germany-christian-democrats Laclau, Ernesto. 2018. On Populist Reason. New York, Verso. Lloyd, Vincent W. 2018. In Defense of Charisma. New York, Columbia University Press. Monod, Jean-Claude. 2012. Qu’est-ce qu’un chef en démocratie ? Politiques du charisme, Paris, Seuil (2nd edition with a new foreword, Points, 2017). Müller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What Is Populism ? Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Mumford, Michael D., Strange, J. & Bedell, K. 2006. Charismatic, Ideological and Pragmatic Leaders: How Do They Lead, Why Do They Lead and Who Do They Lead? In Pathways to Outstanding Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Charismatic, Ideological and Pragmatic Leaders, London, Routledge. Rashbrooke, Max. 2017. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/12-08-2017/the-indulgence-of-anger-nzphilosopher-jeremy-waldron-on-why-politics-needs-more-civility/ Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Waldron, Jeremy. 2013. Civility and Formality. Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series. Working Paper No. 13–57, October. Weber, Max 1994. Political Writings, English translation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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19 Political charisma and modern populism Takis S. Pappas

Introduction This chapter has three major aims. First, it seeks to reconceptualize both “charisma” and “populism” and propose empirically practical ways for telling charismatic leaders apart from noncharismatic ones and populist leaders apart from non-populists. Second, by conjoining charisma and populism, it provides ample empirical evidence to show that the success of modern-day populism depends primarily on the existence of charismatic leadership; when the latter is lacking, populism is unlikely to rise as a strong phenomenon. Third, the chapter discusses what happens to ruling populist parties when their original leader’s charisma is either exhausted or entirely gone; the chapter also recommends new directions for comparative empirical and theoretical research. The chapter is structured as follows: Sections 1 and 2 examine afresh the two key terms, “charisma” and “populism” respectively, suggest minimal definitions for each of them, and provide simple index-like listings of the indicators deemed necessary to operationalize empirically on the definitions. Section 3 takes conceptual and theoretical analysis at the empirical level and shows that all successful populist leaders do belong in the category of “charismatic leadership.” Section  4 offers an empirical and theoretical overview of what happens to ruling populism when it is deprived of charismatic leadership. As it happens in most undertakings of complex comparative research, the most important stage is case selection. Which are the empirical units one chooses to examine so as to avoid selection errors and be able to arrive through a methodologically credible approach to theoretically sound conclusions? For the purposes of this chapter, I have chosen to examine all countries in postwar Europe and the Americas that have experienced populist parties winning power (most often ­single-handedly) in at least two (most often consecutive) elections. These countries are, in chronological order of populism first coming to power, Argentina, 1946; Greece, 1981; Peru, 1990; Italy, 1994; Venezuela, 1998; Ecuador, 2007; and Hungary, 2010. To these cases of prolonged populist rule, I  also add and consider the most recent case of populism in the United States, 2016, for the political significance of this country.1 The leaders to be examined, therefore, are, in correspondence with the aforementioned countries, Juan Perón, Andreas Papandreou, Alberto Fujimori, Silvio Berlusconi, Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, Viktor Orbán, and Donald Trump. 226

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1.  Political charisma: what is it and when is a leader charismatic? Our initial question is: which democratic political leaders are charismatic and which are not? Since we obviously cannot resolve that charisma is to be found in the eye of the beholder, we need to stipulate generally agreed criteria for admitting certain leaders into the charismatic group while barring others. True enough, charisma is related to a leader’s qualities, but not any qualities; it is rather a function of such qualities associated with a leader’s extraordinary political role within the otherwise ordinary political system that liberal democracy is reckoned to be. Therefore, we need to establish criteria for extraordinary (i.e., charismatic) vis-à-vis ordinary (i.e., noncharismatic) leadership in democracy. Starting from what is our obligatory point of departure, Max Weber, it is worth keeping in mind while probing into the matter that in Weber’s writings there are two dimensions of charismatic leadership: an individual and a collective one. We are today more familiar with the former dimension, which appears in Weber’s mature works and conceives of charismatic leaders as creative agents endowed with extraordinary personal attributes who appear during political crises and other emergency situations to provide solutions. However, in his earlier (pre-1913) writings, Weber understood political charisma as the power of leaders (mostly of religious movements) to defy prevailing worldviews, forging instead new collective entities on the basis of “discourses of justification against the established order” and by providing a “radical founding of a novel structure of legitimacy” (Kalyvas 2002: 71–72). It is precisely those earlier ideas of Weber that, as I  shall shortly argue, are crucially relevant and usefully applicable to the study of leadership in contemporary populism. Having said this, and granting that “a concept is its intention, for [it] encompasses all its characteristics or properties” (Sartori 1984: 40), our attempt in this section to reconstruct charisma will follow the spirit of Weber by focusing exclusively on charismatic leadership in the context of contemporary European democracies. Let us begin by underpinning the notion of ordinary leadership in pluralist systems. As the closest approximation to Weber’s ideal type of “legal-rational” authority, contemporary liberal democracies are highly institutionalized rule-bound political systems of bureaucratic domination in which formal procedure and the rule of law hold sway over adversarial politics and radical ruptures. In such systems, voters (or principals) are expected to select their leaders (or agents), who, in turn, are expected to exercise their rule in a systemic way – that is to say, “engage in everyday, normal politics that neither question nor threaten the instituted society but instead accept it and reproduce it” (Kalyvas 2002: 79). Ordinary leadership, then, entails the following ontological characteristics: the impersonality of its rule, an emphasis on procedural moderation, and continuity. It typically involves a hierarchical organization of offices regulated by common rules, norms, and procedures in a “spirit of formalistic impersonality [operating] sine ira et studio”(Weber 1978: 225); it also has continuity “as one of its most important characteristics” (ibid., 1111). It is in these respects – the impersonal nature of relationship between leader and followers on the one hand and the emphasis on continuity through moderate, rather than radical, political change on the other – that ordinary leadership differs from the extraordinary and charismatic one. That being the case, how are we to empirically assess the constitutive properties of charismatic leadership? The criteria in a liberal democratic system for deciding whether a leader is charismatic are two: the nature of rulership and the aims of rule. According to the first criterion, the leader counts as charismatic whenever, and as long as, they exercise personal authority with respect to both the internal party organization and its appeal to the party followers. But this is hardly enough since, according to Weber, what makes leaders charismatic cannot only be the 227

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exceptional individual qualities that make them sovereign within their parties and among their followers. It is mainly the ability of such leaders to convey a message that effectively amounts to a call to radically break with an established order. In Weber’s own words, “charisma transforms all values and breaks all traditional and rational norms” (Weber 1978: 245) seeking to cause a “radical alternation of the central attitudes and directions of action with a completely new orientation of all attitudes toward the different problems of the ‘world’ ” (ibid., emphasis added). According to the second criterion, therefore, charismatic leaders affect democracy in radical ways since they aim for a wide-ranging makeover of a democracy’s institutional architecture rather than seeking to implement simple law and policy reforms. The contrast of characteristics between ordinary legal-rational and extraordinary charismatic leadership is depicted in Table 19.1. Having identified the core elements of our concept, we may now define political charisma as a distinct type of legitimate leadership that is personal and aims at the radical transformation of an established institutional order. However minimal, this definition is fully amenable to empirical observation and sufficient in seizing the object. It tells us precisely the core (i.e., the necessary and sufficient) characteristics of charismatic leadership but remains open about its causes, mechanics, and outcomes. Most crucially, under this definition charismatic leaders are not identified as such by their electoral success, which would make for a tautological analysis. In fact, our criteria for charismatic leadership can be used in a predictive, rather than postdictive, manner so as to establish patterns of populist success. Crucially, our criteria also alert us to the fact that charisma is a time-bound property: it may be lost once one or both of these criteria cease to exist, in which case leaders are relegated to ordinary leadership status (of which more in Section 4). Still, defining the constitutive criteria of charismatic leadership is not the same as applying them in the real world for collecting, and systematically assembling, empirical data – a task to be undertaken shortly in Section 3. That requires the operationalization of our two criteria, to which we now turn. Since we are here preoccupied with an empirical science based on descriptive data analysis, we need to be specific on how to determine whether or not some instance of leadership falls under our concept of political charisma. Such an operationalization necessitates the use of clear indicators that will further lead us to a concise operational treatment of our term taking the form “let x be what can be defined (and verified or falsified) via the indicators a, b, and c” (Sartori 2009: 89). Figure 19.1 treats political charisma as a “three-level concept” (Goertz 2006–53) containing all the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to materialize. I  have already pointed to the two secondary level properties, “personalism” and “radicalism,” which, when put together, clearly tell charismatic leadership apart from other known forms of democratic leadership. We can now turn our attention to the level of indicators (to be empirically identified in Section 3). This is precisely where the concept gets specific enough to guide the acquisition of empirical data and eventually permits us to assert whether a certain leader is to be classified as charismatic or not. Table 19.1  Types of legitimate leadership according to their nature and rule aims

Rulership Rule aims

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Legal-rational (ordinary)

Charismatic (extraordinary)

Impersonal Moderation

Personal Radicalism

Political charisma and modern populism

Indicator level Control over party or movement

Secondary level

Basic level

Personalism

Direct leader-led relationship Charismatic leadership

Subversion by delegitimation New constitutive mandate

Radicalism

Figure 19.1  Charismatic leadership as a three-level concept

In the case of personalism, we have indicator-level variables of the leader’s full authority over a party, or movement, and the direct and unmediated relationship between the leader and the led. As for the first indicator, whereas ordinary democratic leadership involves established hierarchies, institutional checks and balances, decentralized decision making, and collective responsibility, charismatic leadership exhibits highly centralized authority structures, the absence of clear bureaucratic characteristics, and the leader’s untrammeled control over subordinates. In many cases, winning full control requires fierce intraparty conflicts ending with the unconditional defeat of the leader’s internal opposition. After the consolidation of the leader’s single-handed authority, Panebianco writes: “[T]he division of labor [in the party] is constantly redefined at the leader’s discretion, career uncertainties are considerable, no accepted procedures exist, and improvisation is the only real organizational ‘rule’ ” (Panebianco 1988: 146). The second indicator of personalism obtains from the particular relationship that develops between leader and followers. In a liberal democracy, this relationship is expected to be indirect and mediated through impersonal institutions that are reliant upon non-passionate and undramatic narratives. In contrast, charismatic leadership has a quasi-missionary nature and is characterized by the unmediated and direct – and often quite intimate – relationship of the followers to the person of the leader. Quite typically, such relationships are marked by their uncompromised loyalty and emotional passion, their stance on the moral high ground, and their self-righteous belief that the leader’s program heralds a bright new world (Zúquete 2007). The most classical manifestation of such a relationship is in mass political rallies, for which charismatic leaders have a strong penchant both for the collective mobilization and the social effervescence they tend to generate. In the case of radicalism, we also have two indicators that can be empirically assessed with sufficient clarity: the legal subversion of the status quo through its systematic delegitimation and the institution in its place of an entirely novel system of authority. Thus, our third indicator of charismatic leadership is its methodical attacks on the established authority structure in order to challenge its legitimacy and undermine its political and normative order. Such attacks on the bases of established institutional structures abound in the political discourse of charismatic leaders and are easily traceable through the use of the various techniques of discourse analysis. The fourth and final indicator of charisma is complementary to the previous one and consists in the introduction by charismatic leaders of some novel worldview from which fresh legitimacy 229

Takis S. Pappas Table 19.2 The index of charismatic leadership Personalism 1 Supreme control over party/movement; power centralization 2 Leader-led relationship; unmediated and emotional, often divisive Radicalism 3 Subverting by delegitimation an established authority structure 4 Constituting a novel authority structure

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will be derived to constitute anew the political community (Pappas 2008). During this process and mostly through their discourse, charismatic leaders present themselves as creative artists who “objectify new relationships” and provide new symbolic and normative foundations for a fresh cycle of politics to commence. Charismatic leaders, therefore, by winning both symbolic and real political battles, always seek to create new legal and institutional structures. Note that this indicator is valid both when charismatic leaders are in opposition (as traced in their political discourses, proposed policy programs, and overall opposition action) and in power. Quite interestingly, once in power, charismatic leaders are often keen to provide new constitutions (or radically modify existing ones) reflecting the higher moral values and normative principles of their own worldview. For purposes of empirical analysis, the four indicators suggesting the constitutive properties and, therefore, the existence of what denotes our basic level concept of “charismatic leadership” can now be summarized in a checklist form, as in Table 19.2. On the basis of this list – and provided of course that, for each case examined, there are sufficient empirical data – one can now assess charisma on a two-dimensional scale by simply ticking the items independently. Charisma obtains when all boxes are ticked. To sum up and conclude this section, we have reconceptualized political charisma within the context of contemporary liberal democracy and elevated it to new analytical significance. Concepts, however, “are not only elements of a theoretical system, but equally tools for fact-gathering, data containers” (Sartori 1970: 1052). It remains, therefore, to establish a relationship between our novel conceptualization of charisma (i.e., the ontology and meaning of the term) and what we observe in the real world of populist politics (i.e., the term’s empirical referents). Before attempting such an empirical analysis, however, the next section clarifies the concept and points out the characteristics of populism and populist leadership.

2.  Modern populism: what is it and when a leader is populist? Despite the too many  – and rather unnecessary  – battles to define “populism,” this is a ­surprisingly uncomplicated concept that one can simply, and minimally, define as democratic illiberalism (Pappas 2014, 2019). That is to say, in our era of postwar liberal democracy, populism presents a political alternative that, while retaining elections, is inimical to the very principles and institutions that underpin liberal democracy. Bluntly: populism is the polar opposite, and major foe, of contemporary liberal democracy.

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What does contemporary liberal democracy consist of? As the Western world has known it since 1945, democratic liberalism features three indispensable – and interrelated – components. The first is its recognition that any society is inevitably a place of many, often crosscutting, divisions that generate conflicts. The latter is however possible to be moderated, and even contained, which brings us to liberalism’s second component: its understanding of the need for society’s parts, especially as represented by political parties, to behave moderately, seek consensus, and pursue positive-sum outcomes. This need is best achieved via liberalism’s third component, which is its stress on adherence to safeguards for minority rights and the rule of law, as expressed primarily in written constitutions. Flip the coin and you find populism, which displays exactly the opposite features from democratic liberalism. It holds that society is split by a single cleavage effectively dividing the vast social majority from a tiny elite minority, and asserts that this cleavage is unbridgeable. Populist politics, therefore, is all about adversity, social hostility, and incessant conflict. In such a view, the rule of law and the protection of minority rights become of secondary importance. What really matters is satisfying the majority that makes up “the people” – irrespective of constitutional legality, established procedural rules, instituted norms of deliberation, and overlapping consensus. Hence the equation of “populism” with democratic illiberalism. As it follows, the combination of two, and only two, variables – democraticness and illiberalism – can sufficiently describe our concept. Let us have a closer look at these variables. Democraticness is fairly simple to determine empirically, as it rests on two largely uncomplicated indicators: electoral contestation and allegiance to parliamentarism. The first indicator obtains whenever a party simply decides on participating in competitive elections. But this is not enough, for the reason that parties disloyal to democracy also sometimes choose to contest elections. It is therefore necessary to supplement electoral contestation by allegiance to democracy, since mere electoral participation does not also mean allegiance to democracy, which is evaluated empirically by the parties’ ideological manifestos, official proclamations, leaders’ speeches, or other public statements. As of illiberalism, following the previous analysis, its component characteristics are its belief that society is divided by a single overriding cleavage between “the people” and some “elite;” its discomfort with political moderation and consensus-seeking; and its disrespect for the rule of law and the protection of minority rights. By combining the core properties of modern populism, we are now in a position to operationalize populist leadership in a way quite similar to the one we followed in Section  1 for operationalizing political charisma. Accordingly, a party leader is populist when his party (1) participates in competitive elections; (2) holds allegiance to the rules and procedures of parliamentary democracy; (3) posits that society is split along one, and only one, line ostensibly dividing “the people” from some elite “establishment;” (4) promotes political polarization at the expense of moderation, compromise, and consensus; and (5) exalts majoritarianism at the expense of the rule of law and the protection of minority rights. We can similarly think of an “index of populism” as the one presented in Table  19.3. It contains all the indicators that are necessary and sufficient for recognizing populism in empirical science. According to these complementary criteria, it is possible to use an empirically backed scoring system based on yes/no answers in order to classify as populist any leader who scores “yes” in all five indicators. Conversely, even a single “no” answer will suffice to disqualify an individual from membership in the populist club of political leaders.

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Takis S. Pappas Table 19.3 The index of populist leadership Democraticness 1 Participates in competitive national elections 2 Respects rules and procedures of parliamentary democracy

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Illiberalism 3 Holds that society is divided just between “people” and “elites” 4 Promotes polarization at the expense of consensus 5 Exalts majoritarianism at the expense of rule of law

  

3.  Populists and charisma: an empirical synthesis It is now time that we applied the cases of the populist leaders mentioned in the introduction of this chapter to the conceptual and theoretical framework proposed in Sections 1 and 2. While there can be no doubt that, based on our “index of populist leadership” (see Table 19.3), all of the political leaders mentioned in the introduction of this essay are populists, how would those leaders fit in our other index – that of charismatic leadership? Obviously, we need a detailed analysis of the cases meant to verify, or falsify and invalidate, the criteria of political charisma as stated in Table 19.2 (see Section 1). Note, as we begin this exploration, that the criterion of “radicalism” in populist charisma is met since populism qua democratic illiberalism is a radical political project by any definition of the term: it intends the replacement of a liberal political democratic order by another which is democratic but illiberal. Having settled this component, the analysis that follows will concentrate on the “personal” component of charismatic populist leadership, especially in what concerns the leader’s role in the foundation of populist parties, their subsequent organization, supporter mobilization, symbolic discourse and polarizing tactics. When studying the biographies of the leaders who have led important populist parties, an almost instantaneous finding is that they come overwhelmingly from outside the political mainstream; in other words, they are “outsiders.” Most often, they have no previous relation to established political parties in their respective countries. But even if such a relationship exists, they either sever it in order to create a new party or undertake an effort to transform their parties and lead them in radical directions. But when does a politician count as an “outsider”? For Charles Kenney, outsider status depends on two conditions: first, whether some politician rises to political prominence from outside rather than from within the established party system and, second, whether that politician’s discourse and overall politics reject rather than tolerate existing parties (Kenney 1998). Typically, such politicians have very limited political experience, and often none at all (Corrales 2008: 5; Carreras 2014: 6). Political outsiders, in short, are those leaders who emerge from outside the confines of established party systems and thrive by rebuffing them; insiders, by contrast, emerge within established party systems and aim at their preservation. This conceptualization seems straightforward save for the not-so-uncommon occurrence of political entrepreneurs who, having risen to prominence within established parties in functioning party systems, splinter from them by also attacking their foundations. What should we do with this category of leaders who, like Mexico’s Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the son of a revered former president and once a perennial political insider of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), break away to head parties of their own? Following (Barr 2009: 34), I suggest we also admit them into the outsiders’ category since “they can likewise credibly claim to be fighting the establishment.” There is, finally, an additional aspect to a politician’s status as 232

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an outsider that is not political but social. Authors like Anthony King (2002: 438) have thus focused on “the social or even the demographic outsider” in the sense that such leaders do not belong to the predominant (e.g., ethnic or religious) groups in their respective societies nor to the dominant (e.g., social or economic) classes within them. As it will be shown shortly, the great majority of populist leaders examined herein display many of the characteristics of social or demographic outsiders. With regard to their professional backgrounds, nearly all of our populist leaders originate from nonpolitical family and professional milieus. Before entering politics, two of them had been prominent businessmen (Berlusconi and Trump), two were military men (Perón and Chávez), three served in academic and other academically related technocratic positions (Papandreou, Fujimori, and Correa), and one emerged as student leaders within opposition movement-like parties in times of political tumult (Orbán). Among those in our group, only Andreas Papandreou was a scion of one of Greece’s most prominent political families, since his father, George Papandreou, had served twice as prime minister of Greece. In fact, Andreas entered politics in the mid-1960s as an acclaimed US-educated economist and was appointed minister of Coordination in the last of his father’s cabinets. Still, in a way similar to Cárdenas, the ambitious politician was to eventually abandon his father’s traditional liberal party and initiate instead his own radical populist movement. Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of the populist leaders in our group is that, in most cases, they rose to political prominence leading parties they themselves had founded. In Argentina, Perón came to power in 1946 as head of a party founded only the previous year by union activists to contest the forthcoming elections. Immediately after electoral victory, Perón promptly dissolved that party and, together with his wife, Evita, founded the Justicialist Party (PJ), which thereafter became the main vehicle of populism in Argentina. In the aftermath of Greece’s 1974 return to democracy, Andreas Papandreou turned down an offer to assume the leadership of the liberal centrist party founded by his father in the 1960s, preferring instead to create his own populist PASOK. In Hungary, Orbán was one of several students who, in 1988, co-founded Fidesz as an independent liberal youth organization. Not long after, however, he was able to take full control of the party during its congress held in 1993 in Debrecen. After that, Orbán “organized Fidesz from a rather anarchic, horizontally organized youth organization into a centrally organized party controlled from the top” (Körösényi and Patkós 2017: 618). In Italy, Berlusconi created the party Forza Italia! (FI) shortly before the 1994 general elections as his “electoral machine,” which he moreover kept from the outset under his political and financial control (Hopkin and Paolucci 1999). Similarly, in Venezuela, Chávez founded clandestinely his own movement, which later evolved into the Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR) to support Chávez’s candidacy in the 1998 presidential election. Populist leaders Alberto Fujimori in Peru and Rafael Correa in Ecuador also created their own movement-like political parties. But even when they did not put up their own party machines, populists rose as maverick politicians within already established parties, i.e., against ordinary intraparty procedure and often bypassing time-honored practices of those parties’ officials, rank and file, or both. In such cases of party seizure, as indicated by the next two cases, populist leaders are able to transform erstwhile liberal parties into populist ones. Donald Trump, initially not the preferred candidate of the wealthy donors and top party officials of the Republican Party, was able to stage what became effectively a coup by the party rank and file, which thus became split over its identity, core beliefs, and fundamental principles. Regardless of whether they create a new party or take over an already established one, populist leaders always tend to acquire full control over their respective party organizations, eliminate all internal opposition, and lead them in a highly centralized fashion. Perón considered 233

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intraparty democracy and collective decision-making at best inefficient and at worst anarchic. Instead, he envisaged a personalist style of leadership and a party “organized on paramilitary lines in which the centrifugal tendencies of the mass would be effectively checked by a unity of conception and action imposed from above” (Little 1973: 654). In Greece, PASOK became synonymous with its leader as “the leader’s authority radiated through all the components and forces of the party, endowing them simultaneously with cohesion and homogeneity” (Elephantis 1981: 107; Pappas 2009b). Berlusconi’s two parties – Forza Italia and, after 2007, the People for Freedom (PdL) – also became highly centralized as the leader, advised by an inner circle of collaborators and friends held together by loyalty to his person, has been fully responsible for all the decision making and elaboration of party strategy (McDonnell 2013). Chávez allowed no internal democracy in the party he founded, choosing instead to make all important decisions personally (Hawkins 2003: 1151). He remained undisputed leader to the end of his life. In Hungary, Orbán was able to “transform the original grass-roots movement of young revolutionaries step by step . . . into a charismatic ‘Führer party’ ” (Lendvai 2012: 86). The situation remained unaltered after he came to power, since he continued to control his ministers through undersecretaries belonging to the hard core of the party (Bozóki 2008: 199). Finally, also of interest is the case of Peru’s Fujimori, who chose not to promote his party’s organization (Change 90/Cambio 90), preferring instead to let it decay after his election to Peru’s presidency. The detailed analysis of the foregoing cases also reveals that, in many instances of extraordinary populist leadership, a prior intraparty conflict between the party leader and some internal opposition resisting the concentration of all power in the leader’s hands has occurred. Without exception, in all such cases the leaders proved able to maintain and centralize their power by expelling party members, demoting internal opponents, or eliminating party fractions. Papandreou, to impose full personal control over his party, had to engage in a fierce internal struggle against party cadres demanding collective leadership, internal democratic procedures, and accountability to the party base (Pappas 2009a). In Hungary, Orbán’s once-close friend Gábor Fodor, leader of the more liberal wing of Fidesz, was forced to leave the party to form the stillborn Alliance of Free Democrats. In Italy, Berlusconi forced Gianfranco Fini, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, to leave the PdL and create a breakaway group, having become excessively critical of the government and Berlusconi himself. There is, of course, also the case of the 2016 presidential primaries of the Republican Party in the United States, in which Trump entered a field of 17 major candidates vying for the nomination. Although broadly considered the “dark horse” in the race, and despite all internal opposition to his candidacy from the party bigwigs and large donors, Trump was able to win the race by breaking the all-time record in the history of the Republican Party for winning the most primary votes; he also set the record for the largest number of votes cast against the front runner, Senator Ted Cruz (Bump 2016). In addition to their full control over their parties’ rank and file, all of the foregoing populist leaders enjoyed the adulation of their party followers, with whom they built direct and unmediated relationships. Perhaps the most exemplary case of this is the mass rallies of support for Juan Perón that were held in the plaza below the presidential balcony of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires. Similarly in Greece, when Andreas Papandreou addressed his followers in public spaces, so immense was the emotion that one witness once described it as “a boiling ocean of exuberant humanity” (Hitchens 1992: 1). Inside PASOK, too, there developed “an unmistakable sense of mission and genuine ideological commitment in the manner [Papandreou] and his lieutenants approached their tasks” (Iatrides 1992: 130). Hugo Chávez, with his flamboyant style, affable nature, and ease with words, was also able to maintain a direct relationship with the masses, not least through Aló Presidente, his Sunday talk show during which he went into conversation with anonymous Venezuelans. Silvio Berlusconi not only enjoyed the adulation of crowds during his 234

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rule; he also succeeded in amplifying it across the country through the immense power of his communications media. The expert judges used by Lubbers et al. in their study of right-wing populism in a number of European countries gave him the second highest score for charisma (Lubbers et al. 2002: 361).

4.  Populism with, after, and without charismatic leadership As an author has nicely put it, populism without charismatic leadership remains “historically . . . an incomplete form” (Finchelstein 2017: 255). By this token, the major conclusion that has emerged in the present chapter is that charismatic leadership is the major causal factor and most important predictor for the rise of populism.2 As we have seen, there is not a single case of populist government not to have been led by a leader who displays all the characteristics of political charisma as explained and analyzed in Section 1. No charismatic leadership, no successful populism. Another remarkable feature is the persistence of populist leaders’ charisma. As shown especially by the cases of Argentina’s Perón, Greece’s Papandreou, and Venezuela’s Chávez, none of those leaders suffered a permanent loss of charisma as long as they ruled  – and they ruled until their natural deaths. (Even today, these populists are broadly revered in their respective countries as “heroic,” even “superhuman,” political leaders; while they are dead, their legacies largely remain politically dominant). During their long periods of rule, all three held the parties they had created under tight personal control; maintained the quasi-mystical, almost religious relationship they shared with their followers; never ceased to divide their respective societies and proclaim the eventual attainment of popular sovereignty while at the same time constantly weakening their respective countries’ liberal institutional apparatus. Another case of charismatic endurance is Viktor Orbán who, after three consecutive electoral victories since 2010, is still at the helm of Hungarian populist politics in full display of his charismatic qualities. As the foregoing cases suggest, then, a populist leader’s charisma not only may predict his party’s coming to power but can also serve as a good forewarning for that party’s longevity in office. When a charismatic leader passes away, the natural reaction in his party is to enable a sort of “charismatic succession.” Sometimes the mantle of populist party leadership is given to some relative of the deceased leaders, some other times to a trusted loyalist within the party. Take again the aforementioned cases of deceased populists. When Perón died in 1974, his party’s presidency passed to his widow, Isabel, even if she lacked the intellectual capacity and political skills to run the country. In March 1976, after too many failures in government, Isabel Perón lost office in disgrace – she was taken by helicopter from the presidential residency in Buenos Aires to a military base, where she was held prisoner. In Greece, after Papandreou passed away, the populist faction within the party lost initially their chance to take over the party leadership but kept a firm grip on the party organization. But Papandreou’s populist epigones had not yet said their last word. In 2004, they eventually became able to resuscitate their party founder’s charisma by electing his son, George, to the party leadership. George Papandreou would bring the party back to power for one last time in 2009, only to see it soon thereafter disintegrating under the weight of his own political shortcomings and Greece’s developing fiscal and economic crisis. In Venezuela, Chávez’s successor in power was Nicolás Maduro, a regime loyalist who had served Chávez’s governments in several top positions, the last of which was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Alas, Maduro lacked both personal charisma and political skills. This to a large extent explains why, unwilling as he was to steer his country to a liberal democratic direction, but also unable to rule by charismatic authority like his predecessor, Maduro’s only option to remain in power was by establishing a ruthless autocratic state. 235

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Be that as it may, in most cases charisma is not an everlasting characteristic of leadership. As already explained in Section 1, it is both precarious and temporary; in Weber’s own words, charisma can exist only “as long as it is proved; that is, as long as it receives recognition” by the community of followers and believers (Weber 1978: 244). If it is not proved, or ceases from being recognized, charisma slumps, wanes, dries up, and eventually disappears. What happens when a populist leader’s charisma diminishes, or dies out, and no obvious successor is available? In such instances, as suggested by the cases of Peru’s Fujimori and Italy’s Berlusconi, the charismatic party disintegrates and the community of followers disperses. Political populism and charismatic leadership are inescapably interrelated and should always be studied conjointly. Moreover, whether populism may be studied as an ideology, a particular type of discourse, a distinct strategy, a unique political style, or something else, scholarship should never fail to recall that each and all of those features are just different facets of a more general political phenomenon that points to an illiberal type of democracy which is materialized through the action of political entrepreneurs displaying the charismatic qualities described in this chapter. And as the cases of successful populism are currently on the rise, so will the need for future empirical research on the relationship between populism and political charisma increase. Note: This work is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 822337.

Notes 1 From this universe of cases, I exclude Bolivia, which I consider a country characterized by nativism rather than populism because of its unique ethnic composition. Unlike all other countries in Central and South America, Bolivia features an indigenous population which exceeds 60 percent of the total national population. Therefore, one can reasonably attribute the past electoral success of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) led by Evo Morales (President of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019), himself a member of the Aymara ethnic group, to the existence in Bolivia of a natural indigenous majority rather than to the putative populism of MAS or any charismatic qualities of its leader. 2 For a more detailed analysis on charismatic leadership as a major causal factor in the emergence and subsequent development of populism, see Pappas (2019, especially Chapter 3.4). For a discussion of populist leaders who lack charisma, see Pappas (2016: 381–383).

References Barr, R. R. (2009). “Populists, Outsiders and Anti-Establishment Politics.” Party Politics 15(1): 29–48. Bozóki, A. (2008). “Consolidation or Second Revolution? The Emergence of the New Right in Hungary.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 24(2): 191–231. Bump, P. (2016). “Trump Got the Most GOP Votes Ever – Both for and Against Him – and Other Fun Facts.” The Washington Post. Carreras, M. (2014). “Outsider Presidents, Institutional Performance, and Governability in Latin America.” The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. Pittsburg, University of Pittsburgh. PhD. Corrales, J. (2008). “Latin America’s Neocaudillismo: Ex-Presidents and Newcomers Running for President . . . and Winning.” Latin American Politics and Society 50(3): 1–35. Elephantis, A. (1981). “PASOK and the Elections of 1977: The Rise of the Populist Movement.” Greece at the Polls: The National Elections of 1974 and 1977. H. R. Penniman. Washington, DC, American Entrerprise Institute for Public Policy: 105–129. Finchelstein, F. (2017). From Fascism to Populism in History. Oakland, CA, University of California Press. Goertz, G. (2006). Social Science Concepts. A User’s Guide. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Hawkins, K. A. (2003). “Populism in Venezuela: The Rise of Chavismo.” Third World Quarterly 24(6): 1137–1160.

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Hitchens, C. (1992). Introduction. The Greek Socialist Experiment: Papandreou’s Greece 1981–1989. T. C. Kariotis. New York, Pella: 1–10. Hopkin, J. and C. Paolucci (1999). “The Business Firm Model of Party Organisation: Cases from Spain and Italy.” European Journal of Political Research 35(3): 307–339. Iatrides, J. O. (1992). Papandreou’s Foreign Policy. The Greek Socialist Experiment: Papandreou’s Greece 1981– 1989. T. C. Kariotis. New York, Pella: 1–10. Kalyvas, A. (2002). “Charismatic Politics and the Symbolic Foundations of Power in Max Weber.” New German Critique 85: 67–103. Kenney, C. D. (1998). “Outsider and Anti-Party Politicians in Power: New Conceptual Strategies and Empirical Evidence from Peru.” Party Politics 4(1): 57–75. King, A. (2002). “The Outsider as Political Leader: The Case of Margaret Thatcher.” British Journal of Political Science 32(3): 435–454. Körösényi, A. and V. Patkós (2017). “Variations for Inspirational Leadership: The Incumbency of Berlusconi and Orbán.” Parliamentary Affairs 70(3): 611–632. Lendvai, P. (2012). Hungary: Between Democracy and Authoritarianism. London, Hurst & Company. Little, W. (1973). “Party and State in Peronist Argentina, 1945–1955.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 53(4): 644–662. Lubbers, M., et al. (2002). “Extreme Right-Wing Voting in Western Europe.” European Journal of Political Research 41: 345–378. McDonnell, D. (2013). “Silvio Berlusconi’s Personal Parties: From Forza Italia to the Popolo Della Libertà.” Political Studies 61(1): 217–233. Panebianco, A. (1988). Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Pappas, T. S. (2008). “Political Leadership and the Emergence of Radical Mass Movements in Democracy.” Comparative Political Studies 41(8): 1117–1140. Pappas, T. S. (2009a). Το χαρισματικό κόμμα: Παπανδρέου, ΠΑΣΟΚ, εξουσία [The Charismatic Party: Papandreou, PASOK, Power]. Athens, Patakis. Pappas, T. S. (2009b). “Patrons Against Partisans: The Politics of Patronage in Mass Ideological Parties.” Party Politics 15(3): 315–334. Pappas, T. S. (2014). “Populist Democracies: Post-Authoritarian Greece and Post-Communist Hungary.” Government and Opposition 49(1): 1–23. Pappas, T. S. (2016). “Are Populist Leaders ‘Charismatic?’ The Evidence from Europe.” Constellations 23(3): 378–390. Pappas, T. S. (2019). Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Sartori, G. (1970). “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics.” American Political Science Review LXIV(4): 1033–1053. Sartori, G. (1984). Guidelines for Concept Analysis. Social Science Concepts; A Systematic Analysis. G. Sartori. Beverly Hills and London, Sage. Sartori, G. (2009). The Tower of Babel. Concepts and Method in Social Science: The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori. D. Collier and J. Gerring. New York and London, Routledge: 61–96. Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. Zúquete, J. P. (2007). Missionary Politics in Contemporary Europe. Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press.

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20 Charismatic leadership, ethics, and politics Terry L. Price

The challenge of charisma Whatever charisma is, we know what it is not. It is not an equally distributed quality or set of qualities. In Max Weber’s famous discussion of the origins of charismatic authority, he refers to “specific gifts of body and mind that were considered ‘supernatural’ (in the sense that not everybody could have access to them)” (Weber, 1978, p. 1112). In other words, charismatic leaders are not like the rest of us. We know too that the effects of these gifts are not transparent to followers. Some scholars go so far as to call charisma “mysterious” and point to the “aura surrounding” it (Marturano and Arsenault, 2008, p. 19). Even if charismatic leadership ultimately lends itself to social scientific analysis and, therefore, is not an intrinsically “mysterious force” after all (Conger, 2004, p. 165), the psychological processes at play in this form of leadership are nevertheless largely hidden to those who experience it. As a result, people come to accept that charismatic leaders are exceptional and follow these leaders, in most cases without understanding the nature of such influence. At the very least, charismatic leadership offends against our sentiments about the equal status of moral agents. To quote Weber (1978, p. 1115) again, it is “revolutionary” and “knows no abstract laws and regulations and no formal adjudication. . . . [C]harismatic domination transforms all values and breaks all traditional and rational norms.” This kind of exceptionalism is hardly the stuff of egalitarian leadership. Nor are the ways in which the charismatic leader uses his gifts to get “others [to] obey and follow him” (Weber, 1978, p. 1112). In particular, the gifts themselves fail to draw on the rational capacities of followers that characterize them as moral agents (Flanigan, 2013). Indeed, Ronald Riggio (2004, p. 159) points to “emotional expressiveness” as “the most visible component of charisma,” adding that “truly charismatic individuals are also skilled at reading the emotions of others and at regulating or controlling their emotional communications (in other words, charismatic persons are skilled emotional actors).” There are two main ways, then, in which charismatic leaders are exposed to serious moral risks. First, charismatic leaders present themselves as exceptional. Second, because charisma does not work through reason, it promotes the use of influence techniques and strategies that bypass our rationality. As Weber (1978, p. 1113) puts it, “[C]harisma rejects as undignified all methodical rational acquisition.” 238

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Still, it is difficult to articulate what exactly makes charisma morally problematic. The ethics of charisma, like an ethical analysis of any characteristic or behavior, must begin with a clear idea of what is being assessed. And therein lies the challenge of charisma. One basic question is whether the focus of analysis is on a quality (or set of qualities) or on a behavior (or set of behaviors). Of course, as with any behavioral trait or disposition, the characteristics associated with charisma manifest themselves in action. However, it is interesting to note that in English, there is no ordinary term for the behavioral exercise of the quality or qualities in question. In this respect, charismatic behavior differs from manipulative behavior in that we have everyday language to characterize the latter. Although we do not have a trait name for the tendency to manipulate (Baron, 2003, p. 37), we know that someone who manipulates others is prone to engage in particular acts – namely, acts of manipulation. Is there something unethical, like manipulation, that charismatic people engage in? Because language reflects what matters to us, the fact that our way of talking about charisma does not include a conceptual parallel to manipulation might suggest that we do not care as much about the behaviors associated with being charismatic as we do about the behaviors associated with being manipulative. Indeed, there is some reason to think that charisma gives us less cause for moral concern. Although charismatic people can be manipulative and, therefore, engage in manipulation, there are all kinds of non-manipulative uses of charisma, many of which strike us as socially advantageous, such as entertaining guests, putting on a good show or performance, or generally making people feel comfortable. Being charismatic, then, is not as dangerous as being manipulative, except, perhaps, in certain contexts. The context of leadership is probably the best example. Charisma is particularly dangerous in this context because the relationship between leaders and followers involves influence, which leaders necessarily use to get followers to support their vision and to engage in particular behaviors to achieve it. The fact that we care about the exercise of charisma in this context is reflected in our language. We do have a way of talking about how leaders put these gifts to work: charismatic leadership. In this chapter, I focus on the ethics of charisma in leadership contexts – where it poses the greatest moral risk. The first two sections consider what philosophical ethics might have to say about charisma and its exercise. I argue that charismatic leadership is morally problematic when it disrespects the reason of leaders and followers. In the third section, I suggest that it is possible for leaders to use charisma without unreasonably setting themselves apart as exceptional and without showing disrespect for followers as rational beings who have their own ends. In some cases, we can understand follower attributions of charisma in terms of rational assessments of a leader’s potential to advance their ends. These assessments serve as the foundation for a consensual relationship between leaders and followers. I conclude, however, that political contexts do not lend themselves to this justification of charismatic leadership because of practical limits on what we know about politicians’ willingness and ability to help us achieve our goals.

Traits or behaviors? The most obvious place to begin an ethical analysis of a behavioral trait or disposition is with virtue theory. This theory holds that some qualities of character constitute virtues and other qualities constitute vices. According to Aristotle’s account, virtue is the mean between two extremes, a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess (Aristotle, 1985, p. 36 [1104a12]). For example, the virtue of courage would be the mean; cowardice, its vice of deficiency; and rashness, its vice of excess (Aristotle, 1985, p. 36 [1104a20–1104a23]). The behavior of a courageous person is a habituated response that has been calibrated over time by the practical wisdom that comes from experience (Aristotle, 1985, p. 36 [1104a15–1104a17], p. 160 [1142a15]). Because 239

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what constitutes courage in any situation depends on facts about that situation, the courageous person must know enough about the particular circumstances to discern relevant similarities to, and differences from, other situations. The need for this kind of practical wisdom suggests that there are no intrinsically courageous acts. A behavior that reflects a courageous character in one situation might be an expression of rashness in another, and a behavior that looks cowardly – if properly understood in the circumstances – might actually be courageous (Aristotle, 1985, p. 36 [1104a19–1104a30]). Can we use virtue theory to make sense of the ethics of charisma? The main problem with using this theory is that attributions of charisma often say as much about the perceptions of followers and facts about the situation as they do about charismatic leaders (Riggio, 2004, p. 161). For example, some research suggests that judgments about leadership ability are connected to the way potential leaders appear to others – in particular, to features that give the impression of strength and trustworthiness (Kahneman, 2011, pp. 90–91). Yet physical features are hardly accurate indicators of the kinds of dispositional characteristics virtue theorists have in mind. Attributions of charisma are also dependent on the situation in ways that differ from how virtue theory uses features of the situation to identify virtues and vices. Although charismatic leadership relies on “situational characteristics, such as a time of crisis or situational stagnation” (Riggio, 2004, p. 161), the qualities associated with charisma and their behavioral manifestations are themselves stable across situations. In contrast, according to virtue theory, whether a feeling or action really is virtuous depends on its fit with the situation (Aristotle, 1985, p. 44 [1106b21]). Perhaps, then, the ethical analysis of charisma needs to focus less on being – the characteristics we attribute to leaders – and more on doing – how leaders act and what they get done. Aside from virtue theory, standard ethical accounts identify behavior or behavioral results as the main concern of moral analysis. For instance, we might appeal to consequentialist theories such as utilitarianism to assess the ethics of charisma. These theories do not allow us to think about charisma as something that is right or wrong in itself. Being charismatic, developing charisma, or acting charismatically are good insofar as they lead to good consequences and bad insofar as they lead to bad consequences. In other words, whether charismatic leadership is justified depends on its results. For example, if drawing on the “gifts” of charisma promotes overall utility – variously understood as well-being, happiness, or pleasure – then there are no moral grounds for complaint against charismatic leadership. In fact, given that the utilitarian approach to ethics requires that we do what conduces to the greater good, the use of charisma would actually be demanded of leaders in such circumstances. This basic approach to the ethics of charisma fits nicely with ordinary ways of thinking about leadership. We know that Adolf Hitler, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson were charismatic (Lindholm, 1990). But so too were Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela. One obvious way to distinguish ethical from unethical charismatic leaders would accordingly point to the good or bad (and sometimes evil) they did. Leadership theory also tends to adopt this approach (Howell and Avolio, 1992, p. 49). Scholars note that transformational leadership, often thought to rely on charisma, can be used for positive or negative ends (Tourish, 2013). The possibility of putting transformational leadership to bad use leads some advocates to stipulate that true transformational leaders are “authentic” and that their unethical counterparts are merely “pseudo-transformational” leaders (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999, p. 184). What characterizes authentic transformational leaders, unlike their pseudo-transformational counterparts, is that the former act on their values to advance the interests of followers (Price, 2003). Even leadership scholars who do not consider themselves consequentialists, much less utilitarians, appeal to the good that leaders achieve to justify the leadership style of leaders such as Mandela. 240

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Jess Flanigan (2015, p. 157) writes, “On balance, Mandela was a moral leader because he made South Africa a more just society.” Consequentialism certainly allows us to make some overall assessments of charismatic leadership. Other things being equal, to the extent that a leader uses his charisma for good ends, he is surely better than the charismatic leader who pursues bad ends. However, one problem with resorting to overall assessments of charismatic leadership is that charisma can be used for good and bad ends by one and the same leader. Although we think of charismatic leaders as divided between heroes and villains, the story is much more complicated. Take the example of Bill Clinton, whose successes as governor and president are often attributed, in part at least, to his charisma. The very features of his personality out of which his political success was born also likely led to his impeachment and, ultimately (and not without irony), to his own political survival. As Ron Riggio (2004, p. 159) puts it, [W]hen speaking before a crowd of followers, a charismatic leader can successfully read the crowd’s reactions and determine if they are accepting or rejecting the message. The charismatic leader can then alter the message, or the emotional tone, in order to manipulate the crowd’s reaction. . . . Personal charisma, then, is a constellation of a number of highly developed communication and interpersonal skills. Because the charismatic leader sometimes puts these skills to use for good ends and sometimes for bad ends, it misses something important about ethics to ask only whether we should consider a leader to be generally good or bad. We can also ask whether the leader’s use of charisma was justified in particular circumstances. Assessments of discrete behaviors are hardly easy on the consequentialist approach. Because actions have consequences that reach far beyond their immediate contexts, utility maximization will depend on intricate connections among actions across time. As a result, behavior that looks unjustified might be justified after all. This feature of utilitarianism suggests a practical objection to drawing on the theory to assess the ethics of charisma. When we appeal to utilitarianism to distinguish good from bad instances of charismatic leadership for the same leader, our assessment takes us back to overall assessments of this leader’s behavior. Each action must be understood in terms of its connection to the sum total of actions that a leader engages in to carry out his agenda and advance the overall good. Any preliminary ethical conclusions we draw about the exercise of charisma in a particular case is potentially undermined by the fact that we fail to see its broader effects or to understand the implications of these effects for utility maximization. Let me conclude this section with a more serious objection to using either virtue ethics or consequentialism to understand the justified use of charisma. Ultimately, these theories lack the necessary resources for addressing important questions about the ethics of the means and, therefore, are unable to constrain the behavior of charismatic leaders and protect followers. According to virtue ethics, as we have seen, what constitutes virtue depends on the situation. Although this theory does make room for absolute prohibitions on behaviors such as “adultery, theft, [and] murder,” it generally rejects behavioral constraints, claiming instead that an understanding of ethical action does not lend itself to a set of explicit rules (Aristotle, 1985, p. 45 [1107a10], pp. 35–36 [1104a1–1104a9]). Consequentialism, by its nature, attends only to good or bad results, not to the behaviors that leaders use and not to what leaders do to followers in their efforts to bring about these results. In other words, consequentialism assigns no independent value to how the ends are achieved. Because virtue ethics and consequentialism place insufficient limits on the means leaders can use, including what they can do to real human beings, I therefore turn to a deontological approach to charismatic leadership. 241

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Using charisma in leadership Can ethical theory assess the means charismatic leaders use – how these leaders behave and how they treat people? One promising candidate focuses not on the consequences of actions but instead on the fact that some actions are right or wrong in themselves and that rational agents deserve to be treated with respect. Both aspects of this approach, represented by Immanuel Kant’s deontological moral theory, rely on an underlying commitment to moral equality (Kant, 1964). Everyone is equally bound and protected by morality (Price, 2006). According to Kant (1964, p. 88ff), because we are the moral equals of others, we are not justified in engaging in behaviors that cannot be universalized. In other words, no one is morally exceptional – not even leaders (Price, 2008). Nor are we justified in treating others as though they are less than our moral equals. Leaders who use followers to achieve their own ends treat followers as mere tools or instruments (Kant, 1964, pp. 95–96). We can explain how the particular means leaders use to achieve their ends sometimes violate the commitment to moral equality in both these ways. For example, when leaders coerce or lie to followers, their behavior can be understood both as inflating their own moral status and as diminishing the moral status of followers who are the targets of their behavior. One challenge for a deontological approach to the ethics of charisma is that, unlike in cases of coercion or deception, there is no clear moral rule against the exercise of charisma. Charismatic leaders engage in many of the same behaviors that other leaders engage in. But there is the added dose of charisma in how they do what they do – to use Ronald Riggio’s terms, with emotional expressiveness, enthusiasm, drive, eloquence, vision, self-confidence, and emotional responsiveness (2004, pp. 159–160). What, then, is the rule we might use to assess the behavior? For instance, imagine a leader who gives a speech enthusiastically, eloquently, and so on. There is nothing intrinsically wrong, of course, with giving a speech. Nor is there anything intrinsically wrong with having a charismatic personality. Perhaps it is the two in combination – the fact that the behavior is done with charisma? But if we assume that basic personality traits are to some extent beyond our control, it is hard to see how we might criticize a charismatic person for doing what we all do, yet doing it charismatically. In fact, it is odd to say, except in a flattering way, “Stop being so charismatic!” Kant (1964, p. 66) himself recognized that general temperament varies from person to person and, therefore, cannot be the foundation for assigning the moral worth of behaviors. It does not help that the effects of charisma, as earlier noted, depend on much more than the leader himself. To some significant extent, whether there can be charismatic leadership in the first place depends on having the right kind of followers in the right kind of situation. Riggio (2004, p. 161) calls charismatic leadership “an interaction between the leader’s personal charisma, the followers’ reactions to the charismatic leader, and situational characteristics.” These features of charismatic leadership give us even more reason to take great care in ascribing moral blameworthiness to charismatic leaders. Most leaders probably lack responsibility for their being charismatic, and whether their behavior ultimately constitutes an example of charismatic leadership is contingent on followers’ needs in specific, sometimes extreme, circumstances (Riggio, 2004, p. 161). Here, the argument depends on the ethical principle “ought implies can.” In order to say that leaders ought not to engage in charismatic leadership, it must be possible for people with charisma to avoid the associated behavioral responses in leadership contexts. Yet how followers perceive leaders and their behaviors is even more outside the control of leaders than is the fact that they have the qualities associated with charisma. This line of reasoning makes it difficult for the moral critique of charismatic leadership to get off the ground. 242

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One way to respond to this line of reasoning is to suggest that although charismatic people cannot help having charisma, they do have some control over its behavioral manifestations and over how they are perceived by others. First, just as people can “turn on” the charm, we might think that they can “turn down” their charisma – even if they cannot turn it off or stop being charismatic altogether. There are also ways to minimize the effects of charisma – for example, by introducing competing pressures or considerations. Eric Cave (2014, pp. 184–185) seems to have this basic strategy in mind in the following passage: [T]he implication that very charismatic people ought to take care not to undermine others’ capacities for rational motive management is not absurd. . . . With greater gifts sometimes come greater responsibilities. . . . [I]t is not absurd to suggest that people with extraordinary charisma ought to take similar care around others who might be especially susceptible to their magnetism and charm. Cave focuses on the “gifts” associated with charisma, but the argument for responsibility would apply equally to any personal characteristic, including our deficits, for which we could lower the moral risks associated with it. What can a person with charisma do to manage it – short of staying out of leadership? Kant (1964, p. 98) claims our actions must do more than “agree negatively . . . with humanity as an end in itself”; they must also agree “positively” with this value. Negative agreement would require that leaders not use their charisma in ways that preclude the rational consent of followers, perhaps by being transparent about the psychological mechanisms involved. Positive agreement, however, requires that we do more – namely, that we work to promote the rationality of followers and advance their autonomy. To this end, leaders might draw attention away from the form of their message and to its content. This kind of refocusing is in keeping with the value of rational agents because it promotes their capacity to consider and act on reasons, as opposed to the “magical” guidance of charisma. Of course, Kantians must be careful here not to overstate the strengths of leaders or the weaknesses of followers. There is a risk of condescension, if not theoretical contradiction, in a view of this relationship that sees some people (followers) as essentially irrational and holds other people (leaders) as fully responsible not only for their own behavior, but also for the behavior of everyone else. After all, Kantian ethical theory assumes that leaders and followers are moral equals, each with their own ends to pursue and primary responsibility for exercising their own rationality. At the very least, though, morality would seem to require that leaders not purposely take advantage of followers’ susceptibility to charisma. Even if we accept that there are limits on how much we can expect of leaders when it comes to their role in correcting for the effects of charisma, it is nevertheless wrong to adopt a plan involving charisma that fails to respect the rational agency of followers. In this respect, the ethics of charisma bears some similarity to the ethics of liking. There is nothing wrong with being likable, but the purposeful use of likability – Robert Cialdini’s principle of liking (Cialdini, 2007, pp. 167–207) – is sometimes wrong. Similarly, we might say that there is nothing wrong with being charismatic, but there can be something wrong with purposely drawing on one’s charisma to get one’s way. This approach to thinking about what actions are the objects of moral assessment helps us understand what makes charismatic leadership wrong. The leader who takes it upon himself to control others with his charisma sees himself as exceptional – as deserving a special kind of control over others – and, in exercising this control, uses followers as “simply as a means” to his own ends (Kant, 1964, p. 96). We can therefore understand the action to be assessed – namely, using charisma – in terms of an intentional connection between a quality and a behavior. There is no necessary wrong 243

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in acting charismatically, but there can be a wrong in adopting a plan to engage in charismatic behaviors or to appear charismatic in one’s treatment of others in order to get one’s way. This kind of purposeful use of charisma is wrong because it disrespects reason from the perspective of both leaders and followers. First, charismatic leaders display an unreasonable view of their own importance. Second, insofar as charisma is a nonrational or (even) irrational influence, followers do not have sufficient opportunity to evaluate and act on reasons. Leaders who purposely draw on their charisma to achieve their ends unreasonably set themselves apart as exceptional and treat followers as mere means, not as rational beings with ends of their own. This argument is telling, for example, against workshops designed to teach people how to be charismatic. Indeed, a CBS Sunday Morning (January 8, 2012) feature on such workshops highlighted the very physical attributes that we might associate with charismatic politicians – attributes such as “a strong chin with a slight confident-appearing smile” (Kahneman, 2011, p. 91). Voters rely on these attributes despite the fact that “[t]here is no evidence that these facial features actually predict how well politicians will perform in office” (Kahneman, 2011, p. 91). Charisma workshops accordingly teach people how to use body language to convey “strength and warmth” (CBS Sunday Morning, January 8, 2012, 6:15), thereby capitalizing on the fact “that we are biologically predisposed” to judge leaders in this way (Kahneman, 2011, p. 91). As Mark Oppenheimer puts it in the interview: “Most American voters ultimately don’t vote on specific policy questions. So they’re responding to something, and it’s often charisma” (CBS Sunday Morning, January 8, 2012, 1:15). Offering such workshops or joining them as participants should strike us as potentially problematic from a moral perspective. When leaders use these workshops to set themselves apart from others and to learn how to control others with charisma, they show disrespect not only for their own reason but also for the reason of followers.

Justifying charismatic leadership and the implications for politics Establishing what makes charismatic leadership wrong is the first step to discerning the conditions under which it might be justified. As we have seen, charismatic leadership is problematic from a moral perspective when it disrespects reason. The wrongful use of this form of leadership involves purposiveness, but it can also involve the knowing, reckless, or negligent use of charisma (Baron, 2014, p. 103). This line of criticism probably applies to the vast majority of cases in which charismatic leadership is adopted as a means of influence. It is for this reason that we might think that leaders must also be careful not to let their charisma come out in ways that threaten the rationality of others or perhaps that they should take special precautions to help followers generate and strengthen reasons that might serve as counterweights. However, what if we could show that charismatic leadership sometimes meets the primary condition for ­justification – namely, that it respects the rationality of leaders and followers? Can leaders ­exercise this form of leadership without unreasonably setting themselves apart as exceptional and without disrespecting followers who are rational beings with their own ends? It will help to start with cases in which there is reason to believe that the exercise of charisma in leadership might not be morally problematic. Let us assume that a group has settled on agreed-upon ends or that its members are joined together in the first place because their ends are shared. Perhaps it is a team in sports or business. If a coach, manager, or team member draws on charisma to motivate and inspire the team to achieve its goal, then where is the unreasonableness in that? Although charisma is not rational in itself, its exercise in this case is part of the rational pursuit of common, accepted ends. The team wants to succeed, motivation is necessary to succeed, and charismatic leadership may be necessary for motivation. Of course, 244

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the mere fact that charismatic leadership is the best or only means to achieve group ends would not by itself justify its exercise. In other words, organizational success or achievement is hardly the only consideration that is morally relevant. By assumption, however, team members have also consented to the end in question and made it their own. Consent signals that the agency of the targets of charisma is primary – that they are ultimately in control of what ends they pursue and how these ends will be pursued. Still, there are questions about what kinds of treatment a rational agent can consent to. For example, why could followers not consent to abusive or humiliating treatment, as long as it is motivating and conducive to goal achievement? It is worth noting that in Kantian ethics, consent is necessary, but not sufficient, for justification. Because some actions cannot be universalized, they do not lend themselves to consent by their very nature. So, leaders cannot justify the use of charisma simply by claiming that followers consented to it. In fact, some leadership scholars charge that such followers wrong themselves by failing to meet their “deliberative obligations” (Flanigan, 2013, p. 217). This charge is in keeping with Kant’s view that we have duties to respect ourselves as rational agents. The most famous example is the duty not to commit suicide, which Kant (1964, pp. 96–97) argued is grounded in the fact that we cannot treat ourselves as mere means. Selling ourselves into slavery would be similarly disrespectful, even if we could make a case that the relationship was consensual. Examples such as these suggest that we need to know whether a behavior or relationship is prohibited by morality before we can know whether consent would justify it. Is following a charismatic leader similarly disrespectful because it violates the duties we have to ourselves? The answer to this question turns on whether we – as followers of charismatic leaders – can still see ourselves as autonomous agents who act on reasons to achieve our ends. One argument for the claim that charismatic leadership ultimately respects this way of understanding ourselves returns us to the fact that, in some cases, the perceived attributes of charismatic leaders – warmth and strength – actually correspond to facts about the leader. But this argument goes a step further. Not only do the follower perceptions line up with these facts but their attributions of charisma also track the facts in a way that allows us to say it is rational for them to follow charismatic leaders. E.P. Hollander’s (1964, p. 167) “idiosyncrasy credit” theory is instructive here. Hollander (1960) claims that follower attributions of conformity and competence generate credits for some group members that make it possible for them to behave exceptionally and to exercise influence over followers. Followers allow such deviations and accept this kind of influence based on information they have about emerging leaders – for example, signs of commitment from group members who conform to the rules and signs of what these individuals can do for the group by virtue of their competence. Conformity and competence are the rational analogs of the warmth and strength that characterize charismatic leadership. As Hollander (2009, p. 88) puts it, “While charisma refers to a quality usually seen to be possessed by a leader, it manifests itself in followers who accord it. Without their responsiveness, charisma is hollow.” But what justifies the responsiveness of followers? Idiosyncrasy credit theory translates the warmth and strength associated with charisma into characteristics that are particularly meaningful for followers – the willingness and ability to get things done for the group. As a result, the attributions of followers reflect rational assessments of the potential for leadership. The fact that “charisma is attributed to a leader by followers” thus creates “a clear parallel to the essence of idiosyncrasy credit theory, insofar as it emphasizes the pivotal role of how followers perceive and then respond to a leader” (Hollander, 2009, p. 18). Hollander’s (1964, pp. 166–167) notion of status allows us to complete this parallel. Followers accord status to certain individuals based on attributions of “ability and willingness,” and – as a result – these individuals emerge as leaders (Grabo, Spisak, and van Vugt, 2017, p. 479). Another 245

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way to put this point is to say that followers rationally accept the exceptionalism and influence associated with charismatic leadership. Is there a similar justification for charismatic leadership in politics? We can probably imagine cases in which the justification would work. For example, we sometimes have substantial information about a leader’s willingness and ability to get things done for the group. In these cases, we can make rational assessments and give our consent to this individual’s having higher status, as well as to his using charisma to help us achieve our ends. What we would be consenting to is something common to all leadership. Leadership necessarily involves status differentiation and influence, and an attribution of charisma is simply another way of entering into this relationship. Charismatic leadership is problematic only when the exceptionalism it involves and the associated means of influence defy the standards of rationality. So, in cases of political leadership, if we can show that there are compelling reasons in play both to confer status on charismatic leaders and to subject ourselves to their methods as a higher-level way of rationally pursuing our ends, then we will have justified charismatic leadership in politics. The problem is that much of politics does not work like this. What we know about candidates’ willingness and ability to help us achieve our goals, even in local races but especially in national races, is severely limited. Some of these limits are intrinsic to the system itself. There are significant obstacles that must be overcome, many of them financial, by anyone who seeks to be elected to office. The practical upshot is that candidates must do whatever it takes to garner support, financial and otherwise. As Cass Sunstein (2016, p. 98) puts it, “[T]he relationship between a campaign and voters has an instrumental character: Campaigns want votes, and everyone understands that.” It turns out, then, that running for office is often more about getting something from us than about giving us what we need to exercise rational agency – specifically, what we need to make informed decisions about who is willing and able to advance our ends. The information candidates convey is instead highly selective and purposely designed to portray an image, often using charisma. We can understand why they take this approach. Even the best political leaders have to get elected to have a chance of advancing anyone’s ends. Because the campaign trail must be included among “frugal information environments” in which followers are especially susceptible to charisma (Antonakis and Eubanks, 2017, p. 270), we have very little on which to draw to justify charismatic leadership in politics. For example, even Barack Obama’s charisma proved more indicative of how he would run for office than it did about how he would govern while in office. Whatever we think about Obama’s accomplishments after the election, it would be difficult to use information received after initial attributions of charisma to say that these attributions were rationally justified at the outset. If we did not have the reasons at the time of the attribution, they cannot be used to justify the original decision. In other words, hypothetical justification is not the same thing as actual justification. Admittedly, we could always consent to charismatic leadership going forward, assuming we are better informed. In other words, we could decide to accept the relationship and justify it anew based on our rationally informed assessments of a leader’s motivation and ability. Alternatively, in the absence of sufficient grounds to justify the relationship, we can always choose not to follow by refusing to support a leader’s causes or of actively working against them. One problem with this line of argument is that it runs up against our persistent need for coherence (Kahneman, 2011, pp. 79–88). Having committed to a charismatic leader, it will be difficult to revise our decision. In fact, we are probably more likely to justify a leader’s behavior in light of our original decision than we are to use his behavior to rethink the decision itself. Not only will there be strong incentives for us to engage in justification but there is also no reason to think that our assessments will be unaffected by the positive qualities that led us to make this decision in the first place – what psychologists refer to as the “halo effect” (Kahneman, 246

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2011, p. 82). A bigger problem, however, is that whatever we come to think about an elected leader’s willingness and ability to help us achieve our ends, and regardless of whether we are ultimately justified in so thinking, he will have had power over us, political power, based on the unjustified exercise of charismatic leadership. So, although the charismatic route to political power may be justifiable in principle, given the way politics actually works, we have reason to doubt that it is ever justified in practice.

Future research Future research on the ethics of charismatic leadership should consider the peculiar challenges of justifying this form of leadership across different contexts. To do so, scholars might reconsider the resources of virtue ethics and consequentialism, both of which merit greater treatment than space in this chapter allows. One possibility for using virtue ethics to defend charismatic leadership in political contexts would be to draw on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1941, pp. 1329–1330 [1356a1–1356a25]). According to this general line of argument, leaders need charisma because they must appeal to more than reason – specifically, they must appeal to their own authority and to followers’ emotions  – if they are to fulfill their proper function in politics. Similarly, consequentialists might point to the role that charismatic leadership plays in political solutions to collective action problems. Given the complexity of these problems and the coordination necessary to solve them, researchers might conclude that the benefits of this form of leadership are ultimately worth the moral risks associated with it. It will come as no surprise to the reader that, because of ethical worries about applying these theories in leadership contexts, I recommend a great deal of caution when advancing either line of argument. That said, virtue ethics and consequentialism would seem to offer the most promise for scholars hoping to justify charismatic leadership in politics. Note: Parts of this chapter also appear in Terry L. Price, Leadership and the Ethics of Influence (New York, NY: Routledge, 2020), with the permission of Routledge. The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for criticisms and suggestions reflected in the chapter’s final version.

References Antonakis, J. and Eubanks, D. 2017. ‘Looking leadership in the face,’ Current Directions in Psychological Science 26(3), pp. 270–275. Aristotle. 1941. ‘Rhetoric,’ in McKeon, R. (ed.) The basic works of Aristotle, New York: Random House, pp. 1325–1451. Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean ethics, translated by Irwin, T., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Baron, M. 2003. ‘Manipulativeness,’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 77(2), pp. 37–54. Baron, M. 2014. ‘The mens rea and moral status of manipulation,’ in Coons, C. and Weber, M. (eds.) Manipulation: Theory and practice, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 98–120. Bass, B.M. and Steidlmeier, P. 1999. ‘Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior,’ The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), pp. 181–217. ‘Can charisma be taught?’ (2012) CBS Sunday Morning, 8 January. Cave, E.M. 2014. ‘Unsavory seduction and manipulation,’ in Coons, C. and Weber, M. (eds.) Manipulation: Theory and practice, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 176–200. Cialdini, R. 2007. Influence: The psychology of persuasion, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Conger, J.A. 2004. ‘Charismatic theory,’ in Goethals, G.R., Sorenson, G.J., and Burns, J.M. (eds.) Encyclopedia of leadership, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 162–167. Flanigan, J. 2013. ‘Charisma and moral reasoning,’ Religions 4(2), pp. 216–229. 247

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Flanigan, J. 2015. ‘The ethics of authentic leadership,’ in Boaks, J. and Levine, M. (eds.) Leadership and ethics, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 151–173. Grabo, A., Spisak, B.R., and van Vugt, M. 2017. ‘Charisma as signal: An evolutionary perspective on charismatic leadership,’ The Leadership Quarterly 28(4), pp. 473–485. Hollander, E.P. 1960. ‘Competence and conformity in the acceptance of influence,’ The Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology 61(3), pp. 365–369. Hollander, E.P. 1964. Leaders, groups, and influence, New York: Oxford University Press. Hollander, E.P. 2009. Inclusive leadership: The essential leader-follower relationship, New York: Routledge. Howell, J.M. and Avolio, B.J. 1992. ‘The ethics of charismatic leadership: Submission or liberation?’ Academy of Management Executive 6(2), pp. 43–54. Kahneman, D. 2011. Thinking, fast and slow, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Kant, I. 1964. Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals, translated by Paton, H.J., New York: Harper and Row Publishers. Lindholm, C. 1990. Charisma, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Marturano, A. and Arsenault, P. 2008. ‘Charisma,’ in Marturano, A. and Gosling, J. (eds.) Leadership: The key concepts, London: Routledge, pp. 18–22. Price, T.L. 2003. ‘The ethics of authentic transformational leadership,’ The Leadership Quarterly 14(1), pp. 67–81. Price, T.L. 2006. Understanding ethical failures in leadership, New York: Cambridge University Press. Price, T.L. 2008. ‘Kant’s advice for leaders: “No, you aren’t special”,’ The Leadership Quarterly: Special Issue on Leadership in the Humanities 19(4), pp. 478–487. Riggio, R.E. 2004. ‘Charisma,’ in Goethals, G.R., Sorenson, G.J. and Burns, J.M. (eds.) Encyclopedia of leadership, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 158–162. Sunstein, C.R. 2016. The ethics of influence: Government in the age of behavioral science, New York: Cambridge University Press. Tourish, D. 2013. The dark side of transformational leadership: A critical perspective, London: Routledge. Weber, M. 1978. ‘Charisma and its transformation,’ in Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds.) Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 1111–1157.

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21 Charisma and toxic leadership Prime Minister Tony Blair Timothy Heppell

Introduction This chapter offers a case study analysis of the political leadership of Tony Blair, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007. Blair is selected as he was widely accepted as a charismatic leader  – i.e., he offered a future-oriented and vision-based message that highlighted the positive outcomes that would flow from achieving the goals that he specified, all of which are traits consistent with notions of charismatic leadership1 (Mumford, 2006). Emphasizing Blair’s charisma and leadership capability was to be central to New Labour’s electoral and governing strategy (Finlayson, 2002). He would encapsulate one of the main trends within British politics – i.e., the personalization of politics – in which party leaders have come to personify their parties and their branding (Denver, 2005; Langer, 2007, 2011). The rise of personality-driven campaigning placed a stronger emphasis on the competence, likeability, and overall charisma of leaders, as leadership traits had emerged as a clear influence upon voter choice (Clarke et al, 2004, 2009). In short, the personalizing of campaigning around the party leader has benefited parties, as the party leader can act as an “heuristic device” to aid voters with limited interest and knowledge of politics, parties, and specific policies (Clarke et al, 2009: 18). Blair personified New Labour, and his charisma and communication skills ensured that Labour held a lead over the Conservatives on the question of which party leader would make the best Prime Minister (Clarke et al, 2004, 2009). The aim of this chapter/case study is to identify the extent to which the charismatic Blair may have also showcased the personal characteristics associated with toxic political leadership. Blair is selected as a case study for toxicity because he presents a conundrum. There are solid reasons to see him as a highly successful political leader, but his political capital would diminish so considerably that his legacy would lead to the accusation of toxicity (McAnulla, 2011; Bennister and Worthy, 2017). There are two main arguments as to why the toxicity accusation may seem inappropriate in relation to Blair. First, it is undisputable that Blair was electorally successful (Buller and James, 2012). Blair led the Labour Party to three successive General Election victories (and no defeats) and the first two victories were the largest parliamentary majorities of the postwar period – 179 249

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at the General Election of 1997 and 167 at the General Election of 2001 (Denver and Fisher, 2009). Second, when he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2007, Blair could make a credible claim to have offered governing competence. Continuous economic growth, alongside low inflation rates, low interest rates, and low unemployment ensured that the Blair administration was associated with economic prosperity, and they had gained the confidence of middle-class voters and the financial markets (Lee, 2008). The proceeds of economic growth – the increased tax revenues from high employment – meant that New Labour were able to invest in public services without the need to increase income tax. Economic success fuelled their electoral strategy as New Labour could present the electorate with a choice – economic growth with investment in public services under New Labour, or ideologically driven cuts in public services under the Conservatives (Lee, 2008). This ensured they held a lead over the Conservatives in terms of perceptions of economic competence (Sanders et al, 2001; Whiteley et al, 2005). The ability of Blair to get the Labour Party to accept that they needed to locate themselves on the center ground of British politics was conditional on his ability to demonstrate leadership capability (and continuing to hold a lead in the opinion polls). That credibility was to be questioned by the decision to militarily intervene in Iraq (Strong, 2017: 3). Concerns about the conduct of Blair gathered momentum. As the rationale for intervention – that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction – proved to be flawed, Blair’s political capital started to ebb (Bennister and Worthy, 2017). While Iraq is central to the Blairite legacy upon British politics and claims to toxic political leadership, it is also important to consider two other aspects of his legacy – i.e., economic policy and possible culpability in relation to the economic crash, and policy in terms of the Labour Party and the rise of Corbyn (-ism). Before considering these themes, however, the chapter will define what we mean by toxic political leadership.

Defining toxic political leadership The concept of toxic leadership has traditionally been associated with CEOs within the business community (Whicker, 1996; Frost, 2004; Kellerman, 2004; Lipman-Blumen, 2005). That the ideas underpinning toxic political leadership can be applied to the political sphere has been demonstrated, providing the altered circumstances are acknowledged (Heppell, 2011). Toxic political leadership causes polarization and division. Those types of leaders that showcase toxic tendencies have negative effects upon society (i.e., policy impacts) (Bostock, 2010: 13). They also create “enduring harm” to their own organization (i.e., their political party) and to their own followers (Lipman-Blumen, 2005: 18). Toxic political leadership can be expressed in the following two ways: (1) Through leaders who showcase dysfunctional personal characteristics. When assessing the toxicity of Blair, we could be considering the following: (a) Arrogance or Ego – was Blair able to acknowledge his own mistakes/was he blind to his own shortcomings? (b) Cowardice – did Blair shrink from making difficult choices? (c) Recklessness – did Blair disregard the costs of his actions? (2) Through leaders who showcase destructive behaviors. When assessing the toxicity of Blair, we could be considering the following: (a) Stifling constructive criticism. (b) Misleading followers by telling lies. (c) A failure to nurture other leaders. (Lipman-Blumen, 2005: 19–22). 250

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It is important to note, however, that the concept of political toxicity should be seen across a spectrum. At the extreme end of the toxicity spectrum are political leaders who engage in unethical, immoral, and illegal behavior knowingly and with intention, whereas at the milder end of the toxicity spectrum we are considering political leaders who create “negative effects,” but they are “careless or unintentional toxic leaders” (Lipman-Blumen, 2005: 18). If Blair is to be defined as a toxic political leader, it would be at the milder end of the toxicity spectrum.

The toxic political leadership of Blair In assessing whether Blair should be viewed as a toxic political leader, the remainder of the chapter will focus on the following themes associated with his legacy. Theme one concentrates on the era of prosperity that was the Blair years and considers how his economic policy legacy should be viewed given the ensuing financial crash and the age of austerity in the 2010s. Theme two examines how and why Iraq has had such a damaging impact upon Blair’s reputation. Theme three takes the legacy of Iraq and applies it to the Labour Party – why has the movement that he once led to electoral success rejected his approaches so comprehensively?

Toxicity and the economic crash The perception that the Blair era was defined by economic prosperity, which was the view when he exited Downing Street, has to be reconsidered given the subsequent financial crash. Three unsustainable features also characterized the prolonged period of economic prosperity. First, an unsustainable housing bubble which was allowed to expand which would leave homeowners particularly vulnerable to the subsequent credit crunch (Watson, 2008). Second, high levels of personal debt developed and topped £1 trillion by 2006 (Coates, 2008: 10). Third, the Treasury became overly reliant upon the corporate tax receipts from the finance sector, where they pursued a policy of minimal regulation (Beech, 2009). Rather than praise New Labour for presiding over economic growth, a new and critical perspective could be made. That is, because of their regulatory approach to banking and financial services, they were transferring financial risk from markets and toward society (Watson, 2002). By doing so, and making the British economy so vulnerable to the irresponsible behavior of individuals in the banking sector, Blair had created what amounted to an illusory economic boom (McAnulla, 2011). If their claims to economic efficiency can be questioned, then so can the impact of the Blair era in terms of social justice. Although many laudable initiatives were pursued  – the national minimum wage, the New Deal program for the unemployed; targets for poverty reduction and tax credits for working families and pensioners – their actual policy impacts revealed some concerns. For example, although poverty did decline in the first two terms, down to 12.1  million that figure increased up to 12.7 in the final term. In the same time period, child poverty began to increase from 3.6 to 3.8 million. When we consider income differentials, the Blair era is open to criticism for setting the minimum wage at too low a level, and by the end of his tenure the gap between the richest and poorest in society was increasing (Coates, 2008: 3–16). The financial crash and the banking crisis of 2008 discredited the economic, and more specifically, the regulatory policy framework that had defined New Labour and thereby redefined British politics (Gamble, 2009). The Brown administration (2007–2010) intervened and recapitalized the failing parts of the banking sector in an act that the opposition Conservatives 251

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portrayed as an Old Labour nationalization. At the same time that they were bailing out the banking sector, the economic recession created two additional negative consequences: first, a reduced tax yield for the Treasury as employment went down; and second, increased social security pressures being imposed upon the state as unemployment increased (Heppell, 2013). The Brown administration remained determined to protect social programs, despite state revenues going into decline, so they racked up massive levels of debt (Whiteley et al, 2013). A chain of events would flow from this. Given the altered economic dynamics, the investment versus cuts electoral strategy that had shaped Labour Party strategy in the Blair era was completely invalidated. The General Election of 2010 was not a choice between investment versus cuts but a choice defined by the speed and scale of the cuts that would have to be imposed. This would culminate in the Conservatives being in power for the majority of the decade, imposing what became known as austerity as they set about rebalancing the economy, which involved massive cuts to public services (Whiteley et al, 2013).

Toxicity and the Iraq War With respect to wider foreign policy, Blair could be defined as both proactive and interventionist, and he adopted a black-and-white cognitive style (Dyson, 2006, 2009). How does Dyson make such claims? Using the leadership trait analysis technique and content analysis to assess how Blair responded to foreign policy questions in Parliament, Dyson reached two conclusions: (1) Blair had a very high belief in his capacity to control events which can be linked to being proactive and pursuing ambitious policies, and (2) Blair had a low conceptual complexity, meaning that his worldview approach was “essentially dichotomous and unequivocal” (Dyson, 2006: 290). Broadening this out to his wider rhetoric on foreign policy, Danchev noted that “no European leader of his generation” spoke “so unblushingly of good and evil” (Danchev, 2007: 48). That Blair was aligned to the forces of good was evident from the terminology initially used to define the New Labour foreign policy approach. They would pursue an ethical dimension within foreign policy (Chandler, 2003), an approach which became aligned to notions of liberal interventionism and the “doctrine of international community” (Ralph, 2011: 306). This would be used as the rhetorical justification for the intervention in Kosovo, when the UK played a leading role among NATO forces to protect Kosovo Albanians from Serbian aggression. This was viewed as a success and justified the argument of intervening on the grounds of humanitarian purposes. However, this ethical framework would create a dilemma which was to be exposed by the intervention in Iraq. Justifying a military interventionism on humanitarian grounds as being the “right” thing to do (even though it will result in death and additional suffering) comes with this question: how can we “know for sure whether we are doing the right thing by intervening”? (Bulley, 2010: 441). The terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11 were, according to Blair, not just an attack on the United States, but an attack upon the civilized world, and thereby his administration “adopted the crisis and universalized its significance” (Coates and Krieger, 2004: 43). The military intervention in Iraq has been portrayed as a highly personalized decision – i.e., that an alternative Labour Party leader and Prime Minister would have not granted UK involvement (Stephens, 2004: 324) Legitimizing that decision was to be hugely problematic for Blair. How serious was the threat that was supposed to exist from Iraq’s Weapons for Mass Destruction (WMD)? Here the issue of leadership and trust became significant. Blair had access to intelligence that was not placed within the public domain. He asked for trust in his judgment and in his administration. Blair placed his emphasis for intervening on the following facts (1) that Iraq did have WMD, and 252

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(2) that WMD could be deployed against the UK within 45 minutes. Accusations would surface suggesting that the intelligence had been selectively interpreted, or “sexed up” to maximize the threat perception (O’Malley, 2007: 16). As questions started to be asked about intelligence gathering and decision making, a narrative emerged in which Blair misled Parliament, misled Labour parliamentarians, misled ministers, and misled the voting public in order to justify his military intervention. By his choices, Blair split his parliamentarians (139 voted against military intervention in March 2003, but parliamentary consent was secured overall due to the backing of the Conservative opposition) (Cowley and Stuart, 2008). By his choices, his Cabinet fractured as both Robin Cook (Leader of the House of Commons) and Clare Short (International Development Secretary) resigned. By his choices, Blair alienated large swaths of the electorate, and critically many who were instinctively Labour supporters, leading to massive protests on the streets of London, mobilized in part by the Stop the War coalition, led by Jeremy Corbyn. Was it the case that Blair had already predetermined that regime change in Iraq was desirable, and that the post 9/11 environment and the intelligence on WMD gave him the opportunity to justify that desire to intervene? In July 2002, Blair wrote to President Bush identifying how “getting rid of Saddam is the right thing to do” because “he is a potential threat,” and “containment,” as we “found with Al Qaida is always risky” (Blair, 2002). Then in September 2002, in another letter to Bush, Blair argued that “11 September was a powerful argument for dealing with threats before they materialized” and how “at some point, WMD and terrorism would come together, with appalling consequences, unless we took action” (cited in Iraq Inquiry, 2016a: 164). On whether the assumption that the UK was vulnerable to an attack from longrange chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes, the Hutton inquiry concluded that the Blair administration did not lie: i.e., they did not make statements that they knew to be “false or unreliable” (Hutton, 2004: 144). The subsequent Butler inquiry implied that the Blair administration had created an impression that they “possessed fuller and firmer intelligence” than they did (Butler, 2004: 82). Blair was constructing decision making on the basis of what he interpreted as “extensive, detailed and authoritative” intelligence, when in reality that intelligence was “sporadic and patchy” (Butler, 2004: 164). The Chilcot inquiry would identify how, on the broader question of WMD capability, Blair believed that the intelligence was beyond doubt, when this was merely an interpretation of the available intelligence (Thomas, 2017: 376). The Chilcot Inquiry concluded that the decision to intervene in Iraq was neither right nor necessary. On the latter issue, it was not necessary as (1) Iraq did not present itself as an imminent threat to the UK, and (2) the invasion was launched before all peaceful routes had been considered and eliminated. On the former issue, Blair believed that intervening was consistent with the doctrine of international community because it met the criteria that justified intervention – i.e., at the point of making the decision they (1) were sure of their case, and they (2) believed that they had exhausted all other diplomatic options (Thomas, 2017: 371–372). The Chilcot findings disputed these assumptions. Blair intervened on the mistaken assumption that Iraq had chemical and biological weapon capability and that Iraq was concealing this capability from UN inspectors (Thomas, 2017: 372). Of critical importance to the debate about the leadership of Blair, the Chilcot inquiry concluded that (1) Blair communicated the intelligence with a “certainty that was not justified” (Thomas, 2017: 372), and (2) Blair engaged in decision making without proper scrutiny. This latter consideration is crucial, as it went to the heart of how Blair approached leadership. He preferred informal meetings and relied on the concept of sofa government, based on a small coterie of trusted advisors and bilateral meetings rather than relying on Cabinet government. The limitation with this approach was that it excluded “outside perspectives” which “could challenge assumptions and mitigate against groupthink” (Iraq Inquiry, 2016b: 59). 253

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Toxicity and the Labour Party Earlier in this chapter it was argued that the Labour Party had a conditional relationship with Blair – indeed, many members, activists, and some parliamentarians, had reservations about the Blairite strategy and the extent to which it was compromising on their own ideological objectives. Once his leadership capital diminished due to the miscalculation that was the military intervention in Iraq, internal party criticism of Blair escalated. This would have the following negative consequences for the Labour Party, consequences that would damage their electability, both in the short and longer term. The first negative consequence was an increase in parliamentary rebellion. Blair thought that the factionalism, feuding, and the indiscipline of postwar Labour Party history was one of the primary reasons why they had been so electorally unsuccessful (Cowley and Stuart, 2003: 327). As a consequence, he placed a strong emphasis on internal cohesion, and he was successful at doing so: the eight percent rebellion rate in the 1997–2001 Parliament was the lowest that the Labour Party had secured in decades (Cowley and Stuart, 2003: 315). Over time, discontent escalated and dissent levels increased. The second term (2001–2005) had a rebellion rate of 21 percent, and by the third term, between 2005 and 2010, it reached 28 percent, which was the highest level of parliamentary dissent for a governing party in the postwar era (Cowley, 2007: 26; Cowley and Stuart, 2010). Buller and James attribute the reason that rebellions increased to Blair’s “autocratic style of leadership” and his tendency to impose fully formed policies upon the PLP and to expect them to support those policies without question (Buller and James, 2012: 549–550). The initial cohesion that had been secured in parliamentary terms was reflective of a controlling tendency at the heart of the New Labour project (Minkin, 2014). Once in power, new policy-making procedures were introduced. By claiming to seek input from members, local branches, and their representatives, they could claim to be democratizing, but in reality it was a process that retained control for the party leadership. Policy was mediated as the party leadership acted as gatekeepers, determining the “agenda for policy debate from the outset,” maximizing the “opportunities for guiding the flow of debate,” stalling the “articulation of public opposition”; and interpreting “the outcome of consultation” and “framing” proposals (Heffernan and Webb, 2005: 47). With Blair installed as chair of the Joint Policy Committee, he had engineered a process which weakened the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the annual party conference in terms of policy making (Minkin, 2014). The second negative consequence of the Blair era was the decline in party membership. When Blair entered Downing Street, the Labour Party had a membership of around 400,000, but members left in objection to Iraq, and by the time Blair left office membership had fallen to 176,000 (Pugh, 2010: 412). This in turn contributed to the third negative consequence – the financial legacy of the Blair tenure was a deficit of £14.5 million, and bankruptcy was a serious concern in the period of 2005 to 2007 (Watt, 2010: 89–103). Blair was said to be in a “state of panic” about their finances, which critics suggested contributed to the cash for peerages scandal (Rawnsley, 2010: 357). They would then be found to have raised £14 million in loans, not donations, from a small number of millionaires who subsequently were elevated to the House of Lords (Watt, 2010: 37–68). The cash for peerages scandal would later turn into a criminal investigation, in which Blair himself would be questioned, although no formal charges were brought forward. The cumulative effect of a declining party membership along with the fallout from the cash for peerages scandal putting donors off (their 2006 donor target was £4 million but they raised only £700,000) was that they entered the General Election of 2010 “cashstrapped” (Mullen, 2011: 115; Seldon and Lodge, 2010: 444). The cash for peerages scandal 254

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was part of a wider pattern of financial misdemeanors associated with New Labour in office, and the culmination of such sleaze was the expenses scandal that dominated British politics in 2009, which contributed significantly to the increasing gulf between voters and elites (see Allen and Birch, 2014). The third negative consequence of the Blair era – at least for those of a Blairite persuasion – was that it contributed to the delegitimization of the Blairite approach that had provided them with both an electoral strategy and the basis for their claims for governing competence. This would culminate with Corbyn winning the Labour Party leadership. To the party membership, the appeal of Corbyn was that he was, in both stylistic and substantive terms, the antithesis of Blair and the politics of New Labour. In the domestic sphere, Corbynism was driven by an antiausterity narrative, with their focus on controlled markets, state intervention, increased public expenditure, redistribution, and public ownership, aligned to a wider end of neoliberalism thesis. In the international sphere, Corbyn advanced an anti-war, anti-Americanism, a­ nti-­imperialist, anti-interventionist approach, which was reflective of his own unilateralist approach, i­ncluding skepticism about NATO. The rhetoric of the Corbynite agenda involved disassociating themselves from the politics of New Labour and the legacy of Blair (Whiteley et al, 2019). Although ideologically different to Blair, Corbyn was also very divisive. He split the Labour movement. He was hugely popular with the Labour Party membership which grew dramatically during his leadership tenure (Whiteley et al, 2019), but he lacked support within his own parliamentary ranks (Crines et al, 2018). He divided opinion in that among the membership, he inspired incredibly high levels of loyalty and affection, but he also suffered from appallingly bad personal popularity ratings among the electorate (Crines, 2020). His impacts were also extreme. His repudiation of Blair and the centrism of New Labour seemed vindicated with a significantly stronger than expected electoral performance for Labour in the General Election of 2017 (Dorey, 2017). However, he was to then lead the Labour Party to their worst performance in a General Election since 1935, as he failed to hold together the coalition of remain and leave Labour voters in the Brexit General Election of December 2019 (Crines, 2020).

Analysis and conclusions The introduction to this chapter argued that by conventional terms Blair was a successful Prime Minister and Labour Party leader. In a governmental sense, his tenure was associated with economic prosperity; and in a partisan sense, he was a successful party leader as he secured three successive election victories. However, when he stood down as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party in 2007 the consequence of the military intervention in Iraq was that he had morphed into a “divisive and mistrusted figure whose actions fractured supporters and stirred conflict” (Bennister and Worthy, 2017: 121). Based on the analysis presented, does Blair showcase evidence of toxic political leadership? In terms of possessing dysfunctional personal characteristics, Blair could be accused of demonstrating some toxic tendencies. Of the characteristics specified earlier in the chapter – arrogance/ ego; cowardice, and recklessness – it is difficult to make the case for cowardice. However, an argument could be made to suggest that Blair was arrogant or egocentric and reckless. McAnulla argues that “Blair may have come to overestimate his powers of foresight and judgement,” and his “early political successes appeared to inflate his powers of self-belief in his abilities” (McAnulla, 2011: 261). He had, after all, “transformed” the Labour Party into a “highly successful electoral machine”; he had “amassed great personal credibility” and was widely described as being “uniquely well-placed to lead” (McAnulla, 2011: 261). He had also “successfully taken major risks,” in the case of reforming clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, or his 255

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contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process, or the military interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo (McAnulla, 2011: 261). As a consequence, Blair developed an “almost limitless belief in his ability to persuade”; powers which he, in turn, came to “exaggerate greatly” (Seldon, 2004: 698–699). This arrogance was evident in his interviews – for example, when speaking on the UK’s GMTV Sunday program in October 2003, Blair referred to the fact that he had “got rid of four dictators in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Iraq” (Owen, 2008: 431). Owen argues that the misjudgments of Blair were those of “hubristic incompetence” caused by (1) “excessive selfconfidence,” and (2) “inattention to detail,” and that it was “inevitable” that Blair would make “serious mistakes” because he had a “readiness to intervene on the basis of the broader picture rather than the detailed study of all the relevant information” (Owen, 2008: 431). It could be argued that such self-confidence flowed from his electoral success and the very positive personal approval ratings that he had. IPSOS-Mori polling shows that his satisfaction ratings between 1997 to 2001 oscillated between +55 and +75 (IPSOS-Mori, 2017). What about whether there is evidence of Blair engaging in destructive behaviors? On the issue of nurturing other leaders, Blair could be criticized for failing to adequately groom a range of successors for the Labour Party to choose from. This was evident from the fact that Brown secured the party leadership without a contest in 2007 when Blair resigned (Heppell, 2010). More specifically, the fact that the 2010 and 2015 Labour Party leadership elections saw the New Labour candidates being rejected – David Miliband in 2010 (narrowly) and Liz Kendall (overwhelmingly) – showed the complete absence of credible succession planning by the Blairites (Dorey and Denham, 2011, 2016). Blair could also be criticized for the means by which he sought to stifle criticism. As identified earlier, his leadership of the Labour Party had been characterized by centralizing instincts and a reforming zeal that sought to limit the influence and blocking capability of the annual conference and the NEC (Minkin, 2014). Large parliamentary majorities created a culture in which he was able to largely bypass Parliament and disregard the views of backbench Labour parliamentarians. In terms of the Cabinet, it can be argued that Blair held a “psychological dominance” over his Cabinet colleagues, which meant that the doctrine of collective Cabinet decision-making was undermined (Thomas, 2017). Pulling these themes together and the following observation from Owen seems valid – Blair was “contemptuous of the advice of others” and he did not “listen” to opinions that challenged his “own viewpoint” (Owen, 2008: 431). The third destructive behavior under consideration is whether Blair misled his followers by telling lies. Here the issue of Iraq again dominates, but Chilcot provides no evidence of a deliberate or intentional attempt to mislead or of telling known lies (Thomas, 2017). Blair may have used partial information to justify a decision already made, and limited the extent to which resistance to that decision could be made, but his mistake was one of selective interpretation rather than peddling deliberate untruths. His reputation for trustworthiness was challenged, and those aforementioned high personal satisfaction ratings were undermined – at one point in his first term he had a +68 satisfaction rating (72 percent satisfied minus 7 percent dissatisfied), but as his tenure drew to a close, the post-Iraq Blair had a -41 satisfaction rating (26 percent satisfied minus 67 percent dissatisfied) (IPSOS-Mori, 2017). By the analysis presented, the charismatic Blair does showcase some traits associated with toxic political leadership. His decision making in relation to military intervention in Iraq destroyed his political reputation. His legacy to the Labour Party was that his leadership tenure and failings have been used to justify a shift to a more left-wing agenda that repudiated his centrist governing approach. In this context it is worth noting the toxic legacy of Blair in the 256

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2015 Labour Party leadership election: 65 percent of those Labour Party members who voted Corbyn said that their primary motivation for doing so was that it would enable the Labour Party to disassociate themselves from Blair (YouGov, 2015). His claims to governing/economic competence would be undermined by the financial crash of 2008 and its subsequent impacts. However, his toxic tendencies have to be seen as being located at the milder end of the toxicity spectrum – i.e., we can identify clear evidence of the “negative effects” to which LipmanBlumen refers, but Blair falls into the category of “careless or unintentional toxic leaders” (Lipman-Blumen, 2005: 18).

Future research The academic literature on toxic political leadership remains in need of further development. Toxic leadership remains largely dominated by case studies from beyond political leadership, and it is clear that it is far more developed within business leadership. Academics need to develop better models on how and why toxicity in political leadership might occur. The importance of the personal characteristics of individual leaders (e.g., their charisma) and their ability to inspire loyalty from their followership are two aspects of research that need further consideration. These aspects play to the emphasis on the individual agency of political elites, but more is also needed on the structural/institutional environments through which toxic political leadership can emerge. Are particular types of political systems or particular types of party systems more susceptible to toxic political leaders, and if so why? Academics also need to develop a better understanding of the possible interrelationship between political circumstances  – i.e., policy failures, both domestic/economic and foreign – as the triggers for the rise of toxic leaders, and of course there is space for academics to debate the possible interrelationship between toxicity and the populist turn.

Note 1 If we use the work of Tucker, we can validate the claim that Blair was a charismatic – i.e., after suffering four General Election defeats in a row between 1979 and 1992, the Labour Party personalized their appeal around the skills and competences of Blair as a ‘savior-leader’ who had emerged in a ‘distressful situation’ and ‘present[ed] himself ’ as someone who can lead them “by virtue of [his] special personal characteristics or formula” (Tucker, 1977: 388).

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Bulley, D. 2010. “The Politics of Ethical Foreign Policy: A Responsibility to Protect Whom?” European Journal of International Relations, 16 (3): 441–461. Butler, R. 2004. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, London: The Stationery Office. Chandler, D. 2003. “Rhetoric Without Responsibility: The Attraction of an Ethical Foreign Policy,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5 (3): 295–316. Clarke, H., Sanders, D., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P.  2004. Political Choice in Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, H., Sanders, D., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P. 2009. Performance Politics and the British Voter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coates, D. 2008. “Darling, It Is Entirely My Fault!’ Gordon Brown’s Legacy to Alistair and Himself,” British Politics, 3 (1): 3–21. Coates, D. and Krieger, J. 2004. Blair’s War, London: Polity. Cowley, P.  2007. “Parliament,” in A. Seldon (ed.), Blair’s Britain 1997–2007, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cowley, P. and Stuart, M. 2003. “In Place of Strife? The PLP in Government, 1997–2001,” Political Studies, 51 (2): 315–331. Cowley, P. and Stuart, M. 2008. “A Rebellious Decade? Backbench Rebellions Under Tony Blair,” in M. Beech and S. Lee (eds.), Ten Years of New Labour, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Cowley, P. and Stuart, M. 2010. “Where Has All the Trouble Gone? British Intra-Party Parliamentary Divisions During the Lisbon Ratification,” British Politics, 5 (1): 133–148. Crines, A. (ed.). 2020. Corbynism in Perspective: The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, Newcastle: Agenda. Crines, A., Jeffery, D. and Heppell, T. 2018. ‘The British Labour Party and Leadership Election Mandate(s) of Jeremy Corbyn: Patterns of Opinion and Opposition Within the Parliamentary Labour Party’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 28 (3): 361–387. Danchev, A. 2007. “I’m with You: Tony Blair and the Obligations of Alliance: Anglo-American Relations in Historical Perspective,” in Gardner, L. and Young, M. (eds.), Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam, New York: The New Press. Denver, D. 2005. “Valence Politics: How Britain Votes Now,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 7 (2): 292–299. Denver, D. and Fisher, J. 2009. “Blair’s Electoral Record,” in Casey, T. (ed.), The Blair Legacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dorey, P.  2017. “Jeremy Corbyn Confounds His Critics: Explaining the Labour Party’s Remarkable Resurgence in the 2017 Election,” British Politics, 12 (3): 308–334. Dorey, P. and Denham, A. 2011. “ ‘O, Brother, Where Art Thou?’ The Labour Party Leadership Election of 2010,” British Politics, 6 (3): 286–316. Dorey, P. and Denham, A. 2016. “The Longest Suicide Vote in History: The Labour Party Leadership Election of 2015,” British Politics, 11 (3): 259–282. Dyson, S. 2006. “Personality and Foreign Policy: Tony Blair’s Iraq Decisions,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 2 (3): 289–306. Dyson, S. 2009. The Blair Identity: Leadership and Foreign Policy, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Finlayson, A. 2002. “Elements of the Blairite Image of Leadership,” Parliamentary Affairs, 55 (3): 586–599. Frost, P. 2004. “Handling Toxic Emotions: New Challenges for Leaders and Their Organizations,” Organizational Dynamics, 33 (2): 111–127. Gamble, A. 2009. “British Politics and the Financial Crisis,” British Politics, 4 (1): 450–462. Heffernan, R. and Webb, P. 2005. “The British Prime Minister: Much More Than First Amongst Equals,” in Poguntke, T. and Webb, P. (eds.), The Presidentialisation of Politics: A  Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heppell, T. 2010. Choosing the Labour Leader: Labour Party Leadership Elections from Wilson to Brown, London: I. B. Tauris.

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Heppell, T. 2011. “Toxic Leadership: Applying the Lipman-Blumen Model to Political Leadership,” Representation, 47 (3): 241–249. Heppell, T. 2013 ‘The Fall of the Brown Government’, in Heppell, T. and Theakston, K. (eds.), How Labour Governments Fall: From Ramsay Macdonald to Gordon Brown, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Hutton, B. 2004. Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly, London: The Stationery Office. IPSOS-Mori. 2017. “Political Monitor: Satisfaction Ratings, 1997–Present,” Available at: www.ipsos. com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present. Iraq Inquiry. 2016a. The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, vol. 2, London: The Stationery Office. Iraq Inquiry. 2016b. The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, Executive Summary, London: The Stationery Office. Kellerman, B. 2004. Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Langer, A. I. 2007. “A Historical Exploration of the Personalisation of Politics in the Print Media: British Prime Ministers 1945–1999,” Parliamentary Affairs, 60 (3): 371–387. Langer, A. I. 2011. The Personalisation of Politics in the UK: Mediated Leadership from Attlee to Cameron, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lee, S. 2008. “The British Model of Political Economy,” in Beech, M. and Lee, S. (eds.), Ten Years of New Labour, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lipman-Blumen, J. 2005. The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians – And How to Survive Them, New York: Oxford University Press. McAnulla, S. 2011. “Post-Political Poisons? Evaluating the Toxic Dimensions of Tony Blair’s Leadership,” Representation, 47 (3): 251–263. Minkin, L. 2014. The Blair Supremacy: A Study in the Politics of Labour’s Party Management, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mullen, C. 2011. Decline & Fall: Diaries 2005–2010, London: Profile. Mumford, M. D. 2006. Pathways to Outstanding Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic Leaders, Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press. O’Malley, E. 2007. “Setting Choices, Controlling Outcomes: The Operation of Prime Ministerial Influence and the UK’s Decision to Invade Iraq,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9 (1): 1–19. Owen, D. 2008. “Hybris Syndrome,” Clinical Medicine, 8 (4): 428–432. Pugh, M. 2010. Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party, London: Vintage. Ralph, J. 2011. “After Chilcot: The Doctrine of International Community and the UK Decision to Invade Iraq,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13 (3): 304–325. Rawnsley, A. 2010. The End of the Party: The Rise and Fall of New Labour, London: Penguin. Sanders, D., Clarke, H., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P. 2001. “The Economy and Voting,” Parliamentary Affairs, 54 (4): 789–802. Seldon, A. 2004. Blair, London: Free Press. Seldon, A. and Lodge, G. 2010. Brown at 10, London: Biteback. Stephens, P. 2004. Tony Blair: The Price of World Leadership, London: Politicos. Strong, J. 2017. Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq, London: Routledge. Thomas, O. 2017. “Good Faith and (Dis)honest Mistakes? Learning from Britain’s Iraq War Inquiry,” Politics, 37 (4): 371. Tucker, R. 1977. “Personality and Political Leadership,” Political Science Quarterly, 92 (3): 383–393. Watson, M. 2002. “Sand in the Wheels, or Oiling the Wheels of International Finance: New Labour’s Appeal to a New Bretton Woods,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 4 (2): 193–221. Watt, P. 2010. Inside Out: My Story of Betrayal and Cowardice at the Heart of New Labour, London: Biteback. Watson, M. 2008. “Constituting Monetary Conservatives via the ‘Savings Habit’: New Labour and the British Housing Market Bubble,” Comparative European Politics, 6 (3), 285–304. Whicker, M. L. 1996. Toxic Leaders: When Organizations Go Bad, Westport, VA: Quorum Books.

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22 Charisma and revolution The key to Max Weber’s project Carl Levy

Introduction The concept and the word, charisma, in its secular sense, only became widespread in the middle of the 20th century. It origins can be traced back to its employment by the German social scientist Max Weber, but its widespread dissemination only occurred after his death in 1920. The term was embraced by social scientists, journalists, and politicians in their attempts to understand the rise of new forms of mass politics, such as Fascism and Nazism, and was associated with the personal and political aura of Mussolini and Hitler. During the Cold War it was employed by American social scientists, particularly in Area Studies, to situate and navigate the rise of Third World leaders, such as Nkrumah, Nasser, and Sukarno; the Third World communist leaderships of Mao or Castro; and in the various definitions and operationalizations of the term totalitarianism, which yoked together the Soviet Union (and its imitators), the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. Charisma was and is used to understand a variety of Latin American populist political movements, parties, and regimes from Perón to Chávez to Lula. Indeed the charismatic leader was also invoked to understand the original populists of the American People’s Party associated with the insurgency of farmers in the US Midwest and the South in the late 19th century and modern-day forms of populism in the Global North and Global South. Thus the charismatic leader became an important linchpin to link a panoply of widely diverging political systems with different internal dynamics and diverse trajectories, ranging from dictatorships to democracies. Within these comparative exercises, dictators who were decidedly dull and bureaucratic were allowed into the club (Franco and Salazar) through the employment of the concept of top-down manufactured charisma and the parallel notion of the social construction of charisma through an interchange with followers and publics (Pinto, Eatwell and Larsen 2007; Potts 2009). But charisma has suffered from “mission creep.” From the 1960s onwards, charisma was popularized to a much wider audience in the United States and elsewhere by journalists seeking to explain the allure of John F. Kennedy and the birth of a youth culture, which mixed rock music, non-Western religions, and drugs with “self-actualization and new age spirituality” (Derman 2012: 214). In the past 50 years, charisma has seeped into managerial, leadership, and coaching self-help books. Inanimate objects, places, and other more vaporous essences have become 261

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charismatic, from food (sandwiches!) to buildings and tourist locations (Potts 2009: 156–157). In short, the employment of the secularized concept of charisma fashioned by Weber lost its original well-honed meaning, becoming synonymous with popularity, celebrity, and glamour, and further nourished indiscriminately in the era of spectacular Hollywood/Madison Avenue and, later online social media capitalism, “the concept developed its own charisma, its own promise of salvation” (Radkau 2009: 394). The concept of revolution was central to the secularization of the term charisma by Weber. Although he was inspired by the Pauline religious charismatic experience in the New Testament discussed by the historian of the church, Rudolph Sohm, he practiced creative misinterpretation to formulate an authoritarian form of charisma. It is impossible to understand Weber’s work without acknowledging how this unmusically religious man, the seemingly reluctant but unremitting champion of the disenchantment of the world, employed the concept of charisma to map how change happens and how mental, economic, political, and social revolutions have unintended consequences for human affairs.

Varieties of revolutionary experiences and the origins of the Weberian concept of charisma For Weber, [T]he term “charisma” will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. (Weber 1978: 241) Charismatic leaders are “the bearers of specific gifts of mind and body” and charisma is “the specifically creative revolutionary force in history” (Weber 1978: 1117). Weber’s charismatic leader is possessed of a mission and “seizes the task for which he is destined and demands that others obey and follow him.” Although this is a voluntary form of obedience, nevertheless “it is their duty to recognize his charisma.” But charismatic powers are constantly being put to the test of the performance principle: if miracles are not replicated, the spell is broken, so that it is imperative for charismatic movements to “transform charisma and charismatic blessing from a unique, transitory gift of grace of extraordinary times and personas into a permanent possession of everyday life.” (Weber 1978: 241–245, 1115–1117). Thus for Weber, charismatic explosions are followed by periods of normalization, rationalization, and the growth of bureaucratic structures, which contain forms of “bottled” or tamed charisma that serve as antidotes to the complete petrification of society and historical development. In short, Max Weber’s historical and political sociology ultimately rested on an ineffable essence. Thus as Joshua Derman notes: Weber spoke of charisma as if it were at once a real existing thing and a purely subjective impression. Charisma was supposed to be something that leaders had, and yet its presence was determined entirely by the eye of the beholder: so long as he or she was regarded as an extraordinary or supernaturally gifted individual, the leader had charisma, but once the impression wore off, charisma was gone. Weber refused to define charisma in terms of specific character traits. (Derman 2012: 181–182)

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In a disenchanted world, the unique individual’s demon, his or her (personality – Persönlichkeit), the sense of distance, honor, and measured responsibility, characterized the heroic politician or scientist or entrepreneur who inherited the role and qualities of the shaman, the biblical prophet, the warlord, or even the bloodthirsty Viking berserker of yesteryear. Thus Weber’s investigation of the development of modernity ultimately rested on an extra-rational first cause or mover, which leads us to a glaring paradox, as Derman 2012: 281) explains. In light of Weber’s ruthless criticism of colleagues for imputing entelechies to human personalities or societies, it was a peculiar move for him to base his sociology of rulership on an unempirical and metaphysical substance such as charisma. However, it was not only Weber’s sociology of rulership, but his entire enterprise, which rested on this assumption. The key to this project was his quest to understand the uniqueness of the West through his investigation of the unintended consequences of the revolutionary rupture flowing from the Reformation through to the arrival of the Calvinist Protestant sects. In her dissection of Weber’s Orientalism, Sara Farris notes (2014: 198) that “the notion of charisma itself lies at the very foundation of both Weber’s theory of power and politics as well as his theory of the Puritan personality.” And in much the same manner as charisma, Weber’s anti-positivist methodological individualism rested on ineffable foundations. Just as the irrational eruptions of charismatic individuals and moments were the key to historical change, sociology could not explain “meaningful social behaviour” but merely “establish rules of experience” (Whimster 2004: 297). Indeed, science was also one step removed from being in the living world, it could never, “capture reality in its entirety within its explanatory nets” (297). Weber identified scientific discovery as an intoxication and frenzy (Rausch). Thus even scientific revolutions are not merely based on the gradual accumulation of theories, methodological innovations, and observation; they are also dependent on moments of charismatic inspiration. Thus, “he evoked an inner affinity between science and erotic abandon” (Radkau 2009: 490). And is not the vocation or calling merely another manifestation of a charismatic moment? The inner daemon [Dämon] of the Calvinist “saint” searching for proof of his or her predestined salvation is the hidden hand behind the modern capitalist revolution and thus the dominance of the West over the Rest in Weber’s world. If the greatest threat to the West was entropy and petrification, as Farris argues, the stationary nature of the East served as a salutary warning to the West, a premodern oriental version of the polar night of modern rationalization. Thus, here too, the antidote is found in charisma. The British historian Peter Ghosh argues it was a central yet evanescent agency of historical discontinuity and free movement, standing outside the housing created by a uniquely powerful, long-term occidental rationalization. One could never say, as one could about salvation religion, that it would be rooted out, and charisma, unlike magic, could be completely modern. (Ghosh 2014: 307) Since revolutionary ruptures are the key product of the intervention of the charismatic personality on the historical stage, revolution serves as a multifaceted category to explore Weber’s biography, his intellectual work, and his encounters with political revolutionaries throughout his life. The qualities of charisma were a self-projection of what he took to be his own persona. His infrequent interventions as a university and public lecturer were

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remembered for their fiery and magnetic performances, and Weber was likened to a prophetlike figure, a knight of faith, although he really excelled in extended monologues during more intimate jours in his home surrounded by younger colleagues who served as foils (Otto Gross, Georg Lukács, Robert(o) Michels, or Ernst Toller, for example): therefore preferably with those of anarchist, radical socialist or countercultural leanings and branded as marginal characters in the Wilhelmine Germany of the Protestant Bildungsbürgertum, due to ethnicity and/or religion (Levy 1999). Weber’s attempts at public policy and political interventions met with mixed results. He was more successful behind the scenes, but he failed to retain his following within the fissiparous student movements during or after the World War I and was rather flatfooted as an active politician in the liberal-oriented German Democratic Party in the postwar period. Thus, when he described the charismatic politician, the passionate driller through thick boards, in his famous lecture on the vocation of politics in 1919, “who tackles the demands of the hour yet is also a hero able to cope with exceptional situations, he is probably also describing an ideal image of himself. Indirectly he appears to imply that he is a born politician and at the same time reveals how little of one he is” (Radkau 2009: 518). Although the young Weber had been at lectures by Rudolph Sohm, the previously mentioned historian of the church (another magnetic, prophet-like speaker) in 1883, where he was introduced to the concept of charisma – and Ghosh argues that the concept of charisma is present in the Protestant Ethic (1904–1905) (Ghosh 2014: 305–306) – the first appearance of the term in its secular meaning is found in a reference to the hermetic countercultural circle of Stefan George in 1910. In the last ten years of Weber’s life, the term would appear thousands of times in his published and unpublished work. Charisma is also bound up in his attraction to the sexual anarchist politics of the Heidelberg Circle, his visits to the anarchist colony of artists and intellectuals at Ascona in Switzerland, his sexual awakening in his personal life, in his erotic intimacy with Else Jaffé, and his increasing recognition of the role of the ecstatic rapture (Rausch) within the separate spheres of erotic love and aesthetics, which escaped from the deadening hand of rational spheres. In other words, the subjective nature of charisma, namely his personal experience of the phenomenon, was captured by Weber in this erotic and emotional turning late in his own life (Radkau 2009: 390–404). The very nature of Weber’s authoritarian framing of the charismatic moment, the bond between charismatic leader and followers, is bound up in his notion of rulership: Rausch, sexual frenzy and release, the charismatic experience, and “the magic of power,” are likened to “to the sensual power of domination” and “the pleasure of obeying, and being dominated,” recalling his intimate relationship with Else Jaffé (Radkau 2009: 518). But it is also embedded in earlier years of mental collapse in the 1890s and early 1900s. As he states in Economy and Society (1978: 321): The most important source of innovation has been the influence of individuals who have experienced certain “abnormal” states (which are frequently . . . regarded by present-day psychiatry as pathological) and hence have been capable of exercising a special influence on others. Weber might have looked askance at recent attempts to align neuro-sociological theorizing to the concept of charisma, which cite studies that claim charismatic individuals show a prevalence toward narcissism and display symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (Welskopp 2012: 167–168). Nevertheless his biographer, Joachim Radkau, argues, from the standpoint of “presentday psychiatry,” that Weber, too, belonged among the “abnormal.” With the concept of ­charisma, he created an opportunity out of his pathological disposition” (Radkau 2009: 398). 264

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We can therefore conclude that the sober edifice of mainstream Weberian sociology, the sociology of Talcott Parsons and the student textbooks, and even more recent nuanced variations on the theme, are ultimately reliant upon the literally incredible concept of charisma.

Charisma and revolutions This leaves us in a rather precarious position, how does one determine whether the charismatic leader is truly graced with the spirit and how does the social scientist or historian measure it? How do we know if the charismatic leader is glowing with exceptional gifts or merely a very successful swindler or indeed a “very stable genius”? Radkau concludes that he took on the role of the judge who determined the true practitioner from the artful imposter. Weber “thought he could differentiate more precisely than others between various forms of asceticism and ecstasy, between genuine and feigned mysticism and the charismatic – distinctions that are hard to derive from the sources alone unless one has also had personal experience of them” (Radkau 2009: 532). Here Weber takes his famed methodological individualism to rather astonishing lengths. Weber’s identification of the genuine charismatic figure from the fraud was bound up in his own prejudices and whims. One thinks of Rosa Luxemburg: biographers and contemporary witnesses recognized her personal magnetism, but for Weber she was a Marxist “phonograph” or specimen best kept in the zoo. The socialist pacifist politician Kurt Eisner, who Weber detested for his release of papers showing German war guilt, was well suited as the charlatan to preside over the “bloody carnival” of the Munich Soviet, but Weber seemed to miss out Eisner’s persona, reminiscent of one of the ancient Israelite prophets. The sober-suited Karl Kautsky defended the assassinated Eisner’s memory a few years later, recalling a cautious and thoughtful politician not lacking in the ethic of responsibility, who could also mix altruistic motives with political realism (Derman 2012: 189). Thus, in light of the German diktat at Brest Litovsk in 1918, the Allies could justify their punitive Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Eisner’s approach to the question of war guilt might have forced the Americans to be more insistent with the British and French to moderate their fiscal and territorial demands, but for Weber, Eisner had committed the unpardonable psychical sin of questioning Germany’s innocence (Radkau 2009: 502–507). Max Weber’s politics and his political sociology can be contextualized through his lifelong duels with Marxism on the one hand, and “leader-less” democracy on the other (a Weberian shorthand for forms of anarchism and syndicalism). Not only did he play one form of leftist revolutionary ideology against the other but he placed both the authoritarian and libertarian forms of socialism within a rigged binominal bracketing of the ethic of responsibility and the ethic of conviction. The strawman-like employment of a form of Kantian consequentialist ethics is a constant and rather irritating companion in his polemics with the Left. So from dozens of passages, here is Weber musing in the Intermediate Reflection, where he discusses pacifist anarchism, the anarchism of Tolstoy and Tolstoy’s reading of the Sermon on the Mount: Where force is absent, then there is no more state, and there would be a pacifist “anarchism” in its place. But force and the threat of force, according to the inescapable pragma of all action, unavoidably breeds the ever new use of violence. Reasons of state follow their own autonomous working, both internally and externally, and the success of force, or its threat, obviously is finally dependent on power relations and not upon what is ethically “right,” even if one believed that the objective criteria for what was ethical were in general discoverable. (Weber in Whimster 2004: 224) 265

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Earlier in 1907, commenting on an article which foreshadowed Robert Michels’s book on the “Iron Law of Oligarchy,” his younger “alter ego” (Mommsen 1987) was still attracted to anarchism and syndicalism and was taken to task by his patron: There are two possibilities: either (1) “my kingdom is not of the world” Tolstoy, or syndicalism thought to its conclusion, which is nothing more than the sentence “the goal means nothing to me, the movement everything” translated in to a revolutionary-ethical personal statement, but one that you too have certainly not thought through to its conclusion. (I shall probably write something about this sometime) or (2) affirmation of culture (that is objective culture), expressing itself in sociological conditions of all technique. . . . In the second case all talk of revolution is farce, any thought of replacing the domination of man over man by any kind of socialist society or ingeniously devised forms of democracy is a utopia. (Quoted in [Levy 1999: 97]) Thus, later, within the context of the Bolshevik Revolution, the failed uprising of the Spartacists in Berlin and the Munich Soviet, Weber asks: how does the rule of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils differ from the rule of the old guard? If these revolutionaries are not to be amateurs, noble intentions were not sufficient, because he who rules by the sword would also perish by the sword, if he was not adept at handling the sword. Thus using one of his favorite analogies, revolution was not a cab one could enter or leave at will, “we must accept it in its entirety or leave it entirely alone” (Weber in Whimster 2004: 260). Thus politics cannot be driven solely by an ethic of conviction. Politics cannot concern itself with theodicy. Anyone who gets involved in politics, which is to say with the means of power and violence, is making a pact with diabolical powers, and that [sic] it does not hold true of his actions that only good can come of good and only evil from evil, but rather that the opposite is often the case. Anyone who fails to see this is indeed a child in political matters. (Weber in Whimster 2004: 264) Nevertheless, Weber was hypnotically attracted to the purest form of the ethic of conviction, and he had to admit that “the genuine ethic of brotherliness is interesting.” Because this purest form of conviction politics is kin to the elixir of charisma, this “radical rejection of the world into a radical anomism” (Weber in Whimster 2004: 230), this form of chiliasm or millenarianism, like its cognate phenomena in the aesthetic and erotic spheres, was the unrefined liquor which, when suitably refined by the ethic of responsibility, resulted in the successful charismatic politician, and this held also for the revolutionary politician. So “anyone wishing to establish absolutist justice on Earth by force needs a following in order to do so, a human ‘apparatus’. He must promise these people the necessary inner and outward prizes – rewards in heaven or on Earth – because the apparatus will not function otherwise” (Weber in Whimster 2004: 265– 266). Followers need spoils (prebends) from their class war, but the revolutionary charismatic politician must balance these grubby quotidian demands with the sustaining of charisma and the charismatic moment during the foundation of the new order, because “he can only keep control of his following as long as a sincere belief in his person and his cause inspires at least some of the group, probably never in this life even a majority” (Weber in Whimster 2004: 266). Here Weber suggests coterie charisma will transmit and maintain the charisma of the leader to more variegated and feckless “masses,” but once the new regime is established “the emotionalism 266

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of the revolution is then followed by a return to traditional everyday existence, the hero of faith disappears, and so, above all, does the faith itself ” (266). In both his earlier commentary on Michels’s first draft of his famous “iron law” or later discussions of the likely succession from the “emotionalism” of the Russian Revolution to a postcharismatic Thermidor, Weber’s historical readings or future predictions are distorted by the extremism of his rhetorical strategy, discussed previously. The reformism of Eduard Bernstein and the revolutionary zeal of the syndicalists were both founded on the concept of living for the moment and the movement, not the goal. The evolutionary scientific “stageism” of positivist Marxism, which Weber lampooned, could also be confronted by a radical reformism, not considered by Weber, which empowered the rank and file through here and now social reforms, which enriched their lives and increased their civic participation without necessarily wanting to see, or awaiting, the ushering in of heaven on Earth. Indeed, Georges Sorel in successive phases of his life admired the reformism of the British labor movement and the dynamism of the first period of French syndicalism, because both forms of radicalism were embedded in civil society and not in the parliamentary debating chamber or a scientistic Marxist teleology. Although Weber adopts Sorel’s endorsement of the myth in politics as a modernized form of religious charismatic movements in which reality is transformed and history can take an unexpected leap, a rebuke of Marxist determinism and an affirmation of “contingency and alterity” (Kalyvas 2008: 75), in the end he misses the other Sorelian message, that the shattering of normality is the charismatic moment when the rank and file can reinscribe civil society with new first premises, with a new common sense. Michels noted and endorsed the attachment of the “masses” to the “socialist gentleman,” like the German leader, Ferdinand Lassalle, which caused Antonio Gramsci to comment in his prison notebooks that this merely indicated an infantile charismatic stage of socialism, before the appearance of the pedagogic Modern Prince party (Levy 2012a: 50–51). But as Henk te Velde has shown, the rule of barnstorming Caesar-gentlemen could also foster democratic deliberation, not blind hero worship. The charismatic experience “had not been tantamount to servile obedience” (2012: 149). It could also serve as “a catalyst for democratic participation” (149). Rather than foreshadowing political religions of later totalitarian movements, this experience gave rise to dozens of mock parliaments in the UK and elsewhere as schools of selfassertion and public recognition of the personal dignity of working-class men and women, “the redemptive side of democracy,” that is, an “ideal world and promise of pure democracy, where people really mattered” (150). This form of redemptive inspiration can also be found in the politics of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Gandhi’s reputation was found in “his unique force of nonviolence,” which transformed a cult of manliness founded on militarism into mass peaceful but militant action, through a movement “built upon truths that are discursively arrived at, and nonviolence is a prerequisite of discourse” (Simeon 2012: 26). Gandhi’s approach was dialogic or Socratic, and unlike the populist spellbinder who adjusts beliefs to keep an audience with her, Gandhi projected a saintly stoicism. In a similar fashion, and inspired by the earlier example of Gandhi, King hastened the end of formal segregation in the American South through calculated mass nonviolent action, but in a Christian key, fostering a charismatic “Beloved Community” of civil rights workers, freedom expressed as an endless meeting, albeit in both cases, Gandhi and King, were adept manipulators of the world’s press and in both these cases the empowerment of the rank and file and of local activists took on a life of their own and at times caused tensions and resentments with the charismatic leader (Polletta 2002). In an interesting study, Andreas Kalyvas returned to the bounded Weberian binominal: the charismatic revolutionary moment followed by the rationalized constitutional aftermath, 267

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in other words, “the politics of spontaneous and unpredictable forms of popular mobilization and informal participatory agitations” in relationship to the democratic legal order (Kalyvas 2008: 12). Interrogating Weber (juxtaposed to Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt), he suggested a concept of noninstitutionalized popular sovereignty or for our purposes, a collective rather than individualistic reading of charisma: the charisma of the community, not the hero or even the coterie supporting the hero, a charisma that is neither merely a limited version of leadership democracy nor the unconstitutional, mythical outburst of the syndicalist general strike. Thus, he suggested that informal assemblies and self-organized new social movements might keep alive the spirit of the evanescent constituent moment; they might infuse the parliamentary form of democracy with a controlled and rejuvenating dosage of radical democracy, communal charisma, without subscribing to a full regime of anarchist direct delegation, which he believed unsustainable (298). Weber’s take on the charismatic constituent moment in regime formation was blinkered by his “realism.” This is apparent in his assessment of the Bolshevik Revolution, when he foretold the end of the emotionalism of revolution (the charismatic moment) and the return to a revised form of bureaucratic capitalism. It is odd that Weber did not recognize Lenin as a charismatic leader, whereas John Reed to Antonio Gramsci pictured him as the charismatic or magnetic leader of a Soviet democracy based on the councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers. It can be argued, using Weber’s own cool realism, that Lenin and Trotsky combined the ethic of conviction with the ethic of responsibility when they endorsed the Brest Litovsk treaty to embed their regime in geopolitical reality, while allowing the peasantry to retain their property, at least provisionally, and later initiating the New Economic Policy, to weaken and divide their long list of external and internal opponents and buy time and space to guarantee the existence of a new order, a non-capitalist command/planned economy, ruled by a historically new elite detached from the aristocrats and capitalists of Czarist Russia (Diggins 1996: 239). Of course Weber was right about the authoritarian consequences of Bolshevik politics, but he seemed blind to the possibility that their regime was a unique form of society, which was no longer following the logic of capitalism internally and preserved reserves of revolutionary enthusiasm in the population later drawn on by Stalin during the era of the forced collectivization of the peasantry and the Five Year Plans of the 1930s (Kotkin 1997; Fitzpatrick 1999).

Charisma and Caesarism Throughout his life, Weber was affected by the legacy of Nietzsche. Weber’s charismatic political leader was his take on the “overman,” the hero of Romanticism, the man of destiny blessed with an inner mission, but without Nietzsche’s absolute dismissal of “the herd” and the process of politics itself: Nietzsche’s “hero was removed and alienated from society (like Nietzsche himself),” whereas Weber socialized the “extraordinary individual” who functioned “within a community” (Potts 209: 112–113). But once Weber employed the charismatic politician as the linchpin in his leader-democracy, he utterly transformed the meaning of charisma that Rudolph Sohm had imparted to him in 1883. In his account of the early Christian church, Sohm argued that all members were bound together by the spiritual gifts of grace, Weber “replaced the communal sensibility emphasised in the Pauline charismata with the focus on the individual leader” (Potts 2009: 119). Thus Weber transformed the meaning to suit his radically different project; he transformed charisma as a collective gift, into a reworking of the traits of the personality of Nietzsche’s “overman.” In short, Weber shifted the meaning of charisma from a “divine grace available for the benefit of the community to innate power residing in extraordinary leaders.” 268

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(Potts 2009: 122). This was a profoundly authoritarian reinterpretation of the Pauline loving community. Thus Weber scoffed at forms of deliberative, delegated, or participatory democracy. So whereas he employed the élan of the syndicalists to mock evolutionary Marxist scientific socialism, he also criticized the syndicalists’ and council communists’ naïve faith in leaderless democracy. The delegates of the workers’ councils were officials, bureaucrats, bound by imperative mandates: “the official is the holder of the mandate of his ruler, which is the voter; whereas the leader holds himself as exclusively responsible for his own behaviour” (Weber in Whimster 2004: 144). Thus Weber’s youthful attraction to Nietzsche’s heroic “overman” reappears in his mature statement, The Vocation of Politics, but it is joined with another constant in his intellectual and emotional biography, the concept of Caesarism. Parliamentary Caesarism was required to replace the bureaucratic ruling class of the defeated Wilhelmine Empire, since only efficient government would resurrect German power, which for Weber meant military power, this was the only route out of the polar night of defeat and humiliation (Levy 1999: 91–92, 103). We have seen how charisma in concept and noun was the key to understanding Weber’s project, but when we dig deeper and especially when we focus on his politics and political sociology, the concept of Caesarism lies at its heart. Weber’s initial youthful attraction to the highly contested concept of Caesarism reappeared in charisma, “a concept that appeared beyond dispute, burnished by the mandate of value-free sociology” (Baehr 2008: 4). For the young Weber, enchanted by Nietzsche’s “overman,” Caesarism meant the rule of the personal genius unfettered by tradition. Whereas Caesarism connoted illegitimacy and oppressiveness, Charisma in sum, presented itself as an attractive alternative . . . because it was not bowed down under the weight of previous controversy; because it allowed elbow room, as Weber saw it, for scientific formulation, and because it was capable of encapsulating the plurality of relationships between leaders and followers that Weber was keen to depict. (Baehr 2008:106) Throughout his career, for Weber, charisma was a more polite and “reasonable” iteration of Caesarism, underpinned by a view of history and society governed by elites of heroic individuals and temporally syncopated through charismatic, historical ruptures.

Conclusion: future directions of research Charisma had been employed to illustrate the hidden transcripts of power found in various iterations in the authoritarian and libertarian Lefts. The Marxist Lefts have been reluctant to embrace a Great Man or Woman theory of history, stressing the historic or “scientific” importance of their chosen doctrine, which announced that its ultimate aim was the collective selfemancipation of humanity, while in the same breath naming an individual to serve as a shorthand or paladin of their current (Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin-Mao-Castro). For the anarchists and syndicalists, the leader or prominent figure (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and Goldman) is present in movements, which proclaim the autonomy of the individual, the provisional and consensual natural of power and agreement, and an opposition to all hierarchies (Stutje 2012: 2–3). Even the so-called anti-organizational Italian anarchists, for example, had their decidedly charismatic stump orator “leader,” Luigi Galleani (Levy 1998: 211–212). Indeed, in response, the newest histories of anarchism have attempted to get away from the “Seven Sages” approach to the study of the movement, seeking out more obscure individuals and groups to cast a new light on well-trodden paths (Jun 2012; Kinna and Evren 2013; Cohn 2014). 269

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However, there is yet another paradox. If we take Weber at his word, how can historians and social scientists employ an ineffable term to explain real events (Stutje 2012: 4)? Thus Weber’s usage is disenchanted and rationalized into a measurable process of charismatization, which employs checklists (superior oratory, badinage, charm, for example) and situational analyses (opportunity structures, social crises, etc.) and thus repurposes Weber’s viscerally personal relationship to charisma for their own mundane social scientific purposes. Anarchists, socialists, and communists understood their forms of politics as a rational response to the irrationality of capitalism and depending, if Marxist or Anarchist, on an associated or autonomous rapacious state. Unlike Weber’s “Caesars,” the leaders or representatives of doctrines were not characterized as modern-day bandit chiefs, redeemer rebels, or class-war beserkers; they were proponents of an alternative secular rational modernity. Thus, in his analysis of Mao’s charisma and the complex evaluation that the Chinese Communist Party assigns to his personality cult, Arlif Dirlik (2012: 122), argued that the CCP accepted Mao’s charisma within the institutionalized triumph of 1949 but has been wary of the personalized and magical Mao Zedong Thought of the Cultural Revolution, which threatened and threatens the continuity of the party. Elsewhere, I have used a situational approach to understand the dynamics of Italian anarchism from the 1860s to the 1920s. I demonstrated how a movement with weak institutional continuity, a minority movement on the Left, employing resonant symbols, a repertoire of action, and geographically specific and entrenched political cultures could snap back into action and have notable effects on mass mobilization before 1922 (Levy 1989). In this case, the exiled leader, Errico Malatesta, was signally important and was met with feverish acclaim in 1919, when he was hailed as the Lenin of Italy, the new Spartacus or the anarchist Garibaldi. So situationally, the moment was charismatic and he carried with him a constructed charisma, but he shunned charisma and sought rational discussion, detested worship of his person and pressed for solid organization, not flash successes, or perhaps, a version of the charisma of Weber’s jours in Heidelberg, making one follower at a time within the parameters of pedagogical, friendship, and family circles (Levy 1998, 2012b). This was unlike the former socialist firebrand Mussolini, as Emilio Gentile has shown using the concept of charisma, who had polished his image as the New Man, whose curriculum vitae carried with it the self-fashioned portable skills of the Caesar, advertising techniques, and a mixing and melding of elitist sociology, Nietzsche/Stirner, populist nationalism and Marxism. But Mussolini’s success was not solely reliant upon his charisma, it was only secured through a series of unpredictable situations which gave him pride of place in the crowded nationalist Right and later allowed his dictatorship to be fashioned in tension between the charisma of Mussolinianism and the presence of a bureaucratic Fascist Party, which had its own prerogatives, its “little Mussolinis” and a separate and at times competitive institutional charisma. Therefore in Gentile’s account of Mussolini, we see a carefully weighing of the construction of charisma with political nous and opportunism (Gentile 2007). More recently several historians have studied Pietro Gori, Malatesta’s friend and fellow anarchist leader (lawyer, sociologist, criminologist, playwright, poet, singer, and international vagabond). They demonstrated how Gori employed melodrama (courtroom speeches), residues of Christian martyrology (poetical images), and folklore (songs) to engage the “masses” in emotional encounters to create a following which was not dependent on organizational forms of anarchism and can be understood in reference to Weber’s discussion of erotic rapture, frenzy, and the original meaning of charisma, and is reinforced by the burgeoning field of the history of emotions (Manfredi 2017a, 2017b, 2018; Minuto 2017). With these remarks in mind, we can jump forward to the new anarchism and new/newest social movements of the post-1945 period, which have seen sociologists and historians employ 270

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charisma as a heuristic tool, and which brings us full circle to Rudolph Sohm’s theologically attuned libertarian and communal interpretation of charisma. Anarchism after 1945 was a movement of students, artists, and intellectuals and no longer a mass movement of peasants, workers, and artisans. In the eras of the Cold War welfare/warfare state and the post-Cold War cyber-politics of alternative globalization and anti-­financialization occupy-square encounters, several iterations of anarchism and anarchistic ­currents thrived in close contact with the New and the Newest Social Movements (the American Civil Rights Movement, the New Left, Second Wave Feminism, Anti-Nukes, AIDS activists, the Global Justice Movement and Occupy-Squares Movements). Central themes of these movements were direct action, participatory, and deliberative democracy and decentralization (Polletta 2002; Maeckelbergh 2011; Graeber 2013; Williams 2018; Bamyeh 2019; Dupuis-Déri 2019; Galián 2019; Sitrin 2019). These movements suffered obstacles and contradictions over questions of charismatic leadership and associated forms of coterie, friendship, and clique cadre. Thus the feminist critique of the “tyranny of structurelessness” revolved around the seemingly participatory grassroots movements dominated by self-appointed “charismatic” talkative, rude, and manipulative men. Women’s consciousness-raising groups fostered equalliberty, self-worth, self-confidence, and discovery of one’s voice. Decades later, the Occupy/ Square movements, were not about power but internal democracy, using the choreography of democratic deliberation (hand signals, etc.), general assemblies, and “spokes” to mitigate charismatic leadership and avoid the hidden agendas of sexist, racist, and classist privilege of the “magnetic” participant. Here there have been extensive ethnographies which show that effectiveness and transparency are not easily reconciled, and it is difficult to avoid the tyranny of structurelessness. The issue of charisma and leadership was met head on by an anarchist sociologist in the 1990s and through a more recent historical analysis of the anarchist-influenced Catholic Worker Movement. In the first case, Harold Ehrlich suggested that leadership should be replaced by “followership,” namely, the rotation of leadership aligned to functional need and the interchange of skills through a form of consensual temporary close-knit group, reminiscent of the feminist conscious-raising groups of the 1970s or even the people’s parliaments of the late 19th century (Ehrlich 1996). The Catholic Worker Movement, which traces its origins back to the 1930s and 1940s, was heavily influenced by Personalism, a radical Catholic doctrine, emphasizing the uniqueness of each person, made in the image of God (Pauli 2017). The Movement functioned through democratic and consensual methods and the communal living of the Houses of Hospitality, a forerunner to the Newest Social Movements. Nevertheless, in reaction to the hidden dictatorship of its charismatic founder, Dorothy Day, and anticipating Ehrlich’s “followership,” the membership adopted the concept of “exemplarity” to solve the tyranny of the charismatic founder, which stated that Jesus Christ was not a supernatural being, but the greatest person who ever lived, and it was possible to follow in his eschewal of political power and live close to and serve the people. In contrast to Weber’s exceptional genius who had to be obeyed, the aura of the exceptional person, and the leadership of the articulate orator, could be shared in utter reversal of the German sociologist’s imperative order: Exemplarity presumes, in other words, that exceptional people do not have a monopoly of the qualities they exemplify, and that the proper response to exemplary behaviour is not genuflection and obedience, but an effort to discover and develop similar qualities in oneself. (Pauli 2017: 36) 271

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References Baehr, P. 2008. Caersarism, Charisma and Fate: Historical Sources and Modern Resonances in the Work of Max Weber. London: Routledge. Bamyeh, M. 2019. “The Arab Uprisings and the Question of an Anarchist Sociology.” In: Levy, C. and Newman, S., eds. The Anarchist Imagination: Anarchism Encounters the Humanities and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Cohn, J. 2014. Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture 1848–2011. Oakland: AK Press. Derman, J. 2012. Max Weber in Politics and Social Thought: From Charisma to Canonization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Diggins, J. P. 1996. Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy. New York: Basic Books. Dirlik, A. 2012. “Mao Zedong: Charismatic Leadership and the Contradictions of Socialist Revolution.” In: Stutje, J. W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements: The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. Dupuis-Déri, F. 2019. “From the Zapatistas to Seattle: The ‘New Anarchists’.” In: Levy. C. and Adams, M. S., eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Ehrlich, H. J. 1996. “Anarchism and Formal Organization.” In: Ehrlich, H. J., ed. Reinventing Anarchy, Again. Edinburgh: AK Press. Farris, S. R. 2014. Max Weber’s Theory of Personality. Individuation, Politics, and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Fitzpatrick, S. 1999. Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galián, L. 2019. “Squares, Occupy Movements and the Arab Revolutions.” In: Levy, C. and Adams, M. S., eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Gentile, E. 2007. “Mussolini as the Prototypical Charismatic Dictator.” In: Pinto, A. C., Eastwell, R. and Larsen, S. U., eds. Charisma and Fascism in Interwar Europe. London: Routledge. Ghosh, P. 2014. Max Weber and the Protestant Ethics: Twin Histories. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graeber, D. 2013. The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. London: Allen Lane. Jun, N. 2012. Anarchism and Political Modernity. New York: Continuum. Kalyvas, A. 2008. Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kinna, R. and Evren, S., eds. 2013. Blasting the Canon: Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. Brooklyn: Punctum Books. Kotkin, Stephen. 1997. Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levy, C. 1989. “Italian Anarchism, 1870–1926.” In: Goodway, D., ed. For Anarchism. History, Theory, and Practice. London: Routledge. Levy, C. 1998. “Charisma and Social Movements: Errico Malatesta and Italian Anarchism.” Modern Italy. 3 (2), pp. 205–217. Levy, C. 1999. “Max Weber, Anarchism and Libertarian Culture: Personality and Power Politics.” In: Whimster, S., ed. Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Levy, C. 2012a. “Gramsci’s Cultural and Political Sources: Anarchism in the Prison Writings.” Journal of Romance Studies. 12 (3), pp. 44–62. Levy, C. 2012b. “Errico Malatesta and Charismatic Leadership.” In: Stutje, J. W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements. The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. Maeckelbergh, M. 2011. “The Road to Democracy: The Political Legacy of 1968.” International Review of Social History. 56 (2), pp. 301–332. Manfredi. M. 2017a. “Italian Anarchism and Popular Culture: History of a Close Relationship.” In: Favretto, I. and Itçaina, X., eds. Protest, Popular Culture and Tradition in Modern and Contemporary Western Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Manfredi, M. 2017b, Emozioni, cultura popolare e transnazionalismo. Le origini della cultura anarchica in Italia (1890–1914). Milan: Le Monnier.

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Manfredi, M. 2018. ““Un anarchiste comédien”. Pietro Gori, un canone per il movimento anarchico italiano”. In: Manfredi, M. and Minuto, E, La political dei sentimenti. Linguaggi, spazi e canali della politicizzazione nell’Italia del lungo Ottocento. Viella: Rome. Minuto, E. 2017. “Pietro Gori’s Anarchism: Politics and Spectacle (1895–1900).” International Review of Social History. 62(3), pp. 425–450. Mommsen, W. J. 1987. “Robert Michels and Max Weber: Moral Conviction Versus the Politics of Responsibility.” In: Mommsen, W. J. and Osterhammel, J., eds. Max Weber and His Contemporaries. London: Allen & Unwin. Pauli, B. J. 2017. “The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, and Exemplary Anarchism.” In: Christoyannopoulos, A. and Adams, M. S., eds. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. Pinto, A. C., Eatwell, R. and Larsen, S. U., eds. 2007. Charisma and Fascism in Interwar Europe. Abingdon: Routledge. Polletta, F. 2002. Freedom is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Potts, J. 2009. A History of Charisma. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Radkau, J. 2009. Max Weber. A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press. Simeon, D. 2012. “A New Kind Force: Examining Charisma in the Light of Gandhi’s Moral Authority.” In: Stutje, J. W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements. The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. Sitrin. M. 2019. “Anarchism and the Newest Social Movements.” In: Levy, C. and Adams, M. S., eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Stutje, J. W. 2012. “Introduction: Historiographical and Theoretical Aspects of Weber’s Concept of Charismatic Leadership”. In Stutje, J. W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements. The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. te Velde, H. 2012. “Charismatic Leaders, Political Religion and Social Movements: Western Europe at the End of the Nineteenth Century.” In: Stutje, J. W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements: The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Roth, G. and Wittich, C., eds. Berkeley: University of California Press. Welskopp, T. 2012. “Incendiary Personalities: Uncommon Comments on Charisma and Social Movements.” In: Stutje, W., ed. Charismatic Leadership and Social Movements: The Revolutionary Power of Ordinary Men and Women. New York: Berghahn Books. Whimster, S. 2004. The Essential Weber. London: Routledge. Williams, D. M. 2018. “Contemporary Anarchist and Anarchistic Movements.” Sociology Compass. 12 (1), pp. 1–17.

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Section V

Extremism

23 Apocalyptic groups and charisma of the cadre Rebecca Moore

Introduction It is practically a truism that charismatic authority exists in the relationship between leaders and followers. While some scholars might view charisma primarily as a quality possessed by an individual (Weber 1947; Oakes 1997), most consider it a product of interactions that occur within a group (Couch 1989; Wallis 1993; Dawson 2006; Bromley 2016). Indeed, the charismatic leader may emerge from the group (Welskopp 2012), may be constructed by group members (Meindl 1995), or may actually be the group itself (Zablocki 1990). Whatever the case, it is the followers, rather than outsiders, who recognize and appreciate the leader’s charismatic gifts (Barker 1993). More importantly, it is the devotees who submit to the authority of the charismatic leader, granting that individual the ability to make crucial decisions about their lives. With a few exceptions, the role that followers play in constructing charisma has generally escaped notice (see, however, the essays by Roger Eatwell and Aï Ito, Christine Roland, Jennifer Harrison, and Michelle Bligh in this volume). The follower-centric approach (Meindl 1995) ameliorates this deficiency by shifting the focus from leaders to followers. In addition, analyses of the role played by the inner circle of disciples that surrounds the leader also highlight the significance of followers in the charismatic dynamic. This leadership cadre may be comprised of individuals with blood ties to the leader (Weber 1968); it may be generated by the earliest disciples of the leader, the “charter members” of the group (Couch 1989); it may be delegated by the leader to trusted followers on the basis of loyalty and demonstrated commitment (Johnson 1979); or it may simply be formed of sycophants, or “yes-persons,” who reinforce the leader’s sense of self-importance (Bromley 2004). What seems clear is that membership in the inner circle comes from the ability to relate to the leader rather than from any organizational skills (Wallis 1982). By inflating the leader’s status, members of the inner circle increase their own positions of authority within the group. They are the ones who reveal the extraordinary powers of the leader and initiate newcomers into the cult of personality (Barker 1993). “They are the true engine of charisma, magnifying and sustaining the leader’s authority long after the leader is unable to maintain the intense personal contact that first created it” (Dawson 2011:127). This inner circle extends its influence outward to the membership base, encouraging it to support the leader and 277

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the movement with financial gifts, labor, and devotion. In other words, a type of bureaucracy materializes – not as well-organized as Weber might have envisioned, but a structure nonetheless that maintains the charisma. Although Weber claimed that charisma rejects all economic activity and is antagonistic to rational-legal processes, the reality is that for charismatic movements to survive, they must develop structures. Even Weber admitted as much, observing that charismatic authority is not simply an amorphous condition: it indicates rather a definite social structure with a staff and an apparatus of services and material means that is adapted to the mission of the leader. (Weber 1968:1119) Weber called this staff a “charismatic aristocracy.” Others identify this cohort as second-order leadership (Oakes 1997), a spiritual hierarchy (Hall 1987) and, more broadly, lieutenants, or, as I have been calling it, the leadership cadre. This group is distinct from the rank and file, the so-called foot soldiers, in the movement, whose access to the leader is limited and whose role is primarily to believe and obey rather than to inspire and direct. Nowhere is the value of the leadership cadre as apparent as it is in apocalyptic groups. Apocalypticism, which has its roots in early Jewish and Christian theology, has come to signify any belief in the devastating end of the world as we know it. It is synonymous with the concept of catastrophic millennialism, a conviction that the old, corrupt, and evil world in which humans live will be destroyed in an imminent and violent transition to a new and improved world – either on earth or in a supernatural, heavenly realm (Wessinger 2011:718). Apocalypticism is marked by a number of key characteristics. Individuals must feel that they are in a time of crisis (Bromley 1997), either real (such as famine or war) or imagined (such as immigrant invasions). A charismatic orator convincingly articulates discontent in a way that captures the widespread sense of doom (Couch 1989). This rhetoric includes narratives of conspiracies that explain the origins of the present crisis (O’Leary 1994; Barkun 2013). Given the wickedness planned and perpetrated by the conspirators, a radically dualistic polarity of good against evil – us-versus-them – arises (Robbins and Palmer 1997). The world is beyond human redemption, and only divine intervention can purify it of the stain of sin. Therefore, a terrible judgment is imminent and the prophet is the reporter announcing this fact. Indeed, the finale is already scripted, known to God and communicated to the masses by the prophet. But only a few heed the warning. This elect group believes that its members may be able to survive, due to God’s grace and their own foresight. Aware that they are living in the Endtimes, they have cleansed their hearts and minds in preparation for the inevitable disaster. Apocalyptic movements have arisen throughout the centuries. Most have ultimately imploded, but a few have succeeded. Christianity, for example, began in the expectation of the return of Jesus the Messiah, who would wield a sword to fight Satan and his legions. Its initial apocalyptic outlook was moderated, however, by an institutionalized church that recognized that apocalyptic expectations led to instability and chaos. The apocalypse was spiritualized into an afterlife in which rewards and punishments would be accorded in due time. At certain historical moments, however, such as the European Middle Ages or in the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States, apocalyptic movements within Christianity erupted, either peacefully or violently. The expectation, or even hope, for global destruction that accompanies apocalypticism tends to make Endtime movements highly combustible. While not all groups that hold apocalyptic beliefs turn to violence, all religious groups that have turned to violence have held such beliefs (Dawson 1998). The Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, for example, fully believed that an 278

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actual war would be waged on earth between the forces of good and evil. Yet even the Branch Davidians did not initiate the violence that consumed their community, but rather reacted to external provocation. No apocalyptic group or movement has lasted for long without the presence of a leadership cadre to organize life after the expected end – whether it be the first-century Jewish community at Qumran or the 21st century Islamic State. Even the Jesus movement had a “common purse” along with wealthy donors who financed the charismatic preaching mission (John 12:6; Luke 8:1–3, 23:49). The early church had a communal welfare fund in which its members held “all things in common” and distributed to anyone in their fellowship who was needy (Acts 2:44–45, 4:34–35). Clearly the charisma of Jesus and the early apostles was routinized into the institution  – and bureaucracy  – of the church, and this occurred in other apocalyptic movements inaugurated by charismatic figures. But even before the process of routinization begins, a small cohort of those intimate with the leader turns its attention to the practical matters of mundane operations in order to promote the supramundane message. Examples from three contemporary apocalyptic movements vividly demonstrate the charisma of the cadre. They are: Peoples Temple, which ended in the mass murders and suicides of Jonestown in 1978; Aum Shinrikyo, whose members staged several sarin gas attacks in Japan, the most deadly of which occurred in Tokyo in 1995; and the Church Universal and Triumphant, which foundered in the wake of failed prophecies of nuclear holocaust in the 1990s. The apocalyptic visions of Jim Jones (1931–1978), Asahara Shoko (1955–2018), and Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939–2009) could not have been realized without the collaboration of and, further, design and implementation by the leadership cadre.

Peoples Temple On November 18, 1978, a small group of young men assassinated a US congressman and killed four others at a remote airstrip in the South American country of Guyana. They returned to their community six miles away, where they found that a ritual of mass murder and suicide had begun under the direction of their leader, Jim Jones. Although the residents of Jonestown had rehearsed the ritual on at least a half dozen occasions (Moore 2018), and had even expressed a willingness to die rather than return to the United States, some challenged the importunities of their leader. It was the medical staff that had mixed the cyanide-laced fruit punch and were administering it to children and distributing it in cups to adults. And it was the security team of about two dozen armed young adults who kept the resisters in line. The deaths of more than 900 men, women, and children in Jonestown required advance planning, meticulous organization, and long-term development. This work fell to the leadership cadre. While the members of Peoples Temple undoubtedly saw themselves as part of a movement committed to social justice and racial equality, their leader had a larger vision of apocalyptic catastrophe. Jim Jones repeatedly expressed the conviction that nuclear war was imminent and that the United States had already succumbed to fascism. He reported on the creation of concentration camps for black Africans in Rhodesia, and warned of the imposition of the same in America, even citing the spurious King Alfred Plan in support of that claim (King Alfred Plan 2014). Positing a life-and-death struggle between his community and his opponents, Jones frequently reminded his followers of the conspiracies mounted against them by ex-members, relatives of current members, the media, and US government agencies, such as the CIA and FBI. The fact that some of the conspiracies actually existed – like that organized by a former member of Jones’ inner circle – enhanced the credibility of the prophet. The conflict between Peoples Temple, representing good, and the outside world, representing evil, apparently justified 279

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the sometimes cruel punishments meted out to internal dissidents and the rancor, and finally violence, directed at external enemies. Peoples Temple had grown from a small, nondenominational church in Indiana in the 1950s and 1960s to a large congregation affiliated with the Disciples of Christ in California in the 1970s, before 1,000 members moved in 1977 to an agricultural project it had developed in Guyana called Jonestown. The small, self-sustaining church was once supported primarily by income generated in the operation of nursing homes in Indianapolis, IN, under the administration of Jones’s wife, Marceline (1927–1978). It became a multimillion-dollar operation on the basis of donations, income-earning projects (among them, more nursing homes and care facilities), and volunteer labor in northern and southern California. Communal housing created cost-savings in shelter, food, childcare, and supervision for elderly or disabled adults, freeing members to give more money and time to the larger institution. And who ran this institution? “The work of the Temple was conducted by a loose but rationally organized bureaucracy directed by Jones’s administrative staff – the leadership, an elite of about thirty people” (Hall 1987:96). Predominantly white and female, the leadership, also known as “staff,” directed all aspects of the Temple’s financial, administrative, political, social, and welfare activities when the group was based in California. As Hall notes (1987:99), this involved “everything from making choir robes and security uniforms and cooking the afterservice communal meal to arranging vacation tours, processing income tax and Social Security forms, and buying and selling real estate.” The few formal positions that existed, such as Temple attorneys or assisting ministers, were assigned to men. It is clear, however, that Jones’s closest advisors and lieutenants in San Francisco belonged to his family, broadly defined  – his wife Marceline, his mistresses, Carolyn Layton and Maria Katsaris, his presumptive successor, Tim Stoen (who later defected), and a few other trusted associates. After the move to Jonestown, the circle contracted to an even smaller number of individuals. Of the many examples of the Temple’s bureaucratic acumen, two stand out: that of planning the mass emigration from the United States to Guyana, and that of planning and executing the mass deaths. Jim Jones had virtually nothing to do with the logistics of moving to Guyana: staff negotiated the lease with the government of Guyana; young pioneers from the San Francisco Temple cleared hundreds of acres of jungle for the project; a slightly larger group of experienced adults built infrastructure – roads, paths, electrification, sanitation, housing, schools, production shops, and more. Enormous paperwork was required to physically relocate the general membership from one country to the next. This included obtaining external documents such as birth certificates, passports, airline tickets, and shipping invoices for belongings, along with developing internal checklists such as “Instructions for Packing to Go Over,” “Skills Inventory,” “Promised Land Work Preference,” and more (Shearer 2018). Those in Jones’s inner circle assigned roles and responsibilities to others on the margins, or outside, of the circle to complete these tasks. While the entire Jonestown community participated in suicide rehearsals and emergency defense drills, only a handful of individuals were involved in actually developing plans for a “last stand.” (In the spirit of full disclosure, I acknowledge that my sisters, Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore, were members of this innermost circle and part of the planning process). Annie Moore wrote a memo that discussed various ways in which a minority of individuals might kill the majority of residents (Moore 1978). Larry Schacht, the community’s medical doctor, described the advantages of using cyanide to kill people, after they had first been given tranquilizers. He wanted to test the effects on a few of the commune’s pigs (Schacht 1978). Carolyn Layton summed up the deliberations best when she wrote that “Perhaps planning is the answer to all this – maybe there is a practical way all this can be arranged” (Layton 1978). And so it was 280

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arranged, from acquiring cyanide and syringes, to ritualizing the process through repetition, to finding the moment to put the plan in motion. Hall et  al. outline the characteristics of two ideal types of apocalyptic sects, locating the apocalypse either in the present on earth, or in the near future, in another realm. The pre-apocalyptic “warring sect” in effect enacts the Apocalypse by pursuing a struggle in strategic time against “the forces of evil.” On the other hand, the post-apocalyptic “other-worldly” sect establishes the putatively timeless tableau of a “heaven-on-earth” beyond the Apocalypse deemed underway in the secular world they presume to have left behind. (Hall et al. 2000:9) Peoples Temple manifested aspects of both types of apocalypticism, vacillating “between a preapocalyptic ethic of confrontation and a postapocalyptic ethos of sanctuary” (Hall 1987:298). Ultimately, Jones opted for otherworldly salvation in the form of mass murder and suicide; during the final hours, Jim McElvane, a member of the leadership cadre, tried to reassure those who were dying that everyone would see each other on the other side of death (Audiotape Q 042 1978). And so, Jim Jones has entered history as a monster, although it was a charismatic and energetic leadership cadre that effected the monstrous deed.

Aum Shinrikyo On March 20, 1995, ten high-ranking leaders of the religious group Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on three subway lines that converged at the Kasumigaseki subway station in the heart of the Japanese government district. The attack killed 13 people and injured at least 6,000 others. But this was neither the ending nor the beginning of the killing spree embarked upon by members of the Japanese new religion. An attempt was made on the life of the Tokyo chief of police ten days after the subway assault, and more gas attacks occurred or were barely prevented (Hall et al. 2000). Members had already released sarin gas in the city of Matsumoto in 1994, killing seven and injuring 200 in that incident. In 1989, high-ranking Aum leaders murdered a vocal opponent, Sakamoto Tsutsumi, along with his wife and child. These statistics do not include some 33 “accidental” deaths and murders that occurred among the members themselves, nor the 21 Aum followers still listed as missing. While the blind leader of Aum Shinrikyo, Asahara Shoko, inspired his devotees to kill their enemies in order to karmically save them, it was the leadership cadre that efficiently developed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and then used them. Aum Shinrikyo (Religion, or Teaching, of the Supreme Truth) began as a small group of yoga practitioners under the guidance of Matsumoto Chizuo. After a life-changing trip to India, Matsumoto changed his name to Asahara Shoko in 1987 because it was written in Chinese characters auguring good luck (Repp 2014). Somewhat paradoxically, Aum Shinrikyo expanded its membership as it imposed ever more demanding austerities. The group maintained apocalyptic beliefs almost from the very beginning. As early as 1988, Asahara predicted that the battle of Armageddon would occur by the end of the century, but this disaster could be averted if humanity abandoned its hedonistic ways and adopted the path of renunciation offered by Aum Shinrikyo. The group’s failure to recruit the 30,000 new renunciates (shukkesa) needed to forestall the apocalypse prompted Asahara and 25 followers to run for public office in the 1990 parliamentary elections. A crushing defeat, coupled with intense media ridicule, hardened Aum’s apocalyptic stance. Shortly after the electoral debacle, a conference held on Ishigakijima 281

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Island in the Okinawa Prefecture set the stage for the development of WMDs. The communal sites that had once housed hundreds of shukkesa were turned into bomb shelters, and 30 major buildings were constructed, some of which served as the factories for making illicit drugs and chemical and biological weapons (Hall et al. 2000). Rather than preparing for the apocalypse, Aum Shinrikyo was planning to instigate it in order to purify the world of evil. Only the elect, those refined in the harsh practices of renunciation, would, and should, survive. This dualistic worldview enabled adherents to pursue their deadly activities as religious vocations. Those who they believed were conspiring against the group – individuals concerned about their relatives who were part of Aum Shinrikyo; news reporters; the governments of the United States and of Japan – were justifiable targets. Toward that end, Aum members released botulism spores in Tokyo as punishment for their party’s losses in the 1990 elections; in 1991 Aum scientists traveled to Congo in an effort to acquire the Ebola virus; and in 1993 members made more attempts to release botulism in Tokyo. In addition, Aum Shinrikyo had established a profitable network of dummy corporations for buying land, laboratory equipment, chemicals, and other items needed in the creation of WMDs. It was the inner circle that ran the businesses and carried out the most violent acts – executing dissidents, burying the bodies of “accident” victims, and murdering opponents. The vast majority of the 10,000 devotees in Japan were unaware of the group’s criminal activities. In the summer of 1994, Asahara and his lieutenants established a virtual “state within a state,” mimicking the structure of the Japanese government. It consisted of 22 departments and agencies, with ministries for construction, health and welfare, medical healing, home affairs, public relations, and the largest, the Ministry of Science and Technology, which had 300 members assigned to it. Unlike traditional Japanese society, in which the oldest people rule in a gerontocracy, the ministries of Aum were run by a cohort of young men and women disenchanted with the rampant materialism they experienced in Japanese society (Repp 2014). Asahara headed the new government hierarchy as “sacred emperor.” Like Jim Jones, however, he trusted his family members the most: his 16-year-old daughter was in charge of the communications ministry, and his wife, Tomoko – whom he repeatedly abused with severe austerities – was “an active and central participant in her husband’s religious enterprises” (Hall et al. 2000:85). She was also a witness to the murder of one of Aum’s opponents (Reader 1996). Members in the leadership cadre were highly educated, with backgrounds in science and technology. Murai Hideo, Minister of Science and Technology and one of the subway attack perpetrators, was in charge of the creation of WMDs. As Minister of Construction, Hayakawa Kioyhide frequently traveled to Russia in order to acquire the means for developing WMDs and obtained a Russian helicopter in the process. He was directly involved in a number of murders that occurred within the group. Hayashi Ikuo, another subway attacker, was a cardiac surgeon and became Minister of Healing. “He was involved in every kind of medical abuse, including extensive druggings of Aum members and designated enemies that sometimes resulted in deaths” (Lifton 1999:29). Another doctor, Nakagawa Tomomasa, became Asahara’s personal physician and was part of a select “murder team” in the group. At the last minute he helped produce a batch of sarin for the Tokyo gassing. Ishii Hisako, Asahara’s first renunciate, served as the Minister of Finance, helping Aum amass millions of dollars through both legal and illegal means (Lifton 1999:28–31). Hayakawa and Nakagawa were convicted of various murders and executed by hanging in July 2018, along with Asahara and ten others. Murai was stabbed a month after the gas attack, probably on the orders of Asahara; Hayashi was sentenced to life imprisonment; Ishii was released from prison in 2000 after completing her sentence. Clearly Aum Shinrikyo falls within Hall’s category of pre-apocalyptic warring sects. Asahara received a vision in 1988 that he was to build the Buddhist utopian kingdom of Shambhala: 282

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this prompted construction of communal “Lotus Villages” throughout Japan. “But as time went on, reaching Shambhala became an opportunity for the few rather than the many” (Hall et al. 2000:108). Eventually, Shambhala could be reached only after a climactic apocalyptic struggle, in which all perceived opponents deserved elimination in a fight to the death. “Isolated within isolation, the inner circle of Aum did not seek just to defend the sect during the Apocalypse; it prepared an arsenal of mass destruction that could be used to precipitate the public disaster that would be the Apocalypse” (Hall et al. 2000:112).

Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) On March 14, 1990, hundreds of members of the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) gathered in an immense underground bomb shelter they had constructed in the Paradise Valley of Montana, north of Yellowstone Park. Hundreds more fled to individual, family, and communal shelters built nearby. Heeding the prophecy of their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, they awaited a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union the next day. But when the Ides of March came and went without the anticipated disaster, both leader and followers had to face the consequences of the failed prophecy. An earlier prediction of catastrophe for October 2, 1989 had come and gone, and was rationalized as being delayed due to the intervention of one of the Ascended Masters whom the group revered. Unlike Peoples Temple and Aum Shinrikyo, the Church Universal and Triumphant did not descend into violence, but instead collapsed in disenchantment over the delay of the apocalypse. Nevertheless, a similar type of leadership cadre developed and implemented elaborate plans to survive and reconstruct civilization once the (radioactive) dust settled after the expected nuclear war. The group – which began as the Summit Lighthouse in 1958 under founder Mark Prophet (1918–1973) – promoted a variety of self-help techniques that reflected a number of New Age practices. At certain points in its history, however, it emphasized apocalyptic themes, especially as Cold War anxieties heightened in the 1980s. When Mark Prophet died in 1973, his widow and successor, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, assumed leadership and changed the name to Church Universal and Triumphant. The new Messenger, as Elizabeth was called, elevated the threat of Soviet communism and identified a host of evildoers arrayed against the world, including Satan, international powerbrokers, and extraterrestrials. A survivalist mentality existed in the church, which moved from Washington, DC to Colorado Springs, CO, under the leadership of Mark Prophet, and then to Malibu, CA, and Gardiner, MT, under the guidance of his widow. In the wake of an unsuccessful lawsuit, the church permanently relocated to its 12,000-acre ranch in Montana by 1986. Responding to a vision of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, coupled with messages she purportedly received from the Ascended Masters, Elizabeth Clare Prophet actively encouraged the construction of bomb shelters that same year to preserve the “Lightbearers” of CUT from the coming apocalypse. The leadership cadre took up the challenge of preparing for survival, if not war. More than 600 individuals lived on the ranch as “staff,” while 400 lived in the nearby communal settlement they called Glastonbury (Whitsel 2003). An inner circle received privileged communications from Ascended Masters directly through the Messenger, unlike the general rank and file. Those who were unmarried also committed to a life of renunciation and celibacy. This inner circle of 30 or 40 people directed about 200 workers in the design and construction of the $20 million shelter to house the elect (Prophet 2019). Unlike the majority of members, the leadership cadre knew that March 15 was set as a definite day of reckoning. Nevertheless, thousands of other CUT members poured into Montana in early 1990, gathered by the call of the Messenger for what was ostensibly to be a prayer vigil. 283

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Additional prophecies predicted a seven-year period of uncertainty. This meant acquiring seven years’ worth of food, fuel, diapers, cosmetics, medications, farm implements, seed, and everything else the community might need, as well as creating storage space for the provisions (Prophet 2009). The logistics of providing air, water, sanitation, and more for the underground bunkers required massive engineering. On top of this was a sense of urgency: the shelters were not ready by the October 2 1989 deadline, but thanks to tireless work by all staff, they were nearing completion by March (Prophet 2019). Who comprised the leadership cadre in CUT? Elizabeth Clare Prophet first turned to her family – her children and fourth husband Edward Francis – for advice and support. She secretly appointed her daughter Erin to be co-Messenger; and, in fact, Erin was the one who set the actual date of March 15 and warned of the seven-year period of crisis. She also assisted in rationalizing and spiritualizing the prophecies through a prediction of 12 years of continued karmic difficulties (Prophet 2009). Surrounded by secretaries and guards who protected her from the majority of followers, the Messenger spent much of her time isolated from all but the leadership cadre. She created a Board of Directors of family and compliant staff members who, for the most part, deferred to her orders. The highest level of membership was that of staff, with communicants, keepers of the flame, and subscribers to Pearls of Wisdom following in descending order. Further gradations within the staff existed, comprising community members, volunteers, probationary, and permanent staff in ascending order. At the permanent level, members took a vow of poverty, relinquishing all assets and receiving $150 per month, along with room and board. About 25 percent of staff were permanent. During the time of construction – called the shelter cycle – “It [was] a testimony to their determination, discipline, and fey sense of self-sacrifice that the staff were able to cope with these living conditions,” writes Erin Prophet. “But most of them carried on with more enthusiasm by the day, bolstered by a sense of urgency about the prophecies” (Prophet 2009:125). The majority of staff members college educated. With little direction from the Messenger herself, they were the ones who ran the entire operation: administration, fundraising and finance, communications, and publicity. The scientists and engineers who were part of the group oversaw design and construction, not only of the shelter, but of the entire infrastructure of the ranch in Montana. Everyone in the group, from top to bottom, was mobilized for the shelter construction. They had even installed seatbelts in each shelter bed, preparing for earthquakes, explosions, and other teeth-jarring eventualities. While Peoples Temple and Aum Shinrikyo would qualify as Hall’s pre-apocalyptic warring sects, CUT functioned as a postapocalyptic otherworldly sect (Hall et al. 2000). CUT primarily took a defensive posture of self-preservation. Its members would survive the apocalypse, either on earth or in heaven. There was a moment in the church’s history, however, when it seemed to adopt the stance of a warring sect. That was when Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s husband Edward Francis and another high-ranking individual, Vernon Hamilton, attempted to buy militarystyle weapons in preparation for defending their community after the apocalypse. A number of members had already purchased assault rifles in order to guard the property from irate neighbors. (At one point, Montana state senator Bob Raney sought state intervention to protect the group itself from possible outside attacks). A  further step toward warring sect status was the Messenger’s revised prophecy for March 26, 1990, in which she urged staff to ask God to bring on war (Prophet 2009). But the weapons that staff used to call down judgment on the sinful world were spiritual, not material. Thus, CUT’s identification as an otherworldly sect seems most appropriate, since disaster was forestalled into an unspecified future. This is exactly what happened to the Church Universal and Triumphant. Although it lost up to half of its worldwide membership, other components of the church’s theology – education and self-realization, for 284

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example – returned to the forefront. The church continues today, in a reduced capacity, and without a charismatic leader.

Conclusion and future research This brief snapshot of three apocalyptic groups demonstrates the charisma of the cadre. The leadership group implements and enacts the leader’s vision, bringing along followers to share in it. If it is a truism that charisma is the product of a relationship between leaders and followers, it is also a truism that charisma primarily exists via the mediation of a leadership cadre that activates and instructs followers in the leaders’ extraordinary abilities. As Barker puts it, followers go through a process of “charismatization,” in which they learn to recognize and accept the authority of the leader (Barker 1993). It is other followers, and of course the lieutenants, who are the principal means of this instruction. The leaders’ charisma therefore exists in the cadre, and the cadre’s charisma exists in the leader. But of the two parties, the charisma of the cadre is more powerful and more deadly. Given the ideology of apocalypticism, Weber’s projected routinization of charisma becomes moot. A new world order is just around the corner, awaiting inauguration once the old world passes away. Although the group hopes to maintain the institutions it has constructed, that may not be entirely possible. In light of divine intervention, the leader is no longer indispensable. But a leadership cadre will endure. As Weber noted, even if officials at the top change, the bureaucracy continues to exist, “because it is to the vital interest of everyone concerned” (Weber 1968:989). The nascent bureaucracies in apocalyptic groups may well persist, given the power of the charisma of the cadre, which seems to take on a life of its own. Photographs of the Jonestown community in Guyana, the weapons factories in Japan, and the underground shelters in Montana graphically demonstrate what apocalyptic groups are capable of building under the guidance of the leadership cadre. With the advent of social media, however, charisma of the cadre may be waning. Further research is needed to evaluate the development of “lone wolf ” terrorism, which needs neither charisma nor organizational support to unleash apocalyptic fears. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Brenton Tarrant’s attack on the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, and many others, may suggest that groups with the potential for largescale violence are a thing of the past. After all, it did not take many to bring down the World Trade Center towers in 2001. Another under-studied element of apocalypticism and charisma concerns the issues involved, rather than the leader or leadership cadre. Which contemporary problems are likely to elicit violent responses? Pandemics? Climate change? Immigration? Will charismatic leaders and their lieutenants mobilize the masses around specific issues? Or will they capitalize on fears about the issues, pointing to them as signs of larger forces at work, whether supernatural, conspiratorial, or both? Palmer (1997) noted a range of possible reactions to the AIDS crisis – from blaming gays and lesbians to anticipating apocalyptic plagues and pestilence – that seem worth investigating today. A final direction to pursue is the competition that may arise between the charismatic leader and lieutenants in the cadre. With direct access limited primarily to the leadership group, rather than the leader, followers may well develop attachments and loyalty to the second tier. The rise of Ma Anand Sheela as a rival, rather than assistant, to Bhagwan Shree Rajnesh in the 1980s seems apposite (Urban 2016). Studies of organizational management in apocalyptic movements, along with competitive factors, may therefore serve predictive purposes in averting violent outcomes. 285

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Note The author would like to thank José Pedro Zúquete, Catherine Wessinger, and Erin Prophet for their helpful advice concerning this chapter.

References Audiotape Q 042. 1978. Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. https://jonestown.sdsu. edu/?page_id=29079, accessed 16 April 2019. Barker, Eileen. 1993. Charismatization: The social production of an ethos propitious to the mobilisation of sentiments. In Eileen Barker, James A. Beckford, and Karel Dobbelaere, eds., Secularization, rationalism, and sectarianism: Essays in honour of Bryan R. Wilson, 181–201. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barkun, Michael. 2013. A culture of conspiracy: Apocalyptic visions in contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bromley, David G. 1997. Constructing apocalypticism: Social and cultural elements of radical organization. In Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer, eds., Millennium, messiahs, and mayhem: Contemporary apocalyptic movements, 31–45. New York: Routledge. Bromley, David G. 2004. Violence and new religious movements. In James R. Lewis, ed., The Oxford Handbook of new religious movements. New York: Oxford University Press. Bromley, David G. 2016. Charisma and leadership. In George D. Chryssides and Benjamin E. Zeller, eds., The Bloomsbury Companion to new religious movements, 103–117. New York: Bloomsbury. Couch, Carl J. 1989. From Hell to Utopia and Back to Hell: Charismatic relationships. Symbolic Interaction 12(2): 265–279. Dawson, Lorne L. 1998. Comprehending cults: The sociology of new religious movements. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Dawson, Lorne L. 2006. Psychopathologies and the attribution of charisma: A  critical introduction to the psychology of charisma and the explanation of violence in new religious movements. Nova Religio 10(2): 3–28. Dawson, Lorne L. 2011. Charismatic leadership in millennial movements. In Catherine Wessinger, ed., The Oxford Handbook of millennialism, 113–132. New York: Oxford University Press. Hall, John R. 1987. Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American cultural history. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Hall, John R., Philip D. Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh. 2000. Apocalypse observed: Religious movements and violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. New York: Routledge. Johnson, Doyle Paul. 1979. Dilemmas of charismatic leadership: The case of the People’s Temple. Sociological Analysis 40(4): 315–323. King Alfred Plan. 2014. Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. https://jonestown.sdsu. edu/?page_id=60990, accessed 16 April 2019. Layton, Carolyn. 1978. Analysis of future prospects. Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13116, accessed 16 April 2019. Lifton, Robert Jay.1999. Destroying the world to save it: Aum Shinrikyo, apocalyptic violence and the new global terrorism. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Meindl, James R. 1995. The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A social constructionist approach. Leadership Quarterly 6(3): 329–341. Moore, Annie. 1978. A select group would have to kill the majority. Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=78445, accessed 16 April 2019. Moore, Rebecca. 2018. Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Oakes, Len. 1997. Prophetic charisma: The psychology of revolutionary religious personalities. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. O’Leary, Stephen D. 1994. Arguing the apocalypse: A theory of millennial rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Palmer, Susan J. 1997. AIDS as an apocalyptic metaphor in North America. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Prophet, Erin. 2009. Prophet’s daughter: My life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet inside the Church Universal and Triumphant. Guilford: The Lyons Press. Prophet, Erin. 2019. Personal communication. Reader, Ian. 1996. A poisonous cocktail? Aum Shinrikyo’s path to violence. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. Repp, Martin. 2014. Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum incident: A critical introduction. In James R. Lewis and Jesper A. Petersen, eds., Controversial new religions, 195–240. New York: Oxford University Press. Robbins, Thomas and Susan J. Palmer. 1997. Introduction: Patterns of contemporary apocalypticism. In Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer, eds., Millennium, messiahs, and mayhem: Contemporary apocalyptic movements, 1–27. New York: Routledge. Schacht, Larry. 1978. Larry Schacht on cyanide. Alternative considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13207, accessed 16 April 2019. Shearer, Heather. 2018. “Verbal orders don’t go – write it!” Building and Maintaining the Promised Land. Nova Religio 22(2): 65–92. Urban, Hugh B. 2016. Zorba the Buddha: Sex, spirituality, and capitalism in the global Osho movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wallis, Roy. 1982. Charisma, commitment and control in new religious movements. In Roy Wallis, ed., Millennialism and charisma, 73–140. Belfast: The Queen’s University. Wallis, Roy. 1993. Charisma and explanation. In Eileen Barker, James A. Beckford, and Karel Dobbelaere, eds., Secularization, rationalism, and sectarianism: Essays in honour of Bryan R. Wilson, 167–179. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Weber, Max. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, trans. Glencoe: Free Press. Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology, vol. 3. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds. New York: Bedminster Press. Welskopp, Thomas. 2012. Incendiary personalities: Uncommon comments on charisma in social movements. In Jan Willem Stutje, ed., Charismatic leadership and social movements: The revolutionary power of ordinary men and women, 164–179. New York: Berghahn Books. Wessinger, Catherine, ed. 2011. The Oxford Handbook of millennialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Whitsel, Bradley C. 2003. The Church Universal and Triumphant: Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s apocalyptic movement. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Zablocki, Benjamin. 1990. Alienation and charisma: A study of contemporary American communes. New York: The Free Press.

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24 Sunni Jihadist charismatic leadership The case of Anwar al-Awlaki (1971–2011) Haroro J. Ingram

Introduction From Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Anwar al-Awlaki, Sunni jihadist charismatic leaders have emerged as icons of their groups in the minds of both friends and foes alike. An enormous amount of blood and treasure has been spilled in efforts to capture or kill such figures, while countless studies have examined the lives of these men. Despite an almost universal recognition of the importance of these figures who, it would seem, epitomize the modern charismatic leader, there is a remarkable dearth of literature that applies charismatic leadership theory to examine their rise and influence. With only a handful of exceptions (Beevor 2017; Dekmejian 1972; Gendron 2017; Ingram 2013), this represents a perplexing and persistent gap in the scholarly field. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the utility of charismatic leadership theory as an analytical framework to understand the Sunni jihadist charismatic leader phenomenon. The chapter begins by establishing a broad framework of charismatic leadership theory based on a fusion of Weberian, self-concept, sociological-symbolic, and social formation approaches. It then considers how transformative routinization and three archetypal leadership typologies manifest in the Sunni jihadist context. The chapter then applies these understandings to the case study of Anwar al-Awlaki (1971–2011), the American-born English-language propagandist for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who was killed in northern Yemen by a US drone strike in September 2011. This case study argues that al-Awlaki’s charismatic appeal is rooted in the reflective and aspirational qualities of his warrior-scholar charismatic image and a message that exacerbated and offered solutions to perceptions of crisis in his communities of support, particularly second- and third-generation Muslim youth in the West. Moreover, al-Awlaki leveraged the “charismatic capital” of renowned Sunni jihadist charismatic figures to amplify his own charisma and, in turn, has become a source of inspiration for others.

Charismatic leadership theory: a framework While earlier chapters explored the multidisciplinary nuances of charismatic leadership theory scholarship, it is necessary to outline the understanding of charismatic leadership that informs 288

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this chapter. It is useful to begin with Max Weber’s seminal work which is arguably the field’s most influential study (Conger 1988; House 1999; Eisenstadt 1995a; Willner 1984). In Economy and Society (1968), Weber positioned charismatic leadership within the context of three ideal types of legitimate domination which he defined as “the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons” (1968: 212). Weber argued that leadership tended to be legitimized on three grounds: legal-rational, which is based on belief in established laws and “the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands”; traditional, which is based on belief “in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them;” and charismatic, which rests on “devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him” (Weber 1968: 215). For Weber, charismatic authority is characterized by emotion-based leader-follower bonds and tends to be ephemeral, i.e., it is destined to routinize. Weber’s notion of charismatic leadership helped to spawn a diverse and multidisciplinary field that, while remaining largely true to the contention that charisma is an emotion-based bond and that charismatic leadership is destined to routinize, diverges on the nuances and implications of this leader-follower relationship. For the purposes of this chapter, the following conceptual framework of charismatic leadership is based on a fusion of Weberian (Weber 1968), self-concept (e.g. Shamir 1991), ­sociological-symbolic (e.g. Shils 1965) and social formation (e.g., Willner 1984) approaches. The understanding of charismatic leadership that informs this chapter is characterized by four key conceptual principles.

The charismatic leader-follower relationship is emotion-based, reciprocal, and asymmetric The bonds of the charismatic leader-follower relationship (charisma) are emotion-based, relying on the leader to project attributes that are seen as extraordinary by followers and thus worthy of consenting to their authority. While this relationship is asymmetric because authority rests with the leader, the relationship is reciprocal, interdependent, and mutually empowering (Madsen and Snow 1983; Bryman 1999; Arthur, House and Shamir 1994). A complex interplay of four factors is crucial to the maintenance of charisma: the charismatic leader, the followers (who recognize the leader’s attributes and consent to their authority), perceptions of crisis (which characterizes the psychosocial condition of the followership), and “centers” which provide the values and symbols that act as guides of order and belief for the individual and collective in a society (Shils 1965; Eisenstadt 1995b). Charismatic leaders selectively draw upon such centers to construct their charismatic image and narratives. In doing so, charismatic leaders help to shape their followers’ in-group and out-group identities constructs and direct their perceptions and influence their behaviors. The charismatic leader achieves this by not only exerting influence upon their followers (top-down dynamic), but by building on preexisting perceptions of crisis and pertinent centers (bottom-up dynamic). As Madsen and Snow argue, “[C]harisma is never simply the result of the magnetism of a leader; it depends equally upon the ‘magnetizability’ of the followers” (1983: 338).

Perceptions of crisis are crucial to the charismatic leader-follower relationship Perception of crisis  – characterized by the perceived breakdown of tradition, uncertainty (Hermans and Dimaggio 2007), and the Other  – is the defining characteristic of the 289

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situational-context from which a charismatic leader emerges (Ingram 2013: 35–37). Perceptions of crisis create a need in the individual and collective for solutions which charismatic leaders leverage to build and maintain the leader-follower relationship (Willner 1984; Eisenstadt 1995a; Bradley and Roberts 1988). Indeed, charismatic leaders tend to emerge in the vacuum left by the perceived failings of the status quo representing to their followers a rupture – symbolically, cognitively, and politically – with established authorities. Charismatic figures tend to exacerbate perceptions of crisis via narratives that highlight eroding traditions, increase uncertainty, and render the Other responsible for this malaise. This messaging is partnered by a parallel “solution” narrative that promises certainty if fidelity to and a reaffirmation of tradition is fused with confronting members of out-group identities. Wilson similarly asserts, “[T]roubled times, discontinuities, sharpen and redefine values, stimulate new moral and intellectual solutions which may be articulated by . . . a charismatic leader” (1985: 264).

Charismatic leaders are architects of identity Charismatic leaders project an image and narrative that is designed to be emblematic of the ingroup identity and the antithesis of the out-group identity. To construct their charismatic image and narrative, charismatic leaders strategically select and draw upon centers that are perceived as pertinent by their communities of potential support, especially in the context of perceptions of crisis. The more acute the perception of crisis, the higher the propensity for the charismatic leadership phenomenon to emerge. As Eisenstadt argues, [I]n such situations they [the population] become more sensitive to those symbols or messages which attempt to symbolize such order, and more ready to respond to people who are able to present to them new symbols which could give meaning to their experiences in terms of some fundamental cosmic, social, or political order, to prescribe the proper norms of behavior, to relate the individual to collective identification, and to reassure him of his status and of his place in a given collectivity. (1995a: 181) Within this crisis-defined situational-context, centers become anchor points for grounding the in-group identity and are important features of a leader’s charismatic image and narrative (Shils 1965). Religion is an especially powerful center because it provides a frame of reference for identity construction as well as a deep and continually rejuvenating source of events and figures. Charismatic leaders are architects of the in- and out-group identities adopted by their followers and exploit these constructs to shape their followers’ perceptions in a manner that largely distinguishes them from other forms of leadership (Ellis 1991).

Charismatic leadership is destined to routinize Charismatic leadership is an ephemeral phenomenon that inevitably leads to routinization. For example, if contextual factors or the perceptions of followers change, the charismatic leaderfollower bonds may wither or the nature of the leadership transforms to something else (e.g., legal-rational or traditional leadership). Failure or even success can change the nature of the charismatic leader-follower relationship. The scholarly field recognizes that there is potentially a variety of ways that charisma may routinize, including transition, transference, splintering, and centering (Weber 1968; Trice and Beyer 1986; Bryman 1999; Eisenstadt 1995c). This chapter focuses on transformative routinization which is the tendency for charismatic leaders to emerge, 290

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in part, by building on the “charismatic capital” of predecessors and who, in turn, may inspire future charismatic figures (Ingram 2013). The result can be chains of charismatic figures stretching through the history of a movement.

Transformative routinization and the three archetypal leaders in the Sunni Jihadist milieu Prior to applying the conceptual framework, it is important to briefly outline key sociocultural nuances pertinent to the Sunni jihadist context. First and foremost, the primary center drawn upon by Sunni jihadist charismatic figures is Islam, particularly selective interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah (Shepard 1987; Maher 2016). The history of modern Sunni jihadism itself also offers a rich array of events, jurisprudential precedence, heroic figures, and strategic precedence for charismatic figures to leverage in the construction of their image and narrative. The “chains” of charismatic figures stretching through the history of modern Sunni jihadism is testimony to the transformative routinization phenomenon in this context. For example, one such chain stretches from Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–97), the 19th-century godfather of modern Islamism, into the 21st century to Anwar al-Awlaki (Ingram 2013). By drawing upon the “charismatic capital” of preceding leaders, Sunni jihadist charismatic leaders emerge as links connecting Islamic history as narrative and experience. In placing themselves within this broader narrative, these charismatic leaders present themselves as the embodiment of the collective identity and its revolutionary struggle. After all, these charismatic leaders not only drive the ideological and jurisprudential evolution of the movement but are the architects of the identity which lies at its heart and the sociopolitical activism which energizes it. Each leader in these chains emerge as vehicles for the evolution of modern Sunni jihadism; another potential link for the emergence of future leaders. Three archetypal leaders have emerged from this milieu, reflecting some key strategic requirements for a jihadist group: jurisprudential legitimacy, strategic-level politico-military guidance, and operational engagement. It is from these that the Spiritual Guide, Sheikh, and Mujahid typologies emerge. These are ideal types, and while the attributes of one typology may dominate in practice, most charismatic figures tend to emerge as hybrids. This hybridization is typically driven by operational and strategic needs as the leader and the group change over time. It is important to consider the key characteristics of each typology. The Spiritual Guide is the archetypal Islamic cleric/jurisprudential scholar: the holy scholar of holy war. Typically cloaked in the robes of a scholar, the spiritual guide’s image is that of a jurisprudential expert charged with legally sanctioning the group’s actions. The spiritual guide’s messaging tends to use jurisprudential rulings – reflective of their apparent sharia knowledge – to sanction the actions of the group, particularly regarding the use of violence. Central to both the image and narrative of spiritual guides is a conscious and overtly expressed disconnect from the established ulema which reinforces their legitimacy as independent, courageous, and pious “holy scholars” untarnished by the corrupt establishment. It is not the formal education in Islamic jurisprudence that is the source of the spiritual guide’s authority as such, but rather how their knowledge is deployed as a rebuttal to the status quo. Within jihadist groups, spiritual guides tend to play an augmenting role as jurisprudential advisors to other types of Sunni jihadist leaders. The Sheikh ideal type is the statesman/general of jihad. Typically wearing khaki or military apparel over more traditional Islamic garb, these are the facilitators of jihad who, while not necessarily engaging directly in militant action, represent the “defender of Islam” simultaneously military and political leader. The Sheikh ideal type often emerges as the “face” of the group, its 291

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actions and the in-group identity more broadly. Their image could be captured in the phrase “do as I say.” In practice, the Sheikh is often a hybrid that projects secondary traits of the spiritual guide and Mujahid ideal types. The Mujahid projects the image of a Warrior/Field Commander who is directly engaged in battle. Typically younger than the other types of leaders, the mujahid image is that of the fearless warrior who not only calls for others to take action but directly engages in violence themselves. These figures are typically young, brash, militant in inclination, and brutal. The messaging of the mujahid type focuses largely on the virtues and excitement of directly engaging in jihad, framing such actions as the bridge between Islam’s present predicament and the Islamic ideal. With limited jurisprudential expertise, the mujahid type rarely engages in nuanced ideological justifications for action, instead tending to echo the arguments of more senior figures (e.g., spiritual guide and Sheikh types). The mujahid’s approach may be summarized by the phrase “do as I do.” Outside of the battlefield, their charisma often withers and these leaders often evolve toward the Sheikh type over time. The most revered leader in the Sunni jihadist milieu is the hybrid of all three archetypal leaders: the warrior-scholar. It is an image deeply steeped in Islamic history dating back to the Prophet Muhammad, i.e., the leader who fuses jurisprudential expertise with political leadership and direct action in battle. It is a sentiment captured here by Abdullah Azzam, a man who mentored Osama bin Laden and is himself considered a warrior-scholar in these circles, who wrote: “What is more beautiful than the writing of the ummah’s [community of Muslims] history with both the ink of a scholar and his blood” (Azzam 2001). Others, including al-Awlaki, have echoed these sentiment-revering warrior-scholars as a source of inspiration. To examine how transformative routinization and the three archetypal leadership types manifest in the Sunni jihadist milieu, this chapter now turns to the modern warrior-scholar Anwar al-Awlaki as a case study.

Anwar Al-Awlaki (1971–2011): the caller of Jihad in the West It is useful to begin this case study by outlining, albeit briefly, the sociohistorical context within which al-Awlaki emerged and the perceptions of crisis he sought to leverage with his charismatic image and narrative. Al-Awlaki’s primary target audience was English-speaking second- and third-generation Muslim youth in the West. While al-Awlaki clearly did not have a widespread appeal at all, in tailoring his image and narrative for this specific target population, he had some success in influencing the perceptions and behaviors of those who admired him. This is most evident in the dozens of jihadist terrorist cases in the West that have been linked to al-Awlaki’s influence to varying degrees. While space considerations will not allow an in-depth analysis of these bottom-up dynamics (i.e., supporter perceptions of the charismatic figure), al-Awlaki’s influence is evident in up to 55 terrorism-related cases in the United States, almost 30 in the United Kingdom, and a handful of cases in continental Europe. Most of these cases emerged after al-Awlaki’s death in 2011, reflecting a posthumous charismatic appeal that is testimony to the potency and persistence of his charisma. It is also testimony to the persistence of the perceptions of crisis al-Awlaki’s image and message exploit. After the September  11 attacks, Muslim communities in the West became the focus of intense scrutiny by law enforcement and security intelligence agencies. It was a scrutiny facilitated and driven by often sweeping counterterrorism laws that were seen as eroding democratic principles and being disproportionately applied to Muslims (Esposito and Iner 2019). As the War on Terror evolved and even lost its erroneous title in many Western nations, counterterrorism efforts were soon partnered by “softer” preventative approaches that proved no less intrusive 292

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and myopically applied. A  sense emerged for many Muslims that even if one was born an American or a Brit, they are personally and collectively responsible for proving their allegiance to their own countries to an extent not expected of other people (The Pew Research Center 2004; Thomson and Crul 2007; Esposito and Iner 2019). It was perceptions of crisis rooted in these dynamics which al-Awlaki sought to bring into acute focus and exploit. He spoke directly to Muslim youth in the West  – the fringe-dwellers of ostracized communities  – and placed them at the center of Islam’s modern struggle. In al-Awlaki’s charismatic image, his supporters recognized the trajectory of their own lives and an inspirational warrior-scholar and, eventually, martyr killed by his own government. Al-Awlaki’s powerful charismatic image was the vehicle for a narrative that exacerbated perceptions of crisis and offered a solution of stark decisions for Muslims in the West: leave their country of birth or attack it.

The reflective and aspirational qualities of al-Awlaki’s charismatic image At the foundation of al-Awlaki’s charismatic image were core personal attributes that have been projected by all the great figures of Islamic history: piety, intelligence, bravery, humility, integrity, and a life devoted to Islam and the ummah. Al-Awlaki’s physical image was that of a slender and unassuming man often draped in long flowing robes with thin-rimmed glasses and an amiable gaze. Later he would wear a janbiya (a short dagger with curved blade) as a reminder of his Yemeni tribal allegiances or carry a weapon to portray himself as a warrior. To appreciate the appeal of al-Awlaki’s image to some second- and third-generation Muslim youth in the West, it is necessary to consider its aspirational and reflective qualities. In al-Awlaki, his supporters saw a child of the West whose life and death in many ways was symbolic of their own perceived experiences. Naturally, al-Awlaki strategically and explicitly played upon these dynamics. For instance, the identity tensions inherent to sensing that one is born into a society as an outsider were exacerbated by, on the one hand, the myopic focus of counterterrorism efforts on Muslim communities during this period and, on the other, the inaccessibility of that Muslim identity for which many felt they were being persecuted. Al-Awlaki emerged as a mediator between these common tensions by making Islam’s ­Arabic sources more accessible and practical for English-speaking Muslims and then using this understanding to influence how his audience thought about their lives and the world more broadly. Indeed, years before ever becoming “radicalized,” al-Awlaki had developed a reputation among English-speaking Muslim youth in communities across the West thanks to his CDs and DVDs which presented Islam as a multidimensional and practical way of shaping modern life that also had a proud history. Al-Awlaki’s spiritual guide traits resonated despite his lack of actual ­jurisprudential qualifications, because he made Islam both accessible and pertinent to English-­ speaking Muslims. As the War on Terror increased perceptions of crisis and established ulema were sometimes seen as complicit with government initiatives, al-Awlaki’s charismatic capital and the resonance of his narrative were boosted by his outsider status. He appealed to this ­demographic intellectually – through a well-constructed and cogent narrative – and e­ motionally via an open and often humorous manner of speaking that was interspersed with colloquialisms and pop culture references. The slight hint of an American accent remained until his death and al-Awlaki continually referred to his background to reinforce a sense that he ­personally ­understood his audiences’ predicament. As a Muslim child of the West, his awareness of the issues impacting Muslim youth was nuanced by his travels in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as regular engagement with other Muslims around the world via video feeds and online. Al-Awlaki explicitly 293

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presented himself as someone who not only understood, clarified, and channeled his followers’ outrage but genuinely had experienced it. The trajectory of al-Awlaki’s life, particularly his own radicalization from 2001, is in many ways captured in two quotes. The first is from October 2001 when al-Awlaki, dressed in a suit jacket, shirt, and white taqiyah (prayer cap), stated: We are talking about ways to bring an end to this war. And we, as Muslims, we want to bring an end to terrorism more than anybody else. Our position needs to be reiterated and needs to be very clear. The fact that the US has administered the death and homicide of over one million civilians in Iraq; the fact that the US is supporting the deaths and killing of thousands of Palestinians; does not justify the killing of one US civilian in New York City or Washington DC. And the deaths of six thousand civilians in New York and Washington DC does not justify the death of one civilian in Afghanistan. There is anger and resentment but not hatred. (Al-Awlaki 2001: PBS Newshour) In May 2010, al-Awlaki appeared in an al-Qaida propaganda video, mere months after being linked to the 2009 Fort Hood and Underpants Bomber attacks, declaring: For 50 years, an entire people – the Muslim in Palestine – has been strangled, with American aid, support, and weapons. Twenty years of siege and then occupation of Iraq, and now, the occupation of Afghanistan. After all this, no one should even ask us about targeting a bunch of Americans who would have been killed in an airplane. Our unsettled account with America includes, at the very least, one million women and children. I’m not even talking about the men. Our unsettled account with America, in women and children alone, has exceeded one million. Those who would have been killed in the plane are a drop in the ocean. (al-Awlaki 2010a: 3) Al-Awlaki explicitly spoke about the trajectory of his life as a way to connect with his audience, such as in the following example: I for one, was born in the US, and lived in the US for 21 years. America was my home. I  was a preacher of Islam involved in non-violent activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq and continued US aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the US and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim. (2010b: 57) In July 2010, he became the first US citizen to be placed on the “specially designated global terrorist” list by the US government. He was killed by drone strike on September 30, 2011. For many, al-Awlaki’s death became a symbol of the divide between the West’s professed values and its policies, especially when applied to Muslims, regardless of their citizenship. While al-Awlaki’s spiritual guide traits largely dominated his charismatic image, he later used Inspire – the online English-language magazine for AQAP he founded with Samir Khan in Yemen – to bolster his Sheikh and Mujahid attributes (Ingram 2017). Articles in Inspire promoted his forays onto the battlefield and his strategic acumen. For example, in response to his letter recommending the Somalia-based al-Shabaab focus on winning “the hearts and minds 294

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of the people and take them back to their fitrah” (al-Awlaki 2008c: 2), al-Shabaab paid testimony to al-Awlaki’s warrior-scholar image declaring: “O Sheikh, we would not only look at you as only a soldier, but as the likes of Ibn Taymiya during the trials of the Ta’tars” (Shebaab al-Mujahideen 2008: 1). Death gave al-Awlaki the final, powerful dimension of martyr to his image that fueled his posthumous charismatic appeal. This charismatic image provided an ideal vehicle for al-Awlaki’s message.

Al-Awlaki’s battle for hearts and minds Al-Awlaki’s narrative describes a bipolar world divided between the in-group (i.e., Muslims and Islam) and its enemies (i.e., the kafir and jahiliyyah). As evidence, he portrayed the War on Terror as simply a war against Islam (al-Awlaki 2008a: 3–5, 2010a: 2, 2010f: 1). For al-Awlaki, it was inevitable that such a war would be led by the West because it “tends to be the furthest away from the natural disposition of fitrah” (al-Awlaki 2002: 11). As proof of the West’s malevolence, al-Awlaki pointed to its production of weapons of mass destruction, the genocide of indigenous people in the Americas and Australia, its moral bankruptcy, and its transformation of Christianity into a violent religion to suit its malevolent purposes (al-Awlaki 2002: 11, 2008a: 4, 2010a: 2). Indeed, al-Awlaki often returned to this idea that the West manipulated religion for its own purposes as a means to understand the “soft” preventative approaches to countering violent extremism: “Today, the US is trying to promote a false Islam, just as their forefathers falsified Christianity and Judaism” (al-Awlaki 2010a). Al-Awlaki stressed the importance of strengthening the unity of the transnational ummah (community of believers) because, “[w]hen we allowed a Muslim nation to fall down, we have allowed the same thing to happen to each and every one of us” (2008b: 3). With this message of global solidarity, al-Awlaki called on Muslims in the West to recognize their contemporary struggles as paralleling the challenges faced by the Prophet Muhammad: “Living as a minority, we will go through the trials that the Muslims living in Makkah had to go through” (al-Awlaki 2002: 7). Naturally he paid special attention to the demographic for whom perceptions of crisis were most acute and for whom his message was specifically targeted: [I]f you talk about some youth in the West, who are second or third generation Muslims, they are carrying on to clear understanding of Islam. It’s amazing to see that. . . . These are living in the Den of the Lion, they are subjected, they are the first line of defense in this war of ideas and they are subjected to the brunt of it. Nevertheless, they are holding on to the truth! (al-Awlaki 2008a: 17–18) For al-Awlaki, countering the West’s “hearts and minds” battle required Muslims to deploy their own campaign; he recommended that “we should develop the awareness of the Muslims of their true identity” (al-Awlaki 2008a: 23). In this battle between Islam and the West, those Muslims in the West were reframed by al-Awlaki as frontline soldiers in a divine war: “for you who are living in the west, you are living in a dilemma, your children are brought up in a non-Islamic environment and you’re not going to be around, you’re going to die one day. . . . And Allah only knows what their fate will be, possibly they could grow up and become non Muslims (2008b: 5). Al-Awlaki’s solution required Muslims in the West to decide between hijra (migration) or jihad: “Some will argue, ‘I was born in the West; so where am I going?’ Well if you are cognizant that the West is not your average land of the disbelievers and is actually fighting Islam in the media and battlefield front, then your obligation is to either fight them back with the sword or 295

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move to a Muslim country (if possible) and fight jihad” (al-Awlaki 2005: 8). Al-Awlaki himself migrated from the West to Yemen and while his charismatic image served as a reminder to his followers, he frequently referred to his hijra and life in Yemen to reinforce this point (al-Awlaki 2010a: 3, 2010b: 57). Ultimately, al-Awlaki’s jihad construct was the multidimensional mechanism by which Muslims must counter the West and all Islam’s enemies (al-Awlaki 2009a). For al-Awlaki, jihad is incumbent upon all Muslims, especially those in the West who he argued were obliged to independently legitimize and engage in terrorism. Al-Awlaki’s call to action represents the logical extension of Abdullah Azzam’s notion of jihad fard ‘ayn (individual obligation): “So you need to do whatever you are capable of doing. It’s a responsibility that’s hanging on your neck, its something that you owe to your Muslim brothers, you owe to the Ummah and you owe to Allah” (al-Awlaki 2008b: 7). The “lone wolf ” actions that were tied to al-Awlaki were not an unintended consequence of his jihad construct but strategic extension of it that was designed to mobilize Western supporters to action: “Jihad is still reaching the shores of Europe and America. Not from the outside, but from within. Jihad is not being imported but is being homegrown” (al-Awlaki 2010c: 1). He went onto declare that, “[j]ihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea. The palace of Pharaoh is being infiltrated” (al-Awlaki 2010c: 1).

Al-Awlaki and transformative routinization Al-Awlaki drew heavily on the charismatic capital of Sunni jihadist charismatic figures such as Abdullah Azzam, Sayyid Qutb, and Osama bin Laden. Al-Awlaki’s admiration for warriorscholars was clear, and he would often highlight how his forbears: paid the price to do da’wah and that was [with] his own blood. We see that in our contemporary times with people like Syed Qutb. He wrote with ink and his own blood. People like Shaykh Abdullah Azzam and Shayk Yusuf al ‘Uyayree. They wrote amazing books, and after they died it was as if Allah made their soul enter their words to make it alive; it gives their words a new life. (al-Awlaki 2005: 50–1) Al-Awlaki’s charismatic image mirrored key attributes of revered Sunni jihadist figures. Like Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and bin Laden, al-Awlaki emerged from the ummah during a time when their constituents believed the ulema to be compromised. Like Qutb, al-Awlaki frequently highlighted his experiences in the United States to demonstrate that he understood the enemy from personal experience living among them. Like Qutb, al-Awlaki used his imprisonment in a Yemeni jail to boost his image as someone willing to sacrifice for the cause. In fact, al-Awlaki claimed that during his imprisonment he studied Qutb’s works and later published gushing reviews on his blog (al-Awlaki 2007: 4). Al-Awlaki’s message also reflected the influence of predecessors. Drawing on Qutb’s concept of jahiliyyah to describe the modern world (e.g., al-Awlaki 2008a: 12), Abdullah Azzam’s jihad dichotomy (e.g., al-Awlaki 2008a: 22, 2010e: 2), and bin Laden’s notion of reciprocity to legitimize terrorism against the civilians of democracies (e.g., al-Awlaki 2010f: 2, 2010e: 1), al-Awlaki constructed a case for jihad that he would use to call for terrorism in the West. In the aftermath of his death, Islamic forums were filled with praise for al-Awlaki. One comment posted under an al-Awlaki tribute video is particularly pertinent: “O ALLAH please give us another 1000 Sheikh Anwar Al Awlakis. Ameen.” The dozens of jihadist terrorism cases across the West since his death – from terrorist attacks and plots to material support and foreign 296

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fighter incidences – are all testimony to his posthumous charismatic appeal. Since his death, groups such as AQAP, Islamic State, and al-Shabaab have deployed al-Awlaki’s image and words to appeal to potential communities of support, especially English-speaking audiences (Shane 2015). This is all the more extraordinary when one considers the rivalry between al-Qaida linked groups and Islamic State and its affiliates. By both explicitly and implicitly drawing parallels with historical figures, al-Awlaki sought to fuel the folklore around his reputation. In death, al-Awlaki’s charismatic appeal not only continues to influence Sunni jihadists but his legacy has become a powerful center for which rival jihadists now compete.

Conclusion This chapter sought to demonstrate the utility of charismatic leadership theory as an analytical framework to understand the Sunni jihadist charismatic leadership phenomenon. After establishing a conceptual framework for the study, this chapter then outlined some of the key features of transformative routinization and three leadership archetypes in the Sunni jihadist context. These concepts informed the analytical lens through which Anwar al-Awlaki’s charismatic leadership was examined, arguing that while al-Awlaki’s image offered his supporters a reflection of themselves, the trajectory of his life provided a source of inspiration, too. Al-Awlaki’s message was custom fit for those who wanted a way to understand their present predicament, its historical context, and its apparent jurisprudential implications. For those who admired him, al-Awlaki was a symbol of Islam’s noblest values and a victim of the West’s broken promises to Muslim citizens justified by the War on Terror. Al-Awlaki emerges as an important figure in the transformative routinization phenomenon, both a product of decades, even centuries, of history and an inspiration for others that followed his death. In the example of al-Awlaki, the important role of perceptions of crisis, the tendency for Sunni jihadist charismatic figures to emerge as the antithesis of establishment religious authorities, and the role of transformative routinization in these dynamics is made clear. Charismatic leadership theory has much to offer scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the leaders of violent non-state political movements. Equally, scholars of charismatic leadership have a wealth of case studies to explore in the Sunni jihadist context. The fields of scholarship and practice have much to gain from a renewed focus on these phenomena.

References Al-Awlaki, A. 2001. “Excerpts of an Oct. 2001 Khutbah by Imam al-Awlaki”, PBS Newshour (transcribed by author). Video. Available at: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic. html?s=news01s34c2qc8a Al-Awlaki, A. 2002. Lessons from the Companions Living as a Minority. Available at: www.kalamullah.com/ Books/Lessons%20From%20Companions.pdf Al-Awlaki, A. 2005. Constants on the Path of Jihad by Shaykh Yusuf al ‘Uyayree: Lecture Series by Imam Anwar al Awlaki. Available at: www.tawhed.net/dl.php?i=constatn Al-Awlaki, A. 2007. Moazzam Begg Interviews Imam Anwar Al Awlaki [Online: Cageprisoners website]. Available at: http://old.cageprisoners.com/print.php?id=22926 Al-Awlaki, A. 2008a. Battle of the Hearts and Minds [Online: Dar Al Murabiteen Publications]. Available at: www.tawhed.net/dl.php?i=1309092o Al-Awlaki, A. 2008b. The Story of the Bull. Available at: http://kalamullah.com/story-of-the-bull.html Al-Awlaki, A. 2008c. Anwar al-Awlaki: “Salutations to al-Shabab of Somalia” Released December  21, 2008 [Online: NEFA Foundation]. Available at: www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/FeaturedDocs/ awlakishebab1208.pdf 297

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Al-Awlaki, A. 2009a. Anwar al Awlaki: “44 Ways to Support Jihad” Released: February  5, 2009 [Online: NEFA Foundation]. Available at: www.nefafoundation.org/file/FeaturedDocs/nefaawlaki44wayssup portjihad.pdf Al-Awlaki, A. 2010a. Yemeni-American Jihadhi Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki in First Interview with Al Qaeda Media Calls on Muslim US Servicemen to Kill Fellow Soldiers and Says: “My Message to the Muslims . . . Is That We Should Participate in this Jihad Against America . . .” [Online: The Middle East Media Research Institute]. Available at: www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4202.htm Al-Awlaki, A. 2010b. “May Our Souls Be Sacrificed For You!” Inspire (Summer 2010) Al-Malahem Media. Al-Awlaki, A. 2010c. Anwar al-Awlaki: “Western Jihad Is Here to Stay [Online: NEFA Foundation]. Available at: www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/nefa_awlaki0310.pdf Al-Awlaki, A. 2010e. A Call to Jihad. Available at: http://worldanalysis.net/modules/news/article. php?storyid=1311 Al-Awlaki, A. 2010f. Interview: Anwar al-Awlaki [Online: Al Jazeera Online]. Available at: www.aljazeera. com/focus/2010/02/2010271074776870.html Arthur, M., House, R. and Shamir, B. 1994. “The Rhetoric of Charismatic Leadership: A Theoretical Extension, a Case Study, and Implications for Research”, Leadership Quarterly, 5(1), 25–42. Azzam, A. 2001. Join the Caravan. Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9641961/Join-theCaravanAbdullah-Azzam Beevor, E. 2017. “Coercive Radicalization: Charismatic Authority and the Internal Strategies of IS and the Lord’s Resistance Army”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40, 496–521. Bradley, R. and Roberts, N. 1988. “Limits of Charisma”, Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organizational Effectiveness, edited by J. Conger and R. Kanungo. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 253–275. Bryman, A. 1999. Charisma and Leadership in Organizations. London: Sage. Conger, J. 1988. “Theoretical Foundations of Charismatic Leadership”, Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organisational Effectiveness, edited by J. Conger et al. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 12–39. Dekmejian, R. and Wyszomirski, M. J. 1972. “Charismatic Leadership in Islam: The Mahdi of the Sudan”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 14(2), 193–214. Eisenstadt, S. 1995a. “Charisma and Institution Building: Max Weber and Modern Sociology”, Power Trust and Meaning. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 167–201. Eisenstadt, S. 1995b. “Societal Goals, Systemic Needs, Social Interaction, and Individual Behavior: Some Tentative Explorations”, Power Trust and Meaning. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 123–141. Eisenstadt, S. 1995c. “Action, Resources, Structure, and Meaning”, Power Trust and Meaning. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 328–389. Ellis, R. 1991. “Explaining the Occurrence of Charismatic Leadership in Organizations”, Journal of Theoretical Politics 3(3), 305–319. Esposito, J. and Iner, D. 2019. Islamophobia and Radicalization: Breeding Intolerance and Violence (ebook). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Gendron, A. 2017. “The Call to Jihad: Charismatic Preachers and the Internet”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40, 44–61. Hermans, H. and Dimaggio, G. 2007. “Self, Identity, and Globalization in Times of Uncertainty: A Dialogical Analysis”, American Psychological Association 11(1), 31–61. House, R. 1999. “Weber and the Neo-Charismatic Leadership Paradigm: A Response to Beyer”, Leadership Quarterly, 10(4), 563–574. Ingram, H. 2013. The Charismatic Leadership Phenomenon in Radical and Militant Islamism. Oxford: Routledge. Ingram, H. 2017. “An Analysis of Inspire and Dabiq: Lessons from AQAP and Islamic State’s Propaganda War”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 40(5), 357–375. Madsen, D. and Snow, P. 1983. “The Dispersion of Charisma”, Comparative Political Studies 16(3), 337–362. Maher, S. 2016. Salafi-Jihadism: History of an Idea. London: Hurst.

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The Pew Research Center. 2004. “A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists”, The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Released 16 March. Shamir, B. 1991. “Charismatic Relationship: Alternative Explanations and Predictions”, Leadership Quarterly, 2(2), 81–104. Shane, S. 2015. “The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki”, The New York Times. Available at: www.nytimes. com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-anwar-al-awlaki.html Shebaab al-Mujahideen. 2008. “Shebaab al-Mujahideen: Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki”. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/790971/download Shepard, W. 1987. “Islam and Ideology: Towards a Typology”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 19, 307–336. Shils, E. 1965. “Charisma, Order, and Status”, American Sociological Review 30(2), 199–213. Thomson, M. and Crul, M. 2007. “The Second Generation in Europe and the United States: How Is the Transatlantic Debate Relevant for Further Research on the European Second Generation?” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33(7), 1025–1041. Trice, H. and Beyer, J. 1986. “Charisma and Its Routinization in Two Social Movement Organization”, Research in Organizational Behavior 8, 113–164. Weber, M. 1968. Economy and Society. New York: Bedminster Press. Willner, A. 1984. The Spellbinders: Charismatic Political Leadership. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wilson, E. 1985. “What Counts in the Death or Transformation of an Organization?” Social Forces 64(2).

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Section VI

Management and business

25 Charisma in organizational studies Jay A. Conger

The interest in charismatic leadership Research on the topic of charismatic leadership in organizations is relatively young in comparison to the fields of political science and religion. Scholarly interest began with three publications in the mid-1970s which proposed conceptual frameworks. These theoretical works drew upon anecdotal evidence to argue and illustrate their points. Their authors’ backgrounds in psychology and organizational behavior emphasized behavioral dynamics rather than the environmental or sociological dimensions of charismatic leadership. Scholarship that would follow retained this original framing around the leader’s behavior and the relationship dynamics with followers – in large part due to the absence of scholars with backgrounds in sociological or macro-­organizational perspectives. In addition, the organizational contexts in which charismatic leaders have been studied to date are primarily large corporations and entrepreneurial start-ups rather than nonprofits or government agencies. This fact is the by-product of the scholars themselves, who have been principally professors from schools of management rather than public administration or government or sociology. Why did interest in organizational forms of charismatic leadership emerge in the 1970s and not sooner? One catalyst appears to have been a transformation unfolding in the business world during the latter part of the 20th century. With America emerging from World War II as an industrial power, its corporations enjoyed two postwar decades of global expansion and dominance. By the 1970s, however, serious competition emerged from Asia and Europe. These foreign competitors would soon erode the market dominance of the US corporations. As American companies struggled to adapt to the higher quality and often more innovative products of their new competitors, they discovered that the process of reinvention was extremely difficult. For example, rarely did senior leadership teams possess the change management skills or even the courage to orchestrate large-scale transformations. Their mindsets were far more managerial and administrative than transformational. Nudging rather than challenging the status quo was the more common approach. As a result, corporations struggled painfully and often unsuccessfully through reinventions. Change leadership was in short supply  – the result of decades of socializing a more managerial mindset into the leadership talent of organizations. Charismatic leaders would be seen as one solution to addressing this dilemma. 303

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A second significant challenge facing these corporations was employee commitment. In the midst of change efforts, companies resorted to extensive downsizing which resulted in large numbers of employees being laid off. While these actions often improved financial performance, the existing social contract with employees – lifetime employment in return for loyalty – was broken. The net result was disenfranchisement for many in the workforce. This occurred at the very moment that companies were demanding greater performance and commitment from employees to address international competition and the need for reinvention. Charismatic leaders were again seen as a potential solution to the dilemma of employee engagement and motivation. The challenge for American corporations by the 1970s was therefore twofold  – how to orchestrate transformational or radical change while simultaneously engaging the commitment and motivation of employees. At this time, there were several highly visible charismatic change agents  – corporate chieftains like Lee Iacocca at Chrysler and visionary entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs at Apple Computer. They appeared to be adept agents of change, innovation, and employee motivation. As a result, the media and scholars began to examine what these leaders did. Academics undertook research to explore what characteristics led to attributions of charismatic leadership. They also studied how these leaders leveraged their charisma to bring about organizational change and employment empowerment.

The early research: laying the behavioral foundations of charismatic leadership The earliest constructs of charismatic leadership in organizations described the phenomenon as a complex interaction between the behaviors of the leader, psychological characteristics of the followers, and certain situational dynamics (House 1977). In terms of leader behaviors, it was theorized that charismatic leaders displayed a high degree of self-confidence, dominance, and moral conviction – qualities that made them highly attractive. They engaged in hard work and self-sacrifice – modeling what they would demand from their followers. At the same time, they invested in image building and self-promotion to appear more powerful and competent to followers. Through their desire to proactively challenge the status quo, charismatic leaders were perceived by followers as courageous. These qualities reinforced their attractiveness as role models and in turn encouraged organizational members to willingly emulate them and to commit to achieving their demanding goals. The link between charismatic leadership and the demands of the times was drawn early on by Abraham Zaleznik and Manfred Kets de Vries (1975). They saw this form of leadership as the solution to addressing the malaise of bureaucratic responses to the challenges facing American corporations in the 1970s. They asserted that charisma was an essential attribute of anyone who became a successful organizational leader. In contrast, Robert House – whose work was just mentioned – saw charisma as one of several potential types of leadership. Deploying a simple terminology of “minimum man” versus “maximum man,” Zaleznik and Kets de Vries divided individuals holding administrative roles in organizations into the categories of either creative institution builders (maximum men) or as managers (minimum men): [Maximum man’s relationship to their organization] is simple: He is their leader. At times he may be recognized practically on sight because of the glow of confidence his inner light gives him. He is charismatic, people are drawn to him by the power of his convictions and

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visions of reality. His presence inspires both dread and fascination, he evokes mystical reactions. . . . The minimum man is concerned with the opinions of his peers. He would rather have egalitarian relations with men as brothers than be in the socially distant position of a father figure. He does not, therefore, lead public opinion, but rather follows it. (1975, pp. 237–241) They framed managers as individuals who embraced structures and processes  – seeking stability and control. They in turn emphasized efficiency over innovation with the aim of resolving problems quickly but often times without fully understanding a problem’s longerterm impact. In essence, managers were the guardians of the status quo. Charismatic leaders, in contrast, promoted environments where creativity and imagination flourished. They tolerated a lack of structure and high degrees of ambiguity. Their aim was to successfully adapt their organizations to future challenges. While organizations needed both managers and leaders to succeed, the former far outnumbered leaders in the eyes of Zaleznik and Kets de Vries. Only charismatic leaders could build adaptive organizations as well as reinvent existing bureaucratic ones. It was a simple and extreme categorization, but it was one that reinforced the notion of charismatic leaders as great entrepreneurs, institution builders, and masterful agents of transformation. There was an additional typology that would influence these early scholarly formulations of charismatic leadership in organizations. The political scientist James McGregor Burns (1978) in his book Leadership argued that leaders could be categorized into two types: the “transformational” and the “transactional” – not so far off from the notions of maximum and minimum man. It was in the nature of what was exchanged between the leader and their followers that determined whether a leader was transformational or transactional. For example, the transformational leader offered a transcendent purpose or vision as their mission – one that addressed the higher-order needs of their followers. In the process of achieving this mission, both the leader and the led were actualized as individuals: “The result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.” (page 4). In contrast, transactional leadership was based on a relationship with followers that was more instrumental in its exchanges: “leaders approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, or subsidies for campaign contributions. Such (instrumental) transactions comprise the bulk of the relationships” (page 4). Drawing heavily upon this conceptualization, Bernard Bass (1985) – an early and influential organizational scholar – built a similar model of transformational leadership for organizations. For Bass, charisma was an essential component of transformational leadership – similar to the conceptualization of Zaleznik and Kets de Vries. In contrast, most scholars today see charismatic and transformational leadership as one of several forms of leadership rather than the primary form of leadership. The Zaleznik/Kets de Vries formulation did not take hold. In summary, the early work on charismatic leadership in organizations was profoundly shaped by these notions of charismatic leaders as agents of change, transformation, and entrepreneurship. The questions that the next generation of scholars would answer focused on the mechanics of the influence process under charismatic leadership and how these leaders aligned the actions of their followers to achieve their visions. By the 1990s, the scholarship moved from the purely theoretical to the empirical – leveraging large-scale surveys, laboratory studies, and quantitative methodologies. The focus also broadened to examine the liabilities associated with these leaders and not simply positive outcomes.

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Charismatic leadership in organizations: an attribution based on follower perceptions of a constellation of behaviors The behavioral models we will discuss are underpinned by two conditions. The first is that charismatic leadership is essentially an attribution based on followers’ perceptions of their leader’s behavior. Social psychological theories consider the construct of leadership to be a by-product of interaction between members of a group. As each individual works to attain the group’s objectives, members begin to realize their status in the group as either a leader or a follower. This realization is based on member observations of how extensive their influence is within the group. The individual who achieves maximum influence over other members is perceived to be fulfilling a leadership role. Charismatic leadership is no exception to this. The leadership role behaviors displayed by a person make that individual (in the eyes of group members or followers) not only a task or social leader and a participative or directive leader but also a charismatic or noncharismatic leader. So certain observed behaviors are interpreted by followers as expressions of charismatic leadership. As such, charisma is an inferred behavior of leadership. The question naturally follows: “What are those behaviors?” Moreover, these behaviors are a dynamic constellation. A  single behavior by itself is not likely to engender attributions of charisma, nor is its presence enough to distinguish a charismatic leader from a noncharismatic leader. In other words, it is conceivable that both a charismatic and noncharismatic leader could exhibit one or more of the behavioral components we are about to describe. For example, strategic vision is an attribute associated with a range of effective organizational leaders whether they are perceived to be charismatic or not. The likelihood of attributing charisma to a leader instead depends on three major features of these behavioral components: (1) the number of these behaviors manifested by the leader’s actions, (2) the level of intensity of each component as expressed in a leader’s behavior, and (3) the level of saliency or importance of individual components as determined by the existing organizational context and the followers’ proximity to the leader. For example, as the number of behavioral components increases, the likelihood of followers’ attributions of charisma to their leader increases. A leader who is only skillful at detecting shortcomings in the status quo is less likely to be seen as charismatic. In contrast, followers are more likely to perceive their leader as charismatic when they not only detect shortcomings but also formulate a future vision, articulate that vision in a compelling manner, and devise unconventional means to achieve the vision. Similarly, followers are more likely to attribute charisma to a leader when they perceive his or her behavior to be contextually appropriate and congruent with their own values and aspirations. Certain behavioral components may become more salient in certain organizational or cultural contexts. In some contexts, unconventionality may be less valued than articulation skills and vice versa. The behaviors and their relative importance as determinants of charisma will differ from one organization to another. Proximity to the leader may also influence the importance of certain behavioral components. For example, Shamir (1995) showed that rhetorical skills were more frequently attributed as an important characteristic of charismatic leaders when followers were at a physical distance from the leader. In other words, they had little or no direct contact. In contrast, being considerate of others and exhibiting unconventional behavior were more important in attributions when followers were in close proximity to charismatic leaders.

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The distinguishing behavioral dimensions of charismatic leadership in organizations To understand how charismatic leadership in organizations is distinguished from other forms, it is best to think of leadership as a process that involves moving organizational members from an existing present state toward a future state (Conger & Kanungo 1998). In the initial stage, there is an assessment process. The leader critically evaluates the existing situation of their organization with an eye toward future challenges and opportunities. In contrast to other forms of leadership, charismatic leaders actively search for shortcomings in the status quo or poorly exploited opportunities within the larger environment. At the same time, the charismatic leaders are assessing what necessary resources are available and what constraints stand in the way of realizing future goals. They are also identifying the inclinations, abilities, needs, and level of satisfaction of the members of their organization. This evaluation phase is followed by a second stage: the actual formulation and articulation of strategic and tactical goals. The leader identifies transformational or visionary goals that will address the shortcomings of the status quo and/or capture opportunities on the horizon. These goals are formulated so as to be highly meaningful and inspirational to followers. At the same time, the leader is articulating them in ways that are persuasive – encouraging followers to move beyond the status quo with a sense of urgency. Through their communications, the charismatic leader instills a sense of confidence and empowerment in their followers. They convey that the followers as a collective possess the skills and resources needed to successfully tackle the obstacles that will be encountered on the road to achieving the vision. Finally, in stage three, the leader demonstrates how these transformational goals can be achieved by the organization. They do this through personal example and risk taking, expressions of unconventional expertise, and communicating tactics. In essence, they are demonstrating the requirements for success and how each follower can implement them. At the same time, these actions are often seen as remarkable and instill deep admiration from the followers. It is along these three stages that we can distinguish the behavioral dimensions unique to charismatic leaders in organizations. It is important to note that the stages rarely proceed in a simple linear fashion. Both organizations and their external environments are in constant motion, and so their leadership must constantly revise existing goals and tactics in response to unexpected opportunities or challenges. The charismatic leader is constantly moving back and forth between the three stages or engaging in them all simultaneously.

The behavioral dimensions of stage one: the search for opportunities Charismatic leaders are distinguished by their critical stance toward the status quo, whether within their own organizations or the larger environment. For this reason, they are seen as entrepreneurial and transformational leaders. They can be distinguished from noncharismatic leaders by their ability to not only recognize important shortcomings in the present context but to advocate addressing them through radical change. For example, the failure of a firm to exploit new technologies, new markets, or new regulations would be highlighted as a strategic opportunity. Internal organizational shortcomings similarly become platforms for advocating transformational change. Likewise, a charismatic entrepreneur might more readily perceive marketplace needs that are unfulfilled and transform these into opportunities for new products or services.

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Any context that triggers a need for a major change or one that presents unexploited market opportunities is therefore relevant for the emergence of a charismatic leader. In some situations, contextual factors so overwhelmingly favor transformation that a leader can take immediate advantage of them. During periods of relative tranquility, charismatic leaders, however, play a major role in fostering the need for change by actually creating the shortcomings or by exaggerating existing ones to the point that their organization feels the necessity to address them. Because of this emphasis on deficiencies in the system and high levels of sensitivity and intolerance for them, charismatic leaders are seen as organizational reformers or entrepreneurs. The attribution of charisma is not dependent on the actual outcomes of their change efforts but simply on actions taken to bring about change and reform. As the change processes evolve, successes will reaffirm the attribution of charisma. In contrast, administrators and managers generally act as caretakers of the status quo, ensuring its effective maintenance. Under their guidance, change and innovation will be more incremental, with the primary aim to improve the efficiency and productivity of organizational processes and tactics. Charismatic leaders will never be perceived either in an administrative role or a supervisory role designed only to nudge the system or to enhance or build upon the status quo.

The behavioral dimensions of stage two: formulating and articulating their organization’s future vision All organizational leaders formulate goals for achieving performance objectives. Charismatic leaders, however, can be distinguished from other types of leaders by the nature of their goals and the manner in which they articulate them. Their goals are quite simply visionary and transformational. Here the term visionary refers to some idealized goal that the leader wants their organization to achieve. The more idealized or utopian the future goal advocated by the leader, the more discrepant it becomes in relation to the status quo. The greater this discrepancy, the more likely is the attribution that the leader has extraordinary vision and not just an ordinary performance goal. Moreover, by presenting a very discrepant and idealized goal to followers, the leader provides a sense of great challenge and a motivating force for change. The attitude change literature suggested that the maximum discrepant position that lies within the latitude of acceptance puts the greatest amount of pressure on followers to change their attitudes (Hovland & Pritzker 1957; Petty  & Cacioppo 1981). Because the charismatic leader’s idealized goals are articulated to represent a perspective shared by the followers (Antonakis, Fenley & Liechti 2011) and are represented as goals that promise to meet their aspirations, they tend to be within this latitude of acceptance, despite their extreme discrepancy with existing conditions. In summary, leaders will be perceived as charismatic as they succeed in changing their followers’ attitudes to accept their advocated transformational vision. So what makes charismatic leaders successful advocates of their discrepant vision? Research on persuasive communications suggests that (1) to be perceived as a successful advocate, one needs to be a credible communicator, and that (2) credibility comes from projecting an image of being likable, trustworthy, and knowledgeable (Sears, Freedman & Peplau 1985). It is the shared perspective of the vision and its potential for satisfying followers’ needs that make charismatic leaders “likable” persons. The idealized vision, however, makes such leaders admirable persons deserving of respect and worthy of identification and imitation by followers. The manner in which the transformational vision is articulated is another differentiating dimension of charismatic leadership. Its articulation involves three separate processes: (1) descriptions of the present and future organizational context, (2) articulation of the leader’s own motivation to lead the organization into the future, and (3) expressions of confidence in 308

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the followers’ ability to achieve visionary goals as a collective. With reference to the first dimension of context, the leader must effectively articulate for followers the following scenarios: (1) the nature of the status quo and its critical shortcomings, (2) the future transformational vision or idealized future state to be achieved, (3) how the future vision, when realized, will address existing deficiencies in the status quo while simultaneously fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of followers, and (4) the leader’s plan of action for realizing the vision. In articulating the organizational context, the charismatic leader’s verbal messages construct reality such that the positive features of the future vision and the negative features of the status quo are emphasized. The vision is presented in clear, specific terms as the most attractive and attainable alternative to the status quo. In the scenarios that are described, the leader attempts to create disenchantment or discontent with the status quo, a strong identification with future goals, and a compelling desire among followers to be led in the direction of the vision despite obstacles. The charismatic leader may also offer an ideological explanation for action which emphasizes the necessity of a collective purpose while referring to historical accounts related to ideals and values of importance to followers (Shamir, Arthur & House 1994). Simultaneously, charismatic leaders are articulating their own motivation to lead their followers. Using expressive modes of action, both verbal and nonverbal, they manifest their convictions, self-confidence, and dedication to materialize what they advocate (Awamleh & Gardner 1999; Antonakis, Fenley & Liechti 2011). Their rhetoric, energy, persistence, unconventional and risky behavior, heroic deeds, and personal sacrifices all serve to attest to their high motivation and enthusiasm, which in turn become contagious among their followers. The final articulation dimension is the expression of the leader’s confidence that followers are capable of achieving the strategic vision (Shamir, House & Arthur 1993). While acknowledging the challenges that followers will face in their quest to attain the visionary goals, the charismatic leader emphasizes a direct relationship between their sustained efforts and the realization of the meaningful values and outcomes associated with the vision. Followers’ efforts are further imbued with a sense of moral correctness. This increases their conviction, sense of resolve, confidence, and self-efficacy. These messages deepen personal commitment to the leader’s mission and encourage self-sacrificial behavior and organizational citizenship which are required to accomplish the vision.

The behavioral dimensions of stage three: achieving the future transformational vision In the final stage of the charismatic leadership process, the leader builds trust in their own abilities and demonstrates the tactics and behaviors required to achieve organizational goals and vision. It is critical that followers trust the leader’s vision and their expertise in how to attain it. This trust is built through the charismatic leader’s actions of personal example, risk taking, and unconventional expertise. Generally, leaders are perceived as trustworthy when they advocate their position in a disinterested manner and demonstrate a concern for followers’ needs rather than their own self-interest (Walster, Aronson & Abrahams 1966). To be perceived as charismatic, leaders make these qualities appear to be extraordinary. They engage in exemplary acts that are perceived by followers as involving heroism, great personal risk, cost, and energy (Friedland 1964). The personal risk might include the possible loss of personal finances, the possibility of being fired or demoted, and the potential loss of formal or informal status, power, or authority. The higher the manifest personal cost or sacrifice for the vision, the greater the perceived trustworthiness of the charismatic leader. The more these leaders are able to demonstrate that 309

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they are indefatigable workers prepared to take on high personal risks or incur high costs to achieve their shared vision, the more worthy they become of complete trust. To garner trust, charismatic leaders must also be seen as knowledgeable and as experts in their areas of influence. They use their expertise to demonstrate the inadequacy of existing technology, rules, standards, and regulations associated with the status quo. Some degree of demonstrated expertise, such as reflected in successes in the past, may be a necessary condition even for the attribution of charisma. In addition, they demonstrate an expertise in devising effective but unconventional strategies and plans of action. Their uncommon behavior, when successful, evokes in followers emotional responses of surprise and admiration and further reinforcing perceptions of their charisma.

The role of context Research on the roles that context plays in charismatic leadership in organizations has been limited. As we noted earlier, this is due largely to the dominance of researchers with a behavioral orientation (organizational behavior, psychology, and social psychology). Early in the history of the field of charismatic leadership, it was believed that an environment of high stress and turbulence was most conducive to charismatic leadership and organizational change. The logic for this assumption was straightforward. Stressful conditions foster a longing for a leader who offers attractive solutions to move from a status quo that is no longer functional and tolerable. The most important empirical study to examine contextual factors in an organizational context was conducted by Roberts and Bradley (1988). Through a field study, the research examined a school superintendent who was perceived by her organization to be a charismatic leader. In a later appointment to state commissioner of education, the perception of charisma failed to transfer. In Roberts and Bradley’s search to explain why the individual’s charisma did not transfer, they discovered several differences between the two contexts. The first was in crisis, while the second was not in a state of distress. The individual’s authority also differed between the contexts. As a superintendent, she has much more control and autonomy. As a commissioner, the opposite was true. Her primary political loyalty was to the governor. Her actions had to be cleared by the governor. She no longer possessed the freedom to undertake actions that she felt were necessary. Finally, her relationships were different. At the school district level, she had a limited number of stakeholders in a small, localized geography. At the state level, there was far greater complexity and bureaucracy. She had to participate in numerous committees and associations such that she had little time to build the deep, personal bonds she had established at the school district level. As a result, her impact at the state level was no longer personal, and so perceptions of her as a charismatic leader did not materialize. Circling back to the issue of whether contexts of crisis are the more conducive, the research suggests otherwise. For example, charismatic leaders are often entrepreneurs who are operating in conditions of great opportunity, munificence, and optimism.

The liabilities of charismatic leaders Despite their reputation as agents of transformational change, charismatic leaders are not always associated with positive outcomes. In a number of cases, they have produced negative and sometimes disastrous outcomes for their organizations. The more common problems are tied to skill deficiencies, dysfunctional personality attributes such as narcissism, and influence dynamics with followers. 310

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As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, charismatic leaders are known for their change agent skills and often are deficient in administrative capabilities. As a result, they may invest little of their time and attention in managerial tasks such as designing effective control systems, structuring roles and responsibilities, or providing adequate structure. These activities often hold little interest for them. To compensate for these shortcomings, the more effective charismatic leaders seek out managerial talent to complement themselves. But some charismatic leaders may lack a deep appreciation for such skills and appoint managers who are also poor at these skills. At a certain point, their organizations stumble or fail due to the lack of effective managerial talent to complement their leadership. On the personality dimension, House and Howell (1992) offered a simple typology to explain the distinctions between the positive (socialized) and the negative (personalized) expressions of charismatic leadership. They speculated that a unique set of personality and behavioral traits distinguished the two forms. Although the socialized leader has a high need for power, this need is counterbalanced by high activity inhibition, low authoritarianism, an internal locus of control, high self-esteem and low Machiavellianism. These “balancing” characteristics shape the leader’s behavior so that it emphasizes the collective interests of followers. As a result, the leader’s inclination is to govern others through more equalitarian means, to address followers’ needs, and motivate through empowerment and high involvement. In contrast, the personalized leader has a high need for power that is coupled with low activity inhibition, high authoritarianism, an external locus of control, low self-esteem, high narcissism, and high Machiavellianism. These characteristics promote leadership behavior that is self-serving. Personalized charismatic leaders govern in a totalitarian manner, discourage questioning of their decisions, disregard legitimate institutional channels, and advocate goals that may appear to be shared but whose outcomes largely benefit the leader. They prefer to foster dependence and unquestioning obedience among their followers.

Routinization and succession The sociologist Max Weber was intrigued about the manner in which a leader’s charisma could be transformed into routines and other institutional vehicles that in essence “lived on” beyond the leader. Weber believed that charisma was essentially an unstable force. It either faded or was institutionalized. In terms of research on these topics of routinization and succession, little has been conducted. Conger (1993) and Conger and Kanungo (1998) discovered that generally charismatic leadership tends to be a relatively fragile phenomenon in terms of institutionalization in business settings. Where it does transfer, the leader’s rituals, norms, and vision may not necessarily continue to produce the positive outcomes associated with the leader’s tenure.

Conclusion and future research While research on charismatic leadership in organizations has made significant progress over the last four decades, there remains much to be explored. Specifically, the field must move beyond its behavioral emphasis to examine the topic from sociological and macro-organizational perspectives. These more structural and contextual dimensions have largely been overlooked. Even within the domain of behavioral dimensions, certain attribute topics such as the formulation and conveyance of strategic vision remain poorly understood. While vision is consistently cited as a component of charismatic leadership, research is almost nonexistent. Analysis of culture as a contingency variable is another important area for future exploration. Innumerable cultural dynamics are likely to influence the emergence and attribution of charismatic leadership. 311

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References Antonakis, J., Fenley, M. and Liechti, S. 2011. “Can charisma be taught? Tests of two interventions.” The Academy of Management Learning and Education, 10 (3), 374–396. Awamleh, R. and Gardner, W. L. 1999. “Perceptions of leader charisma and effectiveness: The effects of vision content, delivery and organizational performance.” The Leadership Quarterly, 10 (3), 345–373. Bass, B. M. 1985. Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: The Free Press. Burns, J. M. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper and Row. Conger, J. A. 1988. “Theoretical foundations of charismatic leadership.” In J. A. Conger and R. N. Kanungo (eds.) Charismatic leadership: Behind the mystique of exceptional leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Conger, J. A. 1993. “Max Weber’s conceptualization of charismatic authority: Its influence on organizational research.” Leadership Quarterly, 4 (3–4), 277–288. Conger, J. A. and Kanungo, R. N. 1998. Charismatic leadership in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Friedland, W. H. 1964. “For a sociological concept of charisma.” Social Forces, 43, 18–26. House, R. J. 1977. “A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership.” In J. G. Hunt and L. L. Larson (eds.) Leadership: The cutting edge. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 189–207. House, R. J. and Howell, J. M. 1992. “Personality and charismatic leadership.” The Leadership Quarterly, 3 (2), 81–108. Hovland, C. I. and Pritzker, H. A. 1957. “Extent of opinion change as a function of the amount of change advocated.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 54, 257–261. Petty, R. E. and Cacioppo, J. T. 1981. Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Dubuque, IA: Brown. Roberts, N. C. and Bradley, R. T. (1988) “Limits of charisma.” In J. A. Conger and R. N. Kanungo (eds.) Charismatic leadership: The elusive factor in organizational effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 253–275. Sears, D. O., Freedman, L. and Peplau, L. A. 1985. Social psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Shamir, B. 1995. “Social distance and charisma: Theoretical notes and an exploratory study.” Leadership Quarterly, 6 (1), 19–47. Shamir, B., Arthur, M. B. and House, R. J. 1994. “The rhetoric of charismatic leadership: A theoretical extension, a case study, and implications for research.” Leadership Quarterly, 5 (1), 25–42. Shamir, B., House, R. J. and Arthur, M. B. 1993. “The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory.” Organizational Science, 4 (4), 577–594. Walster, E., Aronson, D. and Abrahams, D. (1966) “Functional background as a determinant of executives’ selective perception.” Academy of Management Journal, 38 (4), 943–974. Zaleznik, A. and Kets de Vries, M. 1975. Power and the corporate mind. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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26 Signaling charisma Nicolas Bastardoz

What is signaling charisma? Imagine that a leader aims to convey certain attributes about herself such as how competent and willing she is to lead a group based on certain values she holds dear; how can she do so effectively? Showing off her previous accomplishments or extant knowledge may work in some situations, but she may risk coming across as arrogant or unabashed. Pledging to do anything for the group may ring hollow. An effective way to achieve her aim may be to communicate the values she stands for and indicate she has understood the group’s concerns and shares her followers’ emotions, all this wrapped up in symbolic rhetoric. The charisma signal arises out of such communication, as it allows leaders to impart information about their abilities and intentions that cannot be otherwise observed (Antonakis et al., 2016). Building on previous work linking the charismatic literature with a signaling approach, I  will define charisma as “values-based, symbolic, and emotion-laden leader signaling” (Antonakis et al., 2016, 304). Using this definition as a backdrop, I will rely on core premises of the signaling literature to provide a fresh perspective on the study of charisma. A signaling approach rests on two main aspects: The underlying information transmitted by the signal and the cost (or honesty) of the signal. First, the signal conveys some information regarding an underlying attribute that one individual wishes to communicate. In the initial example, the imaginary leader aims to convey her abilities and intention to lead; one potent way to do so is to signal charisma using all three aspects of the charisma signal (i.e., values, symbolism, and emotions) in her rhetoric. I will argue in this chapter that the charisma signal indicates one’s (1) intelligence – because the ­production of values-based and symbolic rhetoric requires intelligence (Antonakis et  al., 2016), and (2) intentions to coordinate group actions (Grabo et al., 2017) based on certain group values and emotions which are both antecedents of effective leadership. Indeed, the charisma signal offers crucial knowledge to followers on both the leader intelligence (i.e., abilities) and her willingness to lead based on specific values and group emotions (i.e., intentions). Second, a signal needs to be costly or honest in that the signal should be hard to imitate for those individuals who do not possess the underlying attribute. This cost requirement suggests that individuals who signal charisma indeed possess the underlying attribute (Antonakis et al., 2016).

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I will argue that charisma signals used to be costly signals of ability and intentions as our human species evolved but are not anymore due to changes in the context surrounding leaderfollower interactions. Evolutionary psychology theory suggests that charismatic leadership was selected against other leadership styles because it was an effective way for groups to deal with certain evolutionary pressures (Grabo et al., 2017, Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019; see also the chapter by White in this volume). At the time the charisma signal evolved, these signals were permeated with information regarding the leader (e.g., reciprocity, reputation) making them very hard to fake and copy. Because conditions have changed  – for instance, followers do not interact closely with their leaders over years or followers simply do not pay attention to a leader’s reputation – individuals who lack intentions to lead based on specific values and group emotions or who are less intelligent (to a lesser extent) may still fake and produce the charisma signal. I will suggest that followers and organizations should rely on other costly signals – such as a leader’s self-sacrificial behaviors or consistency of signals over time – to obtain an accurate idea of a leader’s intentions. This chapter is structured as follows. I first discuss basic tenets of the costly signaling literature and their application to the charisma phenomenon. I then delve further into the charisma signal, discussing the three major components of framing, substance, and delivery. I then assert that the charisma signal may not be costly anymore and suggest ways for followers to continue benefiting from individuals’ signaling of charisma. I conclude with future trends and directions providing research ideas sparked by the application of costly signaling to the study of charisma.

Costly signaling theory applied to charisma Signals can be words but can also be actions, behaviors, or more subtle nonverbal cues (Pentland, 2010). As Spence (2002) noted, signals represent “things one does that are in part designed to communicate” (p. 434), which in an environment of information asymmetry convey meaning about qualities and/or intent of the signaler (Stiglitz, 2000). Very importantly, not every communication attempt or cue is a signal; to be considered as a signal, a communication attempt or cue has to reveal certain hidden attributes that may not be imparted differently (Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005). Also, the signal in itself has per se no (or very little) intrinsic value; its value lies in the credible information about the underlying attribute. Take for example education: college or university degrees have very limited intrinsic value; their worth relies on the fact that they reveal some information about the ability of individuals (Spence, 2002). To be valuable, a signal needs to be costly in that it reveals the true underlying ability or intent of the signaler (Van Schaik, 2016). Signals that can be easily faked are worthless. Continuing the education example, college and university are designed in a way such that only able and motivated students succeed; getting a degree is extremely difficult for individuals who do not possess the right intellectual abilities or who are not motivated. Only individuals who possess the underlying attribute(s) can produce the signal, or they can produce the signal more quickly or efficiently, such as investing less time, effort, or resources in its production. A costly signal is honest when for individuals who do not possess the underlying characteristic, faking the signal is very difficult or even impossible (Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005, Gintis et al., 2001, Grafen, 1990). In the animal world, the peacock’s tail or gazelle stotting are costly signals because they reveal some unobservable genetic quality and offer valuable information to potential mates or attackers. Costly signaling thus implies that individuals may bear extra costs to signal one’s ability or intentions if that information could not be communicated honestly in a different manner (Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005). For instance, I may show my commitment to the organization where I am employed (i.e., the underlying attribute) by engaging in extra-role behaviors or 314

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working overtime (i.e., the signal). When the signal is costly, signaling benefits both signalers and receivers. Signalers benefit from receivers valuing the signal and responding in a positive way. Receivers benefit from a signal when it honestly reveals hidden attributes of the signaler which are valuable for the receivers and could otherwise not have been detected. In a leadership context, a signal represents what leaders communicate to followers regarding their ability or intention as leaders – two underlying attributes that an individual willing to endorse leadership responsibilities may want to signal. This distinction between ability and intention is crucial because, as I explain later, ability signals are much harder to fake than intention signals. Leaders may impart their personal qualities – knowledge, skills, or competences – and thus signal their abilities. Leaders may also indicate their motivations, interests, or values regarding good followership or what participating in the group means (e.g., “collaborate with others”), and so signal their intentions. Followers gain from knowing the skills of their leader, what the leader stands for or feels, or how the leader is invested in group activities insofar as this knowledge fundamentally affects their own individual welfare. Based on their own perception of the signal and the presence of alternative leaders (Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019), followers then decide whether they want to follow and invest effort in collective endeavors. Followers embracing the signal can in turn show their deference and submission to the leader, signaling followership (i.e., indicating their intention to forgo their individual interest and pursue collective efforts).

Charisma signals: verbal and nonverbal tactics Charisma is thus both a signal of a leader’s ability (i.e., high intelligence) and intentions (i.e., the focus on value and group emotions) that in most circumstances should be challenging to fake for individuals who do not have these characteristics. How can one thus produce the charisma signal, and what form does it take? Previous research indicates that leaders can signal charisma using a combination of different verbal and nonverbal tactics (Awamleh and Gardner, 1999; Shamir et al., 1994; Frese et al., 2003). The state of the art suggests that 12 tactics, grouped together and known as the “Charismatic Leadership Tactics” (CLTs; Antonakis et al., 2011), form the charisma signal. These tactics can be classified in three categories: Framing, substance, and delivery (Jacquart and Antonakis, 2015; Antonakis, 2017). Framing refers to how the signal is constructed and framed (Antonakis, 2017). This category includes the use of metaphors (Den Hartog and Verburg, 1998; Willner, 1984). Metaphors transmit a message through symbols. Rather than communicating an abstract message, metaphors appeal to the imagination and emotions of the followers. By offering a vivid analog of the situation, the message becomes more salient and long-lasting. In a similar vein, stories and anecdotes convey messages in an animated way because of the mental images they trigger and the personal identification with the characters, which facilitates recall and the processing of information. Stories and anecdotes also generate a common, agreed meaning within groups and larger collectives, creating a sense of shared identity. Rhetorical questions represent an invitation to the follower to actively participate in the creation of the vision. The message becomes more valuable because the follower actively co-produces it. Rhetorical questions used at the beginning of a speech help create a suspense that is only resolved through or at the epilog of the speech, arousing followers’ interest. Contrasts shape a clear opposition between two ideas and bolster the desired values by opposing two end points. Contrasts tend to create a strong effect that appeals to the emotions of listeners. Finally, three-part lists trigger a sense of completeness and exhaustion in the argumentation. They also facilitate recall and do not overload with information that could otherwise be perceived as a way to impress at all costs. 315

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Substance refers to the actual content of the charisma signal (Antonakis, 2017). Expressing moral conviction refers to demonstrating faith in the moral righteousness of the message. A leader expressing moral conviction will draw followers’ attention to the moral imperative of the signal, justifying why the vision should be adopted (House, 1977). Articulating the sentiments of the collective creates a connection between the leader’s message and followers’ needs, increasing followers’ commitment to and identification with the signal (Shamir et al., 1993). The leader is thus perceived as “one of their own” because followers believe the leader feels the same way or at least understands their concern. Setting high and ambitious goals shows a leader’s ambition, commitment to the vision, and willingness to achieve the goals. This signal motivates followers to engage in costly but valuable efforts, increasing their self-esteem and competence. Leaders should also express their confidence that goals can be achieved. Doing so increases followers’ confidence in the achievability of the leader’s signal. Because followers believe that their investment is worthy and can succeed, they are more likely to be motivated and exhibit costly efforts. Delivery refers to how the signal is presented and delivered (Antonakis, 2017). It entails nonverbal behaviors that align with the leader’s verbal signals. To do so, leaders make use of their voice in alignment with framing and substantive CLTs. A variety of voice pitch, change of volume, or pauses are tactics that reinforce the message, stir the emotions of followers, and offer cues about the expected emotions in the group. Body gestures, such as pointing, gesturing, or having arms wide open, make the message more vivid and memorable. Eye contact helps a leader display confidence and create a personal bond with the follower. Interestingly, a leader’s nonverbal CLTs tend to be significantly correlated with verbal CLTs (i.e., framing and substance) probably because the charisma rhetoric lends itself well to nonverbal communication (Antonakis et al., 2011). I argue here that different verbal CLTs signal different underlying attributes and produce different outcomes. On one hand, framing CLTs demonstrate one’s rhetorical prowess and mastery of symbolic thinking. The underlying attribute signaled is one’s intelligence or ability to successfully lead followers and coordinate group activities (Antonakis et al., 2016; Grabo et al., 2017), which ultimately affects the leader’s credibility and eligibility for the role. Using symbolic rhetoric effectively such as interesting and relevant stories or striking contrasts (e.g., think of JFK’s famous “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”) requires and reflects a high degree of intelligence, conveying the idea that the leader can understand and influence the group. The production of creative metaphors is also correlated with fluid intelligence (Silvia and Beaty, 2012) and represents a hard-to-fake signal of a leader’s abilities. In general, a charisma signal that contains framing CLTs is easier to produce for intelligent individuals, whereas less intelligent individuals may only be able to use plain or literal language. More intelligent leaders also develop rhetorical skills and leadership abilities more quickly or efficiently (Antonakis et al., 2016). On the other hand, substance CLTs indicate the essence of the leader’s vision, making objectives and motivations salient in the minds of followers, who may rely on these recent, potent signals when they exert effort. The underlying attribute is a leader’s willingness to act on specific values and group emotions, which ultimately affects followers’ efforts and investments in the task. These signals tend to be costly in environments with repeated exposures because only leaders with honest intent will deliver what they indicated. Leaders who do not act on their communicated intent (i.e., cheaters or dishonest signalers) will not be selected or followed in the future, making it costly for them to signal charisma. There is yet one aspect of substance that may reveal ability: Setting high and ambitious goals, which requires domainrelevant expertise. A leader’s vision needs to be appropriate and realizable because if the goal is not achievable, they lose credibility. 316

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Is the charisma signal still costly? To have evolved, the charisma signal had to be more costly to produce for those individuals who did not have the right ability and intentions. The charisma signal had to convey honest information about the leader, otherwise followers would have been repeatedly fooled and deceived, ultimately causing followers not to respond to charisma signals anymore (Grabo et al., 2017). The mere fact that charismatic leaders attract so much attention – sometimes irrationally – indeed suggests that following charismatic leaders was probably a beneficial strategy for followers. Because followers benefited from the charisma signal, the human species is likely to have evolved to be receptive to such a signal (Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019; Castelnovo et al., 2017). A critical question today is whether individuals signaling charisma still provides honest information regarding the leader’s intelligence and willingness to lead based on specific values and group emotions. The structure of modern environments may have reduced the charisma “signal fit,” or whether the charisma signal correlates with the leader’s ability and the intentions of the leader (Connelly et al., 2011). First, intelligence may be more loosely correlated with the use of framing CLTs. Technological changes have made the charisma signal cheaper to produce, reducing the level of intelligence required to produce the signal. The advent of the World Wide Web and social networks – disseminating knowledge (such as the CLTs) and ideas – has made signaling charisma more affordable and efficient, especially for less intelligent individuals. Dishonest signalers can very easily pretend to have created an original charisma signal albeit having copied it from the internet or repeatedly using the same signal (e.g., think of individuals using the same story or joke repeatedly). Also, the general increase in intelligence (Flynn, 2007) may have increased the number of individuals able to produce symbolic rhetoric. Second, and even more importantly, leaders signaling charisma can very easily usurp followers by faking their true intentions. Substance CLTs are easy to fake for individuals who do not have genuine intentions to lead based on specific values and group emotions. In an attention economy, uninformed followers rarely take the time to search for more information to evaluate the real intentions of their leaders (Cronk, 2005). Individuals identified as dishonest signalers tend to be quickly forgotten; just think about the fate of companies that committed wrongdoings or how political candidates are generally not held accountable to their electoral promises. Cheaters may also be given new chances to start anew elsewhere as a result of high geographical mobility (i.e., newcomers in communities were scrutinized and needed time to build their reputation decades ago, which is not the case anymore in a globalized world). Also, if the rewards associated with successfully signaling charisma – such as opportunities granted, resources afforded, or status given – exceed the costs associated with dishonesty being uncovered  – such as lack of future opportunities, serving prison time, or reputation costs  – the incentives may be misaligned and encourage dishonest signalers. Indeed, Bliege Bird and Smith (2005) argue that “if the fundamental conditions for costly or honest signaling are not met, we should expect to see a great deal of lying, deceit, and misdirection” (p. 244). Overall, this discussion suggests that the charisma signal may not be a costly signal of a leader’s intentions (and to a lesser extent ability) anymore; yet under certain circumstances, the charisma signal will remain meaningful and valuable. Followers can ensure that charisma signals keep their costly feature by gauging the leader’s self-sacrificial behaviors beyond verbal intention signals. To understand why, it is important to understand in which environment our followership psychology evolved. This environment was characterized primarily by small-scale egalitarian tribes, strong pressures to coordinate and cooperate on some crucial tasks, and informal, contextual, and revocable leadership (see Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019 for more details). In such environments, the charisma signal was 317

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imbued with relevant information about the leader developed through years of repeated closed interactions (e.g., reputation, past reciprocity). The environment in which humans currently interact has significantly changed. Leadership tends to be formalized, wide-ranging in scope, and mostly stable. Followers very rarely have information on their leaders’ past behaviors until they interact with them. Even though the environment has changed, our followership psychology has not evolved that quickly and still relies on the same signals that were previously successful. Followers should thus find worthy substitutes or proxies for the leader’s reputation if it is not easily known in the current environment. Self-sacrificial behaviors can be one of those substitutes. Self-sacrificial behaviors are a proof of intent and ensure the leader’s intent is honest. Some behaviors are simply too costly to be faked (Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005). Actions bear more value than verbal statements, especially actions that cannot be overturned or are costly to do in the first place (Moore, 1992). Take Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, who spent years in prison to fight systems they considered unjust and sacrificed their life for a cause. When they signaled intent, they came across as credible because they had invested their life in their vision, and such a signal was too costly to be faked. Of course, had Mandela not been caught and imprisoned, he could not have drawn on his time in prison as a costly signal; though that he did engage in activities to subvert the apartheid regime and thereby expose himself to the risk of prison was a strong signal of his intent. It would thus be in followers and organizations’ best interest to select and endorse leaders who have accompanied their verbal intent signals with repeated costly behaviors. For example, organizations should avoid recruiting individuals based on easy-to-fake interviews but rather rely on their reputations, usually formed via costly behaviors over time (Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019). As Schelling (1960) said: “Talk can be cheap when moves are not” (p. 117). One may then wonder why signaling intent with words – through substance CLTs – would be of any value to followers. If actions are more valuable than words, followers should only select leaders who have engaged in self-sacrifice to signal their willingness to lead based on specific values and group emotions. In practice, such a situation is unrealistic and inefficient. It is unrealistic because it may be impossible to find one or enough leaders who have engaged in self-sacrifice for each specific task. New situations arise every day, and it would be impractical (and indeed effortful) to find the right individual. Followers should then rely on the secondbest information available, and this is a verbal engagement. In the absence of reputation or performance information, signaling charisma to transmit one’s intent could to a certain extent carry useful information (Jacquart and Antonakis, 2015). Relying on verbal signals of intentions is thus appropriate when other relevant information is unavailable. From a leader’s perspective, focusing only on actions is also inefficient because substance CLTs are valuable beyond their signaling purpose, making values and group emotions salient in followers’ minds. These intent signals make the general vision transmitted very potent and help it to resonate with the group, boosting individual efforts and aligning them with the vision of the leader.

When will followers enact the charisma signal? Signaling charisma does not ensure that followers will accept the signal. First and foremost, a signal will only be effective if followers believe that it is honest and conveys accurate information (i.e., followers need to believe the signal is costly). Then, assuming an environment without competitive signalers, followers have to buy into the leader’s values and be emotionally prone to feel aroused by the emotional content of the signal. Without value congruence, the signal will not attract followers (Jacquart and Bastardoz, 2018); indeed, followers may either love or despise 318

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leaders signaling charisma contingent on value congruence (Tucker, 1968). Similarly, followers who are emotionally exhausted may not be receptive and susceptible to the charisma signal. Then, in a group context or when collective action is required, each follower must believe other followers have been exposed to the same signal and interpreted it in a similar way (Antonakis et al., 2019). The social context affects followers’ reading and enactment of the charisma signal, especially the beliefs regarding what other members of the collective will do. A common interpretation ensures that other followers share similar emotions, values, and behavioral norms regarding their participation in the collective action and reduces the likelihood that followers will be exploited, such as being the only group member to exert efforts. The importance of a charisma-inducing social context explains why political leaders very often fill big political rally rooms with members of their team to influence the reactions so that would-be followers get entrained and adhere to the vision. Once followers accept the charisma signal and the leader is legitimized, leaders need to walk the talk, reinforce the signal if needed, and enjoy some successes for the signal to keep its effect. First, leaders need to embody and stand for the values and emotions they signal. Those who pledge one thing but do the other will lose their followers’ trust and willingness to exert efforts. Leaders who benefit personally, favor one’s in-group, or opportunistically endorse other principles will see their aura fade and will relinquish their influence. Second, the duration between the signal and its completion can sometimes be long. Repeated exposure to the signal may be required to keep followers’ morale up: Some followers may lose sight of the vision or feel different emotions. Of course, leaders who over-signal may also be ineffective (e.g., by contributing to emotional exhaustion), and an appropriate mix of charisma signaling with other behaviors (e.g., consideration, task-orientation) is required. Third, signaling abilities and intentions is one important aspect, but acting toward the realization and succeeding in the group task is a different story. Leaders who fail to deliver will very likely lose their aura of charisma (see Awamleh and Gardner, 1999). Hence, I argue here that successfully signaling charisma relies on various conditions, both before and after the leader is legitimized and selected, and that the correlation between signaling and attributions of charisma will rest upon these necessary conditions. At a conceptual and empirical level, distinguishing charisma signals from charisma attributions is fundamental. Charisma attributions deal with the process of attributing charisma to leaders, a phenomenon interesting per se but which is not a helpful method for use in understanding the gist of charisma. Unfortunately, researchers very often use charisma attributions (measured via perceptual questionnaires) as a measure of a leader’s charisma. Such method is problematic because it confounds multiple influences within a general, perceptual assessment of charisma (Antonakis et al., 2016). When asked to rate their leader’s charisma, followers anchor their ratings on multiple cues, such as whether they like or trust their leader, whether their leader is physically attractive or tall, or whether their leader exudes confidence or is successful. Thus, these followers’ perceptions cannot be used as independent variable in statistical models to explain the effect of charisma on some outcomes because omitted variables may engender bias in estimated coefficients (Antonakis et al., 2010).

What characteristics make individuals good followers of charismatic leaders? Good followership is critical to ensure a smooth signaling process. Followers need to hold leaders accountable for their signals just like simple animals do (Bachmann et al., 2017). Followers should actively identify dishonest signals and punish leaders who fake the charisma signal or exploit their position. A failure to act against exploitative leaders will encourage more leaders to 319

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dishonestly signal charisma. Interestingly, our followership psychology evolved in an environment in which followers had extensive tools at their disposal to keep leaders in check, known as leveling mechanisms (Boehm, 1993). When a leader would fake a signal, the leader could have been demoted, expelled, or sometimes killed. These leveling mechanisms gave followers an extensive arsenal to ensure leaders would honestly deliver what they signaled. Power has since changed hands, and leaders within organizations very often accrue excessive power. Followers should not de facto assume that leaders have their best interests at heart (i.e., they signal their intentions honestly); instead, they should actively inquire about their leader’s inner motivations, values, and felt emotions to ensure the signal’s honesty and credibility. Besides self-sacrifice, another cue to ensure the honesty of signals is the consistency of a leader’s actions over time (Connelly et al., 2011). Leaders who repeatedly defend and champion the same values are more likely to signal honestly than leaders who just recently took a stance on an issue or who send conflicting signals. Good followership is especially needed given charismatic leaders’ influence on followers. Strongly identified and/or emotionally aroused followers will be exceedingly open to their leader’s influence, sparking ideal conditions for individuals with good but also bad intentions to produce massive responses (e.g., Nazi’s Germany, Peoples Temple). Also, followers with certain characteristics may be prone to fare badly under the guidance of dishonest charismatic leaders (Howell and Shamir, 2005). For instance, uncritical or unquestioning followers may likely fail to detect or react to dishonest signals. Such followers will incentivize more leaders to signal charisma dishonestly, reducing the value of honest charisma signalers. Organizations should also identify their leaders who are reluctant to hear dissent and negative feedback, because it creates ideal conditions for dependent and perfunctory following with potentially high cost for the organization (Kelley, 1992). Following can also be approached from a signaling angle. Honest following is a signal of one’s intentions (probably less so than ability) to engage in efforts toward the realization of the leader’s vision. Individuals who signal followership indicate their willingness not to pursue their own interests but instead to go along with the leader’s plan (Bastardoz and Van Vugt, 2019). An implication here is that different behaviors represent costly (i.e., hard-to-fake) signals of following. Individuals can publicly show deference and commitment to a leader, such as recognizing another individual as a leader or refusing to signal charisma oneself. They can also engage in behaviors that favor their leader. An example of costly followership is individuals who spend their free time to hand out political flyers for a cause or a political election. Theoretically, leadership will be better exercised and reach superior collective outcomes when situations allow both leaders and followers to honestly signal their ability and intent.

Future trends and directions Approaching the study of charisma through a signaling perspective opens interesting new areas of research. First, as in any cross-disciplinary endeavor, cross-fertilization could spark new ideas and theoretical explanations. There is indeed a vast body of research studying signaling in anthropology (Bliege Bird and Smith, 2005) or behavioral ecology (e.g., Gintis et al., 2001). Certain ideas and constructs have already made their ways in the management literature (see specifically Connelly et al., 2011), but not so much in the leadership literature (for exceptions, see Antonakis et al., 2016; Grabo et al., 2017). Charisma scholars could also benefit from formal models to make concrete predictions regarding leader and follower behaviors (e.g., Hermalin, 2014). More broadly, studying leadership from a signaling viewpoint may prove beneficial, such 320

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as studying other costly signals (e.g., acting with generosity) that may reveal meaningful underlying attributes (e.g., benevolent leader). Second, a signaling perspective offers new avenues to get at the gist of what charisma is (Antonakis et al., 2016). For instance, researchers can code for leader signals in representative archival data (e.g., interviews, biographies) or externally valid settings (e.g., coding unobtrusively for leader-follower interactions). Because a signaling perspective focuses on objective indicators of leader behaviors, researchers can also experimentally manipulate CLTs in leader speeches or texts. New CLTs may also be developed to adjust to new environments, cultures, or working conditions (e.g., in virtual environments). These new CLTs should not only fit the definition of charisma but also be a costly signal of either the leader’s intelligence or her willingness to lead based on specific values and group emotions. Third, a signaling approach also indicates the important role that followers have in the signaling process, yet we know relatively little about how followers influence each other in the interpretation of the charisma signal. Do leaders benefit from a first follower validating the leader’s signal? How do emotions and values infuse groups? Are group-level emotional contagion and value activation necessary for an effective charismatic signaling process? Also, researchers may study how followers and organizations ensure that leaders signaling charisma are kept in check and walk the talk, with the aim to offer best practices and policies regarding accountability. Fourth, we know little about the dynamic and temporal sequence of signaling charisma. Most experimental studies looking at charisma signals focus on one signaling instance, but is more signaling always beneficial? Do effective charismatic leaders show some clear pattern of charisma signals over time? In general, I would argue that the propensity to embrace a charisma signal diminishes the more followers are exposed to such signals. Followers may be emotionally exhausted and not open to leaders’ signaling intent through charisma or may not value more signaling (a too-much-of-a-good-thing effect). For example, once the group has selected and recognized their leader, the leader may not benefit from signaling abilities (through framing CLTs) and may prefer to communicate in followers’ language. Longitudinal studies looking at signaling over time could uncover interesting connections in dynamic environments with repeated leader signals. Rather than expect a linear relationship, I would anticipate some oscillations and fluctuations (linked to contextual requirements) around an optimal level of charisma signaling. Finally, researchers could focus on other cues affecting the attribution of charisma. One may investigate how every slice of information transmitted, actively or passively, intentionally or not, affects charismatic attributions. Multiple cues around the human five senses – how the leader looks (e.g., attractiveness) or smells (e.g., fragrance), what followers see (e.g., stunning scenery) or hear (e.g., music in the background) – may affect charisma attributions (Reh et al., 2017; Pentland, 2010). How do these cues combine to affect followers’ ratings of their leader’s charisma? Leaders who master the whole signaling process may be those who will truly be effective.

Conclusion A signaling approach to charisma offers new exciting ideas to the study of the potent effect of charismatic leaders. Society will continue to benefit from charisma signals as long as followers and organizations carefully select leaders who signal charisma in costly ways. Should the charisma signal lose its cost component, the effects could be tragic given our evolved preference for charisma signals. It remains pivotal that followers select individuals who signal both abilities and intentions. Leaders with ability but without intent are highly intelligent individuals without clear values or emotional appeal that energize followers (i.e., expert leaders). Leaders with 321

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specific intentions but without ability represent grandiose individuals with broad and appealing visions but who fail to materialize them because they are not intelligent enough. As a species, we should continue to recognize the value of charisma signals when they are costly; selecting the right individuals can help us to avoid these maladaptive leaders and follow those who truly have something to offer.

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Howell, J. M. & Shamir, B. 2005. “The role of followers in the charismatic leadership process: Relationships and their consequences.” Academy of Management Review, 30, 96–112. Jacquart, P. & Antonakis, J. 2015. “When does charisma matter for top-level leaders? Effect of attributional ambiguity.” Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1051–1074. Jacquart, P. & Bastardoz, N. 2018. “The moderating effect of values on charismatic outcomes.” 3rd Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium, Chania, Greece. Kelley, R. E. 1992. The power of followership: How to create leaders people want to follow, and followers who lead themselves, New York, Doubleday. Moore, M. C. 1992. “Signals and choices in a competitive interaction: The role of moves and messages.” Management Science, 38, 483–500. Pentland, A. 2010. Honest signals: How they shape our world, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. Reh, S., Van Quaquebeke, N. & Giessner, S. R. 2017. “The aura of charisma: A review on the embodiment perspective as signaling.” The Leadership Quarterly, 28, 486–507. Schelling, T. C. 1960. The strategy of conflict, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Shamir, B., Arthur, M. B. & House, R. J. 1994. “The rhetoric of charismatic leadership: A theoretical extension, a case study, and implications for research.” The Leadership Quarterly, 5, 25–42. Shamir, B., House, R. J. & Arthur, M. B. 1993. “The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A selfconcept based theory.” Organization Science, 4, 577–594. Silvia, P. J. & Beaty, R. E. 2012. “Making creative metaphors: The importance of fluid intelligence for creative thought.” Intelligence, 40, 343–351. Spence, M. 2002. “Signaling in retrospect and the informational structure of markets.” The American Economic Review, 92, 434–459. Stiglitz, J. E. 2000. “The contributions of the economics of information to twentieth century economics.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 1441–1478. Tucker, R. C. 1968. “The theory of charismatic leadership.” Daedalus, 731–756. Van Schaik, C. P. 2016. The primate origins of human nature, Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons. Willner, A. R. 1984. The spellbinders: Charismatic political leadership, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press.

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27 A follower-centric perspective on charismatic leadership An integrative review and agenda for future research Aï Ito, Jennifer Harrison, Michelle Bligh, and Christine Roland-Lévy

Introduction: what is a follower-centric approach? Charisma has long fascinated scholars and practitioners as a phenomenon involving a person, relationship, or situation (Beyer, 1999). Weber (1947), in The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations, used the term to highlight that charisma is “an extraordinary quality of a person” (p. 295) that appeals to followers in situations of uncertainty due to a leader’s “supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (p. 358). Charisma resides in the eyes of followers when they perceive a leader to possess magnetic qualities. Weber emphasized that charismatic leadership is a complex equation that results from a leader whose extraordinary qualities attract the attention of a significant number of followers. Some studies (e.g., Antonakis, Fenley, & Liechti, 2011; Bass, 1990) show that charisma is linked to positive organizational outcomes such as leader effectiveness, organizational performance, follower effort, satisfaction, and performance. The prevailing emphasis on the outcomes of charismatic leadership belies a leader-centric defined as an emphasis on leaders and leadership as solutions for organizational issues (Kohles, Bligh, & Carsten, 2012). The leader-centric perspective describes the direct control of leaders over followers by exacerbating leadership behaviors (Meindl, 1995). The heavy focus on the leader’s point of view promotes an oversimplified and exaggerated image of the leader and his or her efficacy associated with the stereotype of “heroic leadership.” Leaders are perceived to be unique and agentic, with the ability to single-handedly create positive and negative consequences for followers and organizations (Antonakis et al., 2011; Conger & Kanungo, 1998; O’Connor, Mumford, Clifton, Gessner, & Connelly, 1995). Typically, charismatic leadership is analyzed from a leader-centric perspective. Here, follower-related outcomes have been limited to a dependent variable or moderator (Kirkpatrick  & Locke, 1996). Furthermore, leader characteristics, behaviors, and attributions are the only possible independent variables that predict follower motivation, attitudes, and behaviors. In recognition of this limitation, Meindl, Ehrlich, and Dukerich (1985) pointed out that extant 324

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literature tended to be overly leader-centric by ignoring followers’ role and romanticizing leaders’ role. This is equivalent to denying the social psychological foundations of leadership studies (Meindl, 1993). Social psychology is the science clarifying the processes through which individuals’ thoughts and actions are influenced by others (Allport, 1985). Leadership studies should give equal weight to its three composing factors: leaders, followers, and context. Meindl highlighted the research call to take a more complete approach to leadership as a contextually based, relational phenomenon. As such, the follower-centric approach emerged as a reaction to the predominant leader-centric approaches in Western cultures. A follower-centric approach focuses on the role played by followers in the leadership process, as leadership and followers are the causal factors for leadership outcomes (Carsten, Bligh, Kohles, & Wing-Yan Lau, 2019). The role of followers consists in actively taking part to co-constructing leadership as much as leaders do (Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014). Hence, leadership is a social construction in which leaders emerge as a result of followers’ cognitive, attributional, and social identity processes. Major leadership theories shedding light on follower-centric perspectives refer to the “romance of leadership” (Meindl, 1990; Meindl et al., 1985), Implicit Leadership Theories (Eden & Leviatan, 1975; Phillips & Lord, 1981; Rush, Thomas, & Lord, 1977), and the Social Identity Theory of leadership (Chemers, 2001; Hogg, 2001; Van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003; Yukl, 2001). These theories emphasize that our understanding of leadership is incomplete without a comprehension of research on follower-centric perspectives. The role of followers in leadership remains an underexplored area of research. Bligh (2011) noted that between 1990 and 2008, only 14 percent of publications in The Leadership Quarterly included the word “follower” or its derivatives in the title or abstract. Followership has emerged as an independent research area only recently (Carsten, Uhl-Bien, West, Patera, & McGregor, 2010; Collinson, 2006; Hoption, Christie, & Barling, 2012; Sy, 2010), and relatively few studies have explored what happens when followers are given a central role in the leadership process (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). Thus, a complete understanding of leadership is not possible without clarifying how followers and leader-follower relationship dynamics influence the leadership process (Carsten et al., 2010; Dvir & Shamir, 2003; Hollander, 1993; Howell & Shamir 2005; Sy, 2010). According to the connectionist view (Lord & Brown, 2001), leadership is a dynamic system within which leaders and followers interact in a given context (Hollander, 1992; Lord, Brown, & Freiberg, 1999; Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2007; Shamir, 2012; Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012). Building upon this definition, followership can be defined as a role or a social process (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). Role theory (Katz & Kahn, 1978) similarly emphasizes social construction and considers followership as a role played by individuals in a subordinate position within the organization of individuals (i.e., managers) in a follower role. As such, followers are causal agents in the leadership process, follower characteristics and behaviors are the independent variables, and leader characteristics and behaviors are the dependent or moderator variables (Shamir, 2007; Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). Similarly, the latter constructionist approach (Derue & Ashford, 2010; Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012; Shamir, 2007) emphasizes follower behaviors with potential impact on leaders. Therefore, the constructionist approach of followership acknowledges that leaders can engage in “following behaviors” (Fairhurst & Hamlett, 2003; Larsson & Lundholm, 2013). In the following sections, follower-centric perspectives and followership approaches are distinguished, as these concepts are commonly referred to in the leadership literature. Research from ‘follower-centric perspectives’ elaborates the roles played by followers in leadership, and highlights that followers can also be causal factors for leadership outcomes (Carsten et al., 2019). The relational view of followership is defined as research that focuses on the interactions in the 325

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leader-follower relationship. Nevertheless, this chapter will use the term ‘follower-centric perspectives’ to broadly capture literature from both the follower-centric and followership perspectives that places a major emphasis on followers. This chapter also provides a review of research to date on charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives and details an agenda for future charismatic leadership research. In the following sections, we examine the recommendations of Meindl (1993) by integrating theory on follower-centric perspectives and charismatic leadership within a multilevel of analysis framework. Specifically, we draw from Doise’s (1986) model to explore how follower-centric perspectives are manifest at each level, allowing for deeper insight into a more complete spectrum of charismatic leadership. The chapter concludes with a summary agenda for future empirical work on follower-centric models of charismatic leadership.

Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership During the 1980s, James Meindl and colleagues developed the “romance of leadership,” which defines leadership as an attributional phenomenon that followers co-create by idealizing the significance of leaders’ actions and activities. From this perspective, leadership extends beyond the notion of follower subordination to a leader, emphasizing followers’ co-creation of leadership through their desire to believe in the leader and the efficacy of leadership (Meindl, 1995). Although the romance of leadership has received criticism for undermining leaders and their importance (i.e., Bass, 1990; Yukl, 1989), it provides an alternative theoretical lens to one that places importance on the leader’s actions and activities (Meindl, 1995). Meindl highlighted ways fascination with leadership exists across cultures and societies, the tendency to glorify leadership, and the collective urge to give credit to heroes and charismatic leaders without sufficient proof of their efficacy (Bligh, Pillai, & Uhl-Bien, 2007). The romance of leadership perspective is particularly relevant for charismatic leadership, as leader-follower charismatic relationships are emotionally laden and thus have a high potential to be romanticized (Mayo & Pastor, 2007). More specifically, the romance of leadership perspective emphasizes that the attribution of charismatic leadership is a social contagion process spreading among followers of a group or social collective based on affective and/or behavioral reactions of their peers (Meindl, 1993). Accordingly, charismatic phenomena occur within relationships between followers (Meindl, 1995). Observing charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives deepens our analysis of the phenomenon (Weick, 2007). An application of follower-centric perspectives to charismatic leadership can help to enhance our comprehension of the role of followers in the leadership process (Bligh, 2011).

Follower-centric perspectives of charismatic leadership using a levels-of-analysis framework Drawing on Doise’s (1986) framework, we present a model of charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives. Meindl emphasized the need to return to the social psychological foundations of leadership to embrace a more holistic vision of leadership that considers equally the roles of followers. Since then, several studies across research domains (i.e., Hogg & Abrams, 1988) have directed attention toward developing a holistic understanding of leadership. Figure 27.1 depicts follower-centric perspectives of charismatic leadership drawing from Doise’s (1986) multiple levels-of-analysis framework. Doise (1986) described four levels of analysis to understand social psychological phenomenon, including: the intrapersonal (Level 1), the interpersonal and situational (Level 2), the socio-positional (Level 3), and the ideological levels (Level 4) 326

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Ideological Level Social representations of charismatic leadership (i.e., implicit leadership theories) Socio-positional Level Inter-follower dynamics of charismatic leadership (i.e., romance of leadership theory, self-concept theory of charismatic leadership) Interpersonal & Situational Levels Follower relationship; Romance of Leadership ; Contextual factors (e.g., high performance ambi uity, crisis) Intrapersonal Level Follower caracteristics (follower readiness; role clarity; personality)

Figure 27.1 Follower-centric perspectives of charismatic leadership using a levels-of-analysis framework

(North & Hargreaves, 2008). Research at the intrapersonal level examines cognitive, perceptual, and biological processes by which individuals organize the social environment. Within the social psychology of follower-centric research, this level investigates individual characteristics of followers that affect charismatic leadership. The interpersonal and situational level examines relationships between followers to understand how they affect leader-follower relations and follower attribution of charisma; it also examines the processes that happen between people in a given situation. Within the social psychology of follower-centric research, this second level explores how interactions between leaders and followers influence charismatic leadership. The socio-positional level investigates relationships between individuals with reference to differences in their social position (e.g., group membership) or with reference to larger social institutions. The ideological level refers to cultural systems of beliefs, representations, and norms, and explores the possible effects of follower gender or organizational culture on charismatic leadership. This framework can be applied to an organizational context as well. Now we provide an overview of research from each level and outline how each can augment our understanding of charismatic leadership.

Follower-centric perspectives of charismatic leadership at the intrapersonal level (Level 1) Followers’ motivation to identify with leaders A long theoretical and empirical tradition emphasizes that some followers are more likely to develop attributions of charisma. Earlier writings on charisma mentioned that some followers have a strong desire to identify with charismatic leaders (Weber, 1947). Willner (1968) saw followers as having an intense emotional and cognitive attraction to charismatic leaders above and beyond ordinary esteem, affection, admiration, and trust; this attraction involves “devotion, awe, reverence, and blind faith” (p. 6). These followers have a strong belief in the “man and his 327

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mission about what is, what should be, and what should be done” (p. 9). From this approach, what followers feel for the charismatic leader is more important than the leader’s behavior or rhetoric. In fact, Madsen and Snow (1983) asserted that the “magnetizability” of the follower is as important as the magnetism of the leader. For some followers, self-identification with leaders can resolve ego-superego conflicts, and can help resolve identity confusion, which occurs when individuals fail to mature in adolescence and young adulthood and further fail to construct a strong ego ideal due to the absence, oppression, or weakness of parental role models (Erikson, 1968). Thus, charismatic leaders can provide these followers with new goals and a positive identity to enhance their self-esteem. Followers are given another opportunity to mature thanks to the charismatic leader. While followers are likely to vary in their willingness to identify with a charismatic leader, some may have greater predispositions (e.g., personality traits) to be influenced by leaders.

The effect of followers’ personality on attributions of charisma In line with Meindl’s follower-centric perspectives, extant research has focused on elucidating follower personality traits that enhance susceptibility to charismatic attributions. Felfe and Schyns (2010) provided empirical evidence that some personality traits are related to charismatic or transformational leadership. A  sample of 153 clerical workers completed a questionnaire asking about their personality, their perception of their direct supervisor’s personality, and the extent to which their leader exhibits charismatic or transformational leadership. Personality was defined in terms of the Big Five model which assesses an individual’s personality through five traits: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Results showed that followers with high extraversion and agreeableness and low neuroticism perceive more charismatic or transformational leadership. Hence, followers’ personality is a relevant variable to study when predicting perceptions of charismatic leadership. In addition to individual personality and perceived personality of others, followers’ selfconcept clarity has also been identified as an important variable concerning perceptions of charismatic leadership. An individual’s self-concept clarity is considered consistent and stable over time (Campbell, 1990). Although self-concept and self-esteem tend to be used interchangeably, these constructs are distinct (Howell & Shamir, 2005). For example, self-esteem describes the evaluation of the self-concept, or perceptions of identities and characteristics as positive or negative (Gecas, 1982). Individuals with high self-esteem are said to have a high self-concept clarity. Low self-esteem individuals have low self-concept clarity, define themselves negatively, and have a high level of uncertainty (Campbell et al., 1996). This distinction is important because charismatic leadership studies can build upon self-concept-based theories to explain the identification process with leaders experienced by followers (Lord et al., 1999; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Traditional theories underscored that followers with low self-esteem and low selfconcept clarity are more susceptible to influence by charismatic political and religious leaders (Freemesser & Kaplan, 1976; Galanter, 1982). For example, Freemesser and Kaplan (1976) conducted a field experiment with members from a religious cult and with members of more traditional urban Protestant churches (the control group). In comparison with the control group, participants that chose to belong to the religious cult had a greater tendency to lower their self-derogation (i.e., self-esteem) toward the end of the experiment. Hence, previous research supports the idea that followers with low self-esteem, and, thus, low self-concept clarity, tend to engage more easily in charismatic relationships.

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So far, we have identified characteristics of followers that are more likely to be influenced by charismatic leaders. However, the individual level of analysis by itself provides a limited vision of follower-centric research of charismatic leadership.

Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership at the interpersonal and situational levels (Level 2) Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership at the interpersonal level The conceptual work of Howell and Shamir (2005) on charismatic relationships elevated followercentric research of charismatic leadership. One of the contributions of this work resides in having shifted the unit of analysis from the individual to the relational level. In fact, observing ­charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives at the interpersonal levels helps to clarify how different levels of follower self-concept clarity results in different types of charismatic relationships. In fact, charismatic leadership appeals both to weak and to strong, confident followers. Followers with low self-concept clarity are more likely to form a personalized charismatic relationship with the leader. In the personalized charismatic relationship, the relational level of self is activated. Followers experience personal identification with the leader. Alternatively, followers with high self-concept clarity are more likely to form a socialized charismatic relationship with the leader. In the socialized relationship, the collective level of the self is ­activated. Followers experience social identification with the group or organization (see Howell & Shamir, 2005). While follower self-concept clarity can determine the type of leader-follower relationship, followers are embedded in an organizational environment with other followers and are likely influenced by each other.

Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership at the situational level The situational level (Level 2) is concerned with interpersonal processes in a given situation. A particular situation can also affect followers’ susceptibility to charismatic leadership. In times of crisis, stress, anxiety, or ambiguity, followers are more susceptible to domination attempts and persuasive communications by charismatic leaders (Fromm, 1971). Shamir and Howell’s conceptual paper (1999) suggests that after an organizational crisis, followers are more likely to unconditionally accept a leader perceived as high self-confident with a clear vision promising to save the organization from the crisis: these elements help followers in the sensemaking of the current situation. Under crisis situations, followers tend to refer to charismatic leadership criterion to report emergent leadership (Pillai  & Meindl, 1998). Using the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, as an example, Bligh, Kohles, and Meindl (2004) also demonstrate that crisis situations foster follower charismatic attributions toward leaders. Their results highlight that followers attributed more charisma to President George W. Bush following 9/11. In the same vein, another study conducted in the context of the 2003 California Recall Election supports the importance of crisis for charismatic leadership to emerge (Bligh, Kohles, & Pillai, 2005). Participants reported their perceptions of the current crisis situation and, subsequently, watched video clips with high- and low-charismatic delivery styles. Participants who perceived that the crisis was greater also observed contender Arnold Schwarzenegger as more charismatic compared to the incumbent governor Gray Davis.

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Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership at the socio-positional level: inter-follower dynamics of charismatic leadership (Level 3) A social network perspective of charismatic leadership According to the social contagion model of charismatic leadership (Meindl, 1990, 1993), interfollower social contagion processes provide an alternative explanation of charisma’s diffusion among groups. This perspective avoids assuming that leaders’ actions determine followers’ perception of charisma. In many contexts, followers are unlikely to have direct interactions and experiences with their leader. As such, followers build their charismatic attributions based on other followers’ attributions, emotions, and experiences. Mayo and Pastor (2007) provide preliminary empirical evidence supporting the idea that charisma spreads through the followers’ network. In a longitudinal study, students of a business school were divided into small task groups. A questionnaire measuring the professor’s leadership style and the frequency of students’ social interactions with classmates was distributed at three different time periods every five weeks. Results showed that by the end of the semester, proximity in the social network was positively associated with similarity of charisma attributions. In addition, results revealed that the closer students were, the more their views of the leader’s charisma were similar. As charisma is socially contagious, perceptions of charisma follow social groups (Meindl, 1990). Follower proximity with peers in the social network was also positively related to similarity of attributions of charisma within these small groups.

Self-concept theory of charismatic leadership While the social network theory of charismatic leadership explains how perceptions of charisma diffuses among groups, the self-concept theory of charismatic leadership (Shamir et al., 1993) explains how perceptions of charisma grow within an individual’s self-concept and how followers develop a shared collective identity with a group in the workplace. This theory states that charismatic leaders augment the intrinsic value of the vision and collective goals by connecting the vision and the follower’s self-concept (Shamir, Zakay, Breinin, & Popper, 1998, 388). As followers develop a stronger shared and collective identity, their self-efficacy grows (Shamir, 1991). Leader-follower relations are strengthened through followers’ self-concept that becomes more tied to the organizational goals and the shared experiences of their missions (Bass & Bass, 2008). By drawing on social psychological theories of social identification and self-concept, Shamir and colleagues (1993) include the role of followers in the charismatic leadership process and develop the understanding of followers’ psychology going beyond personal identification. According to the self-concept theory of charismatic leadership, members share values and ideologies, and the charismatic leader strengthens these with nonverbal symbolic behaviors: especially through visionary rhetoric, a critical component of charismatic leadership. Visionary rhetoric has two components consisting of the content and delivery of the leader’s speech. Interestingly, the delivery style is often considered as more important than the content itself. Notably, in the context of charismatic leadership, the effect of nonverbal behaviors on followers is limited and the content of the speech is argued to create a lasting charismatic impression (Shamir, Arthur, & House, 1994).

Follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership at the ideological level: social representations of charismatic leadership (Level 4) Implicit leadership theories explain leader behaviors and examine follower reactions, underscoring that individuals have predetermined images about leaders’ traits (Eden & Leviatan, 1975). 330

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When followers meet a leader, they interpret the leader’s behavior along these held images. For instance, research on the romance of leadership has shown that followers who overattribute company performance to leaders often perceive their leader to be more charismatic (Shamir, 1992). These findings affirm that charismatic leadership is a follower-centric phenomenon. Furthermore, cross-cultural research on implicit leadership theories highlights that culture also affects individuals’ perceptions of leaders (House, Javidan, Hanges, & Dorfman, 2002). Therefore, implicit leadership theories have a socially shared aspect across cultures and groups.

Recommendations around future research Although there is some advancement in research from follower-centric perspectives, our future research directions could help to inform charismatic leadership research from follower-centric perspectives (see Table  27.1). Furthermore, this review reveals that, despite the numerous theoretical explorations of charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives, research that exclusively draws attention to the role of followers in charismatic leadership processes remains scarce.

Table 27.1  Summary of future research directions on follower-centric perspectives on charismatic leadership using a levels-of-analysis framework Recommendations at the intrapersonal level (Level 1) 1 Future research should test empirically how follower individual characteristics with an emotional dimension (i.e., affect intensity) affect the diffusion of charisma in organizations (see Mayo & Pastor, 2007). 2 Future research should test the impact of highly emotional leader antecedents on followers (e.g., leader self-disclosure). Recommendations at the interpersonal and situational level (Level 2) 3 Future research should examine how different levels of follower self-concepts (i.e. low or high) affect leader-follower relationships (see Howell & Shamir, 2005). 4 Future research should investigate the role of followers of a charismatic leader with high selfconcept that has a central position in the network, as such individuals are likely to be key in the diffusion process. (see Howell & Shamir, 2005; Mayo & Pastor, 2005). 5 Future research should further examine the effect of social context (e.g., social network structure) on spreading perceptions of charisma (see Mayo & Pastor, 2007). Recommendations at the socio-positional level (Level 3) 6 Future research on charismatic leadership and follower-centric perspectives should include the evaluation of the romance of leadership as a factor that affects attributions of charisma (see Bligh & Schyns, 2007). 7 Future qualitative research and case studies of an organization that attributes its success to a leader should include the voice of followers and observe the structure of their network in order to understand better how inter-follower relationships may affect the diffusion of charisma in this organization. Recommendations at the ideological level (Level 4) 8 Future research on implicit leadership theories should focus on measurement development. In the meanwhile, it should pursue experimental studies of awareness exercises in order to raise followers’ consciousness and to realize that charismatic leadership is a social construction. 9 Future research on implicit followership theories will help to predict better charismatic leaders’ behaviors and how they impact followers.

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Recommendations at the intrapersonal level (Level 1) As Mayo and Pastor proposed (2007), future research should test how follower individual characteristics with an emotional dimension affect intensity (Larsen & Diener, 1987) and influence the diffusion of charisma in organizations. Although this chapter reviewed previous research advancing the role of follower personality traits, follower characteristics with emotional dimensions are largely underexplored. The topic of the emotional aspects of follower characteristics needs to be further explored because charismatic relationships are characterized by a high follower emotional connection with a leader. Affect intensity is a personal characteristic of the follower that emphasizes the emotions experienced by a person without modifying the content of emotions. Followers with high affect intensity are more prone to engage in a charismatic relationship with a leader because charismatic relationships depend on a follower’s high level of emotional attachment with leaders. Empirical evidence shows that followers’ emotional arousal is positively related to the emergence of charisma attributions to leaders who are already perceived as charismatic by other members of a group (Pastor, Mayo, & Shamir, 2007). Future research should also examine how different levels of follower self-concepts affect leader-follower relationships. Specifically, future research could test Howell and Shamir’s (2005) propositions. If evidence shows that followers with high self-concepts identify with leaders, too, leaders could feel encouraged to manage their own leadership images and to build strategies appealing to followers with high self-concepts. For instance, if such followers identify with the leader’s vision and organizational goals rather than identifying “personally” with the leader, leaders may find more incentives to deliver highly visionary speeches resonating to followers with a high self-concept.

Recommendations at the relational and situational levels (Level 2) Mayo and Pastor (2007) previously suggested that research should explore the process effect explaining how followers with a central position in a network have more power and are in favorable positions to influence others’ charisma perceptions. Furthermore, it may be interesting to investigate the role of followers of a charismatic leader with high self-concept who has a central position in a network, as such followers are likely to be key in the diffusion process. Once the “virus” of charisma reaches such followers, they become individuals with the potential to spread and diffuse the content of the vision and/or the organizational goal to numerous members. Such ideological spread and diffusion may have a stronger impact compared to followers spotlighting personal attributes of the leader that only resonate with a limited number of members. Future research should also examine the effect of social networks on spreading perceptions of charisma. Previous research reviewed in this chapter mainly investigated crisis as a contextual variable affecting follower perceptions of charisma. Results of the preliminary research on charismatic leadership from a social network approach could gain more visibility and recognition if replicated through laboratory and field experiment. Longitudinal studies with data collected at different points could help to observe the impact of networks and the process through which different types of networks diffuse charisma (Bligh, Kohles, & Pillai, 2011).

Recommendations at the socio-positional level (Level 3) Following Bligh and Schyns’s (2007) recommendation, future research on charismatic leadership and follower-centric perspectives should include the evaluation of the romance of leadership as a factor affecting attributions of charisma. Leadership ratings reflect follower perceptions of how they evaluate a leader. Furthermore, the phenomenon of charisma is influenced by 332

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social contagion processes. Therefore, the romance of leadership scores of followers should not be neglected in order to observe the extent to which leadership ratings are affected by such tendency to glorify leadership. The field of charismatic leadership could also consider inter-follower relationships when conducting qualitative research on charismatic leaders and/or a successful organization (Gaines, 1993). Future research should expand the scope of analysis by interviewing followers and observing the structure of their network rather than assuming that charisma resides in the leader and that his or her charisma influences organizational performance. Examining inter-follower relationships will help to cement a better understanding of the mechanism of charisma’s spread in organizations.

Recommendations at the ideological level (Level 4) As recommended by Schyns and Riggio (2017), research on implicit leadership theories should focus on developing measurement. Our understanding about the predictive capabilities of implicit leadership theories could be deepened. In the meantime, experimental studies such as those conducted with awareness exercises (see Schyns, Kiefer, Kerschreiter, & Tymon, 2011) should be replicated to raise both self- and others’ awareness of their implicit leadership theories. Such awareness exercises could help individuals in the workplace to become aware of their schemes. Thus, organizational systems will be less biased by preconceived ideas regarding charismatic leaders, male or female leaders, or other stereotypical categories. Ultimately, raising the awareness of implicit leadership theories can promote a more inclusive workplace. Furthermore, supplementary investigation in implicit followership theories can also shed light on leader-follower relationships in charismatic leadership (Schyns et al., 2011). Research in implicit leadership theories could help to predict leader behaviors. For example, if leaders perceive a follower as competent, they may be more likely to delegate and vice versa. The fact that such leaders are able to delegate may be perceived as one of the reasons why the leader is perceived as charismatic by followers. Therefore, exploration in implicit followership theories contributes to the overall advancement of follower-centric research on charismatic leadership.

Conclusion Drawing upon Meindl’s legacy on the romance of leadership, this chapter presented a literature review of charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives. Meindl et al. (1985) presented a theory on the romance of leadership to raise scholarly awareness about the tendency to investigate leadership from an overly leader-centric perspective. Part of the problem identified by Meindl was that leadership studies have moved away from their social psychological foundations. Thus, in efforts to revive and extend our understanding about charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives, we presented a review of literature with future research directions based on Doise’s (1986) multiple levels-of-analysis framework. It is our hope that this chapter sparks interest in future empirical work on charismatic leadership from follower-centric perspectives.

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Bass, B. M. 1990. Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership, New York, Free Press. Bass, B. M. & Bass, R. 2008. The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications, New York, NY, Free Press. Beyer, J. M. 1999. Taming and promoting charisma to change organizations. The Leadership Quarterly, 10, 307–330. Bligh, M. C. 2011. Followership and follower-centred approaches. In: Bryman, A., Grint, K., Jackson, B., Uhl-Bien, M. & Collinson, D. (eds.) Sage handbook of leadership, London, Sage. Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C. & Meindl, J. R. 2004. Charisma under crisis: Presidential leadership, rhetoric, and media responses before and after the september 11th terrorist attacks. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 211–239. Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C. & Pillai, R. 2005. Crisis and charisma in the California recall election. Leadership, 1, 323–352. Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C. & Pillai, R. 2011. Romancing leadership: Past, present, and future. The Leadership Quarterly, 22, 1058–1077. Bligh, M. C., Pillai, R. & Uhl-Bien, M. 2007. The social construction of a legacy: Summarizing and extending follower-centered perspectives on leadership. In: Shamir, B., Pillai, R., Bligh, M. C.  & Uhl-Bien, M. (eds.) Follower-centered perspectives on leadership: A tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl, Greenwich, CT, Information Age Publishers. Bligh, M. C. & Schyns, B. 2007. The romance lives on: Contemporary issues surrounding the romance of leadership. Leadership, 3, 343–360. Campbell, J. D. 1990. Self-esteem and clarity of the self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 538–549. Campbell, J. D., Trapnell, P. D., Heine, S. J., Katz, I. M., Lavallee, L. F. & Lehman, D. R. 1996. Selfconcept clarity: Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 141–156. Carsten, M. K., Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C. & Wing-Yan Lau, V. 2019. A follower-centric approach to the 2016 US presidential election: Candidate rhetoric and follower attributions of charisma and effectiveness. Leadership, 15, 179–204. Carsten, M. K., Uhl-Bien, M., West, B. J., Patera, J. L. & McGregor, R. 2010. Exploring social constructions of followership: A qualitative study The Leadership Quarterly, 21, 543–562. Chemers, M. M. 2001. Leadership effectiveness: An integrative review. In: Hogg, M. A. &Tindale, R. S. (eds.) Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Group processes, Oxford, Blackwell. Collinson, D. 2006. Rethinking followership: A post-structuralist analysis of follower identities. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 179–189. Conger, J. A. & Kanungo, R. N. 1998. Charismatic leadership in organizations, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. Derue, D. S. & Ashford, S. J. 2010. Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35, 627–647. Doise, W. 1986. Levels of explanation in social psychology, New York, Cambridge University Press. Dvir, T. & Shamir, B. 2003. Follower developmental characteristics as predicting transformational leadership: A longitudinal field study. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 327–344. Eden, D. & Leviatan, U. 1975. Implicit leadership theory as a determinant of the factor structure underlying supervisory behavior scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 736–741. Erikson, E. H. 1968. Identity, youth, and crisis, New York, Norton. Fairhust, G. T. & Hamlett, S. R. 2003. The narrative basis of Leader-Member Exchange. In: Graen, G. B. (ed.) Dealing with diversity. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Fairhurst, G. T. & Uhl-Bien, M. 2012. Organizational discourse analysis (ODA): Examining leadership as a relational process. The Leadership Quarterly, 23, 1043–1062. Felfe, J. & Schyns, B. 2010. Followers’ personality and the perception of transformational leadership: Further evidence for the similarity hypothesis. British Journal of Management, 21, 393–410. Freemesser, G. F. & Kaplan, H. B. 1976. Self-attitudes and deviant behavior: The case of the charismatic religious movement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 5, 1–9. Fromm, E. 1971. Escape from freedom, New York, Avon. 334

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Padilla, A., Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. B. 2007. The toxic triangle: Destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 176–194. Pastor, J. C., Mayo, M. & Shamir, B. 2007. Adding fuel to fire: The impact of followers’ arousal on ratings of charisma. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1584–1596. Phillips, J. S. & Lord, R. G. 1981. Causal attributions and perceptions of leadership. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 28, 143–163. Pillai, R. & Meindl, J. R. 1998. Context and charisma: A “meso” level examination of the relationship of organic structure, collectivism, and crisis to charismatic leadership. Journal of Management, 24, 643–671. Rush, M. C., Thomas, J. C. & Lord, R. G. 1977. Implicit leadership theory: A potential threat to the internal validity of leader behavior questionnaires. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 20, 93–110. Schyns, B., Kiefer, T., Kerschreiter, R.  & Tymon, A. 2011. Teaching implicit leadership theories to develop leaders and leadership: How and why it can make a difference. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 10, 397–408. Schyns, B. & Riggio, R. 2017. Implicit leadership theories. In: Farazmand, A. (ed.) Global encyclopedia of public administration, public policy, and governance. Cham, Springer. Shamir, B. 1991. Meaning, self and motivation in organizations. Organization Studies, 12, 405–424. Shamir, B. 1992. Attribution of influence and charisma to the leader: The Romance of leadership revisited. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 386–407. Shamir, B. 2007. From passive recipients to active co-producers: Followers’ roles in the leadership process. In: Shamir, B., Pillai, R., Bligh, M. & Uhl-Bien, M. (eds.) Follower-centered perspectives on leadership: A tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl, Charlotte, NC, Information Age Publishers. Shamir, B. 2012. Leadership research or post-leadership research: Advancing leadership theory versus throwing out the baby with the bath water. In: Uhl-Bien, M. & Ospina, S. (eds.) Advancing relational leadership research: A dialogue among perspectives. Charlotte, NC, Information Age Publishers. Shamir, B., Arthur, M. B.  & House, R. J. 1994. The rhetoric of charismatic leadership: A  theoretical extension, a case study, and implications for research. The Leadership Quarterly, 5, 25–42. Shamir, B., House, R. J. & Arthur, M. B. 1993. The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A selfconcept based theory. Organization Science, 4, 577–594. Shamir, B. & Howell, J. M. 1999. Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 10, 257–283. Shamir, B., Zakay, E., Breinin, E. & Popper, M. 1998. Correlates of charismatic leader behavior in military units: Subordinates’ attitudes, unit characteristics, and superiors’ appraisals of leader performance. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 387–409. Sy, T. 2010. What do you think of followers? Examining the content, structure, and consequences of implicit followership theories. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113, 73–84. Uhl-Bien, M. & Ospina, S. 2012. Paradigm interplay in relational leadership: A way forward. In: UhlBien, M. & Ospina, S. (eds.) Advancing relational leadership research: A dialogue among perspectives. Charlotte, NC, Information Age Publishers. Uhl-Bien, M., Riggio, R. E., Lowe, K. B. & Carsten, M. K. 2014. Followership theory: A review and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 25, 83–104. Van Knippenberg, D. & Hogg, M. A. 2003. A social identity model of leadership effectiveness in organizations. In: Kramer, R. M. & Staw, B. M. (eds.) Research in organizational behavior. Amsterdam, Elsevier. Weber, M. 1947. The theory of social and economic organizations, New York, Free Press. Weick, K. 2007. Romancing, following, and sensemaking: Jim Meindl’s legacy. In: Shamir, B., Pillai, R., Bligh, M. C. & Uhl-Bien, M. (eds.) Follower-centered perspectives on leadership: A tribute to the memory of James R., Greenwich, CT, Information Age Publishers. Willner, A. R. 1968. Charismatic political leadership: A theory, Princeton, NJ, Center of International Studies, Princeton University Press. Yukl, G. A. 1989. Leadership in organizations, 2nd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall. Yukl, G. A. 2001. Leadership in organizations, 5th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall.

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Introduction In organizational studies, charisma has mainly been studied through the prism of leadership. Charisma and leadership are a natural fit. Leaders are usually granted more speaking time than their followers (Riggio et al., 2003), and their duties involve crafting and communicating an inspiring vision to their followers (Conger and Kanungo, 1987). Ask students or participants what comes to their mind when they think about charisma, and they will likely cite names of charismatic leaders and their achievements, such as Winston Churchill giving his “blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech that led the United Kingdom to declare war on Nazi Germany, or Nelson Mandela motivating the national rugby team before its decisive match against the All Blacks. Another choice is frequently Steve Jobs delivering a keynote that would transform his company from a firm selling computers in 2007 to a firm where phones account for almost half of its total revenue in 2020. It is thus not a surprise that charismatic leaders became to organizations what top players are to sports clubs: a hot currency that they seek to secure at a high price. A first way to have charismatic leaders within an organization is selection. As with a sports club, promising candidates are scouted both inside and outside organizations with the hope of growing an existing talent pool and filling positions. Recruiters use job descriptions and interviews that emphasize the importance of communication skills, even if candidates apply for junior positions (Cabellero et al., 2010). Although selection can be an efficient strategy to secure charismatic leaders within the organization, it does not address how organizations should deal with their existing pool of employees. Leadership development on the other hand, builds on the existing human capital and aims at increasing its value. It is formally defined “as expanding the collective capacity of organizational members to engage effectively in leadership roles and processes” (Day, 2000). The importance of leadership development for organizations is real. According to an international survey of firms and HR managers, 86 percent of respondents cited leadership development has urgent or important (O’Leonard and Krider, 2014). Moneywise, United States organizations spend between US$20 billion and US$40 billion each year on leadership development training (Lamoureux, 2007). By increasing the value of their human capital, organizations strive to have charismatic leaders who will be able to motivate their teams beyond expectations and shape visions that will drive performance. 337

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Yet the vast amounts of money and time dedicated to leadership development and the importance of charismatic leaders in organizations raise two questions. Can we learn charisma in the first place? And if so, how do we teach charisma to leaders? This chapter addresses these questions and is structured as follows: we start by discussing to what extent charisma is a learnable skill. In other words, are charismatic leaders born or can they be trained? We then provide a definition of charisma and a description of the behaviors that are prototypical of charismatic leaders. We discuss existing teaching methods, how to measure progress, and the matter of authenticity when training prototypical charismatic behaviors. Finally, we present existing charismatic leadership training and propose future directions for research and practice.

Charisma: nature or nurture? Can we learn to become charismatic like Martin Luther King or Steve Jobs, or is charisma innate? This question is as interesting as an icebreaker as it is to highlight the different views people hold about charisma. From our own experience, we can usually divide the answers of participants into three groups. First, there are the participants who think that charisma can be learned. To them, charisma is a skill, like cooking, that can be learned through training and experience (i.e. nurtured). Then there are participants who think that charisma cannot be learned – which is always surprising considering that these same individuals pay to take part in charismatic leadership training. Their view echoes the seminal work of Weber, according to which charisma is a “gift” (Weber, 1968). Charisma is genetically inherited and thus natured. And finally, there are participants who think that charisma is like a good Swiss fondue, a mix of two ingredients: nature and nurture. Charisma is partly inherited and partly trainable. Turning to the literature on leadership and inheritability, there is evidence that some of the characteristics that are prototypical of efficient leaders are, indeed, partly inherited (Avolio et al., 2009). For instance, a study by De Neve et al. (2013) estimated that occupying a leadership position could be directly explained by genetic heritability at a level of 24 percent. Other scholars studying the indirect effects of genes on leadership emergence and charismatic leadership found promising results too. There is, for example, evidence that facial attractiveness can predict leadership emergence (Antonakis and Dalgas, 2009) and that facial attractiveness is highly inheritable (Møller and Thornhill, 1997). Similarly, there is evidence that height correlates with ratings of charismatic leadership (Hamstra, 2014) and that height is highly heritable (estimates are between .76 and .83) (Jelenkovic et al., 2016). In a recent meta-analysis, Bono and Judge (2004) found that extraversion correlates strongly with charismatic leadership (r = .22) and that broad genetic influence explained 53 percent of extraversion (Jang et al., 1996). Although there is enough research to suggest that leadership and more specifically charisma is inherited, there is evidence that charisma, like other leadership skills, is learnable, too (Day, 2000). In their research on executive training and coaching, Olivero et al. (1997) found that managers who took part in a management training increased their productivity by 22.4 percent and up to 88 percent if they took part in a follow-up coaching of eight weeks. With respect to charisma, Frese et al. (2003) conducted a study in which they trained leaders to communicate their vision using a given set of behaviors. They found positive results on reported charisma. In a similar study, Towler (2003) found that students who participated in a charismatic influence training exhibited more charismatic behaviors than students who participated in a presentation skills training or students who did not receive any training at all. She also found that charismatic trainees had a positive effect on their followers’ performance. More recently, Antonakis et al. (2011) found similar evidence, too, corroborating the fact that charisma is, at least to some extent, learnable. They randomly assigned managers to two groups  – a control group and a 338

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treatment group. In the first one, managers received a placebo training in which they learned broadly defined communication skills. In the second group, managers learned to exert prototypical behaviors of charismatic leaders. When participants who were agnostic to the study watched the videos, they rated managers who had received the charismatic training as more charismatic than the managers who took part in the placebo training. Like other leadership skills, charisma is therefore both natured and nurtured. We all have the possibility to improve our charismatic skills, but we are not all equally equipped for doing so; our inherited capabilities set the ease or difficulty of learning charisma.

Defining charisma As this book showcases, there are many ways to define charisma. In leadership studies, House (1977) defined charismatic leaders as individuals who have the ability to drive followers to accept and trust their leadership. Charismatic leaders can make goals achievable in the eyes of their followers and motivate them beyond expectations, much in line with Etzioni’s conception of charisma (1961) or more recently, Bass’ definition of transformational leadership (Bass, 1985). If we define judo as most researchers defined charisma until the late 1990s, we would define judo as making people fall rather than as a collection of kata (or techniques) which use strength and speed to fight an opponent. Although such definitions highlight what effects charisma (or judo) have on individuals, they inform us poorly on the antecedents of charisma (or judo), that is, which behaviors individuals should use to be charismatic (or throw their opponents on the floor). Taking stock of previous criticism and discussion in the field of leadership, we define charisma as “a value-based, symbolic and emotion-laden signaling” (Antonakis et  al., 2016), where signaling refers to everything one does to communicate (Spence, 2002). In economics, signaling is deemed credible if it is cheap to produce for able individuals but costly to imitate for less-able individuals. Interestingly, defining charisma as a signaling mechanism echoes the fact that charisma is both natured and nurtured: charisma is learnable but, as with mathematics or music, some individuals will have a hard time learning it while others will be naturally good at it. Defining charisma as signaling suggests that charisma can occur through the use of verbal and nonverbal signals – or behaviors. Although researchers have tried to pin down which behaviors create the charismatic effect, it is important to note that charisma as a construct is not limited to a list of behaviors. In fact, these behaviors should rather be understood as proxies that individuals use to make inferences about a leader’s abilities (Jacquart and Antonakis, 2015). According to the literature on inferential judgments (Fiske, 1995), individuals build cognitive schemas by being repeatedly exposed to behaviors or traits that are associated to a prototype. Being exposed to one or few behaviors (e.g., the individual speaks Latin or holds a university degree) will be enough to trigger an association (e.g., the individual is intelligent), especially if these behaviors are costly to counterfeit (e.g., learning Latin takes time and dedication). Therefore, we do not argue that charisma can be defined by an exhaustive list of behaviors. Instead, we suggest that charisma is an extremely complex concept but that expressing one or more prototypical charismatic behaviors can be enough to be perceived as charismatic.

Charismatic signals Scholars investigated different behaviors that are deemed prototypical of charismatic leaders. For example, Awamleh and Gardner (1999) discussed how nonverbal behaviors such as the tone of voice, gestures, or posture affect the delivery of a message and therefore the perception 339

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of a leader’s abilities. Other scholars, such as Den Hartog and Verburg (1997), explored how verbal behaviors correlate with their leadership skills. Of particular importance is the study of Antonakis et al. (2011), in which the authors train managers to be more charismatic. Drawing from the work of Charteris-Black (2005) on metaphor, the work of Bandura (1977) on selfefficacy and motivation, the body of knowledge on nonverbal behaviors (Ekman and Friesen, 1969), or more anciently the insights of Aristotle et al. (1954), the authors identify nine verbal charismatic behaviors and three nonverbal charismatic behaviors, which are prototypical of charismatic leaders. Verbal signals include the use of metaphors, which consist of associating a word or a sentence defined as the source domain (e.g. a journey) with a word or sentence defined as the target domain (e.g. love); this association creates a metaphor (e.g. love is a journey), which evokes something (Gibbs, 2008). Note that we distinguish powerful metaphors from common metaphors. Building on Cirillo and Crider (1995), we suggest that powerful metaphors display at least one of the four following characteristics: they make a point vivid, they accommodate disparate interests in a single combination, they offer a new perspective on a given topic, and they use novel combinations to make some phenomena salient. As such, complex metaphors are both creative and thoroughly constructed. Metaphors trigger a mental visualization that calls our senses to experience an abstract concept, or as (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) write: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another” (p. 5). Similarly, stories and anecdotes should trigger mental visualization and emotions and facilitate memorization. In general, stories and anecdotes refer to particular places, events, or characters and have a plot and/or a resolution (Bower, 1976). For example, in his commencement speech in 2005, Steve Jobs said “I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.” Contrasts refer to figures of speech which oppose one idea to another. Usually contrasts are used to frame a specific point of view (Antonakis et al., 2011) by putting one argument forward. Contrasts will usually start by stating what the leader believes to be wrong before introducing what he believes to be correct. For example: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” (Kennedy, 1961). We distinguish lists from repetitions based on their intent. Lists are used to summarize key arguments. Lists are usually composed of at least three parts and should be composed of a maximum of five elements. This recommendation is based on previous research on short-term memory, which suggests that with more than six words, the probability of recall drops below 50 percent (Schweickert and Boruff, 1986). Lists should therefore be succinct, proximal and targeted. Three-part lists are particularly effective as they give a sense of completeness and provide information to the followers on when to applaud (Charteris-Black, 2005). Note that lists can be implicit (for example “to connect, a leader must use storytelling, metaphor, and contrasts”) or explicit (for example “to connect, a leader must do three things: storytelling, metaphor, and contrasts”). Repetitions, on the other hand, do not aim at summarizing or listing. Rather, they serve a stylistic purpose, such as in the famous “I have a dream” of Martin Luther King (1963). Rhetorical questions will typically encourage the followers to find a solution to a puzzle (Antonakis et al., 2011) but will not expect the followers to give an answer. They can be used to create intrigue that is addressed by the rhetorician or to make an answer obvious. Leaders should also express moral conviction, which refers to a personal statement of values or an assessment of a situation loaded with values. We can define this tactic by defining each of its two components: “moral” and “conviction.” “Moral” refers to what is good or bad, right or wrong, good or evil (OED, 2000). “Conviction” refers to an “opinion or a belief held as well 340

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proved or established” (OED, 2000). For example: “It is all the more regrettable that women and children were used as a shield. It is inhuman. It is like Muslim rulers keeping a herd of cows in the vanguard of their armies to make sure that the Hindus would not fight. It is uncivilized, barbaric behavior” (Gandhi, 1948). Sentiments of the collective should also be expressed. They refer to sentences in which the leader specifically expresses what he believes the followers are thinking, feeling, or aspiring to. By expressing the sentiments of the collective, the leader show similarity with the followers and closes the psychological gap between them (Antonakis et  al., 2011). As an example, Hillary Clinton stated during a presidential campaign: “I  will get up every day thinking about the families of America, like the family I came from, with a hard-working dad who started a small business and scrimped, and saved, and gave us a good middle-class life” (Hillary Clinton, 2015). Last but not least, leaders should be able to formulate and communicate a vision. That capacity of charismatic leaders is best captured by their ability to express high and ambitious goals and to ensure that these goals are achievable. Unlike verbal charismatic behaviors, nonverbal charismatic behaviors are usually known by the participants but harder to master during an actual presentation or speech. Nonverbal charismatic behaviors include using body gestures, such as representative gestures (e.g., showing the ceiling when talking about the sky), rhythmic gestures (e.g., moving the hand up and down as one speaks), or having an open-body posture. Nonverbal behaviors also include the use of facial expressions, such as smiling or raising eyebrows to express surprise and using an animated voice tone. Concretely, an animated voice tone typically involves variation in the pitch and the volume of the voice, as well as silences and intonations. These nonverbal behaviors echo research on nonverbal behavior in the field of psychology and communication, wherein scholars draw typologies of gestures and examine the effects of nonverbal behaviors on recipients or viewers (Ekman and Friesen, 1969; McNeill, 1992). For example, Friedman and Riggio (1981) found that nonverbal expressiveness could affect the emotions of unexpressive people. In another study, Ambady and Rosenthal (1992) found that participants exposed to thin slices of nonverbal behaviors could predict teachers actual ratings at the end of the semester, suggesting that nonverbal behavior plays a key role in sharing knowledge and maintaining attention. The importance of verbal versus nonverbal behavior is a frequent question in research and trainings. Although some studies reported that nonverbal behavior accounts for 93 percent of communication (Mehrabian and Ferris, 1967; Mehrabian, 1971), their results can hardly be generalized. In fact, results came partly from asking participants to report their impressions based on a single word: “maybe.” Other studies found contradictory results, wherein verbal behavior significantly increased judgment accuracy (Archer et al., 1977). These contradictory findings are most often explained by the contextual differences (Ambady and Rosenthal, 1992), such as the type of message being conveyed or the expectations and motivation of recipients. With respect to charismatic behaviors, verbal and nonverbal behaviors were found to be highly correlated (Antonakis et al., 2011), which makes sense because speech and gestures share the same neurological underpinnings both in terms of production and in terms of processing of the stimuli (Bernardis and Gentilucci, 2006; Xu et al., 2009). However, there are, to our knowledge, no conclusive results on the relative weight of verbal versus nonverbal behavior in charismatic signaling. Interestingly, verbal and nonverbal charismatic signals can be taught and have effects, not only on perception but also on behavior. For example, Frese et  al. (2003) taught managers inspirational communication techniques, many of which resemble the verbal and nonverbal charismatic signals (Antonakis et al., 2011), and found that managers who received the training actually expressed more behaviors prototypical of inspiring leaders. Towler (2003) conducted a 341

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similar experiment by training students to craft a visionary message and to deliver the message in a charismatic way. Results showed that students who took the training used more so-called charismatic behaviors and that participants who watched students in the charismatic condition performed better. Therefore the question is not whether charisma can be taught, but how it can be taught.

Training charisma To our knowledge, there are only three studies which formally investigated the effect of particular training on measures of charisma (Frese et al., 2003; Towler, 2003; Antonakis et al., 2011). These studies are interesting in that they use similar training techniques. The training typically started by introducing participants to verbal and nonverbal charismatic behaviors. Trainers set what Frese et al. (2003) refer to as an action-oriented mental model: a few principles or rules of thumb which can easily be recalled and integrated after the training. At this stage of the training, trainers often distinguish verbal behaviors – or content – from nonverbal behaviors – also referred to as delivery skills or presentation skills. In addition, trainers will frequently revert to videos and examples to clarify what they intend when they talk about gestures or powerful metaphors. The second phase of a charismatic training usually involves participants taking part in rolegames or exercises. Because trainees learn through actions, they are more likely to develop links between cognition and actions (Semrner and Frese, 1985). Trainees may practice a given nonverbal behavior in pairs or integrate verbal charismatic tactics by working on the draft of their speech. Participants may also be given the opportunity to finish the training by giving an improved version of their speech or presentation, in which they have integrated the different charismatic techniques (Antonakis et al., 2011). As participants experiment with new behaviors, they should receive feedback from their peers and their trainer. Participants should also be given the opportunity to reflect on their own actions. Feedback is central to the learning process because it allows participants to identify their strengths and their weaknesses and adjust their effort and behaviors accordingly (Black et al., 1998). Simple technologies such as video recording can be powerful teaching tools to observe and debrief behavior after a performance.

Measuring progress Assessing whether participants improved during the training is particularly important when justifying the time, the effort, and the money that are usually invested in such leadership trainings (Avolio et al., 2009). With respect to charisma, there are two ways to measure progress. The first one is to count how many charismatic behaviors individuals used at the beginning of the training versus how many charismatic behaviors they used at the end of it. Of course, such measures require that trainees take part in a baseline exercise before or at the beginning of the training (e.g., delivering a speech) and a second time at the end of the training or later, if the goal is to assess whether the effects of the training are time-resistant. The second approach is to ask third parties, such as team members or independent raters to assess how charismatic they believe the trainee is before and after the training. Scales such as the MLQ (Bass and Avolio, 1997) have frequently been used. Whether one measure should be preferred to another is unclear. In fact, there is an ongoing discussion regarding the appropriateness of the MLQ scale to measure charisma (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013) and more generally the use of perceptual scales to measure charisma (Antonakis et al., 2016). Counting observable behaviors can provide an 342

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objective and unobtrusive measure of charisma (Tur et al., 2018), which is particularly convenient when seeking to avoid respondents’ biases (e.g., consistency or social desirability bias) but may fall short in measuring how individuals actually perceive the trainee – a goal best achieved through the use of questionnaires or measures of performance. A combination of objective and subjective measures may turn to be the most reliable alternative to assess the success of a training (Antonakis et al., 2011), especially considering that charismatic signaling is not enough to guarantee that the charismatic effect will occur (Antonakis et al., 2016). Note, though, that testing the efficiency of a training should account for common biases observed in experiments, such as experimenter demand effects (Zizzo, 2010). Thus, it is important that trainers or researchers revert to control groups and the use of placebo trainings to isolate the effect of the training itself.

Authenticity In leadership studies, authenticity has mainly been discussed through the prism of ethical behavior (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). According to this literature, leaders are deemed authentic when they are true to their values and beliefs (May et al., 2003) and are more likely to be trusted by their followers (Zhu et al., 2004). Although there is, to our knowledge, no empirical evidence of the moderating effect of authenticity on the relationship between charismatic behavior and perceived charisma, participants in our trainings often reported discomfort in front of ungenuine behaviors. Participants also reported that they perceived trainees as less trustworthy when they used behaviors they did not feel comfortable with, which echoes findings in the literature on authentic leadership (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). Future research on training charisma should therefore investigate the effects of authenticity on trust and perceived charisma. Similarly, trainers who teach charismatic behaviors should engage their participants in discussing authenticity.

Case study: charismatic training Based on the trainings reported in the literature (Frese et al., 2003; Antonakis et al., 2011) and the principles mentioned earlier, we outlined the structure of an action-based charismatic training the authors and his colleagues deliver regularly to managers. Approximately two weeks before the training, participants receive instructions to prepare a short speech of approximately two minutes on the topic of their choice. They are instructed that they will deliver the speech during the training and that they should therefore come prepared to stand in front of the other participants. The training is divided into four parts. The first part of the training involves videotaping the participants delivering their speeches in front of the group of trainees. The goal is to record a baseline of their presentation skills and have material to provide feedback at a later stage. In the second part of the training, participants learn about the nine verbal tactics through examples and simple rules of thumb before taking part in exercises. Practice involves identifying the use of verbal charismatic tactics in famous speeches from movies, politics, or business presentations and experimenting with them in the speeches that participants prepared for the training. The third part of the training addresses the nonverbal tactics or behaviors that were discussed before. As with the first part, trainees start by learning simple rules of thumb and watching examples before experimenting with behaviors that are prototypical of charismatic leaders in small groups. Participants are given the opportunity to watch the videos recorded earlier in the training and to receive feedback from their peers and the trainers. The feedback focuses on identifying the behaviors which are already being used by participants, which behaviors they could use 343

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to be perceived as more charismatic, and discussing issues of authenticity. Finally, the fourth part of the training echoes the first part by videotaping participants a second time as they deliver an improved version of their speech. This exercise, which concludes the training, is completed with feedback from the trainers and other participants.

Charisma and traineeship: looking forward This chapter illustrates whether charisma can be trained and how it can be trained. Although charisma is partly inherited, it can also be nurtured, as the studies of Antonakis et al. (2011), Frese et al. (2003) or Towler (2003) illustrate. By teaching individuals to use behaviors that are deemed prototypical of charismatic leaders, researchers were able to increase how charismatic individuals were perceived. In general, the literature reported action-based trainings, emphasizing the importance of teaching simple rules of thumb and of allocating time for training and feedback (Semrner and Frese 1985). Despite a growing literature on what makes people charismatic and how to teach people to be more charismatic, many questions remain. First, researchers may investigate whether individual differences moderate training outcomes in charismatic trainings. As suggested by Gully et al. (2010), capabilities (e.g., mental ability), demographics (e.g., gender, ethnicity or age), personality traits, and values and interests can affect training outcomes. For instance, future research may assess whether women benefit more from taking part into a charismatic training than men. Although the evidence is scarce with respect to interaction between gender and charisma (Groves, 2005), there is evidence that women favor transformational leadership style (Eagly et al., 2003), suggesting that women may be better at learning charisma. Similarly, researchers may investigate whether extroverted individuals benefit from greater training outcomes and echo existing findings which point out that extroverted individuals are more likely to emerge as leaders (Judge et al., 2002). In contexts where organizations become wearier of their expenditures, research can help not only to target who should take part in those trainings but also help recruit talents who have the highest potential to becoming charismatic. Another question is whether training participants to exert the verbal and nonverbal behaviors identified so far by research is the most efficient way to become charismatic. Indeed, only three studies have actually studied whether charisma could be trained, focusing mainly on the aggregate use of rhetorical tactics and nonverbal behaviors. However, some behaviors may be more important than others. For instance, it might be more efficient for someone to learn how to use metaphors than to use gestures. Alternatively, other factors might be more effective than the verbal and nonverbal behaviors listed previously. For example, researchers did not investigate the effect of manipulating appearance on perceptual ratings of charisma, yet we know that attractiveness or age can affect leader selection (Antonakis and Dalgas, 2009; Elgar 2016). Similarly, researchers did not investigate the role of status, yet status might affect perceived charisma, too, and be easier to tamper with. Therefore, future research should investigate which factors are more efficient in creating the charismatic effect and continue to develop our understanding of what triggers charisma. A third avenue for research and practice alike, is the upcoming role of new technologies in training and development. Interpersonal skills, such as public speaking, which are often taught using role plays, may benefit from innovations such as the use of immersive virtual reality (Schmid Mast et al., 2018). By giving participants the opportunity to train in front of a virtual audience, trainers can grant participants the opportunity to practice at a fraction of the cost. In addition, trainers can unlock new possibilities, such as exposing participants to contexts which match closely those they will face in the future. Digital platforms may be promising 344

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too, offering a cheap and convenient way to learn rules of thumb, to provide feedback, and to experiment with new behaviors. Finally, one could also discuss the role of time in training charisma. As suggested by Lord and Hall (2005), developing leadership skills, such as charisma, may be comparable to developing expertise. Although the importance of practice in achieving expert level may be domain specific (Antonakis and Day, 2017), it is fair to assume that practice is important in learning charisma. Because practice requires time and dedication, it should be made clear to trainees that becoming charismatic cannot occur within the span of the training but must take place over several months, if not years. After all, charisma is defined as a signal in economic terms, meaning that it is credible only if it is hard to acquire for some individuals and easy to exert for those who are naturally endowed with it (Spence, 1973).

Conclusion Charismatic leaders can make nations and turn companies into success stories. Though desirable to organizations, they are often too few to hold actual supervisory roles in organizations. It is therefore not a surprise that training charisma is gaining momentum within the already juicy business of leadership skills development. In this chapter on charisma and traineeship, I aimed to show the opportunities and the limits of training charisma to individuals, should they be leader or not. I started by discussing whether charisma is natured and nurtured and concluded that charisma is, as we saw earlier, a mix of inheritable traits and learnable behaviors. Defining charisma has a set of signals which connect to values, logic, and emotions, I focused on the verbal and nonverbal behaviors that can create the charismatic effect. Drawing from the work of Antonakis et al. (2011), Frese et al. (2003) and Towler (2003), I presented an action-based training to teach charisma, which focuses on teaching simple rules of thumb, such as the charismatic signaling tactics of Antonakis et al. (2011), giving time to participants to experiment with new behaviors, and providing feedback to improve performance. Overall, this chapter supports the claim that charisma is learnable but recalls that charisma is partly innate and that many factors, such as context, dedication, or individual differences can affect with the outcome of a charismatic training. After all, if everyone could become charismatic within a few hours, would it still matter to be charismatic at all?

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Section VII

Culture, media, entertainment

29 Charisma and the arts C. Stephen Jaeger

Introduction: charismatic art Max Weber’s much cited definition of “charisma” holds up well in reference to charisma of a person: [Charisma can be defined as] a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader. (Weber, p. 48) Broaden the context from religious authority in rulers, and this applies well to many charismatic figures: teachers, movie actors, and presidents. For our purpose it will do to accept personal charisma as a quality allied with talent and other sorts of gifts (= Gk. charismata), which may easily be perceived by the admiring beholder as beyond the attainment of normal human beings. Charisma is also a quality of works of art and of characters represented in them, which/who can inspire the same sort of admiring wonder and urge to imitate as living charismatic figures. As a quality of works of art,1 charisma has effects on the viewer/reader like the living, embodied quality of charisma. Charismatic art is beyond and above nature, while remaining within human bounds. Phidias’s statues of the gods were recognizable as human beings, just humans of extraordinary size, strength, and beauty. The basic impulse of charismatic art is to create a world grander than the one in which the reader or viewer lives, a world of beauty, intense and sublime emotions, heroic motives and deeds, godlike bodies and actions, and superhuman abilities, a world of wonder, miracles, and magic – in order to dazzle, astonish, and elevate the humbled viewer, by emulation or envy, up to the level of the world of the hero or characters represented. The grandeur and vitality of a charismatic world inspire admiration and identification in the viewer, the urge to live in the world represented, to embody its character and values, to live like, dress, behave, speak, and walk like its characters and act within its laws. 351

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To understand charisma as a force of personality exercised by an individual requires psychological and sociological study. To understand that force exercised by art in its many forms requires an aesthetics of charisma. The former has many students; the latter, few. The most distinctly charismatic art form in the West is grand opera. Movies are second only to grand opera, especially American movies from the “classic” era, around 1934 to 1970. The Indian film industry (Bollywood) has developed narrative/musical forms that rival the American industry for charismatic impact (see the essay by Pramod Nayar in this volume). The art of sculpture in Greek and Roman antiquity, the Christian Middle Ages (Gothic style), and the Renaissance likewise deserve preliminary mention (some closer observations later), along with epic poetry (heroic and chivalric), sacred art (icon), and portrait painting. Charismatic art has found practical applications in politics (fascist art, above all) and commercial art. The artist creates extraordinary personalities and a world in which they can test their powers and destinies and make them effective – or die trying, though to retain charismatic effect, the death must be grandiose, heroic, and affirming (Achilles, Socrates, Jesus). Mimetic art and abstract art are not charismatic. Representation only has the exalting effect when charisma is embodied and functioning in a world that appears plausible but above what can be experienced. Art thus conceived is hypermimetic, life-like but still greater than life. Grandiosity that appears realistic and mimetic (cf. Phidias’s statues of gods) suggests a plausible and attainable hyperreality even if it does not directly depict it. Realism and naturalism can dominate in a charismatic world but only in a setting which allows heroic figures to assert themselves against opposing forces. Even a world of misery and suffering, dismal, threatening, and unredeemed, will have charismatic force if it contains hidden powers of redemption that assert themselves and prevail over opposition. The power of the gospels is to create a world of repressive law and tyrannical domination overcome by a humble plebeian character who can also fold a revolutionary, messianic quality into his humble character. The reader’s or viewer’s immersion in the work, the attractiveness, force of personality, and authority of the character(s) generate a magnetism which inspires imitation in those in its spell. The urge to imitate a charismatic individual is a common experience in reality. Most people have found themselves thinking, talking, and behaving like a figure they admire. The magnetism of personality in embodied or represented charisma, the readers’ and viewers’ immersion in the world represented, can refashion the behavior and thought of those in its spell. For the ancient and medieval world, into the Renaissance and beyond, imitation of art was also a fact of history of education. Earlier cultures built educational systems, at least in part, on charismatic influence exercised by both living and artist-made models (W. Jaeger, 1986; C. S. Jaeger, 2012). Edmund Burke regarded imitation of art as “one of the strongest links of society” and assigned to art a role second only to the living model: “[Imitation] forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. . . . Herein it is that painting and many other agreeable arts have laid one of the principal foundations of their power” (Burke, 1998, p. 95). The force of charismatic art is experienced individually and in mass audiences. Its effects are most demonstrable in works which have shaped an entire culture or even a national identity. Epic poetry is charismatic in the highest degree. The works of Homer and Virgil can be credited with shaping aristocratic, heroic values for the ancient world (W. Jaeger, 1986). For the Middle Ages the narrative form of chivalric romance had a comparable influence. In both cases the imitation of the heroic world was a fact of socialization and aristocratic social norms, and both forms shaped European mores and values well in to the 20th century. Goethe’s Faust is closely tied to the national identity of Germany until the 352

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post-World War II era. The power of these works to fascinate, educate, and reform the reader according to the model of the world represented is a fact of social history (C. S. Jaeger, 1994). The alignment of fascination with education will appear as a dubious alliance in modern education, but it was an obvious aid to the pedagogy of personal development in earlier systems of schooling. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the charisma effect of epic is especially prominent in the media of film and television. Out of the TV series Star Trek, a fan culture has developed that is understated by calling it a cult following. The real-life imitations of Star Trek characters and events, the lucrative market in Star Trek relics, books, and movies, and especially the fan fiction inspired by the series are expressions of the fans’ desire to keep the world of Captains Kirk and Picard alive and to live in it when it happens not to be unfolding on the screen. So bound into that world is the imagination of the enchanted viewer that he or she continues to think it out when it happens not to be playing on the TV screen. Fan fiction gives admired characters new life, produces situations in which the viewer has an active role, where the world of Kirk and Spock widens to include and to affirm the fan’s own world (Jenkins, 1996, 2002). It has proved to have a significant impact also in the self-assertion of minorities like LGBTQ, but at the same time it has strong reverberation even in the supposedly practical, reality-oriented world of science and technology (Penley, 1997). The popularity and influence of the Star Wars movies at least equals that of the older, but still persistent Star Trek. Texts with epic-heroic popular quality became part of the fabric of imaginative life among teenagers and often older generations, as in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter series. The mythic dimension of epic-fantasy films is a factor in binding the reader/viewer into the world of the epic, evident in the mysticism of “the force” in Star Wars and in the films’ use of the heroic development mapped out by Joseph Campbell (2008), a strong influence on that series. Likewise the mythical dimension of a movie like Black Panther (Coogler, 2018) could exercise a powerful effect on the sense of self-worth and dignity of a historically persecuted minority.

The effects of charismatic art The higher the epic world is elevated above the normal, everyday real, the stronger the magnetism that draws the reader upward out of the everyday into the hyperreal realm. In the spell of a represented charismatic world, the devotee or fan feels everything affirmed. The insidious and evil elements of the world are set in place in order to be overcome by the hero, or to help him along his way to a redemptive tragic end. Fears and anxieties always are assuaged by some positive outcome. The only possible take on the world and the human condition is optimism. Exhilarated, we want it never to vanish, always to go on conferring its benefits. Even tragic entanglements, warrior or romantic, settle into affirmation. Everything we think and feel in the charismatic world nurtures the imagination. Disillusionment often follows the magic spell of personal charisma; this is also built into the psychology of that experience, common when an individual or group is mesmerized by a charismatic figure. Max Weber showed how unstable the charismatic leader is. His authority depends on unbroken chains of successes. The general and chieftain keeps loyalty and trust as long as he brings victory. Fiction is more reliable; it has a stability that tends to sustain the faith in the hero and the longing to return to his or her world. Disillusion sets in when the reader/ viewer closes the book, turns off the TV, and returns to an ordinary or troubled personality and a dreary world. The opening scene of Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam (1972) captures the moment when the main character slowly emerges from the heroic world of Humphrey Bogart 353

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at the end of Casablanca, and the insecurities of his own persona once again take over. He lived briefly in a scene of heroic adventure and romance, and faces the reality of his own shrunken, lonely, unheroic self as he leaves the theater. The charismatic hero and the enchanted world of art feed and flatter the most elemental human needs and desires. Immersed in a hyperreal world, one feels against any improbability the value of one’s self, the promise of a greater destiny, the availability of love, control, success, power, invulnerability, the feeling of indestructibility, the sense of a benevolent order in the world which gives meaning to life and assures a goal toward which it moves. At least the charismatic work gives temporarily the feeling of such a lift. But powerful fictions of redemption, like powerful experiences, can remain in the psyche and reawaken the rescuing emotion when called up in memory. A sense of “enlargement” of the self is part of the psychology of charismatic experience: in contemplating what is greater than you, you are drawn into and seem to become that greater thing. Heightening, expansion, elevating, magnifying are in part the vocabulary of charismatic effects. H.-G. Gadamer offered the compact German term, “Zuwachs an Sein,” to describe the effect of beauty. It means something like “growth or increase of being.” Increase of being follows logically from the feeling of elevation and the sense of living in a higher, enchanted world. Goethe gave a radical pronouncement on the “enlarging” effect: “The work of art raises man above his limits and deifies him for the present moment, which enfolds the past and the future” (Goethe, 1998).

Illusion The extravagant idealizing in the passage from Goethe just quoted touches the outermost limits of a sensation available from a charismatic figure and from charismatic art, but its extravagance is also sobering. The effect depends entirely on the fan’s willingness to live temporarily and uncritically in an artificial world. It follows that the acceptance of illusion is fundamental to charismatic art. The fan’s life is absorbed temporarily into a heroic world; the fan lives adventure, high-mindedness and high-toned companionship, highly eroticizable, for as long as that suspension of disbelief remains in effect. One floats in a synthetic world, buoyed by faith and belief, faith in a person either real or represented, in the heroic mission and its promise, in the allure of the voice and presence of the person who promises them. The beauty and allure of the things promised must appear real or realizable. Once the viewer accepts illusion as representing an attainable, desirable world, it becomes possible to live in the work of art and refashion life in imitation of that higher model. That enchanted state lasts as long as the belief that the hyperreal person and his or her values are attainable realities. The grandiose illusions through which charismatic art operates will appear to those not in their spell as phony or outright deceptive. Two elements are instrumental in making individuals or mass consumers of art vulnerable to charismatic effects, in the view of Max Weber: (1) need or suffering, and (2) enthusiasm or inspiration (German: “Not und Begeisterung”). For art, in which Weber had no interest, one can add admiration, love, desire, and envy. Need and desire erode the resistance to illusion. The wretched condition of the German people after World War I  was a strong factor in raising the ill-endowed charismatic dictator, Adolf Hitler, to power. A similar self-deception is at work in the love relations when a devotee turns a beloved into a goddess.

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Disillusion Charisma captivates by a kind of mind- and body-magic. It causes the lessening of the critical faculties. It overrides judgment in the same degree as it lessens individual will. The temporary surrender of the will is the end point of that effect. The remarkable seductive power of the film by Leni Riefenstahl, The Triumph of the Will (1935), is clear testimony to the power of cinematic representation to seduce. It suggests the subversion of great masses of people, an entire nation, by the charismatic force of an individual will, that of Hitler. Allured by the promise of a powerful leader who would produce a rebirth of the German nation after the disaster of World War I, the entire nation gave itself ecstatically into his authority, at least, so the film suggests. Triumph of the Will conveys that pandemic ecstasy in remarkable images of mass enthusiasm and self-subjugation to a strong man. The collective needs of the nation, psychological and material, were at the point of being so unendurable that its enthusiasms could crystallize in the allure of a powerful speaker and authoritarian leader. The success of that film and the utter catastrophe of the world it projected is exhibit A in a case of the dangers of charisma, personal and artistic. Any promise of a rise from discontent to greatness has a built-in path to disillusionment. The power of enchantment is also a power to seduce. Rational, critical thought resists charisma. Charismatic art uses mechanisms that break down the resistance to illusion. The main interest of a study of charismatic aesthetics is the making and unmaking of illusion, the power of illusions to influence behavior. In the same degree as charisma raises up the viewer and promises benefits beyond the dreams of someone living in the real world, it also creates the greater space to fall. That distance between illusion and experience grounds the disillusioned fan’s aggression toward his idol, and it grounds the intellectual skepticism that big illusion invariably provokes. Charismatic art creates a huge psychic investment in the revered model; one can derive one’s own self-definition from it. The discrediting of the charismatic figure or the charismatic work means the diminishing of the self. The same syndrome is at work in romantic love, closely related to charismatic experience. Disillusionment and betrayal ends in hatred, sometimes in violence, generated by the bursting of the illusion, the realization that the inspirer of blissful dreams is all tinny show, not a god at all; a charming predator, not a Sir Galahad. It also takes the form in which the fan imagines that the luster of the idol will become his own if he kills him. The impulse to destroy, slash, throw acid on, or pound to bits famous works of art can have a similar motive (Freedberg, 1985; 1989), and this too connects charisma of person and of art. Aggression toward works of art may also be generated by the viewer’s sense of a magical force that statues and painted images radiate. Charismatic art has a hypnotic and enthralling potential. That force can appear uncanny and demonic; the deceived devotee, once freed of its spell, can turn on whatever it was that held him captive (e.g. the shooting of John Lennon). One of the foundations of enchantment by charisma is an inherent redemptive promise in the charismatic figure or in the art that conveys it, secular or sacred. It answers to the inner need for redemption of the subject in the spell of charisma. I use the term in a broad sense which includes the religious concept but stretches into everyday experience. We can use this as a working definition: “redemption” is the rescue, in a critical moment or series of events, of life, freedom, and human dignity from a condition that suppresses or threatens or denies it. I will come back to this topic later in reference to the “redemption narrative.”

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Toward a phenomenology of charismatic art “Phenomenology” is too big a word for the bare summary that follows here. Let it evoke the real need of a comprehensive overview of periods, genres, and works and the effects they aim at and accomplish.

Narrative 1

Heroic epic: Every culture has its own heroic narratives. The identity and personal dignity of a nation or ethnic group are formed and reflected in narrative poetry. Werner Jaeger wrote of “the exalting, ennobling and transfiguring power [of the epic]. . . . The ancients themselves observed how Homer transports everything – even ordinary objects and common events – to a higher plane” (W. Jaeger, 1986, p. 1, 42). The exaltation charges the Homeric heroes with psychagogic force. It generates what Werner Jaeger called “a cult of great examples.” That describes well the operating mode of hypermimesis. Mortal heroes are charged with transforming force; god-like powers flow through them, which can be passed on to the reader as links in a chain of inspiration.

The influence of Homer on Greek culture is so extensive that Plato himself, a critic of Homer who banished the poet from his Republic, recognized Homer as “educator of all Greece.” The penetration of the Homeric poems into Hellenistic culture was deep and almost uncanny (Zeitlin, 2001). Cities prided themselves on the number of citizens who could recite the Homeric poems from memory. Imitations of Homeric figures (for instance Alexander the Great’s imitation of Achilles) were a means of inculcating values. Zeitlin calls this submersion in a poetic model “a kind of mystical communion with great spirits, halfway between dream and reverie and epiphany, augmented by recollections of portraits and images” (p. 235). 2

Chivalric romance: The plot structure in which a knight sets out to prove himself in chivalric and magical adventures performed in the service of a lady, derives from the narrative form invented by a French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, in the second half of the 12th century. The Arthurian epic and the myth and lore surrounding King Arthur were in large part a creation of Chrétien. Magical and fantastic elements were essential to the romance form. The landscape itself is charged with magical force. A sword in a stone somewhere in an English forest has the power to identify by touch the true heir to the English crown. The adventures the knight faced were invariably concocted by wizards and enchanters. Magical talismans, scarves, and rings from his lady love helped him survive. A peculiarity of romance closely bound up with the charismatic character of the world is the existence of a realm of enchantment, where the magical adventures and the key to rescuing his lady were to be encountered. The transformation of the hero happens in this realm. In Chrétien, romantic adventure happened in the forest of Broceliande. In Shakespeare, the “green realm” of the Forest of Arden in “As You Like It” is an enchanted realm; so also Prospero’s island in The Tempest. In the Harry Potter books and films, Hogwarts School is the enchanted realm.

Arthurian imitation was powerfully at work in the culture of chivalry. It is no exaggeration to say that the courtly literature created a culture of refined manners which is described and still practiced as courtesy and courtliness. It also is in no small part responsible for conveying a new ideal of refined love known as “courtly love.” In stark contrast to Homeric and any classical 356

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Greek and Roman epic, the figure of woman became a moral force, guiding the knight to redemption. Chivalric models saturated the culture of the nobility, and that influence continued well into the 19th century. One commentator called the culture of chivalry the first and most effective form of the civilizing of a warrior society in the West. The influence of the chivalric ideal on knightly behavior was so prevalent that by the 17th century it inspired a parody of a knight driven insane by excessive reading and obsessive imitation of knightly romance, Don Quixote. The hero of that romance parody is the fully enchanted reader of a charismatic narrative form. 3 Redemption Narrative: The classic example of a redemption narrative are the Gospels. They shed all the epic pretentions to grandeur and heroism. The world represented is humble, plebian, but set against an antagonistic force in constant opposition to Jesus. The moral force of Jesus and the power of his teaching prevail even in the face of a tragic end. The desecrating form of execution, crucifixion, turns into the central element in a drama of tragic death resulting in triumphant victory. Redemption as defined earlier is common in charismatic narrative, since its inevitable positive outcome affirms the basic effect of charisma: its power to rescue in difficult circumstances. Most chivalric romances fit that descriptions. The English 18th- and 19th-century novels are given to redemptive plot trajectories: Pamela, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Bleak House, David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre. Likewise in American movies, redemption in the form of “happy endings” are the stock-in-trade: It’s a Wonderful Life, Sullivan’s Travels, As Good as It Gets, The Artist (French, but based on American models). “Happy end,” however, implies a cheap evasion of destructive complexity. In one form of the redemption narrative, the hero rescues himself of herself from the threatening forces by discovering a noble or heroic inner core that had nearly been destroyed (On the Waterfront).

Sculpture The statue as representative of an ideal human form, generally an educational ideal, was allied to actual systems of education in earlier periods. The statues of the classical period in Greek art were meant to represent a perfection of body and mind attainable through discipline (W. Jaeger, 1986). The statues on and in Gothic cathedrals achieve a plasticity and richness of expression that competes with classical statues for idealizing beauty. Their purpose also was pedagogic, not only aesthetic. It was obvious to the 13th century professor of the University of Paris John of Garland, who wrote these lines: “Declare the sculptures of our church to be models of civility,/Living pictures, to be borne in mind indelibly.” It was also obvious to generations of earlier teachers, that statues of ideal human forms could have the same paideic effect as a charismatic teacher; that they could serve as a model to shape the student physically and morally.

Painting The power to evoke more than is on its surface, the ability to suggest a living force present in the person or the world depicted, is a strong element of charisma in painting. Other forms of art call on this ability to evoke life, but painting especially exemplifies the unstated expectation or belief of a viewer that represented figures can contain life. A second principle, also with broader application but a special role in painting: the viewer sees one person, but senses others “layered” or “incarnate” in the representation. The person 357

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depicted conveys the message – implied, not stated outright – “I am not myself alone. Gods, saints, spirits, ancestors, and precursors live again in me, and their presence strengthens my existence, extends it from the here and now into the beyond and testifies to my mission in life.” The principle is at work in the body painting and tattooing of tribal societies, and it is in full force in the Christian devotional form, the icon. If Christ or the Virgin or saint is not credibly present in the sacred image, then it will not perform its function, to convey sanctity and respond to the need of the worshipper who kisses and esteems it (Kartsonis, 1998). The famous self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer dated 1500 is a layered portrait. Incarnate in the image of Dürer is an evocation of Christ. Whether that layering was in the intention of the painter or not, the Christomorphic character of the portrait has struck viewers since at least the 17th century. Paintings can be highly evocative quite apart from the principle of multi-occupancy. Narratives can unfold from them in the imagination of the viewer. Renoir’s “The Loge” (1874) implies a story of an unhappy marriage and a love affair; Sargent’s “Lady Agnew” has a power to draw the viewer into a romantic-erotic dialogue (C. S. Jaeger, 2012, pp. 32–35). Painting engaged in political/patriotic issues seldom rises to the level of strong charisma, but Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” (1830) became iconic of the aspirations of the July revolution in France of 1830. The physical presence of a female spirit of freedom, breasts bared and tricolor waving, bypassed mere evocation and asserted the hyperreal presence of the embodiment of freedom leading the revolutionary army into battle.

Opera, ballet Opera is hypermimetic in the extreme. The audience’s willingness to accept the illusion of hyperreal characters and motivations is pushed to the breaking point. Its critical will is disabled by the magic of the voice in opera and of motion in ballet. The expressiveness of the skilled performer places the art beyond any deflating criticism. The apparently supernatural skill of opera singer and ballet dancer is the bedrock of charismatic effect in these genres. Grand opera and ballet are at the same time the most charismatic and the most artificial of performative genres.

Cinema The art of film narrative is entirely unique among charismatic forms of representation. The “enlargement” of the human form happens physically through projection: the actor appears greatly magnified on the screen; in close-ups, his or her image is even larger. It follows that physiognomy of the screen actor looms as large, perhaps larger, than any of the conventional acting talents: voice, expressiveness, command of character. The exceptional physiognomy is to film art what voice is to opera and musical. American cinema is in one sense body art, personality art, the self as art. The cinema is a medium that unites visual and auditory with tactile experience. You can’t touch the persons and objects projected, but their image activates sensual response more directly than any other medium. Already in the silent film period, the ability of film to influence mass audiences, its revolutionary potential, political and commercial, was evident. The cinema showed itself as a powerful instrument for progressive change, revolution (Sergei Eisenstein), for reactionary nationalism (D. W. Griffith), or for national mythologies (Abel Gance). Leni Riefenstahl’s glorification of the heroic individual in her early films ripened into the most powerful propaganda instrument of the Nazi party (Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl, 1935). 358

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The phenomenon of the American movie star was and still is to some extent perhaps the most remarkable overriding feature of American cinema. European cinema is built on great directors; American on great stars. The revolutionary discovery of the American cinema was that the star was in herself an incarnation, living fiction; it is the job of the production team to create a world that accommodates the story that the star’s mere physical presence implies. For talents like Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlon Brando, great art was attainable on those terms. A methodology of star grooming developed that institutionalized perfection as the allowable vibe of stars, but also opened the industry to the reproach of being a “star machine” (see the chapter by Kate Fortmueller in this volume. Also see Basinger, 2007). Glamour raised the stars, on-screen and in reality, above any ordinariness. In their own person they promised happiness, perfection, a world beyond harm. The movies seemed to promise a “redemption” from everyday life (Lahr, 1994). They made the experiences of romance, happiness, goodness, invulnerability available to the paying public. The movies gave viewers the experience of the miraculous, transported them into unattainable realms: love, death, adventure, romance – and allowed them to overcome dangers, or rather, to appropriate a vision of dangers overcome and romance experienced, and tuck it into their soul in the form of desire and emulation. The feeling that life could be happy – that you could give and inspire love and respect, that you could live a life of grandeur and greatness, that you are invulnerable, indestructible – was available every night at the corner movie theater. The greater the public’s poverty of spirit or of purse, the more powerful the effect of that illusory experience. The grander the illusion, the greater the tendency to accept it as temporary reality and psychological shelter, to want to continue life in that illusion after the screen darkened. Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) turns on that experience. The profit motive feeds on everything with value in a capitalist society. Given the benefits that charisma promises, its commodity value is high. Enterprises, both religious, political, and particularly commercial, flourish around the instrumentalizing of charisma: the fashion and advertising industries and the media of film and TV above all. Charisma is value added onto commodities. That tends to infect the art of the American cinema particularly. The Frankfurt School of sociological and critical theory identified the American cinema with a “culture industry,” its values governed and its artistic decisions controlled by producers whose primary interest is the maximizing of profits. The criticism of Horkheimer and Adorno however looks aside from and ignores a very real negotiation that went on constantly in the collective minds of everyone involved in film production: how to align artistic choices with audience appeal. The impact could be tested in pre-release showings and test groups, but the more basic need was an understanding of the impact of the movies on the psyche of individual fans. That required awareness of charismatic response. Transformation of the fan was an effect that met both commercial and social/psychological needs: “In marketing the star the studios understood that the real connection between performer and audience occurred when the fan took on, in the dream space of the movie theater, the star’s intangible qualities of personality and style.” (Dance and Robertson, Glamour Photography, p. 107). The profit motive was served when the participation of the viewer was most intense, when the willingness to break through the spell and brush aside the movie as fluff was minimized. The illusion had to have persuasive power. The interests of studio bosses, investors and boards of directors were served not only by cheap thrills and spectacle but also by a commitment to a level of film art where great writing, directing, and acting combine with mass appeal. The Frankfurt school’s vision of the culture industry reducing feature films to commodities is a healthy warning against the tyranny of commercialism, but some dynamic built into that 359

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particular market also has consistently led to the production of films of high artistic quality, albeit a minority of overall production.

Glamour and fashion photography Glamour and fashion photography are hypermimetic forms premised on the conviction of advertisers that aggrandizing art can rouse the consumer’s desire for the world represented, for the people who live in it, and for the trappings they wear, hold, and possess. The underlying aesthetic principles are not much different from those governing hypermimetic representation in other art forms. But this particular genre has a higher value to argue the effects of charismatic art than studies limited to the traditional creators and consumers of art, literature, and film. Advertisers have a very different kind of authority than psychologists and professors of comparative literature. The former have more at stake; their high financial investments in charismatic art argue for its real effectiveness as a manipulator of opinion, taste, and conviction – as a medium of enchantment. If art were not capable of influencing and manipulating conviction, opinion, and ideas, then it would be of no interest to manufacturers of consumer products, or to demagogues and dictators. That the fashion industry conceives its work as a high form of art was evident in the recent blockbuster exhibit at New York Metropolitan museums, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” (2018). That show in a major art venue is an assertion of the fashion industry’s selfconception as creator of works of art. It represents them engaged in the design of clothing as exhibitable art.

Future directions/research The power of charismatic art to influence viewers, readers, and consumers is a fundamental question in the study of this mode of representation. Its use and abuse play so directly into the psychology of past and present that it calls for careful study. Charisma of art is a wide-open field. It needs study in many directions: aesthetics, psychology, sociology, history. Childhood education is a particularly important area. The appeal of fantasy narrative is intimately bound to the earliest stages of ego development, as Bettelheim (1989) has argued. The grand fantasy narratives, text or film, joining myth and science fiction, clearly call for study. Their mass appeal is clear. The effects on audiences, especially pre-teen and teen, call for further research. The educating effects of Homer and of chivalric romance have been stressed, but much is to be learned about the development of Western social ideals from further study. The therapeutic value of art is an attractive topic. A direction in cognitive and developmental psychology calls centrally on the use of narrative in developing character and has created techniques of narrative therapy. Theodore Sarbin proposed the principle of “the narrative construction of the self,” based on immersion in charismatic fiction: “In the act of reading, a transfiguration of the reader occurs” (Sarbin, 1982). Sarbin calls this identification with fictions “the Quixotic principle.” He consistently argued a parallel between reading and hypnosis, a model in which the enthralled reader is as vulnerable to the suggestions of the book as the hypnotic subject to those of the hypnotist. The psychology and aesthetics of fashion photography should take a serious interest in charismatic aesthetics. The study of fashion and its social/psychological effects has concentrated on semiology, meaning, fashion as a system of signs and symbols, the message conveyed by fashion

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and of conversion of values signified by fashion trends. Roland Barthes’s The Fashion System (1990) is foundational for the semiological approach. Charismatic effects of fashion and glamour photography are a big topic still to be explored, touched largely only in popular discussion. The Fashion Studies Journal, which began in 2016, offers serious, non-academic but reflective commentary on fashion. Yuniwa Kamamura’s Fashion-ology (2018) gives an overview of the system of fashion, its institutions and technologies.

Note 1 Here and throughout I use “art” both in the narrower sense, to refer to painting and sculpture and in the broader sense, all forms of representation.

References Allen, Woody, 1972. Play It Again Sam. Paramount Pictures. Allen, Woody, 1985. The Purple Rose of Cairo. Orion Pictures. Barthes, Roland, 1990. The Fashion System. Trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. University of California Press, Berkeley. Basinger, Jeanine, 2007. The Star Machine. Knopf, New York. Bettelheim, Bruno, 1989. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Vintage, New York. Burke, Edmund, 1998. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful and Other Pre-Revolutionary Writings. Ed. David Womersley. Penguin, London. Campbell, Joseph, 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd Ed. New World Library, Novato, CA. Coogler, Ryan, 2018. Director. Black Panther. Walt Disney Studios. Dance, Robert and Bruce Robertson, 2002. Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography. University of California Press, Berkeley. Delacroix, Eugène, 1830. Liberty Leading the People. Louvre Museum, Paris. Freedberg, David, 1985. Iconoclasts and Their Motives. Schwartz, Maarsen, Netherlands. Freedberg, David, 1989. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1998. Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert: Schilderung Winckelmanns. In: Aesthetische Schriften, 1806–1815: Goethe Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Friedmar Apel. 1. Abt. Bd. 19. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt. “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”, 2018. Exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Jaeger, C. Stephen, 1994. The Envy of Angels: On Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Jaeger, C. Stephen, 2012. Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Jaeger, Werner, 1986. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Trans. Gilbert Highet. 2nd Ed. 3 vols. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Jenkins, Henry, 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. Routledge, New York. Kamamura, Yuniwa and Joanne B. Eicher, 2018. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies: Dress, Body, Culture. 2nd Ed. Routledge, London. Kartsonis, Anna, 1998. The Responding Icon. In: Heaven and Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. Ed. Linda Safrin. Penn State University Press, University Park. Lahr, John, 1994. The Voodoo of Glamour. New Yorker 113–122, March 21. Penley, Constance, 1997. NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. Verso, London. Renior, Jean, 1874. “The Loge”. Painting. Courtauld Institute, London. Riefenstahl, Leni, 1935. The Triumph of the Will. Universum Film AG.

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Sarbin, Theodore, 1982. The Quixotic Principle: A Belletristic Approach to the Psychological Study of Imaginings and Believings. In: The Social Context of Conduct: Psychological Writings of Theodore Sarbin. Eds. Vernon I. Allen and E. Scheibe Karl. Praeger, New York, 169–186. Zeitlin, Froma. 2001. Visions and Revisions of Homer. In: Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire. Ed. Simon Goldhill. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 195–266.

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30 Charisma and the media John Potts

Introduction: a great revolutionary force Charisma has been associated with media since Weber’s concept attained common usage in the 20th century. Weber developed his theory of charisma as a form of authority in his vast work Economy and Society, published in German in 1922, two years after his death. The idea of charisma, as defined by Weber, thus entered the wider vocabulary in the age of cinema, radio broadcasting, and press media. In the 1920s and 1930s, the first application of Weber’s idea by political theorists referred to the fascist demagogues who galvanized their followers with oratorical flights broadcast over radio. In the Anglophone world, “charisma” emerged from the English translation of Economy and Society in 1947 and took its place in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, leadership studies, and political theory. The idea escaped from the confines of academic discourse in the 1950s, when it became a term commonly used in the media for exceptional individuals whose charisma was showcased to huge audiences via television: John F. Kennedy was widely acclaimed as a charismatic political leader. By the 1960s, the audiovisual media provided a platform for charismatic politicians to display the “charisma of rhetoric” described by Weber, while print media became the base for analysis of charismatic politicians and other public figures by political commentators, columnists, and journalists. This remains the case in the 21st century. Audiovisual media has an expanded reach through YouTube and social media, which can incorporate short videos of charismatic performances. Newspapers, magazines, and online blogs offer commentary and analysis of politicians, particularly during election campaigns, determining whether or not a politician’s charisma will be a factor in the election. Political analysts, including former politicians, survey the political field and comment on the charisma on display, or its lack. Charisma in the media, and analyzed by the media, conforms to Weber’s construction of charisma as “the great revolutionary force”; something rare and innate in exceptional individuals; a force that forges an emotional bond between leader and followers; an elusive, unstable quality that can transform political contests, even in the highly rationalized, technologized, and mediated contemporary world. Here are some early 21st century examples from the print media of commentary on charisma in politics. In 2018, Andrew Rice wrote of the campaigning Democrat politician Beto

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O’Rourke, who demonstrated – at least in the early stages of the primary campaign – skills of oratory and political performance recognized by several commentators as charismatic: What it really looked like was charisma. It’s a rare and unstable element in politics – few possess it, and fewer still are able to sustain it through the ordeal of a competitive campaign. This year O’Rourke had it, and he was able to harness its great power to overcome the numerous structural obstacles facing a Democrat running in Texas . . . he ended up raising a staggering $70 million, largely through the force of his persona. (Rice 2018: 2) In 2019, the political journalist Peter Hartcher wrote of an uninspiring federal election campaign as part of “Australia’s era of post-charisma leadership.” Hartcher’s cynical analysis found that when confronted by bland, noncharismatic party leaders, the typical voter will vote for “the one she dislikes or distrusts the least. In the absence of a charismatic leader, that is the usual run of things. And so it was this time” (Hartcher 2019: 30). Many political commentators are inspired by charismatic leaders, and can find the political landscape dispiriting in their absence. Another political journalist, Deborah Snow, looked back longingly at the career of Bob Hawke, Australian Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991, who died in 2019. Snow draws on the reminiscence of a former senator and colleague of Hawke, Graham Richardson, who campaigned with Hawke in 1974: Even then Hawke was a magnet for people, regardless of whether they voted Labor or not. “You would take him into a pub and a massive crowd would gather, word would spread, and people would turn up just to be with him, touch the hem,” Richardson says. “Charisma is not something you achieve. It’s not something you learn. It’s something you have. And I don’t think there was ever a time in his life that, when he entered the room, he wasn’t the center of attention.” (Snow 2019: 30–31) These political commentators, writing in 2018 and 2019, echo Weber’s theory of charisma very closely, whether they have read Economy and Society or not. Weber wrote that charisma cannot be learned; he emphasized innate or personal charisma as the “original basis” of charismatic authority in rare and exceptional individuals. For Weber, charisma in an individual leader  – charismatic performance including inspiring speech-making – is recognized by the leader’s followers, ensuring an emotional bond and “absolute trust” between the followers and the leader (Weber 1968: 242). This chapter explores Weber’s shaping of the idea of charisma and investigates why audiovisual media has been so significant in the transmission of charismatic authority.

Weber’s gift of charisma Weber took the term “charisma” from late-19th century German scholarship on religious history. Rudolph Sohm and other German religious historians focused on the transformation of the early Christian church from a spiritual entity to a legal-bureaucratic organization equipped with hierarchy and – from the fourth century – the canonical Bible as base of authority. The German theologians looked back to the first century, to the small Christian congregations addressed by Paul in his letters. It was in one of these letters – 1 Corinthians, written around the year 54 – that Paul defined the religious concept “charisma,” meaning “gift of God’s grace” and commonly translated as “spiritual gift.” A charisma for Paul was a gift from the Holy Spirit 364

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to individual members of the congregation, intended to benefit the community as a whole. Paul mentions nine different charismata or spiritual gifts in his letters; he acknowledged that the highest charisma was the gift of prophecy, or the ability to speak the word of God in an inspired state. Charisma was a mystical theological concept, understood as a gift bestowed directly from the Spirit, without the need for mediation by religious authority within the church establishment (hierarchy and centralized authority had not yet been instituted in the Christian church). The spiritual gifts, which also included speaking in tongues, healing, and teaching, were thought to flourish in the small communities addressed by Paul: this was the basis of the “spiritual church” – before the advent of the Bible – studied by Sohm and other German theologians. The spiritual church, and the flourishing of charisma, did not last long, however. By the second century, religious authority was invested in bishops, and from the fourth century, the bishops were entrusted with the authority of interpreting the Bible as divine instruction; new spiritual revelation in the form of prophecy was declared to have ceased. “Charisma” fell into disuse as a religious concept by the fourth century; self-declared prophets were often declared heretical and excommunicated – or worse. The church was now a legal-bureaucratic organization, and the spiritual infusion of individuals with charisma was no longer part of mainstream Christian belief. The word “charisma” then largely lay dormant until reinvented by Weber in the early 20th century. Weber secularized the religious concept of charisma, but his reframing of the idea incorporated aspects of the word’s original meaning. In Economy and Society, he defined charisma as: a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. (Weber 1968: 241) The endowment of exceptional, even supernatural, powers to the charismatic individual in Weber’s account betrays the derivation from the original meaning of charisma as “spiritual gift.” The mysticism inherent in Paul’s concept of charisma is retained in Weber’s sociological formulation: charisma for Weber is a mysterious quality which somehow inheres in certain exceptional individuals. It is a radical spiritual force, celebrated by Weber as the antidote to the “iron cage” of rationalization in modernity, the “disenchanted world” of bureaucracy and stale authority. Weber elsewhere spoke of charisma in spiritual terms, likening it to the “prophetic pneuma” of early Christian times; he invested great hope in charisma as a positive energy, capable of breaking through the stifling bonds of bureaucracy, which he considered the blight of the modern world. Weber’s transformation of the ancient religious concept of charisma into a modern sociological term entailed his emphasis on charismatic authority, rather than the other spiritual gifts mentioned by Paul. Charisma for Weber is a form of authority vested in exceptional individual leaders; he contrasted the vital force of charisma with the other two forms of authority, which he termed traditional and rational-legal. The examples of charismatic leaders offered by Weber in Economy and Society include political leaders, religious leaders, prophets, and warrior-leaders. The charismatic leader commands a loyal following of supporters, based initially on sustained feats of authority by the leader: these feats may be victories in battle or other political victories; acts of healing; miracles; or inspirational speech-making, which Weber describes as the “charisma of rhetoric.” 365

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In Weber’s conception, charisma cannot be fabricated but is innate in rare individuals; it may be amplified through relationship to a community of followers and may be “awakened” or “tested” in a charismatic leader, but Weber states that charisma cannot be “learned” or “taught” (Weber 1968: 249). It is an unstable and radical force that can sweep aside existing authority and tradition, as it has done throughout human history. He finds charisma alive in the early 20th century; indeed, he values its persistence in the modern rationalized world as the only counterforce to the shackles of bureaucracy. Weber held that the power of charisma can break through even the massive bureaucratic apparatus of modern democracies: he cited Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a political leader emerging, through the persuasive force of the charisma of rhetoric, in a US presidential campaign in the early 20th century. Weber’s concept of charisma has been accepted into academic discourse in numerous disciplines. However, it has certainly been contested, even rejected, as a theoretical proposition. Pierre Bourdieu’s critical sociology of power relations has no place for Weber’s charisma, which Bourdieu finds too mystical an idea – “a mysterious quality inherent in a person” – and also a justification for domination (Bourdieu 1987: 129). In management theory, John Kotter has likewise found no mystique in leadership, which “has nothing to do with ‘charisma’ or other exotic personality traits” (Kotter 1999: 51). Other theorists, uncomfortable with the notion of an innate leadership quality residing in special individuals, have shifted the focus of attention to the relation between the followers and the charismatic leader. It has been widely noted that Weber’s definition of charisma states that the leader “is considered” extraordinary and “treated as” endowed with charismatic powers: that is, the followers’ recognition of charisma is crucial in identifying a charismatic leader. The social construction thesis of charisma asserts that charisma is effectively an illusion projected onto a leader by the will of the collective, who have the need – especially in a situation of crisis – to create an inspiring leader. This perspective, more aligned with the sociology of Durkheim than with that of Weber, revises Weber’s concept to emphasize the “projection of the collective” rather than the exceptional powers of the individual leader. Yet the modification of Weber’s concept in academic discourse has had no effect on the mainstream acceptance of the idea. As part of the research for my book A History of Charisma, I  conducted an extensive review of British, American, and Australian print media over the period 1999–2008. Newspapers and magazines were surveyed for every mention of charisma. I found that charisma was regularly attributed by journalists, columnists, and commentators to certain politicians and other public figures, including celebrities. I also found no criticism or refutation of Weber’s concept of charisma, which has become a commonplace term. The idea of charisma as deployed in the print media was very close to the definition offered by Weber, with the exception that the range of individuals deemed charismatic is broader in the 21st century than it was for Weber. Weber restricted his range of charismatic individuals to political and religious leaders; contemporary print media bestows charismatic status to actors, musicians, and other celebrities, as well as politicians. The core of the idea of charisma remains, however, distinctly Weberian: it is understood by print media commentators as an ineffable quality inhering in very few remarkable individuals. In 2009, I formulated a definition of the contemporary meaning of charisma, based on the print media coverage analyzed from 1999 to 2008: [C]harisma is broadly understood as a special innate quality that sets certain individuals apart and draws others to them. (Potts 2009: 2) 366

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This definition is extremely close to that of Weber in Economy and Society; it remains the meaning of charisma as it is regularly analyzed and discussed in print media. The charismatic individual attracts followers through some form of charismatic performance, the result of an innate ability possessed by exceptional rare personalities. Here are some examples from print media coverage of charisma: “[I]t’s very hard to define charisma, the quality possessed by those who inspire us.” This article – “Charisma: What is it? Who’s got it? And why?,” an extended analysis in an Australian Sunday newspaper supplement in 1999 – identified charisma in certain politicians, including Tony Blair and Bob Hawke; in religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama; and in public figures ranging from Muhammad Ali to Germaine Greer. The authors of the article consulted various specialists – celebrity agents, public relations practitioners, journalists, and opinion pollsters – to assist in defining charisma. Attempted definitions included: “The “it” factor: why some people will always stand out from the crowd”; “physical presence combined with an ability to persuade  – and great charm”; “personal magnetism and the capacity to sway a mass audience”; a “gift” for “imparting a sense of inclusive intimacy”; and, more simply, a “vitality” or “energy” (Potts 2009: 185). Another newspaper article in 2002 referred to “that elusive something called ‘charisma,’ ” describing it as “drawing power” and “a certain magnetism” (185). Newspaper columnist Maggie Alderson in 2007 reflected on “pure, naked charisma” in exceptional individuals as “a kind of magic” and a “rare and breathtaking aura.” The author of this article distinguishes “naked charisma” from media concoctions such as glamour, beauty, and celebrity. Charisma is regarded as an index of authenticity, a power to attract others found in very rare individuals – as distinct from the thousands of everyday celebrities existing in a mediatized world. Alderson states that “in 25 years I’ve met a lot of wildly famous people, but I’ve only ever come across three truly charismatic ones.” (186) Those three individuals – Tony Blair, Bob Dylan, and Princess Diana – all emanated a powerful presence, and gave the impression, in person, that “for the whole time . . . [they were] looking at you – and only you.” (186) The columnist, in analyzing the extraordinary “frisson” generated from meeting these three charismatic individuals, struggles to articulate its cause: “I still don’t understand what creates the effect.” She notes reports by other journalists of similar encounters with charismatic individuals Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, who projected “a kind of aura that made people want to be with [them].” Alderson concludes that charisma must constitute an intrinsic quality: “If not fame, beauty, power, wealth and glory then what? It must be innate. I find that quite thrilling.” (187) These print media accounts of charisma are all consistent with the idea as defined by Weber. They expound the belief that charisma is a rare quality innate in very few special individuals; charisma is perceived to be a quality that sets these individuals apart and draws others to them. In the case of charismatic political leaders, those attracted to the politician will become followers of the charismatic leader. The journalistic descriptions of charismatic individuals also preserve the mystical quality of the idea as articulated by Weber: journalists find charisma an “elusive something,” a “breathtaking aura”; they find it “very hard to define.” This ineffable, mysterious quality of charisma is a core component of the idea as defined by Weber; it is also what makes charisma such an intriguing idea for analysis in the print media.

Orality and secondary orality Weber’s discussion of the “charisma of rhetoric” provides the clue as to the significance of audiovisual or electronic media in the representation of charismatic individuals. For Weber, “the charisma of rhetoric” was the primary means by which a contemporary charismatic leader could emerge from within the massive bureaucracies of political parties and political elections. 367

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A politician could most effectively display the charisma of rhetoric in electioneering “stump speeches” during election campaigns. Weber observed that the “purely emotional” effects of such charismatic oratory could attract a large following of supporters for the charismatic politician, amounting to a case of “charismatic hero worship” (Weber 1968: 1129–1130). A political candidate could generate so much emotional appeal to followers through speeches and public performances that even a party machine must fall into service of this individual’s charisma. Weber observed this effect in Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential campaign, when Roosevelt’s rousing oratory at stump speeches created a conflict between “the charismatic hero principle and the mundane power of the party organization.” (1130) Weber’s focus on the charisma of rhetoric displayed by certain political leaders, even in the 20th century, provides a link between his concept of charisma and the idea of charisma as it was first proposed by Paul in the first century. For Paul, the charismata were primarily expressed through spoken word: prophecy, the highest charisma, was a form of inspired speech delivered in rousing performances by prophets to their listeners or followers. Charisma, that is, flourished in communities that were primarily oral: the written word had not yet come to dominate religious discourse in the first century. A written text cannot be charismatic; it was the oral performance, the inspiring spoken word, that was deemed charismatic communication. Weber retained the importance of oral communication in the transmission of charisma in his conception of the “charisma of rhetoric.” There were other factors behind Roosevelt’s political ascent, but inspired speech-making remains the major means for a charismatic politician to galvanize listeners and secure a following of supporters, as it was for Roosevelt in 1912. Something very similar was observed by press commentators in the 2007–2008 campaigns by Barack Obama to gain the Democratic Party nomination and then the US presidency. At the beginning of the Democratic primary campaign, Obama was not favored to win the primary: the favorite was Hillary Clinton, a highly experienced politician who appeared to have the support of the Democratic Party machine. But Obama transformed the Democratic primary through a series of rousing stump speeches where, according to press reports, he “work[ed] his audience into a kind of religious frenzy.” Obama was hailed by journalists covering these stump speeches as “by far the most exciting candidate,” a “charismatic speaker” and a politician promising “a new style of politics” (Potts 2009: 209). His passionate and inspirational oratory was contrasted to his opponent’s organization and political “muscle,” prompting one observer to remark: “This is going to be a titanic fight between energy and charisma on the one hand and money and organization on the other.” (209) This observation in the press chimed very closely with Weber’s statement in Economy and Society that the charisma of rhetoric, displayed by a contemporary politician in stump speeches, could provoke a conflict between “the charismatic hero principle and the mundane power of the party organization.” Obama’s sustained flights of oratory in speeches delivered around the country secured for him a “cult-like following” that presaged a form of “mass messianism,” according to one press report. His mass following allowed him to claim the Democratic primary in 2008, whereby he was hailed as a rare charismatic politician in the mold of John F. Kennedy. “The JFK of a New Generation” was one media headline; at the 2008 Democratic convention, speeches linked the two politicians: “Leaders like them come along rarely. But once or twice in a lifetime, they come along just when we need them most” (210–211). Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election campaign was then achieved with the aid of more stirring and inspirational stump speeches. One journalist observed that Obama”s “stunning transformational victory” was “reminiscent of that of Jack Kennedy in its emotional tone – rare is the politician inspiring enough to draw this many tears.” (212) Obama’s presidential campaign, which raised unprecedented levels of funding, was praised as the performance of a “part prophet, part money machine” by 368

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another commentator (212–213). Journalists and even rival politicians now acknowledged that “Obama’s charisma has captured global attention”; it was his charisma of rhetoric that played the most significant role in his election as president (213). There was one key difference, however, between the charisma of rhetoric as displayed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and that displayed by Obama in 2008. Roosevelt could inspire listeners who personally attended his stump speeches and have this effect reported in the press. But Obama benefited from the broadcast of his stump speeches on television, radio, and on YouTube and social media. The difference, in short, is mass media, particularly television. Roosevelt may have reached a few thousand listeners at any one speech; a speech by Obama, broadcast on national television, could reach millions. Through broadcasting, the audience for any local speech becomes a vast viewing audience on a national and international scale. Television has played an important role in transmitting the charisma of politicians to large audiences since 1960, when the US Presidential debate was first televised, allowing John F Kennedy to shine on the audiovisual medium. This aspect of media representation was noted by the journalist David Smith in The Guardian in 2019: Ever since John F Kennedy outshone a clammy and unshaven Richard Nixon, whose pale suit fared poorly on black and white television in 1960, election campaign debates have also been about charisma and dominating the small screen. (Smith 2019: 12) The televised speeches of Obama in 2007 and 2008 were oral performances broadcast to millions of viewers through the mass media. Even if the orator is reading a printed text from a teleprompter, the speech is received by the audience as an oral performance, not a literate one. The speaker engages the audience through the rhythms of speech, eye contact, and body language, creating the “charismatic hero worship” of the speaker by followers, as noted by Weber. The audience of a televised speech is also witnessing the crowd’s emotional response to the speaker after it has been emotionally prepared for the final act in a series of speeches at a political event. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr – another brilliant orator whose speeches advocating civil rights were broadcast on radio and television – were widely hailed in the 1960s as charismatic leaders on the basis of their broadcast speeches, as was Obama in the early 21st century. Twentieth-century media theory focusing on properties of electronic media conducive to charismatic performance emerged from the Toronto School of media studies in the 1960s. Drawing on the work by Eric Havelock on the transition from oral to literate communication, Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan concentrated on the mass media from a media formalist – or “the medium is the message” – perspective. McLuhan argued that the cultural impact of media ensued from the way new forms of media alter “patterns of perception steadily and ­without any resistance” (McLuhan 1974: 27). His focus was on the electronic mass media – radio, TV, cinema – which for him constituted a shift away from the cultural conditioning of the previously dominant print media. Whereas print fostered linearity and rationality, electronic media produced a total instantaneous perceptual field, as society was saturated with images and sounds from around the world, creating a “global village” effect. The key-determining factor for McLuhan was that at base the electronic media were audiovisual, not literate. Electronic media were more likely to trigger emotional responses in large collective audiences compared to the technology of print media, which addressed individual readers. McLuhan called radio “the tribal drum” because of its capacity to exploit the “most intimate and potent of human technologies,” the voice (322). McLuhan found radio the “hottest” (most intensive and exciting) medium because it had the potential to “turn the psyche and 369

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society into a single echo chamber.” (319) He cited the rhythmic invocations of Hitler’s radio speeches in the 1930s, which addressed vast listening audiences as a collective and “retribalized” the German people through emotionally charged oratory. According to McLuhan, skilled exponents of radio broadcasting had the power of radio at their disposal – the power to effect an “almost instant reversal of individualism into collectivism” in the form of a mass audience (324). The fascist demagogues Mussolini and Hitler were the first politicians to be described as charismatic leaders in Weber’s terms, first by Italian intellectuals in the late 1920s and then by Theodore Abel in 1938 in his book Why Hitler Came into Power. Abel called Hitler a “prophet” and “hero” of the Nazi movement, commanding followers who believed in his “out-of-theordinary, superhuman power,” the basis of “what Max Weber calls charismatic leadership” (Abel 1938: 181). As noted by McLuhan, Hitler transmitted his “charisma of rhetoric” to the German people via the medium of radio, which broadcast his intensely emotional political speeches across the nation. In his book Orality and Literacy (1982), Walter J. Ong summarizes the cultural impact of “telephone, radio, television and various kinds of sound tape” as creating an age of “secondary orality” in the 20th century (Ong 1982: 136). For Ong, this new form of orality “has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment, and even its use of formulas.” (136) Ong makes certain qualifications, distinguishing secondary orality from the primary, preliterate orality: modern citizens have been formed by literacy and have become self-consciously group-minded through electronic media, whereas for primary oral peoples there was no alternative. But Ong’s conception of a secondary orality generated by electronic audiovisual mass media helps explain why charisma has been associated with electronic media, from the oratory of Hitler’s radio speeches to the television appearances of John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. The power of the spoken word is the key to secondary orality, as it was for primary orality. Audiovisual media allow the charismatic leader to perform, to speak, to display the charisma of rhetoric, and to excite, inspire, and galvanize their audiences – their followers – through the performance of their speeches via various media.

Charisma and celebrity If charisma has flourished in the 20th- and 21st-century age of media, it has also coexisted with the age of celebrity. The mass media has been saturated with celebrities since the “star industry” of Hollywood generated glamorous movie stars, and particularly since television and social media have produced innumerable smaller-scale celebrities. The question arises: can celebrity be equated with charisma in the modern world? Even during the height of the Hollywood “star factory,” a distinction was made between celebrity, which could be imposed by a film studio, and the rare, elusive quality of charisma. The discourse around film stars in the Hollywood golden age – press reports, magazine coverage, publicity, critical writing – did not have access to the word “charisma,” which entered the general Anglophone vocabulary only in the 1960s. But alternative terms were used: “personality” and “magnetism” were words deployed in the discourse of early Hollywood to describe qualities later associated with charisma. Certain exceptional film stars, such as Joan Crawford, were considered even by studio executives to possess a special quality that elevated them above the other stars. One Hollywood executive described Crawford in these terms: “I knew that she had that rare thing – personality. She is beautiful, but more essential than beauty is that quality known as screen magnetism.” (Potts 2009: 169) A coterie of elite figures – including Garbo, Gable, Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth – were thought to exist at a rarefied level in the 370

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Hollywood hierarchy, lifted above their star peers through some innate “magnetism” or “grace” that would later be termed charisma. The difference between charisma and celebrity is that celebrity can be manufactured, whereas charisma cannot. The Hollywood film A Star is Born detailed the construction of a film star’s celebrity by the film studio; in the 21st century, minor celebrities are manufactured before the viewers’ eyes on reality TV programs including The Voice, American Idol and Survivor. In his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin celebrated the capacity of mechanical reproduction to liberate the work of art “from its parasitical dependence on ritual” (Benjamin 1982: 226). Multiple copies of any work would diminish the quasi-religious reverence of the original: “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” (223) Benjamin also noted a counter-impulse within the media industry: the film industry, he observed, responded to the “shriveling of the aura” with the “cult of the movie star.” This fabricated cult constituted the “artificial build-up of the ‘personality’ outside the studio,” enabled by “the money of the film industry.” The movie star was for Benjamin not the modern incarnation of “the unique aura of the person,” but rather a form of commercial manufacture: it comprised the “ ‘spell of the personality,’ the phony spell of a commodity” (233). In his prescient essay, Benjamin foresaw the construction of celebrity on a mass scale of mechanical reproduction, a media world awash with celebrity in the 21st century. Celebrities manufactured on reality TV have a diminished stature compared to the stars of Hollywood’s golden age, but they are minor celebrities nevertheless, and there are today more celebrities than ever before, enjoying a “following” on social media. The winners of reality TV contests like Survivor or The Voice achieve a short-lived celebrity, but any contestant who appears on a reality TV show achieves some minor fleeting celebrity status, simply through the act of appearing on TV and social media. They are endowed with the “spell of the personality,” the “phony spell of a commodity” identified by Benjamin in the 1930s. My survey of print media coverage of charisma revealed a firm distinction observed in the media between charisma and celebrity. In the words of one magazine article: “As any showbusiness insider will testify, celebrity and charisma do not necessarily go together.” (Potts 2009: 178) Many reviews of pop-star or TV-star performances remark on those individuals’ lack of charisma: one pop singer “has all the charisma and stage presence of a sandwich shop attendant,” wrote one rather harsh reviewer (179). It is understood that charisma is an innate “genuine quality,” while celebrity is a form of invention that can be imparted to any individual by the media industry. A media review of a music industry award night, which included a performance by an American Idol winner, made a telling distinction. “The artificiality of the process” behind the “sensible, average, manufactured” American Idol product became “blindingly clear” for the reviewer after a performance by an “impossibly charismatic, unfeasibly talented” rock star. The observer declared that such a rare talent “can’t be formed or farmed on a talent show.” The charisma of the genuine rock star cannot be created on a reality TV show: “can we ever really worship any Idol we are stupid enough to create and vote for ourselves?” (180) Claims have been made for Donald Trump as a charismatic leader, but he is a poor, rambling orator, displaying none of the charisma of rhetoric exhibited by Kennedy, Martin Luther King or Obama. His victory in the 2016 Presidential election certainly indicated a direct emotional relationship between Trump and his followers in the electorate. Trump proved to be a successful populist politician, whose persona was first known to many of his supporters as a reality TV personality from The Apprentice. Trump was able to transfer his popular appeal as a TV celebrity into a populist political appeal: he was a celebrity politician rather than a charismatic one. It is 371

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significant that Trump’s preferred medium of communication to his followers was the literary mode of Twitter, rather than the audiovisual media. Trump proved an adept exponent of Twitter, deploying his tweets as a propaganda vehicle, avoiding the conventional mass media – which he disparaged as “fake news” – altogether. He was an expert manipulator of media and social media: a political celebrity and celebrity politician.

Charismatic cities, lakes, plays, organs, sandwiches – and politicians One aspect of the media’s widespread coverage of charisma since the 1960s is its potential for overuse and misuse. In Economy and Society, Weber applied the term solely to exceptional leaders; media commentators from the 1960s to the present have extended the description to celebrities, public figures, and even inanimate objects. “Charisma” has been applied as a descriptive term – in advertising, public relations, marketing, and other expressions of media – in ways that deviate alarmingly from Weber’s definition of the term. My analysis of media coverage from 1999 to 2008 found charisma attributed to a range of objects: a city (Berlin); a lake (Lake Como, blessed with “sheer charisma”); a play (Pinter’s The Homecoming, described by a theatre critic: “I was drawn to the charisma of the work”); and a “charismatic organ,” otherwise known as the heart. The most absurd attribution of charisma, however, was to a sandwich or, more accurately, to a sandwich graced by a piece of charismatic iceberg lettuce: “Revisit a retro classic with dressings that add charisma to its crunch.” (Potts 2009: 189–190) The application of charisma to objects ranging from hearts to lettuces makes no sense when charisma is understood as an innate quality of an exceptional individual. The profligate use – and misuse – of the term by media commentators threatens to dilute the meaning of the word, reducing “charismatic” to a synonym for “special.” However, charisma maintains its Weberian meaning when applied by journalists and media commentators to political figures. Journalists assign themselves the role of identifying charisma in political performance; they also identify its lack or its disappearance. Charisma as defined by Weber is considered an unstable, unpredictable force, which may disappear for inexplicable reasons. The journalist Matthew Knott wrote after one of the televised US Democratic presidential debates in 2019: “Beto O’Rourke’s once legendary charisma appears to have gone missing and he may struggle to stay in the race much longer” (Knott 2019: 13). Knott was right, and Beto dropped out of the race soon after. Journalists and political commentators also note the fading of charisma, even from politicians once thought to be blessed with its gift, after they have acceded to political office. Weber wrote that it is the fate of charisma “to recede with the development of permanent institutional structures.” (Weber 1968: 1133) This is the routinization of charisma, which Weber considered inevitable in the modern world given the bureaucratic weight of political machinery. A politician may campaign in poetry, but must govern in prose, according to an oft-cited political maxim. A political leader may soar with feats of charismatic rhetoric during an election campaign, but then must work within the enormous bureaucracy of government once elected. One media commentator predicted the routinization of Barack Obama’s charisma soon after his election success in 2008: “As time wears on  .  .  . grievances accumulate. Life is more humdrum, more tawdry than the utopia promised by apostles of change” (Potts 2009: 2113). Media coverage of Obama’s performance as President focused closely on his first 12 months in office; the conclusion made by a range of journalists and political commentators was that the President had failed to effect political change, as promised by his campaign in 2008. Headlines marking the first year of Obama’s presidency included: “Long Year of Trials 372

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for a Changing President”; “Former Allies Turn on Obama Over His Failure to Deliver on Campaign Promises”; “Yes, We Can . . . But So Far, Obama Hasn’t”; “One Year In, Obama’s Agenda is On Life Support”; “Obama’s Charisma Wearing a Little Thin”; “Obama Needs to Get His Mojo Working”; “Obama Has Lost His Connection to the People”; “Obama’s First Year: Real Change Has Yet to Come.” Journalist Joe Klein wondered in TIME in 2010 why “the best presidential orator in a generation finds it so hard to explain himself to the American people.” (Klein 2010: 14) An article by Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker nominated the system of government as the principal reason for the routinization of Obama’s charisma. Obama came to office talking like a director, Lizza notes, but was forced into governing like a facilitator, “making the unpleasant choices of governing in a system defined by constraints” (Lizza 2012: 49). By the time of Obama’s campaign for reelection in 2012, journalists considered Obama’s charismatic presence to have dwindled so far that he needed the support of another charismatic politician, Bill Clinton, on the campaign trail. The charismatic Clinton could boost the excitement of the 2012 campaign, several observers noted. One Democratic political staffer told USA Today in 2012: “A large part of what they’re looking for is just the warmth of his personality and his charisma and his positive energy.” The “they” referred to here was the audience for Obama, but the charismatic politician referred to was Bill Clinton, whose charismatic appeal was seemingly recruited to replace Obama’s waning charisma on the campaign (Wolf 2012: 2A). The print media remains, then, the site for analysis of charisma on the political stage. The audiovisual media remain the site for charismatic politicians to exhibit their charisma of rhetoric and connect with followers. Despite its occasional misuse in media, charisma remains a term used to distinguish authentic talent from manufactured celebrity and to denote the magnetic appeal displayed by rare and exceptional individuals. Of course, research on charisma and the media will remain an open field, especially in light of the continuing revolution in communications technology: for example, is the impression of charisma diminished when charismatic individuals’ performances are viewed on very small screens (such as on YouTube and cell phones)? Or, from another perspective, is the routinization of charisma a more commonly observed occurrence in the age of 24-hour media coverage? Questions such as these will become increasingly relevant in the foreseeable future.

References Abel, Theodore. 1938. Why Hitler Came into Power. New York: AMS Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1982. Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. London: Fontana. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. “Legitimation and Structured Interests in Weber’s Sociology of Religion.” In Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity. Eds. S. Lash and S. Wimster. Boston: Allen & Unwin. Hartcher, Peter. 2019. “The Party We Loathe Least Wins.” Sydney Morning Herald, 25–26 May 2019, p. 28. Klein, Joe. 2010. “Starting Over.” Time, 1 February 2010, pp. 12–17. Knott, Matthew. 2019. “Warren Connects With Left Hook.” Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 2019, p. 13. Kotter, John. 1999. John Kotter on What Leaders Really Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Books. Lizza, Ryan. 2012. “The Obama Memos.” The New Yorker, 30 January 2012, pp. 36–49. McLuhan, Marshall. 1974 [1964]. Understanding Media. London: Abacus. Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Routledge. Potts, John. 2009. A History of Charisma. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rice, Andrew. 2018. “Beto O’Rourke and the Limits of Charisma.” Intelligencer, 7 November  2018 at http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/beto-orourke-and-the-limits-of-charisma.html. 373

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Smith, David. 2019. “All in: Race for the White House.” The Guardian Weekly, 28 June 2019, vol. 201, no. 3, pp. 10–14. Snow, Deborah. 2019. “Legacy of a Labor Legend.” Sydney Morning Herald, 18–19 May 2019, pp. 29–31. Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich and Trans. E. Fischoff et al. New York: Bedminster Press. Wolf, Richard. 2012. “The Clinton Gamble.” USA Today, 6 September 2012, pp. 1–2A.

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31 Celebrity and charisma Integration and insurgency Eva Giloi

Introduction In 1892, the Berlin Academy of Arts held a “Costume Ball Anno 2000.” As part of its futurist décor, it featured a bust of the female discoverer of the “genius bacillus,” suggesting that genius could be caught like the common cold (M.J., 1892). The persiflage played on Robert Koch’s recent discovery of tuberculin, science fiction as a new genre, (the festival also included an elevator to the moon and electric light towers), and feminist demands for women’s education. Behind it all, the students also subtly mocked Julius Langbehn’s Rembrandt als Erzieher, published two years earlier, which heralded a new age of artistic genius that would replace Germany’s desiccated scientism. Far from a return to sublime inspiration, the future would prove that fame was common and arbitrary, a pathogen one could not control. Romantic anguish and the dread of obscurity was nothing new, of course. But the road to renown was complicated by a new development at fin de siècle: the divergence of celebrity and charisma into conflicting elements of integration and insurgency. Artists, musicians, and other cultural producers found themselves forced to choose between the two, and their relationship to their fans played a prominent role in this conflicting vision (Berenson and Giloi, 2010). Earlier in the century, celebrity and charisma seemed more closely aligned: in the 1840s, Franz Liszt had inhabited the marketability of celebrity and the magnetic aura of noble glamour without contradiction, while the public also saw him as an avatar of political revolution (Gooley, 2010). By 1900, a towering figure like Richard Wagner was divisive either as a conduit to privileged cultural capital or as a firebrand whose utopian vision would burst the straitjacket of modern culture. Before exploring the source of this divergence, the difference between celebrity and charisma, as terms then and now, requires some explication up front. While charisma is today often applied in a scattershot way to any magnetic person, Max Weber originally defined it as a truly exceptional quality and extraordinary form of authority (see later in this chapter). Likewise, 19th-century celebrity carried more weight than it does in our current “celebrity culture.” Today, celebrity is synonymous with being prominent in the media: “Celebrity is a quality or status characterized by a capacity to attract attention, generating some ‘surplus value’ or benefit derived from the fact of being well known (highly visible) in itself in at least one public arena” 375

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(Krieken, 2012: 10). Since this definition includes notorious criminals, reality TV stars, and minor personalities along with superstars, the field of celebrity studies largely focuses on the systemic and psychological reasons such disparate individuals can command attention and influence (Krieken, 2012; Rojek, 2001; Marshall, 1997; Hendriks, 2017: 356; Nunn and Biressi, 2010; Ravid and Currid-Halkett, 2013). This analytical approach may be appropriate to our current age, based on the media logics of film, television, and the internet, but it does not map directly onto the late 19th century, which understood celebrity as the public accolade of individuals who represented values commonly agreed upon to be positive. As in our own time, the late 19th century was marked by a consumer culture that treated celebrities as consumer objects and saw an expanded mass media in the form of press and photography. Unlike our own age, though, the “center” of society – the authoritative social space where “the values and beliefs which are central are embodied and propounded” – was still more tightly delineated (Shils, 1975a: 3). While spheres of social influence were shifting from the aristocracy to other notables in politics, finance, the arts, and the sciences, these inner circles remained more tightly knit in each respective field than they are today. To their contemporaries, 19th-century celebrities were thus “celebrated” as insiders to the social center of meaning and thus as having found the key to the “good life.” In past times, religious devotion, the noble defense of honor, and the bourgeois work ethic were seen as paths to the “good life.” In fin-de-siècle Europe, conspicuous wealth and artistic creativity had arisen as rivals: in the age of consumer culture and individualism, the cultural celebrity took the place occupied by saints or nobles in a more religious or aristocratic age (Rojek, 2001: 13–14). This focus on the individual – to “be all that you can be” – also shifted the temporal scale of the “good life.” Religion defined the good life from the perspective of the afterlife; nobility did so from the vantage point of posterity, inheritance, and dynastic lineage. Celebrity placed the good life into the present through access to a culturally significant inner circle. Even the era’s exceptions proved this rule. Cultural stars like Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde could fall from grace, but they did so after reaching the pinnacle of artistic success that had placed them into the realm of social meaning in the first place. Even after they were officially disgraced and their notoriety made them targets of English law, the glamour of their creative production outweighed their marginally acceptable personal personae and continued to lend them membership in the “aristocracy of the spirit.” Not only admiration but imitation was therefore key: if celebrities could point the way to the good life, then seeking to emulate them opened the path to “goodness” for the common person as well. This turned celebrities into figures of glamour, which plays an integrative role in modern societies. As the sociologist Nigel Thrift notes: “As sources of identity and hope every culture displays ideals that can never be fully realized in everyday life.” The glamorous celebrity seems to embody these ideals without effort, “making what is difficult appear easy” as ordinary human beings. Representing “a world without troubles or with troubles you want,” glamorous celebrity thus “demands envy but also identification” (Thrift, 2008: 14–15). As the glamour of artistic creativity was increasingly publicized through the mass media, a wide range of “subaltern” social groups sought to imitate their idols in their private lives, while others used the liminal glamour of the charismatic outsider to test the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior. In both cases, the integrative role of celebrity and the insurgent role of charisma represented important tools for navigating assigned social roles, either to raise one’s status within his or her peer group or to topple existing social hierarchies and shift the balance of power. For those in positions of social dominance, both celebrity and charisma contained dangers, with celebrity threatening to trivialize their own cultural capital and charisma challenging the status quo. 376

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Obsession with the “genius bug” was a European-wide phenomenon. In Paris, André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, the inventor of the carte-de-visite photograph, offered 65,000 celebrity portraits for sale already in the 1860s. It was also in Paris, in 1895, that Gustave Le Bon published his seminal book on the Psychology of the Crowd to explain how rational individuals could fall under the magnetic spell of demagogues (Le Bon, 1896). But since it was in Germany that Max Weber developed his definition of charisma as a distinct form of authority – a definition that reflected charisma’s divergence from celebrity – the German-speaking region will be the main focus of this chapter. After World War II, celebrity culture found its primary home in the United States, as the Hollywood star system was exported around the world through American cultural hegemony (de Grazia, 2005; de Cordova, 1990). And just as artistic celebrity assumed a democratizing tone in the American century, so the definition of charisma changed when adopted by the US sociologist Edward Shils in the 1960s, as outlined in this chapter’s final section.

Fame as a social code: integration vs. insurgency To people at the time, Europe’s growing megacities heralded a new age. The metropolis’s anonymity, mobility, speed, and sensory engagement loosened city-dwellers from the reified social ties that marked small-town life and instead offered a kaleidoscope of potential identities and self-integration into civic life (Schimank, 1996; Blum, Giloi, and Ostovich, 2017). By its very nature, modern consumer society was “constructed to permit variability, transformation, obsolescence, and cultural fatigue of products and their significance” and therefore facilitated “a correlating fluidity in consumer identity” (Marshall, 1997: 245). Faced with these possibilities, many contemporaries sought to anchor their place in society by identifying with a new slate of authority figures, including celebrities and cultural heroes. Alongside the state-sponsored laudation of cultural heroes, newspapers and magazines filled their pages with celebrity interviews and home stories that created a sense of “intimacy at a distance.” Even legal codes classified those who were “legally famous”: in 1907, the German Copyright Law for Art and Photography created the category of Personen der Zeitgeschichte as people who belonged to the “history of their time” and were thus free game for paparazzi and fans snapping photographs (Giloi, 2012a). As it permeated everyday life, fame became a social code: a set of judgments that bestowed value and provided a veiled language to talk about success and failure, the good life and the good death, the legitimacy of authority and ethics of the public sphere, social health and degeneracy, and the boundaries of class, gender, and other social markers. With celebrities as “public personalities” who “embody the collective in the individual,” celebrity gossip played a key integrative function by presenting audiences with common symbolic reference points: talking about celebrities became a way to debate larger social expectations and changing cultural mores (Marshall, 1997: 241; Krieken, 2012: 8–9). But people did much more than talk about celebrities: they acted out a small-scale imitation of the glamorous artistic life to navigate their place within their peer groups. In another context, writing about social movements, the sociologist Axel Honneth notes that political activists are often motivated less by practical material goals and more by the “struggle for recognition” and respect from dominant social groups and acknowledgment of the value of their own group’s achievements (Honneth, 1995). This desire for horizontal recognition was also a fundamental driving force behind the attachment to celebrity culture. Even those who had little direct access to the elite art world sought to raise their local social profile through small-scale gestures of imitation. As the author Leo Lania noted, in Vienna it was Mahler, Schoenberg, and Klimt who “set the tone.” These cultural innovators were “emulated by the petit bourgeoisie, by prosperous 377

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bakers and butchers who gave their daughters piano lessons; innkeepers who sent their sons to the gymnasium [schools teaching the Classics]; porters in the hotels on the Ring and waiters in the cafes of the inner city, who subsidized young painters and authors on their savings” (Lania, 1942: 28). Those same sons and daughters also used the codes of fame to navigate their status within their families. Middle-class schoolboys utilized the culture they learned at school to open up spaces of autonomy in the city, while teenage girls who performed one-act plays like Goethe in der Küche (Goethe in the Kitchen) embodied the expectation that they, too, could escape the confines of domesticity through culture (Giloi, 2012b; Schwarzenberger, 1913). Other subaltern groups did the same, even those meant to eschew the limelight out of modesty or deference. Housewives who declaimed Goethe’s poetry in an evening’s home entertainment laid claim to a heritage previously reserved for their male relatives, while white-collar clerks who practiced their stenography skills by copying out Schiller poems raised their selfworth and value in their employers’ eyes (Henle, 1897). They were encouraged by newspapers, magazines, and professional trade journals that drew links between their subscribers and the celebrities they profiled. The Archiv für junge Kaufleute und weibliche Angestellte invited its “young salesmen and female employees” to identify with Daniel Defoe as an “eminent businessman and eminent author,” while Der Deutsche Stenograph explained to its readers that star playwrights Gerhart Hauptmann and Hermann Sudermann used stenography just as they did. Celebrity thus integrated individuals into their social roles by enabling them to adjust and contest those roles without rejecting them outright. Bringing celebrities down to a personal level also threatened to trivialize national heroes, though. While the law journal Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung published articles on Goethe’s early career as a lawyer to encourage its readers to emulate the great poet, the art journal Der Kunstwart objected that idolatry, or “Goethelatrie,” fostered “too much familiarity.” Goethe was formerly “the Olympian;” now he was “the old man of Weimar;” soon he would become “Papa Goethe” (Meisner, 1899; Wollschlaeger, 1899; Beaulieu, 1910). As a similar act of protest, Julius Langbehn wrote the bestseller Rembrandt als Erzieher to claim the artist as a savior whose authenticity could rescue contemporary Germany from a mechanistic, materialistic, overly rational urban modernity. Calling for a “hidden emperor” to lead a “new and final German reformation,” Langbehn’s aim was to revolutionize society through creative genius by working outside of the constraints of established social hierarchies (Stern, 1961). Only a chosen few – the aristocracy of the spirit – would lead the nation through their sublime art, but everyone could participate in an authentic culture if they adopted the peasant’s naïve relationship to folk art (Volkskunst). While Langbehn was decidedly on the political right, such artistic millennialism spanned the political spectrum: even the literary modernist Hauptmann lauded “people with the power of suggestion” as “redeemers of humanity,” believing that the “eccentric” (Sonderling) who could “communicate higher goals and a higher will” would raise the “ordinary individual” above mere “eating, drinking, sleeping and other animal functions” (Hauptmann, 1924: 47). Against this backdrop, Weber developed his interest in charisma as a “residual” form of leadership, one that motivates people to follow an outsider even in the absence of formal justifications of authority (Berenson and Giloi, 2010). Unmoored from the traditional and bureaucratic structures of power – inherited titles, elected offices, professional qualifications – the charismatic leader seemed “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional [ausserallertägliche] powers or qualities.” With modern society marked by rationalization and disenchantment that allowed no space for miracles, Weber found charisma’s ideal type in the social outsider, not the political insider. In his view, even dynamic leaders like William Gladstone and Theodore Roosevelt were too constrained by the bureaucratization of party politics to be true charismatics. Instead, Weber focused on artists and religious figures who impressed 378

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their coterie of disciples with their divine vision: Oliver Cromwell, Joan of Arc, and in modern times the Mormon leader Joseph Smith, the poet Stefan George, and Kurt Eisner as a “littérateur . . . overwhelmed by his own demagogic success” (Weber, 1968, vol. 1: 241–242, 245; vol. 3: 1130–1133). Ideal-type charisma was thus insurgent because it worked outside of and sought to replace established hierarchies. Weber acknowledged that kings and other sovereigns enjoyed hereditary charisma (Erbcharisma), while men in office, like Otto von Bismarck, benefited from the charisma of office (Amtscharisma). These two types of attenuated charisma developed in the course of the routinization of pure charisma and gave a lingering magnetism to the heirs of the original charismatic leader as well as his scriptures and the institutional structures he had established. The difference between attenuated and pure charisma, however, was the degree to which its holder was integrated into the existing social structure. As M. Rainer Lepsius summarizes: “A charismatic leader is not only a person who gains trust, toward whom great expectations are directed, or to whom special qualifications are attributed: A charismatic leader creates a new pattern of social relations” (Lepsius, 1986: 53, 55). This was the other critical element of Weber’s ideal type: the disciples’ personal loyalty to the charismatic person, not his office or hereditary role (Möller, 2004: 5). The discrepancy between the disciples’ belief in the charismatic leader’s connection to the Sublime and the lack of any hard proof of magical powers made charisma seem, to non-believers, radical and dangerous in its ability to inspire followers to act on faith.

The genius paradox: new metrics of success The changing definition of scientific genius after mid-century helped drive charisma’s sharpening into a term of insurgency. In earlier times, the greatest accolades in science had gone to the broad thinker: the polymath, the Renaissance man, or the “universal scholar,” embodied as late as the 1840s by Alexander von Humboldt. Later 19th-century science, in contrast, placed more value on profound depth of understanding in discrete fields that lay beyond general knowledge. True genius in science and technology was now found in original discoveries that other people had not thought of and probably did not understand, at least not initially, as exemplified by Hermann von Helmholtz, Robert Koch, Max Planck, Fritz Haber, and Albert Einstein. This led to the Genius Paradox, which roughly posited that if you could understand a scientific theory, then it was too simplistic to be true genius; but if you couldn’t understand it, how would you know if it was correct and not merely nonsense? Systematic reproducibility and formal peer review became safeguards to resolve the paradox. The metric of tradition-defying originality, inspired by the sciences, cast its shadow over the arts as well. Earlier in the century, artists and musicians were lauded for being innovative within a canon; later, only true novelty was regarded as evidence of genius. Typical of the time, the neurologist Leopold Loewenfeld posited that “progress” was the benchmark of genius in the arts, as it was in the sciences, industry, or statecraft, and that true genius was more than a mere heightening of talent (Loewenfeld, 1903: 1–2, 10–15). As he explained: “The most accomplished work in any field, the execution of which solely rests on the utilization of known rules and principles, has incomparably less claim on genius than a work that is inherently flawed, but which rests on the application of completely new principles.” Genius meant “not simply to improve or extend what others have begun, but to reach unique results through new paths” (Loewenfeld, 1903: 3, 6). Loewenfeld thus echoed a trend that had seen Liszt and Niccolò Paganini decline from geniuses to mere virtuosi in popular debates. In contrast, Wagner was still considered a true genius because of the rule-breaking nature of his compositions. 379

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The Genius Paradox posed a problem for artistic creativity, though: unlike the sciences, the arts did not have a practical gauge for value that could test rule-breaking advances. In industry, new technologies either worked or they didn’t, and scientific experiments could be replicated, proving their validity and value. Arts and literature could not be evaluated on the basis of objective utility, however, since their “efficacy” was rooted in their subjective “effect” on the audience. As the ideal of “art for art’s sake” intersected with consumer culture, meaning that works of art had exchange value but only questionable “use” value, it became increasingly difficult to establish a definition of artistic merit based on astounding originality. This contradiction sat at the heart of the modern arts, especially those inspired by French impressionism and expressionism, and taken up across Europe in various Secession movements. If new artistic techniques were too far outside the traditional canon to be easily understood by the layman, how could a buyer tell if the painting would hold its current value in the future? Or put another way: if the layman could not readily discern the value of an original work of art, was the layman a philistine or the artist a fraud? Posterity was the only arbiter of worth: only inclusion in a future canon would prove the lasting value of a path-breaking piece of art. In the face of this paradox, expert opinions on quality multiplied to the point of unintelligibility, as when Annemarie von Nathusius’ book Die Herrin auf Bronkow was reviewed positively by one prominent critic as having “great originality and depth” and “forceful psychological analysis,” and by another as being “without any originality . . . without even the beginning of psychological depth” (GStA-PK). Many a Künstlerroman (artist's novel) at fin de siècle played on the anxiety of the “unrecognized genius” as a key plot device, such as in Auguste Hauschner’s novel Kunst. As a wealthy patron of the Berlin Secession movement, often hosting Max Liebermann and Max Brod at her salon, Hauschner was sympathetic to the challenges that artists faced as they turned away from the Academy. In her novel, the painter Hans Staiger struggles to gain recognition in the art world for his startlingly new use of color, and his work is dismissed by critics as “the crudest offense against good taste” and the product of “a defective vision.” In the novel’s denouement, Staiger finally wins the recognition he deserved as the “systematic suppression of a daring individuality” is overcome (Hauschner, 1904: 363, 371, 418). Popular culture thus taught struggling artists to press their claims even if art elites rejected their works as inadequate. If these “wannabe” artists did not succeed in the short term, it was because the established art world did not understand the depth of their creative authenticity. In their quest for fame, these aspiring artists set out to seize a space for utopia and not just to democratize fame as the celebrity system promised to do. As the clerk Richard Moritz insisted: although the theater world “stubbornly closes its gates to me and steals my poetic life-breath,” he would pry open its doors on his own terms (“auf eigene Faust” – literally “with my own fist”). Believing in himself against all odds, the artistic outsider seemed irrationally bent on destroying existing artistic forms and institutions.

From inspiration to pathology: is hearing voices a bad thing? If Wagner acted as an avatar of creative genius, he also became emblematic of the division between celebrity and charisma and the dread that this conflict raised in many contemporaries. Wagner’s status as musical celebrity was tangible in a wide variety of consumer goods, including Wagner cravats and Wagner fountain pens; cigar tips shaped like the head of “the master;” paper dolls and napkins featuring the Nibelungen cycle; and edibles that ranged from Holy Grail bread to Parsifal cheese (Giloi, 2011: 289–290). With the advent of collectibles journals like Der Sammler, Wagner’s personal relics also entered the commercial stream and found prominence in the heritage industry. An example is Vienna’s Wagner Museum, which featured manuscripts 380

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and musical scores alongside wedding announcements and the composer’s favorite playing cards (Conrad, 1886). But Wagner also exuded a personal charisma that inspired acolytes to emulate him in his personal lifestyle. For many youths, the first brush with Wagner could be life-altering. Gustav Mahler, for one, was inspired to become a vegetarian after reading Wagner’s essay “Religion and Art” and its claims about the power of vegetarianism to end humanity’s history of violence (Bermbach, 2018: 33, 49). For Emil Ludwig, the conflict over Wagner became directly oedipal. As Ludwig later recalled, his father, the renowned ophthalmologist Hermann Cohn, was a “Patron of Bayreuth, had met both the Wagners, and made a pilgrimage to Bayreuth almost every year.” This devotion earned him nothing but scorn from the teenage Ludwig who, in full generational revolt, lambasted his father as a philistine who “cared not at all for culture” because he used his Wagner connections to raise his social profile as a patron of the arts (Ludwig, 1931: 68, 80–81). At age 25, Ludwig found his way to Ascona, on the Swiss shore of Lake Maggiore, where a group of Wagnerians had founded the Monte Verità nature cure sanitarium in 1900 and adopted Wagner’s utopian visions about nature, authenticity, and regeneration. Seeking to align modern man to his true creative self, the founders of Monte Verità adopted Wagner’s vegetarianism alongside alternative medicine, nudism, and modern dance, which they practiced on the Parsifal Lawn behind the spa’s hotel (Bermbach, 2018: 10–11, 156–177). Their goal was to build an autarchic, self-sustaining community, living close to nature and rejecting the ills of modern society in nothing less than a “renaissance of mankind” (Bermbach, 2018: 170). For the psychoanalyst Otto Gross, another resident of Ascona, that rebirth included radical social causes, from political anarchy to free love and women’s emancipation from patriarchy. Gross’s dionysian “life experiments” aimed to create mystical experiences: the “loss of all inhibitions . . . heightened psychic potential . . . ecstatic-phantasmagoric inspiration” as a Gesamtkunstwerk of the soul. Not coincidentally, Gross’s wife, Frieda, was an avid Wagner enthusiast (White, 2015: 48; Green, 1986). In contrast, Otto Gross’s father, Hans Gross, was the consummate social insider, a leading professor of forensic anthropology and founder of the modern science of criminology and criminal profiling. Gross Sr. also regarded his son’s deviance from bourgeois norms as mutinously dangerous to the law-and-order agenda of the Austrian state, leading to the father’s incarceration of his son in an asylum in 1913. While his son’s open extramarital affairs, which flouted the norms of inheritance and property, played a role in the scandal, in his legal documents Gross Sr. highlighted his son’s political anarchism, tracing it back to an early vegetarianism that had awakened in Otto an enmity against all forms of authority as inherently oppressive. For Gross Sr., this was a struggle over insider-outsider status, with his son a “social degenerate” unwilling to assimilate to society as a useful subject (White, 2015: 32–69). Weber, who befriended Otto’s wife, Frieda, observed firsthand how the Wagnerian Ascona became the primal “crime scene” where the son rejected integration in favor of the insurgency of rule-breaking behavior. In the older generation’s view, Wagner’s charisma thus spurred disciples to adopt aberrant social relations, a critique that found its most pointed formulation in 1892 in Max Nordau’s bestselling book Degeneration. As a disciple of Cesare Lombroso, whose groundbreaking work decades earlier had linked artistic genius to mental illness, Nordau examined the psychological makeup of the intellectual avant-garde – Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Verlaine, Shaw, Ibsen – but saved his most scathing condemnation for Wagner as exhibiting “a greater abundance of degeneration than all of the degenerates put together with whom we have hitherto become acquainted” (Nordau, 1968: 171). The real danger of Wagner’s personal pathology  – which Nordau identified as persecution mania, megalomania, anarchism, logical incoherence, erotic 381

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deviance, and quasi-religious mysticism – was the adverse effect he had on gullible followers in the shape of the “Wagner cult.” Nordau was no fan of Wagner’s music – he considered him “the last mushroom on the dunghill of romanticism” – but he worried even more about his galvanizing effect, as he feared that an entire class of “emotional shopkeepers and enthusiastic counter-jumpers” were likely to follow Wagner as he “hatches astoundingly mad projects for making the world happy” (Nordau: 1968: 171–172, 179, 188, 194). If artistic charisma spilled over into mental illness, its insurgent nature was dangerous, as it encouraged others to jettison the traditional expectations of rational behavior. Nordau and Gross Sr. both sat at the intersection of scientific fields that interpreted cultural genius in materialistic terms. In the past, the origins of creative genius had been found in the muses or divine inspiration, a metaphysical view that stretched back to antiquity, enjoyed new resonance in the Renaissance, and found an enhanced status with the birth of Romanticism. After mid-century, though, Darwinian theories emphasized biology as a means of understanding human behavior, shifting the explanation for creativity to the biologicalpathological. If the true genius was extraordinary, this meant that he was also outside of the evolutionary norm and, abnormal by definition, was pathological rather than ordained by a higher being. Just as Lombroso had identified creative production as a side effect of epilepsy, Ernst Haeckel, who popularized Darwin in Germany, defined artistic degeneration as an “over-refinement of life that disrupts the instinct for natural selection” and Emil Kraepelin, the father of clinical psychology, posited that melancholy was the basis for most mental illness, so that the Romantic artist was mentally ill by definition (Gockel, 2010: 25–27, 36–37; Bondio, 2006: 188, 196). This interpretation of creative deviance spread through mainstream culture in the new genre of pathography, which examined the artist’s life history as a biography of illness. The number of pathographies published in Germany between 1900 and 1910 almost doubled from the previous decade, up to 300 analyses of mainly clergymen, artists, and poets, including canonical figures like Goethe, Shakespeare, and Beethoven (Gockel, 2010: 71–78). In this cautionary tale, artistic genius was equated with delusions of grandeur in the literal, medical sense.

After the fall: postwar charisma On a visit to Berlin in 1911, the Yale literature professor William Lyon Phelps was delighted to run into the poet Hauptmann in a hotel lobby. Asking him for an autograph, Phelps was perturbed by Hauptmann’s motto: “Art is Religion.” As he mused: “Perhaps it would have been nearer to the exact truth if he had written Kunst ist meine Religion. Art and religion seem to me quite different.” But in Germany, the impulse to regard art as “the ultimate metaphysical activity” in which the artist “sinks [his being] into the Eternal” was as sincere for the naturalist Hauptmann as it was for his mystical counterpart Stefan George, and found extreme form in the infamous German scholars’ apologia for World War I as a war for culture and the Prussian army as “an embodiment of German Kultur” (Phelps, 1939: 531; Hauptmann, 1924: 5, 8; Münsterberg, 1915: 146). Thirty-five years after Phelps’s encounter with Hauptmann, another American, the 19-yearold Al Hansen, had a very different encounter with the sublimity of German art. Stationed in Frankfurt in the US occupation army, Hansen’s patrols through the bombed-out city led him past an apartment building with its outer walls missing. On its fifth floor was an upright piano, standing against the gaping hole. Obsessed with the piano on the precipice, Hansen crept into the unoccupied apartment one night and pushed the instrument off the edge, watching it explode on the street below with a resounding crash. 382

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While originally an act of wanton curiosity, Hansen’s Piano Drop serves as an apt metaphor for the changing view of art as a source of charisma, as well as the attempts to tame charisma’s insurgency in the postwar American context. In the shell of Frankfurt’s bombed-out ruins, the piano represented the destruction wreaked by German notions of the sublimity of art. The residents of the fifth floor apartment were most likely from a modest middle-class background, akin to the music-loving butcher families that Lania described before World War I. One can imagine, in that parlor, the evenings of Hausmusik in which daughters played scores from Wagner operas as part of family’s social bonds and national identity. Like much else, the Nazis co-opted the social rituals of Hausmusik, adopting Wagner as the soundtrack for world domination and ideologizing Hausmusik to galvanize the Volk for total conquest in their private homes (Applegate, 2017; Rehding, 2009). Left teetering on the edge of the abyss amid the ruins of a lost war, Hansen’s piano embodied the Nazis’ instrumentalization of art to justify dystopian violence: the end result of the aestheticization of politics, in Walter Benjamin’s famous formulation. In the 1960s, having joined the Fluxus art movement, Hansen renamed this sonic experience the Yoko Ono Piano Drop and identified it as the first true Happening. Conceptualized as a modernist aural spectacle that overcame the destructive tendencies of traditional culture, the act was redefined as democratic art: its spontaneous expression of dynamic action created art out of the seemingly artless. This was in line with the Fluxus aim to decenter the artist’s charismatic claim on the Sublime by eliminating the boundary between artwork and audience (Hansen, 1965). Fluxus thus tried to harness the integrative power of celebrity through audience participation, a democratization parodied in Andy Warhol’s dictum that everyone would be world famous for 15 minutes. Now everyone could do art, but as a corollary, art was no longer insurgent: everyone’s voice mattered, and therefore no one’s did. The democratization of fame found a sociological parallel in Shils’s reconceptualization of charisma after its abuse by the Nazis. Like Weber, Shils was interested in integration versus insurgency, or “Center and Periphery;” unlike Weber, he sought to imbue the Center with stability by finding attenuated charisma dispersed in all layers of society. Claiming to see charisma in a more comprehensive manner than Weber, Shils melded key terms that Weber treated as antipodes: specifically, the sacred versus the divine. Weber defined traditional authority as based on the “sacred,” meaning the “sanctity” of the inherited text. In contrast, pure charisma is based on the “divine,” on a direct connection to the godhead. To illustrate the difference, Weber used Christ’s words: “It is written..., but I say unto you.” The laws of God were written in the sacred texts, but Christ superseded the texts through his divine being so that his word became the new law. To Weber, “sacred” traditions are conservative, while “divine” charisma is dynamic and revolutionary. It was this distinction that put Weimar’s parliamentary constitutionalism at a disadvantage when faced with the Nazis’ spectacular charisma. In response, Shils ignored the distinction between terms, writing that the charismatic figure had a connection to the sacred, thus creating a slippage that enabled his postwar project: strengthening the power of democracy and its sacred texts of Constitution, rule of law, and moral opinion against the shamanistic seductions of demagogy (Shils, 1975b: 263). Shils thus effected his own metaphorical “piano drop”: by pushing Weber’s more precisely defined term charisma off the ledge and letting it shatter into a jumble, Shils made charisma less unique or “residual” and therefore more democratic. As an intellectual shift, the taming of charisma seemed to prove the triumph of democratic America over authoritarian Germany. But the true outsiders knew differently, just as they had in 19th-century Germany where “hereditary charisma” and the “charisma of office” had strengthened traditional elites against the upstarts. While Fluxus might have championed Happenings as democratic, those on the periphery knew that celebrity’s hegemony could only cripple their 383

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inclusion through the myth of faux integration. At its heart, charisma is a politically neutral force that does not belong exclusively to the political left or right. It is anything but neutral, however, in its division between attenuated charisma, which obfuscates power in the form of cultural hegemony, and residual or pure charisma, which is both destructive and constructive of new social relations. To up-end the entrenched power of the status quo, which rested on the prestige of the founding fathers and their sacred documents, the Black Power movement demonstrated again the insurgent power of pure charisma, with the full measure of dread it evoked in those at the Center.

In our own time . . . In our own time, celebrity continues to reify the status quo. Not only has Donald Trump gone from real estate mogul to TV host on The Apprentice to President of the United States but former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer sought his “second act” as a celebrity contestant on the TV show Dancing with the Stars. To be sure, there are many critics who worry about the impact of celebrity on social relations today (Rojek, 2012). In contrast, other scholars draw attention to celebrity’s potential to create a space for social change, for instance, as Madonna’s feminism and Lady Gaga’s “monstrosity” bring Otherness into the mainstream, so that female celebrity is “at once productive and unproductive, with constraints and possibilities” (Hamad and Taylor, 2015; Bennett, 2014; Rossolatos, 2015; Berg and Hoeven, 2013). Equally, on a global scale, the internet makes celebrities’ social activism visible and produces a sense of “magnified and magnificent global citizenship” as a basis for social movements (Totman and Marshall, 2015: 603). Still, this form of integration continues to foster adjustment and accommodation, rather than the insurgent change of charisma. In the age of the internet influencer, celebrities play at supporting social change but without a commitment to creating a new world that might threaten the bottom line, so that social justice causes play double-duty as commercial ventures. Top among the celebrity elite, Kim Kardashian uses her star power to persuade the American President to pardon unjustly incarcerated inmates, and then hires one freed prisoner to model her lingerie fashion line. Her half-sister, model and millionaire media personality Kendall Jenner, play acts social justice in a Pepsi commercial that capitalizes on the dramatic aesthetics of real-life heroism of the Black Lives Matter movement. When charisma breaks through the consumption-induced fog, it is still insurgent enough to be regarded as dangerous: American football quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling gesture during the national anthem in protest against police brutality and racial inequality, linking Black Lives Matter in homage to the Black Power movement, was swiftly and comprehensively punished by those in power. With its current demotion into magnetism, charisma is tamed and the Center holds, not toward democratization though, but toward another vexed nightmare, equally blank and pitiless to trouble the poet’s anxious sight (Yeats, 1919).

References Applegate, C. 2017. The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Beaulieu, H. V. 1910. “Goethekultur und Goethemode: Ein Gespräch,” Der Kunstwart, 23 (3): 359–362. Bennett, L. 2014. “If We Stick Together We Can Do Anything,” Celebrity Studies, 5 (1–2): 138–152. Berenson, E. and Giloi, E. 2010. “Introduction,” in Berenson, E. and Giloi, E. (eds), Constructing Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, New York: Berghahn Books. 384

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Berg, M. V. D. and Hoeven, C. L. T., 2013. “Madonna as a Symbol of Reflexive Modernisation,” Celebrity Studies, 4 (2): 144–154. Bermbach, U. 2018. Richard Wagners Weg zur Lebensreform: zur Wirkungsgeschichte Bayreuths, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Blum, M., Giloi, E. and Ostovich, S. 2017. “Interpersonal Relationships,” in Bergerson, A. and Schmieding, L. (eds), Ruptures in the Everyday: Views of Modern Germany from the Ground, New York: Berghahn Books. Conrad, M. G. 1886. “Wagneriana,” Die Gesellschaft, 2 (2), 244–247. de Grazia, V. 2005. Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. De Cordova, R. 1990. Picture Personalities, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Gadebusch Bondio, M. 2006. “From the ‘Atavistic’ to the ‘Inferior’ Criminal Type,” in Becker, P. and Wetzell, R. (eds), Criminals and Their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geheimesstaatsarhiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, (GStA-PK), I HA-Rep-76, Ve Sekt 1, Abt. VII, Nr. 7 Bd. 2. Giloi, E. 2011. Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany, 1750–1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giloi, E. 2012a. “Copyrighting the Kaiser: Publicity, Piracy, and the Right to Wilhelm II’s Image,” Central European History, 45 (3): 407–451. Giloi, E. 2012b. “Socialization and the City: Parental Authority and Teenage Rebellion in Wilhelmine Germany,” Radical History Review, 114: 91–112. Gockel, B. 2010. Die Pathologisierung des Künstlers, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Gooley, D. 2010. “From the Top: Liszt’s Aristocratic Airs,” in Berenson, E. and Giloi, E. (eds), Constructing Charisma: Celebrity, Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, New York: Berghahn Books. Green, M. 1986. Mountain of Truth: The Counterculture Begins, Ascona 1900–1920, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Hamad, H. and Taylor, A. 2015. “Introduction: Feminism and Contemporary Celebrity Culture,” Celebrity Studies, 6 (1): 124–127. Hansen, A. 1965. A Primer of Happenings & Time/Space Art, New York: Ultramarine Pub Co. Hauptmann, G. 1924. Ausblicke, Berlin: Fischer Verlag. Hauschner, A. 1904. Kunst, München: Langen. Hendriks, E. C. 2017. ‘Breaking Away from Charisma?’, Communication Theory, 27: 347–366. Henle, E. 1897. Was soll ich deklamieren? Stuttgart: Schwabacher. Honneth, A. 1995. The Struggle for Recognition, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krieken, R. V. 2012. Celebrity Society: The Struggle for Attention, London: Routledge. Lania, L. 1942. Today We are Brothers, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Le Bon, G. 1896. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lepsius, M. R. 1986. “Charismatic Leadership,” in Graumann, C. and Moscovici, S. (eds), Changing Conceptions of Leadership, New York: Springer. Loewenfeld, L. 1903. “Über die geniale Geistesthätigkeit mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Genies für Bildende Kunst,” Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens, 21: 1–2, 10–15. Ludwig, E. 1931. Gifts of Life: A Retrospect, Robertson, M. I. (trans), Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Marshall, P. D. 1997. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Meisner. 1899. “Goethe als Jurist,” Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, 4 (16), 321–324. M. J. 1892. “Ein Costümball im Jahre 2000,” Ilustrirte Zeitung, 98: 114. Möller, F. 2004. ‘Einführung: Zur Theorie des charismatischen Führers im modernen Nationalstaat,’ in Möller, F. (ed), Charismatische Führer der deutschen Nation, München: R. Oldenbourg. Münsterberg, H. 1915. The Peace and America, New York: D. Appleton. Nordau, M. 1968. Degeneration, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Nunn, H. and Biressi, A. 2010. “A Trust Betrayed,” Celebrity Studies, 1 (1): 49–64. Phelps, W. L. 1939. Autobiography with Letters, New York: Oxford University Press. Ravid, G. and Currid-Halkett, E. 2013. “The Social Structure of Celebrity: An Empirical Network Analysis of an Elite Population,” Celebrity Studies, 4 (2): 182–201. 385

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Rehding, A. 2009. Music and Monumentality: Commemoration and Wonderment in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rojek, C. 2001. Celebrity, London: Reaktion Books. Rojek, C. 2012. Fame Attack: The Inflation of Celebrity and its Consequences, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Rossolatos, G. 2015. “Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrumof Monstrosity,” Celebrity Studies, 6 (2): 231–246. Schimank, U. 1996. Theorien gesellschaftlicher Differenzierung, Opladen: Leske Budrich. Schwarzenberger, I. 1913. Goethe in der Küche oder Der erste Kochtag, Bonn: Heidelmann, 1913. Shils, E. 1975a. “Center and Periphery,” in Shils, E. (ed), Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. 1975b. “Charisma, Order, and Status,” in Shils, E. (ed), Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stern, F. 1961. The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology, Berkeley: University of California Press. Thrift, N. 2008. “The Material Practices of Glamour,” Journal of Cultural Economy, 1 (1): 9–23. Totman, S. and Marshall, P. D. 2015. “Reel/Real Politics and Popular Culture,” Celebrity Studies, 6 (4): 603–605. Weber, M. 1968. Economy and Society, Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds), 3 vols., New York: Bedminster Press. White, E. 2015. “Hans und Otto Gross,” in Bachhiesl, C. et al (eds), Psychoanalyse & Kriminologie: Hans & Otto Gross, Libido & Macht, Marburg: Literaturwissenschaft.de. Wollschlaeger. 1899. “Goethe als Rechtsanwalt,” Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, 4 (16), 344–346. Yeats, W. B. 1919 [2016]. “The Second Coming,” in Yeats, W. B. (ed), Collected Poems, New York: Palgrave Macmillan Collector’s Library, 350.

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32 Independence and charismatic authority in popular music Just do it yourself – DIY Trajce Cvetkovski

Introduction: definitions and themes The Western pop music (pop) industry is a complex mode of commodification. It centers on management and appropriation of intellectual property, mainly copyright, for repeated exploitation. Like most major transglobal activities, the industry resides in a neo-pluralistic space where a few dominant corporate citizens control most of the music business. These majors1 have established the industry model along harmonized legal-rational lines where control is sustained through the exercise of universally recognized legitimate authority. Adopting an organizational sociological approach in the Weberian tradition, this chapter provides a critical analysis of the effects of independent music production on this model. It seeks to determine the extent to which charismatic power challenges dominant and hierarchical lines of legal-rational power in the commodification of pop music. Charismatic leadership in the DIY tradition has always existed in the production of pop culture throughout the previous century. (Consider the disruptive nature of the DIY punk scene of the 1970s as a response to industry product anti-differentiation.) But such charismatic effects were rooted in notions of grassroots economic subsidiarity and were historically constrained due to limitations to access to the technological means of production and a lack of mass media dissemination. In the previous century, charismatic authority in pop music was controlled or at the very least, contained. The 21st century and the rise of the digital age, however, are different. The democratizing effects of technological change in pop music has provided an opportunistic and beneficial environment for performers2 who work outside the established corporate structure and wish to assert independent, or rather, autonomous authority through innovation that is based on a totality of localized production (Kitson, 2012). Yet there are mega popstars who have in recent times displayed a desire to create a comparable primary charismatic relationship between performer and fan. Such developments are also disruptive for corporate citizens because direct performer and fan relations indicate the creation of emerging, secondary charismatic effects between industry producers and performers. As Weber was primarily interested in sociological developments under Western capitalism, his interest in emergent charismatic effects on the routinization of capitalist production are relevant for this undertaking.

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The digital age of music is indeed an extraordinary time in which to examine the effects of charisma in advanced capitalist society. Yet an examination of organizational behavior and technological change in the political economy of the music industry tends to be underdeveloped. This chapter attempts to remedy this deficiency. The central proposition guiding this chapter is that charismatic power is capable of resisting dominant industry power. Furthermore, these economic effects cause disruption to the majors’ line of legal-rational authority. The ability to resist conventionalism, routinization, and ultimate subordination to legitimate authority are fundamental tenets of any charismatic conception of power. In an era where digitalization has redefined how pop music is consumed, the conclusion of this chapter is that in the 21st century, the potential for charismatic authority to shape music consumers’ attitudes and beliefs about music consumption has become more prominent. This chapter has two objectives. The first is to attempt to classify the industry along Weberian lines of authority. There appear to be three levels or lines of power. At the macrolevel (superstructural), the majors dominate, or rather, metagovern pop music along legal-rational lines (Cvetkovski, 2015). At the mesolevel, independent labels (“Indies”) are situated. Indies act as a conduit or contact point between the top and bottom of the organizational pop structure. To this end, some of these producers are either truly independent or quasi-independent because of their contractual arrangements with the majors. They generally possess charismatic qualities, are regarded as purveyors of cutting-edge music movements, and to that extent, act as cultural gatekeepers (Hesmondhalgh, 1998). The degree of copyright control between artist and label (and other contractual relations) usually determines to what extent production autonomy exists in these relationships. At the microlevel, atomistic players, that is, the bedroom music producers, self-publishers or microlabelers, generally referred to as subscribers to the DIY approach, are situated. Their actions at the grassroots (substructural) level are described as truly independent (Hesmondhalgh, 1999; Cvetkovski, 2007) because they choose whether or not to integrate, be subsumed, or residually participate in the previously mentioned pop music models. In short, they release without organizational constraint. A basic DIY example is when a performer as producer of music uploads an original song on YouTube (or on any social networking platform) or selfpublishes on a streaming site. A more advanced example is when a microlabel (often the artist’s trading business name) performs this direct role. A recent noteworthy DIY microlabel approach is that of the relationship between the British music duo Sleaford Mods and the microcompany Harbinger Sound.3 The propensity to possess charismatic elements in the Weberian sense is generally high in this category because DIY is the most independent from the majors’ model. In the premises, I define the DIY approach as the power to retain substantial creative control in the production process. Control and power are inextricably linked in music production, and creative power is construed as a distinct action of commodification. The DIY approach affords the creator the cumulative and conjunctive power to combine creation, recording, production, and subsequent dissemination for music consumption. Without the division of power, creators are afforded control to complete any project independently and without interference and within any timeline. It is ad hoc, disjointed, hardly permanent, and generally an idealistic practice free from administrative constraint and routine. This process is the antithesis of any rational approach found in the highly organized dominant pop music model where control is vital. The potential raw independent power possessed by self-releasing, unsigned DIY participants is referred to in the Weberian sense as a type of charisma attracted to an “independence” from “constraints” (Weber, 1961). The second objective is twofold. It first attempts to examine the extent to which charismatic authority can challenge the majors’ power structure. Why is independent conviction relevant, 388

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or how is it even possible in an industry where historically, up to 80 percent of global product commodification is controlled by a dominant few? An analysis of the manner in which notions of freedom from constraint are juxtaposed within a broader music industry rubric is important because emerging digital technologies continue to challenge the significance of dominant macrolevel, legal-rational, and hierarchical control. If charismatic power in the politico-economic sense meaningfully embeds itself in the industry, then the implications for the concentrated few are obvious. Noncompliance with the rational model promotes further division in an industry already experiencing monetization challenges in the digital age. In attempting to address the second objective, this chapter also seeks to explore to what extent charismatic leadership as a form of independence possesses the capacity to effectively resist corporate authority and whether resistance is capable of bringing about sustained organizational change by challenging conventional industry practices and norms. Such changes could be described as those actions which are deemed “exceptional” and therefore charismatic because they antagonize the important characteristic of permanence (Weber, 1978).

The macrolevel: situating music industry governance The corporate structure of the majors possesses easily identifiable Weberian features of a highly rational process (Weber, 1930, 1972 [1947]). According to Weber (1964: 330), “the organization of offices follows the principle of hierarchy; that is each lower office is under the control and supervision of a higher one.” Nothing is left to chance for release of new material because the organizational rules to regulate music products are based on anticipated outcomes and established practices. In the typical corporate model, marketing divisions are distinct from sales departments, and Artists and Repertoire (A&R) do not question the role of manufacture and distribution. Furthermore, “business and legal” focus on the maintenance and protection of the intellectual property. Each respective role is highly specialized and highly integrated.4 The majors have always been organized along well-established legal-rational lines of authority for the preservation and protection of the greatest asset – copyright. In the previous century the handful of majors controlled not only the means of production due to the expense of creating tangible products; they also dictated the terms of copyright appropriation. Ordinarily, creators would assign their intellectual property in exchange for access to studio recording production facilities. As the majors also owned manufacturing facilities, artists/creators essentially sold their entire productive capacity for the commodification of their creative abilities. Throughout the previous century, appropriation became increasingly oppressive with companies insisting on cross-collateralized returns on practically every platform of monetization (from publishing and recording to live performance). Over time, the contractual arrangements systematically became 360 degrees in nature, where terms concerning recoupment of advances through royalties became increasingly onerous for signed artists. The division of labor and the one-sided nature of the legal relationship between record company and artist became standard practice in the previous century. In this model, the law is a source of legitimacy. Its form is impersonal because authority is based on rules rather than personalities or traditions. Weber (1972 [1947]) calls this form of legitimacy legal-rational because it involves conscious construction of the law. The rule of law establishes a legal-rational basis for legitimacy of the law because it is based on the principle that citizens are ruled by law and not by individuals. Rules determine the limits of respective rights and obligations. Weber argues that legal-rational forms of authority come to prevail over other types of legitimacy in advanced societies. In societies governed by legal-rational forms 389

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of authority, parties are constrained by the law in the sense that the law sets out the rules of engagement. For Weber, it is both technical and impersonal and the most efficient form of legitimacy (Beetham, 1985). Weber (1978 [1924]) suggests that increased bureaucratization associated with competition and exchange in mass markets, commodification, collective administration, and deliberative planning require increasingly impersonal, predictable, formal, or codified rules. The music industry’s corporate governance regime epitomizes these core business values. Weber (1978 [1924]) argues that this line formally became an increasingly important basis for authority in Western societies with the progression of capitalism. In addition to creating the rules of the economic and legal game, the majors also consolidated the marketization of the modern pop music industry. The universal design of a legitimate market is evidenced by the creation of the chart system, elaborate publishing arms, establishment of high-tech recording studios, subsidiary record labels to create the illusion of low barriers to entry, sponsored industry awards, close relations with retails outlets and radio stations, and comparable manufacturing arms for the reproduction of standardized, recorded formats (from vinyl to CD). This design demonstrates the ways in which the oligarchic few preserve a monopolistic exclusive club which has remarkable levels of universal cooperation (Cvetkovski, 2007). In the Weberian sense, these developments are what might be described as “dynamics of the rationalization process” in capitalist society (Hedoin, 2009: 168). In this process, the legitimation of spheres of fluid universal rights administration is essential. Various laws (directives, codes, statutes), protocols, accords, and international agreements have been created to ensure stakeholders’ rights are protected transglobally (Cvetkovski, 2013). The authority to shape the nature of these regulatory frameworks is legitimately derived from the fact that metagoverners possess the resources to lobby governments. This is not to suggest copyright laws do not protect creators – they do (at a minimum statutory level). Rather, copyright laws have been universally harmonized to facilitate maximum transglobal protection for the multinational majors. Thus historically, there has been little incentive for the majors to disrupt a near perfect cartel-like monopolistic environment; which up until recently enjoyed reasonably high barriers to entry for independent players in terms of economic viability. The logic of capitalism in pop music dictates that the union between artist and industry reinforces “power structures” – something that Weber viewed (pessimistically) as unavoidable in capitalist society (Sernau, 2001: 176). Pop music commodification epitomizes late capitalism because it assumes that major corporate citizens will be rational in the goal of accumulating surplus value. In the case of the majors, this value results from the creation of profit in perpetuity from copyright ownership. Thus the majors legitimately possess a stronghold on the music industry because ownership of intangible rights symbolizes control and compliance in the market place. Legal power as a line of authority is supreme and subsumes all notions of charisma (Weber, 1930, 1972 [1947]). In the absence of any disruptive activity, it is reasonable to conclude that at the macrolevel, pop music commodification generally develops along formal rational lines.

The mesolevel: independent music production and charismatic influences It almost trite to declare that digitalization in the 21st century has directly impacted centralized control of music commodification. Music streaming alone as an external technological development has forced the dominant few to behave differently because digital technologies have created contestability in the marketplace. Contestability not only offers to consumers the benefits 390

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of competition (Baumol, 1982: 14), but – quite frankly – there are no barriers to market entry for music producers now. The sociology of cultural production and notions of “legitimate culture” and “cultural capital” are squarely placed within the political economy of cultural production and notions of “cultural dependency” (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) and (Bourdieu, 1984). In this context, music streaming services such as Spotify, Apple, Google, and Amazon now dominate dissemination of commodifiable music. This shift has bypassed the strict application of established industry methods and what exists now is a viable alternative model to the centralized dominant approach. This development, essentially, is an independent challenge to legal-rational authority. This is because as much as pop music should be viewed as a lucrative economic resource for corporations, such capital should also be regarded as a cultural resource instrumental in facilitating individual and independent freedom and expression (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Eagleton, 1991). This current mode of digital deviation from the established approach to production is a form of freedom embedded in notions of charismatic power. In this century, the role of Indie players as fluid agents has grown. In 2000, it was reported that five major record companies released 73  percent of recorded material in the UK while 800 labels accounted for the balance of releases (BPI, 2003). Industry data in recent years suggests that independent music has not decreased its market share (IFPI, 2014). Indie labels are record labels initially independently owned. Artists signed to such labels usually enter into basic contractual relations where by and large equitable terms for copyright control are established (consider the influential British label Rough Trade). Once an Indie enters into a partnership arrangement with a major (Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony, and Warner) or other significant mid-tier players, the relationship becomes more complex. Once subsumed, these entities subscribe to the dominant rational-legal approach upon entering the legitimate rational-legal model. Current conditions as a result of technological change have challenged the legitimacy of the traditional lines of upstream absorption, however. This is not necessarily because Indie labels do not wish to partner with majors. Rather, artists under current conditions are in a better position to assert a greater level of independence in the form of charismatic authority. Independence in pop music is essentially a form of liberalism designed to foster negative liberty (unfettered expressionism) (Berlin, 1969) and freedom from interference in the production process. These fundamental tenets of liberalism are important for an understanding of the economic foundations of this type of music production. These foundations include emphasis on equality of the bargain and creative freedom in the production and commodification process. These values underpin the lack of conformity and resistance to submission of legal-rationalism. The purpose of an Indie scene is to convey that there is not a single conception of how music should be organized. Independent music production is concerned with ensuring that creators are able to map out their own creative output rather than having it imposed on them by the dominant legal-rational model. As such, independent music is concerned with limiting the extent to which the majors regulate individual creative behavior and subsequent production. In the established, legal-rational model, contracted artists are essentially owned, and the process of rationalization dictates the economic terms about which songs will be published, supported, and ultimately administered. As investments must be recouped, calculability of mainstream success demands nothing is personalized in the commodification process and in the spirit of capitalism (Weber, 1991). The structure of the majors is indeed an “iron cage” (Weber, 1930) for the artist because she does not have equitable control in any hierarchical economic order. Independent music production is concerned principally with minimizing potential threats to individual rights and freedoms and the necessity to limit corporate power in order to protect 391

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those rights and freedoms. The effects of those individuals promoting independence from the dominant players are essentially charismatic because independence allows for only a limited role for the majors. In turn, this resistance to conformity potentially creates organizational distance with those Indies who wish to remain aligned with the majors.

The microlevel: charisma in pop music, DIY, and the impact of technological change Beyond charismatic elements at the independent level, is there such a thing as pure or rather, primary charisma in pop music? Charisma and its effects on fans and pop stardom features in cultural studies, but the disruptive nature of charismatic power in the political economy of its production does not. Individual performing artists’ charisma in the reflexive sense between artist and fan is a fundamental tenet in the pop music experience. For the writer, charismatics such as Ian Curtis (Joy Division), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), and John Lydon (Sex Pistols) (refer generally to Anderson, 2011)5 possess the authority to dispense a type of law of identification, a type of charismatic authority associated with emotional reactions which are at contradistinction to the positivist cultural omnipotence of legal-rational processes. Bickerdike, in her examination of the “second lives” of Cobain and Curtis, describes how “[t]he pain of the martyr is fetishized, each figure being the proverbial lamb dying for a larger good, one much larger than themselves” (2014: 53), and states: “Such figures are often portrayed by the media as being, . . . the natural leaders . . . having . . . been holders of specific gifts of the body and spirit; and these gifts have been believed to be supernatural, not accessible to everybody” (2014: 53–54). Yes, it is true that post-suicide Curtis and Cobain transcended from charismatic lead singers to posthumously worshipped idols “that, only with death, can be truly appreciated and revered” (Bickerdike, 2014: 60). But this is not a type of primary charisma capable of challenging legitimate authority in terms of music commodification. These iconic music figures have earned a cult status in popular culture because of their charisma. But the truth of the matter is that charismatics such as Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain, and Curtis facilitate the dominant legitimate position because in death their commodifiable manifestation usually rests in back catalogs and other intellectual property (from recording masters to publishing rights) usually owned by the majors. The DIY approach, typically, is associated with underground scenes (punk, electronica, avant-garde, or experimental). Cult-like followings of hardcore fans are the key to DIY music movements, where autonomy is paramount. Its economic production is described as just-intime, where intimate gigs are set up at short notice, and recordings are made quickly, in small runs, and quickly disseminated. Relevantly, the music is easily accessible online for universal consumption. In the tradition of Bourdieu (1984: 56), founder of influential punk band Black Flag, Greg Ginn in the late 1970s and currently the Nottingham-based Sleaford Mods are examples of intolerance and disgust of the mainstream. These acts produce distinguishably independent capital in a generally autonomous environment. The DIY approach can be described as a diverse selection of creators who challenge the status quo. That is, Sleaford Mods challenge the rational approach, but Sir Paul McCartney or James Blunt are not challengers.6 Rapper Chuck D (Public Enemy), often regarded as one of the most influential figures in hip-hop/rap, also displays a strong form of industry charisma. After years of being signed to major (Polygram) and significant Indie labels (Tommy Boy), Chuck D maintains DIY is the only equitable and democratic model that should exist in the industry. In 2000, he explained to a US congressional inquiry into music that with a “million artists out there” technology has enabled the birth of bedroom studios making “record-ready material” (2000: 23, 26).7 392

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Technological change has encouraged the proliferation of microlabels in the tradition of DIY, as an independent process. It is a form of protest. By not submitting to the legal-rational mode of power, artists are free to be creative, revolutionary, and otherwise subversive. Consider the Sleaford Mods. As Liddle reports, “Ten years ago this already addled Nottinghamshire duo captured the attention with bellowed, caustic and often astute observations delivered in an urrap monotone above cheapo punky laptop beats.” His description of the “frequently obscene working-class nihilism” is in stark contrast to the formulaic expectations of commercial pop music commodification. As Liddle further describes, “There are, of course, no tunes, just that incessant monotone barking” (2017). Because it is regarded “as a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or exceptional powers or qualities” (Schweitzer, 1974:151), charisma questions routinization within the dominant position. Charismatic power in the music industry manifests itself as a capacity or ability to negotiate just terms. Thus Chuck D would be described as a charismatic leader, not because of his polemic and discursive repertoires, but because of his attitude to the legal-rational authority of pop music. When Sleaford Mods mock, a naïve industry aspirant (“I can’t believe I got signed!”) in their song “You’re a Nottshead,”8 they are explicating the absurdity of buying into the legal-rational model because it is nothing more than a façade. The song examines, satirically, the futility of the misguided transition from unsigned to signed artist to an industry that does not even pretend to present a level playing field. Sleaford Mods possess primary charismatic power because they are armed with the ability to challenge corporate authority. This duo does not even need to buy into the industry’s infrastructure. These DIY producers have direct command and influence over fans. The primary success of the performer who charges direct authority over the fan is not limited to alternative or underground genres. Mainstream producers whose authority is typically supported by pop stardom from within the legal-rational model can also portray the effects of charismatic DIY attitudes. Pop megastar performers such as Taylor Swift, Sia, and even Justin Bieber possess not only primary authority over fans but also a form of secondary charismatic authority over the major producers. As odd as this may sound, the punk ranting, low-fi music British duo Sleaford Mods may share some commonality with Swift. This is because I define charisma in the industry as the increasing capacity for an industry participant to challenge the legitimate authority of those who shape business norms and influence the making of laws which bind and regulate pop music consumption. Swift is not DIY, but she possesses music industry charisma from her ability to challenge legitimate power. As Snapes (2018) reports, Swift recently signed to major UMG with intriguing and unusual contractual conditions. One condition includes an assurance from this major it will not recoup debts accrued by artists in its stable from the sale of its interest in Spotify. Another condition created by Swift was an obligation by UMG to commit to more equitable distribution of streaming royalties. As Snapes (2018) explains, Swift used her “leverage” to benefit other artists. Swift’s actions (even if symbolic) are important because they demonstrate types of leadership and personal responsibility which, quite frankly, are extraordinary. Swift’s demands are disruptive for two reasons. First, they challenge the administrative authority of the major music industry which set the unfair streaming terms in the first place. Second, her actions as an individual performer (albeit a powerful one) demonstrate a sense of solidarity which challenges the legal and ethical order of the business. As Weber observes, “It was only by the rise of charismatic leaders against the legal authorities and by the development around them of groups 393

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of charismatic followers that it was possible to take power away from the old authorities” (in Beetham, 1985: 258). Indeed, Swift’s concerns about streaming and challenges to Spotify and Apple and other issues surrounding fair rates for artists are well documented. Whether or not it is Swift’s charismatic protest which is responsible for equitable distribution is open to conjecture.9 But the issue is not so much whether Swift’s actions have had a truly revolutionary effect. Rather her actions have created debate around monetization and subsequent commodification of pop music products. This is where the charismatic effects of Swift’s actions lie. Her stance attracted, altruistically or selfishly, commercial or otherwise, the attention of other charismatics, like Billy Bragg. As Weber observes: “Everywhere it is the same. The means of operation . . . are . . . concentrated in the hands of those who control the apparat” (quoted in Beetham, 1985: 71). Whether they be external DIY influencers Sleaford Mods, Indie artist Bragg or megastar Swift, this dialogue is in mainstream media, and such debate questions the certainty of established practices. Indeed, confronting legal-rational authority by resisting established norms is not only a provocative act; its effects are destabilizing. Inevitably, the risk for the majors is that the economic relationship between performer and fan becomes that much closer. Another example of the primary charismatic relationship between performer and fan, and how major industry’s power can be structurally challenged, is that of the authority exercised by Sia. An accomplished producer in her own right, Sia’s connection with her audience is noteworthy. But it is her capacity to challenge legal-rational authority which is of interest here. Despite her huge success, like Swift, Sia is vocal about maintaining both artistic control (“I’m not singing this kind of song”) and legal control (Aron, 2018). In a rare Rolling Stone interview, Sia describes how she was able to amend the terms of her contractual obligations to get out of an old publishing deal: “Sia said she’d do it, on the condition that she would have artistic control and do no promotion – no touring, no press, no media appearances” (Aron, 2018). Sia was able to shape favorable terms and conditions by virtue of her charismatic authority. Sia and Swift are intriguing influencers because they challenge industry norms or standards from within. Their attitudes are ultimate displays of primary charismatic authority over fans and secondary authority over the majors. Combined, the effects on industry are authentic. In the same interview, Sia reflects on her ability to quality control her work in order to determine whether to give fans “something empowering” or “fun jams” free from overt industry authority (Aron, 2018). Sia explains, “Sometimes I’ll write one that I relate to. Those are the ones I don’t give away” (Aron, 2018). Such authority displayed by this performer is potent because charismatic leaders – possess their “own will” and are thus seen as revolutionary and prophetlike by challenging established lines. As such, Sia’s charisma as a line of power could be seen as anti-authoritarian to the majors. Charismatic personalities are capable of polarizing industry organization while simultaneously exercising primary control of fans. Sia and Swift’s actions are consistent with the DIYers who work from the outside of the traditional industry because they also are dissenting voices in terms of industry approval. The innovations of this century have permitted instant global-performer-to-fan accessibility for immediate distribution to a global audience. Social networking and streaming platforms enable all performers to converge in a direct performer-to-fan relationship. The legal-rational authority once held by established producers through financial power has been substituted by the social success of the performer who commands authority by directly connecting with fans. Some fans simply like and comment on the works, and others subscribe and follow. True fans or just curious browsers, the real power stems from the nexus between performer and fan in a relationship in which major producers play a residual or no part. 394

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Direct connectivity between performer and fan is not new, and the power of patronage is deeply individual. Pop music fans as consumers had been created before the consolidation of music industry power in the 20th century, but these corporate intermediaries dictated the terms of consumption. Digital innovation, however, has reconnected the audience to the performer. The Justin Bieber phenomenon is an example of how the performer exerts direct power over the fan. Sprung describes that “between 12 September 2011 and 12 March 2012 approximately one per cent of all tweets around the world were related to Bieber” (2012). This demonstrates that in one click, an unheard name can go viral. Indeed, Bieber may have been one of the first YouTube mega stars, but the obscure-to-superstar-status phenomenon is becoming an increasingly regular occurrence in the digital age. The real transference of power lies not so much in the fact that major corporate citizens are struggling commercially as producers to understand these charismatic influences. Rather, they have become institutionally redundant to the audience, fans who consume pop music. And as crowdfunding platforms continue to grow as a form of reverse collateralization, emerging technologies will continue to dilute and diminish the value of their products. Consider how a performer can simply use her social network status to request pre-sales for a song (not even recorded). The fans become the investors in this loose arrangement. That function was once controlled by the traditional producer and has now been replaced by the charismatic authority of the performer over the fan. Fans can make a pledge and the performer can determine the intrinsic worth. For example, a small amount could entitle the fan to a pre-release edition, a large amount could fund a live show at the fan’s home. Technology has enabled a reconnection between performer and fan, and in the absence of corporate gatekeepers, the rise of charismatic authority over the fan will become increasingly evident.

Future directions: avoiding gatekeepers of contemporary music business culture10 Legitimate power is central to an administrative structure in which specific goals and technical resources are organized as objective calculative processes in the pursuit of profit rather than some subjective symbolic reward (artistic satisfaction or musical tastes). The law of contract, copyright governance, and the compatibility of economies of scale are devices for ensuring that music industry participants harmonize their actions and behaviors with accepted customs, practices, and expectations. To depart from established lines of practices essentially means to depart from any accepted order. Hierarchical control in pop music is therefore a mechanism for achieving commercial solidarity and dictating the industry rules. This observation of the pop music industry fits neatly into Weber’s legal-rational mode of legitimacy. In any successful organizational structure, the “magical” shaman-like qualities resemble a primary form of authority, but under monopoly capitalism, charisma makes way for the rational line of authority (Weber, 1972 [1947]). Charisma in pop music is a form of transference of power because in the digital universe, actual sales figures of records and related financial success are less relevant. Fans have direct access to their idols and the true value of the performer is her brand consumed through the digital lens. Short digi-missives in the form of Instagram and Twitter feeds, “likes,” and reactions seem just as relevant as chart results. Audience reach is driven through the internet and technology allows for instant universal connectivity between performer and artist, and between performer and performer (collaborations). The tangible aspect of the consumption of the goods and services, it seems, has been transformed. Sharing between artist and fan, especially via YouTube 395

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and Facebook, means immediate access to music and videos, concert information, and access to merchandise. This direct action impedes leverage once enjoyed by the major producers. What power the majors created in the 20th century can still be enjoyed by them through their back catalogs, but the new arrangements made through easy and instant access renders their power base as less potent. The performers described here possess an aura-like leadership quality which is easily disseminated. Such charismatic leadership presents challenges as performers bypass the desire to submit to the dominant model. The internet presents leveling platforms where audiences are easily reached to accommodate fan-base growth without the need for the majors. This independence symbolizes a departure from established practices and norms. Charisma exists in the music industry at large because influential mediated structures of empowerment appear in that universal space. As the primary relationship between performer and fans continues to grow, the more likely its charismatic influences will shape attitudes and beliefs about how music is to be consumed. It is in this context that the post-major DIY model has come of age. Music creators in the industry will not cease to submit to legitimate corporate authority. The common belief in the established industry is that the difference between a signed and unsigned artist is essentially a distinction between being legitimate or not in pop music. Artist signings will always be pursued by the majors to symbolize legitimate success in the industry. But does Sia need major producers any more than the Sleaford Mods? Probably not. Given the proliferation of the DIY model in the digital age, does being signed really matter? Probably not. More than ever, it seems, the relevance of buying into the legal-rational approach is becoming redundant. By divesting from authority between traditional producer and performer, the performer as independent producer is increasingly enjoying primary success by virtue of her charisma. Perhaps the Sleaford Mods are right when they sing, “Do you wanna be told, by tools like that?”11

Notes 1 The majors here are described as the main producers of pop music. 2 “Performer” is used interchangeably with “creator” or “artist.” 3 The term pop music is used in the politico-economic sense to describe any genre or style deemed commercially viable. Despite the post punk rants, ostensibly anti-commercial, ‘low-fi’, just-in-time, and unorthodox technical approach to music production, Sleaford Mods has achieved chart success. According to Official Charts (2019) www.officialcharts.com/ four albums have entered the Top 40 chart in the UK since 2015. (It should be acknowledged Sleaford Mods did temporarily sign to Indie Rough Trade, but have since parted ways.) 4 For a breakdown of the key departments and divisions, refer to Table 4.1 in T. Cvetkovski (2015), The Pop Music Idol and the Spirit of Charisma, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke. 5 It was revealed by Anderson in NME that of the 50 most charismatic lead singers, these three were ranked 21st, 10th, and 3rd. 6 Consider the lobbying on the part of these two stars for the recent European copyright changes surrounding the so-called “Article 13” amendment in March 2019. 7 See full report, “Online Music: Will Small Music Labels and Entrepreneurs Prosper in the Internet Age” (2000) at www.house.gov/smbiz/hearings/106th/2000/transcript.html. 8 From the album TCR, Rough Trade (2016). 9 Billy Bragg has questioned Swift’s previous stances on streaming inequalities (see Cvetkovski, 2015: 151–52). 10 Heading inspired by sleeve note comments made by Sleaford Mods ex-manager (and microlabel director Harbinger Sound) Steve Underwood in Franz (2017). 11 “You’re a Nottshead” from the album TCR (2016, Rough Trade).

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References Anderson, S. 2011. “50 Most Electrifying Frontmen (and Women) (NME),” www.nme.com/ photos/50-most-electrifying-frontmen-and-women-1416261 Aron, H. 2018. “How Sia Saved Herself,” Rolling Stone, www.rollingsrone.com Baumol, W. 1982. “Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure,” American Economic Review, 72(1): 1–15 Beetham, D. 1985. Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, Cambridge: Polity Berlin, I. 1969. “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford: Oxford University Press Bickerdike, J. 2014. Fandom, Image and Authenticity: Joy Devotion and the Second Lives of Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgment of Taste, London: Routledge and Kegan Bourdieu, P. and Eagleton, T. 1991. “Doxa and Common Life,” New Left Review, 191: 111–121 Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. 1977. Reproduction Education, Society and Culture, trans. Richard Nice, London: Sage BPI (British Phonographic Industry). 2003. bpi.co.uk Cvetkovski, T. 2007. The Political Economy of the Music Industry, Saarbrücken: VDM Müller Cvetkovski, T. 2013. Copyright and Popular Media: Liberal Villains and Technological Change, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Cvetkovski, T. 2015. The Pop Music Idol and the Spirit of Charisma: Reality Television Talent Shows in the Digital Economy of Hope, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Franz, Christine. 2017. “Bunch of Kunst,” DVD Book, Harbinger Sound Hedoin, C. 2009. “Weber and Veblen on the Rationalization Process,” Journal of Economic Issues, 43(1): 167–168 Hesmondhalgh, D. 1998. “The British Dance Music Industry: A  Case Study of Independent Cultural Production,” British Journal of Sociology, 49(2): 234–251 Hesmondhalgh, D. 1999. “Indie: The Aesthetics and Institutional Politics of a Popular Music Genre,” Cultural Studies, 13(1): 34–61 IFPI. 2000–2014. Recording in Numbers: The Definitive Source of Global Music Market Information (Including Digital Music Report, 2008–13), London: IFPI Kitson, M. 2012. “Subsidiarity, Proximity, and Innovation,” in Colombo, A. (eds) Subsidiarity Governance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan Liddle, R. 2017. “I Used to Love the Working-Class Nihilism of Sleaford Mods – No Longer,” www. spectator.co.uk Official Charts. 2019. www.officialcharts.com/ Online Music: Will Small Music Labels and Entrepreneurs Prosper in the Internet Age. 2000. www.house. gov/smbiz/hearings/106th/2000/transcript.html, accessed 10 October 2018 Schweitzer, A. 1974. “Theory and Political Charisma,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 16(2): 150–181 Sernau, S. 2001. Worlds Apart. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press Snapes, L. 2018. “Taylor Swift Leaves Lifelong Label to Sign with Universal Music Group,” www.execre view.com Sprung, S. 2012. “A Mathematical Explanation of the Justin Bieber Phenomenon,” www.businessinsider.com Weber, M. 1961. General Economic History, ed. and trans. F. Knight, New York: Collier Weber, M. 1964. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, New York: The Free Press Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society, vol. 2, ed. and trans. G. Roth and C. Wittich, Berkeley: University of California Press Weber, M. 1991. “Legal Authority in a Bureaucracy,” in G. Thompson, J. Frances, R. Levacic and J. Mitchell (eds) Hierarchies and Networks: The Co-ordination of Social Life London: Sage, pp. 119–127 Weber, M. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, ed. and trans. T. Parsons. New York: Scribner Weber, M. 1947 [1972]. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner

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33 Hollywood and charisma Kate Fortmueller

Introduction: the production of charisma Hollywood is as much of an idea as it is a real place. “Hollywood” signifies everything from a physical location to a mode of media production regardless of geographic specificity (Bollywood, Nollywood, Yallywood, etc.). It can also connote a glamorous lifestyle or an extroverted and fame-seeking personality. For over a century the business of filmmaking has cultivated all of these meanings, attracting those who aspire to work in the movie business or to live the Hollywood life to migrate to Los Angeles. In the earliest days of Hollywood, fan magazines and discourse on acting stressed the importance of personality rather than training as the primary characteristics of stars (Stamp, 2004, p. 333). Unsurprisingly, the allure of lucrative work for people with sparkling personalities brought many fame-seekers to Los Angeles looking for their fortunes in the movie business. While few Hollywood hopefuls achieved what they imagined, the questions of how and why those select people do find fame is of interest to audiences, aspirants, and scholars, all of whom struggle to discern or elucidate a specific recipe for success. In Hollywood, accomplished people often possess some ineffable quality, a quality which might commonly be referred to as charisma. Although the word “charisma” is often used colloquially to describe certain elements of stars and stardom, these usages deviate from the term’s original usage in the social sciences. Charisma, as Max Weber (1966, p. 358) explains, describes anyone “endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” For Weber, the notion of charisma was a means to explain the unquantifiable characteristics of leaders. Weber theorized that society was increasingly organized and governed through bureaucracy; charisma offered a counterpoint to these theories and helped to explain radical or revolutionary changes and how a new ruler might legitimize his claim to authority. Weber originally applied the term to describe religious leaders, but as Joshua Derman (2011, p. 57) notes, it later expanded to discussions of political leaders and provided a useful paradigm for social science. Although these discussions emerged around the same historical moment that Hollywood industrialized in the early 20th century, neither Weber nor other sociologists and political scientists applied the concept to Hollywood stars. According to Joseph Bensman and Michael Givant (1986), the relevance of charisma to Hollywood stars and stardom is a result of the term falling into popular language and 398

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losing its origins in Weber and related sociological discourses. As Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 47) point out, colloquial usage of the term tends to focus on the exceptional qualities of the charismatic figure, which they argue often mask three fundamental concepts: the individual, the radical, and the irrational nature of charisma. If charisma is indeed not simply exceptional, but revolutionary, this term would be nearly impossible to apply to anything that Hollywood produces. Indeed, despite the term’s colloquial importance in describing stars, charisma is a term that has had limited utility within media studies and star studies. The limited mentions of charisma (Dyer, 1998) build from Francesco Alberoni (2006, p. 110), who explains that “the star is not endowed with authoritative power and . . . his decisions are not collectively felt to have any influence on the life and the future of members of the collectivity.” For the Italian writer and sociologist, charisma is a useful rhetorical tool to help him differentiate stars from political leaders and identify the former as a “powerless elite.” Essential to Alberoni’s explanation of the powerless elite is the presence of social structures that effectively allow for figures to have specialized types of charisma. As an example, Alberoni (2006, p. 111) explains, “The racing cyclist who is a demi-god in the eyes of his enthusiastic admirer does not necessarily show competence in other fields.” Thus, the appeal of Hollywood stars, in theory, does not go beyond the film screen or the pages of fan magazines. This chapter focuses on the sociological aspects of charisma to consider how charisma ­functions within the structures of Hollywood (using the star system as one of many industrial structures) – however, it is worth noting that psychological understandings of charisma would take a different approach. Stars are multifarious; they are images, performers, and private figures. Speaking to the layers of any kind of performer, Joseph Roach (2007, p. 9) explains: “Performers are none other than themselves doing a job in which they are always someone else.” Understanding that which is appealing about a star means looking beneath the layers of performance. Those adopting the psychological meaning of charisma to look at stars emphasize that which is “irreducible” within a star (Jaeger, 2012, p. 310). Those irreducible qualities, not the constructed elements of the star, contain the magnetism that defines charisma. Although stars are significant and highly visible individuals, Hollywood is larger than its stars. The notion of charisma has been largely absent from works of those looking at Hollywood, whether that means Hollywood as business or mode of production. Further, theorists of charisma have resisted applying the term to Hollywood, and media scholars have largely steered clear of charisma as a way to characterize stars. Although scholarly analyses make scant connections between Hollywood, stars, and charisma, popular discourse and the work of some humanities scholars have connected stars with charisma as a way of encapsulating the magical draw that is unique to some individuals (Jaeger, 2012; Roach, 2007). Jaeger (2012, p. 7), in particular, advocates for a more expansive use of charisma that accounts for the “depth [of the term’s] penetration into culture.” There are also empirical reasons for adopting a more expansive understanding of the concept of charisma, mainly that the increasingly permeable boundary between entertainment and politics makes it challenging to restrict this concept solely to the realm of politics. The line between Hollywood, its stars and politics has long been eroding since Hollywood actors like Ronald Reagan transitioned into political leadership roles and garnered the kind of institutional power that that befits social science discussions of charisma. As social roles become less well defined, it is appropriate to question whether the concept of charisma should be relegated solely to describing how an individual can revolutionize and transform a political system and whether scholars should consider ways to adapt and embrace a modern version of this term to understand the structures of Hollywood and the individuals within the various systems of media making. 399

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Understanding the gulf between colloquial uses of charisma and its theoretical legacy requires an acknowledgment that modern cultural conditions require new understandings of charisma. Bensman and Givant (1986) concede that mass media production and dissemination pose challenges to the pure charisma Weber theorized. On-screen appearances necessitate a projection of warmth and personality across geographic distances – although they do not specify the type of media, they presumably are talking about television and radio appearances of political figures. This particular form of appeal, which Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 48) call “pseudocharisma,” is a uniquely modern and constructed form of charisma (as opposed to Weber’s natural form of charisma). As Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 50) describe: [T]he development of modern “scientific” politics includes the rational, planned search for a star. . . . Public-opinion research, audience testing, pretesting of issues, themes, symbols, and slogans for their salience and valence, and the ability of various potential charismatic leaders to embody or project the selected themes are by now standard political methodology. For Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 54), the purpose of this kind of charisma is that it “avoids focusing attention on those substantive issues, interests, ideologies, and interest and ideological groups, classes, and elites which are hidden or hide behind the personality screens of charisma.” This political process undoubtedly resembles the Hollywood star system (a connection that they make in their article), which does not rely on pure charisma but instead a regimented and carefully controlled and cultivated star image. In the case of Hollywood, the individual charms of actors often mask the inherent similarities between mass-produced products, luring audiences to continue consuming and connecting to Hollywood products. Although bureaucracy and charisma were positioned as antithetical for Weber (1946, p. 245), adopting a more modern understanding of the term reveals that the film industry has historically combined elements of both. Bensman and Givant’s pseudocharisma can be understood as a form of bureaucratized charisma, and it is best exemplified by the Hollywood star system. From the 1910s through the erosion of the studio system in the 1940s, studio heads and publicity departments crafted a system to manufacture and capitalize on the idea of charisma. Frequently emphasizing natural abilities and physicality, the Hollywood studio system built on the raw materials of the actor to create a fully formed star persona. Studio employees worked tirelessly to construct a unified image of the on-screen characters and the private lives of stars, and in doing so had to mask the work of acting coaches, voice teachers, costume designers, and publicity departments who contributed to the star image. All of this industrial labor has been instrumental in honing audience perceptions and understandings of charm. Most importantly, however, the personalities and appeal of stars mask not only studio labor but the capitalist imperatives of the studios more broadly. Hollywood is not only in the business of producing charisma; the charisma of its stars helps to legitimize its global power. The ubiquity of Hollywood stardom has enabled a creep of entertainment and Hollywood style into other realms of culture. Jeffrey Jones has argued that the intense competition of cable networks in the 1990s led to a new form of political discourse aimed at informing through humor and entertainment (Jones, 2005, p. 4). Although Jones dates this “entertainmentization of politics” to 1992, the collapse between the spheres of politics and entertainment began a decade earlier with a former actor. When Ronald Reagan won the US Presidential election in 1980, he moved from the “powerless elite” to political leader. Although Reagan only achieved modest success as a character actor in the studio system and later as television actor, he was still able to leverage his experience as actor and former Screen Actors Guild union president into two terms as Governor of California (a position that would later be held by global superstar 400

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Arnold Schwarzenegger). Indeed, several authors argue that Reagan’s time as an actor was instrumental in his development (Eliot, 2008; Vaughn, 1994). Reagan’s career demonstrates that far from distinct social roles, the boundaries between politics and stardom have eroded, such that charisma on-screen is seen as something that can contribute to political leadership. Hollywood, both the place and the industry, are alluring and glamorous, but the key to Hollywood’s pseudocharisma is its stars. In this chapter I offer two historical examples that help account for how and why a term that many have argued applies narrowly to political leaders should be considered in relation to Hollywood history. Charisma is a unique term that connects exceptional qualities and personality with power. Adopting a more expansive use of the term “charisma” and its relation to Bensman and Givant’s pseudocharisma can help us to better characterize Hollywood’s history and influence as one that expands beyond the realm of entertainment. The first example, of the star system, demonstrates what Hollywood history can offer for the understanding of modern charisma or pseudocharisma. In the second example, I contend that given the collapse of entertainment and politics, we should embrace a more expansive definition of charisma that can accommodate the changes to our political culture. As Ronald Reagan’s career demonstrates, success in Hollywood can translate into real political power. In the mid-20th century, the term “charisma” described a leader who ushered in radical change; in the 21st century, perhaps the most revolutionary change to the US political system is that voters no longer require political experience from their political leaders. The Hollywood star, or more recently, the reality television star, as US politician might be the most revolutionary type of leader in US history.

The pseudocharisma of the Hollywood star The notions of charisma and pseudocharisma, like stardom, are historical phenomena. What is seen as exceptional and perhaps even revolutionary is socially and historically determined and in the case of stars, has changed over various decades. Although the business of filmmaking has undergone major structural changes since the 1910s, stars have continued to occupy a special place in the Hollywood ecosystem because of their economic value. But this was not always the case. In the earliest days of Hollywood, studios tried to hide the identities of actors in order to pay them less and to distance them from the films they popularized (Barbas, 2001, p. 16; De Cordova, 2001, pp. 78–79). Studios began to understand the star as a marketable feature with actress Florence Lawrence, known as “the Biograph Girl.” Audiences were enrapt by Lawrence and wrote to studios in an attempt to find out more details about this elusive woman of the silver screen. Lawrence’s appeal might be appropriately identified as charisma in the Weberian sense had she possessed the agency to fundamentally reorient the Hollywood system. Her exceptional qualities manifested in box-office popularity, which in turn caused radical change within the film industry. In essence, Lawrence helped the studios understand that actors might have additional value beyond their ability to help enact the story. In the early 1910s, studios began to release the names of their stars, thus creating the beginning of the star system. As Richard de Cordova (2001, p. 50) points out, the realization of the importance of stars, “shifted the status of film as a commodity.” When Hollywood realized that stars, not plot, was the lure they needed to bring in audiences, this necessitated that the studios foreground actors in the organization of their production schedules and marketing of their films. What is important about this shift in the studio system is that Florence Lawrence did not gain greater power and influence over the public; she simply helped studio executives figure out what was appealing about film as a medium and further bolstered the economic power of Hollywood studios. 401

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In subsequent decades, studios sought to emulate Lawrence’s qualities and find new ways to use stars to draw in audiences; pseudocharisma would need to be cultivated and massproduced. Charisma and pseudocharisma are not used to characterize the business of the star system but could help to historicize the development of stars as a combination of individual qualities and industrial labor. Industrial and historical examinations of the star system are often attuned to how stars fit into and often challenged the model of mass production (Balio, 1993, pp.  155–161; Carman, 2016; Dyer, 1998) that characterized the Hollywood studio system. Works that show how stars fit into Hollywood’s system of mass production highlight studios’ reliance on social types that shaped star personas (Dyer, 1998, pp. 47–59). However, as Richard Dyer (1998, p. 60) points out, “Stars embody social types, but star images are always more complex and specific than types.” Not all stars are the same; the various types are shaped in unique ways for each star and her star image. In order to cultivate stars who would fit into types, studios enlisted an array of employees to both create and maintain a star’s image, but the appeal of a star likely comes from the interplay of her individuality and constructed image. Bette Davis is a great example of a star who was shaped by the Warner Bros. system but able to manipulate her own star image for greater effect. When Davis was signed to Warner Bros., the studio envisioned her as “a female Jimmy Cagney,” meaning that she was suited for roles as a criminal or working-class woman (Schatz, 1995, p. 75). For men, these could be starring roles in gangster films, but these kinds of tough female characters were typically relegated to supporting roles in the 1930s. In an effort to be cast in lead roles in prestige films, Davis began to wage a battle against studio head Jack Warner. Warner loaned Davis to RKO for their film, Of Human Bondage (1934), in an attempt to punish her, but when she won an Oscar for this performance Davis gained more leverage at Warner Bros. Despite her improved status, Davis continued to be frustrated by the films she was given. In response, Davis refused to work and decided to travel to New York. During this trip, Davis complained openly about the Warners to the press (Schatz, 1995, p. 80). Davis’s brazen actions not only frustrated the Warners but contributed to a public understanding of her as a tough and independent woman. Eventually Davis’s relationship with Warner Bros. would improve, but her personal actions would contribute to her believability as an independent and often brash woman in films such as Jezebel (1938), which Warner Bros. would tailor to fit Davis’s persona (Balio, 1993, p. 166). By describing Davis as possessing a pseudocharisma, it is possible to account for her natural attributes and individual actions (such as her attack on Warner Bros.) and manufactured elements (such as Warners’ decision to shape Jezebel to her persona). As a term, pseudocharisma accurately encapsulates these aspects of star creation. Industrial changes to Hollywood wrought changes to studios’ investments in the development of stars but did not eliminate the necessity of the marketable persona. The Hollywood Star System refers specifically to an organized bureaucratic system that was enabled by the tremendous profits generated through vertical integration (Balio, 1993). In 1948, the decision known as the “Paramount Decrees” in United States v. Paramount, et al. declared that the vertically integrated studios were indeed a monopoly and all studios owning theater chains had to divest their exhibition wings. The loss of theater chains meant that studios took a significant financial hit and could no longer afford to keep as many actors and workers under contract, thus putting an end to the machine of the star system. Although star production within the studios ended, the expectations for what stars embodied and audiences’ relationships to stars did not. Building a discernable star persona was no longer the business of the studios but the responsibility of actors and their agents. Instead of being a bureaucratized process, individuals had to internalize what it meant to develop pseudocharisma. Rather than studios relying on their stables of stars to legitimize their power as studios, stars had to cultivate their own images to sustain their careers. 402

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Scholarly approaches to stardom have focused on understanding the volatile phenomena of stars and why and how they resonate, often approaching these stars as products of ideological, social, industrial, and historical determinants. Drawing on Richard Dyer (1998), many scholars have looked at stars as texts to be deconstructed rather than as individuals to be psychologically analyzed. As texts, scholars can approach stardom as a semiotic system and consider how particular types fulfill cultural and societal needs. As a subfield of film and media studies, star studies builds on sociological theories, but as Dyer points out, specificity of audience responses matter to star meaning and should matter for studies of stars (1998, pp. 31–32). The meaning of a star is not fixed but is variable and negotiated by audience members, as in the case study of Judy Garland, a key example for Dyer and his discussion of Garland’s particular resonance with gay men (Dyer, 1986, pp. 137–191). The specificity of a star’s impact and meaning is where Richard Dyer finds charisma useful for theorizing stars and demonstrates where the concerns of media scholarship could help invigorate analyses of charisma. Like Alberoni (2006), Dyer believes that charisma is really only applicable to political figures with institutional power (Dyer, 1998, p. 30). However, Dyer does believe that the charisma of stars, which can embody, resolve, or expose societal tensions, has the power to acclimate or legitimize radical social change. Dyer explains this dynamic through the example of Marilyn Monroe, who he says “seemed to ‘be’ the very tensions [of sexuality and innocence] that ran through the ideological life of the 50s” (Dyer, 1998, p. 31). Thus, while stars do not have the force of personality and power that can radically alter a society, their unique charisma has soft power that might operate on a micro scale and contribute to cultural and social transformations. Whereas Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 54) express concern that a focus on the characteristics of charisma diverts attention from the underlying ideological aims of social actors, Dyer’s description of Marilyn Monroe, which is typical of much media studies analysis, looks at the political and ideological stakes of images and demonstrates a way of thinking and analyzing the power of a charismatic figure or image. Even as the star system ended, Hollywood and stars still relied on social types in films and publicity. For example, we might see the charisma of stars like Marilyn Monroe as a limited kind of pseudocharisma. As Dyer points out, Monroe toggles between sexuality and innocence. This dynamic is clearly constructed through her on-screen roles, such as Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), in which Monroe continuously assures her fiancé of her love by throwing her voice into a childish tone while thrusting her breasts forward. Off-screen, she appeared less innocent, but her clothing choices and rumored relations with President Kennedy all contributed to her reputation and status as a Hollywood sex symbol. As an actress, her comedic timing made her a versatile performer suited for numerous films. Monroe’s persona, which is a combination of her naïvely gold digging on-screen characters and off-screen appearances with famous and powerful men, made her seem like a more successful and powerful version of the characters she played and contributed to the fascination with her as a star. The way she balanced innocence and sexuality would have undoubtedly influenced many audience members trying to make sense of the changing culture in the 1950s. However, to understand Monroe’s appeal as pseudocharisma we need to consider not only its social impact but what kinds of power structures it serves. Another way of analyzing Monroe’s star appeal is to consider her in relation to other bombshells of the time period such as Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell, who was Monroe’s co-star in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and those who came before her, like Mae West. Although Monroe would become the most iconic of these 1950s Hollywood stars, the voluptuous bombshell persona was a distinct type that featured prominently in feature films. Thus, part of her allure came from audience understandings of how she inhabited certain Hollywood star conventions. Identifying this as a form of pseudocharisma offers a means to embrace both 403

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the parts of Monroe’s star text created by the Hollywood studios and recognize that artifice as part of her appeal as a star. Audiences are not enrapt by the charisma of Norma Jean, but the pseudocharisma of Hollywood’s Marilyn Monroe. In the case of Monroe and stars in general, they are always figures who allow audiences a form of personal connection, but their allure and perhaps individual iconicity masks the larger imperatives of Hollywood, which is to create audience desire and fascination for the Hollywoodization of on-screen talent. Since the appeal of stars sustains audience connections to films, stars are of central importance to Hollywood. Although Dyer argues that the charisma of stars is tied to their ideological effect within a particular time frame, I contend that the charisma of stars helps to legitimize Hollywood’s power and financial imperative. Stars are culturally important, but their social importance is inextricable from their financial importance in Hollywood films. Stars are actors who ensure audience interest. Historically, the importance of stars was that their names and presence generated predictable box-office success. As Tino Balio (1993, p. 145) explains, a star’s following helped studios to determine important costs such as rental fees and percentages with theaters. Stars are actors, but they are unique in their importance relative to other actors – for example, their names are frequently billed above film, and later, television titles. This distinction, as Paul McDonald (2013, p. 21) observes, provides “symbolic evidence that stars are names which sell.” However, the fact that media profits are linked to stars is one of the factors that makes media success elusive. Audience tastes can change, and stars might organically fall out of favor, or stars might misbehave off-screen, causing audiences to turn on once-beloved stars. The volatility and unpredictability of stars can yield great rewards for studios and producers, but there are few guarantees that a star will have and maintain popularity over a long period of time. Stars provide a relatable face and a means of emotionally connecting with on-screen stories. Using Weber’s logic, this kind of emotional connection can only be achieved through a charismatic figure, and, in Hollywood, the legitimization of its cultural reign requires not just one but a constellation of charismatic stars.

Ronald Reagan and the collapse of entertainment and politics Ronald Reagan’s trajectory, from contract player to US President is unusual. For Reagan, his political career was not a radical departure from his professional trajectory but an outgrowth of his training and work as an actor. Writing about Reagan’s growing politicization, Stephen Vaughn (1994, p. x) explains: “[Reagan] came to think of himself as more than an entertainer, so he also came to see Hollywood as a ‘grand world-wide propaganda base.’ ” By 1952, he considered himself engaged in a “great ideological struggle” to “capture the minds” of humanity.’ Although Ronald Reagan would become a political leader through the US electoral system, his ideas resonate with what Weber (1946, p. 246) describes as the inner drive of a charismatic leader who “knows only inner determination and inner restraint . . . and seizes the task that is adequate for him and demands obedience and a following by virtue of his mission.” Reagan’s distinct vision and sense of importance propelled him to politics and convinced him of his qualifications for leadership roles, but his training and experience as a Hollywood actor prepared him for the public facing world of 20th century US politics. Hollywood, and Warner Bros. in particular, played an important role in developing Ronald Reagan as a public figure over several decades. Reagan, who was born in the small Midwestern town of Dixon, IL, possessed both the biographical details and physical appearance that allowed him to be shaped into what Dyer (1998, p. 48) refers to as the “good Joe,” or an all-American guy (Vaughn, 1994, p. 31). This type is “easy-going” (Dyer, 1998, p. 48), and as a result often agreeable and willing to go with the group – he is a likable, populist figure. In his analysis of 404

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Reagan’s 1930s film publicity, Vaughn highlights two distinct threads of Reagan’s unique persona: on the one hand, Reagan was a modest and average guy, but on the other, he was an “athletic hero” (Vaughn, 1994, pp. 37–38). As was the case with Bette Davis, Warner Bros. helped cultivate Reagan’s pseudocharisma by capitalizing on Reagan’s existing qualities, such as his Midwestern roots and history playing sports and working as a lifeguard in order to emphasize his athletic prowess, all of which enhanced his persona. In the 1930s and 1940s, Warner Bros. built Reagan as a star that they could sell, but the distinctive characteristics of this persona dovetailed with what Americans would want out of a politician in later decades. Ronald Reagan’s pseudocharisma rested on his all-American image and the fact that his public biography was a kind of “rags to riches” tale that resonated with American capitalist values and provided hope during the Depression era  – all of these characteristics were marketable during the 1930s and 1940s. Warner Bros. was able to quantify his likability through audience surveys that first ranked him as one of the top-ten newcomers and later as a top 100 star (Vaughn, 1994, pp. 36–37). These surveys allowed Reagan to grow from an actor playing a radio announcer in films to a featured player (Vaughn, 1994, p. 28). On a very basic level, Reagan’s pseudocharisma masked Warner Bros.’s financial imperative to make profitable films. However, when Reagan stopped making movies he was still able to retain the persona, mythology, and modest fame and recognition after his departure from Hollywood and in his next phase as a politician. Classifying Reagan’s (or any star’s) appeal as a constructed form of pseudocharisma as opposed to charisma, implies that there is a way to distinguish between fake and authentic charisma. Bensman and Givant (1986, p. 54) conclude that the notion of charisma, or at least Weber’s original notion of it, was not applicable to the modern world. I argue that Ronald Reagan, who brought Hollywood lessons and polish to Washington politics, contributed to the growing irrelevance of the pure charismatic force. In his book about Ronald Reagan, Stephen Vaughn argues not only that Reagan’s presence in the White House helped to make acting a more respectable career but that “[t]he union between the entertainment industry and political power . . . reached its peak during his [Reagan’s] presidency.” (Vaughn, 1994, p. 4). Reagan certainly forged a connection between entertainment and politics, but this would only be the beginning of this developing relationship.

Future avenues of research As a theoretical concept, charisma has the potential to bring together the separate fields of media studies, sociology, and political theory. Although many of the broad research concerns are different, each of these fields shares an interest in understanding broader societal structures. Collaboration across these fields seems especially important in order to understand the intersections between politics and political leadership and the larger entertainment industry and ecosystem in the 21st century. Within studies of the media industries, it might be worth asking how charisma influences the business logics of Hollywood, what is greenlit for production, and what garners awards. In Hollywood, there is the power of what is on-screen, but there are also power structures within the business of the industry. While it is often easy to assume that Hollywood makes decisions about what will make money, the personality of a producer or the charm of a director in a room can influence decisions in unquantifiable ways. For example, in the wake of alleged sexual abuse, rumors of drug use at work, his dismissal from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) (after failing to show up for work for several weeks), and being dropped by his agent, Bryan Singer was still hired to direct a remake of the film Red Sonja (Siegel, 2019). Although Singer was eventually 405

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dropped from the film, there is no clear economic rationale to explain why someone with his track record would be hired to direct another film. The challenge for those looking at how the force of personality can influence decision making is how to theorize this influence in relation to existing forms of charisma and how to produce evidence of its existence, as it is a kind of charm that emerges behind closed doors. The convergence of media has allowed for celebrities and aspirants to flex their personalities and abilities across different media platforms to show a wider set of abilities than ever before. In many ways, contemporary Hollywood and stardom is best characterized by the breakdown of social structures that once separated stars from political figures. Audiences are often willing to accept that competence in one arena might translate into another field. Increasingly, as media scholars have observed, stars politicize their star images (Hamad, 2015; Marshall, 2014; Totman and Marshall, 2015). For example, Chris Evans can star in Marvel blockbusters, espouse political views on Twitter, and launch a political website (Hod, 2019). More significant, however, is how actor Ronald Reagan transitioned from actor and Screen Actors Guild union president to US President, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger leveraged cinematic fame to become Governor of California, and entrepreneur-turned-reality-star Donald Trump became US President with no political experience. In these cases, the powerless elite became political leaders. Given the contemporary political climate, future examinations of charisma and Hollywood should look toward the convergence of entertainment and politics. Why and how has the charisma of stars increasingly infiltrated politics? What are the cultural conditions that make celebrity charisma appealing to an electorate? Hollywood, it turns out, has long been in the business of cultivating and mass producing charisma, but not all stars have the same resonance and influence. Locating the moments when Hollywood intersects with political power has the potential to shed light on new facets of the charismatic figure.

References Alberoni, F., 2006. “The Powerless ‘Elite’: Theory and Sociological Research on the Phenomenon of the Stars,” in: Marshall, P.D. (Ed.) and McQuail, D. (Trans.), The Celebrity Culture Reader. Routledge, London. Balio, T., 1993. Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939. Scribner, New York. Barbas, S., 2001. Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Bensman, J., Givant, M., 1986. “Charisma and Modernity: The Use and Abuse of a Concept,” in: Glassman, R.M. and William H. Swatos (Eds.), Charisma, History, and Social Structure. Greenwood Press, New York. Bohemian Rhapsody, film produced by Jim Beach and Graham King, United States, distributed by TwentiethCentury Fox, 2018, film, 134 min. Carman, E., 2016. Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System. University of Texas Press, Austin. de Cordova, R., 2001. Picture Personalities: The Emergence of the Star System in America. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Derman, J., 2011. “Max Weber and Charisma: A Transatlantic Affair,” New German Critique 51–88. Dyer, R., 1986. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. St. Martin’s Press, New York. Dyer, R., 1998. Stars. BFI Pub, London. Eliot, M., 2008. Reagan: The Hollywood Years. Harmony Books, New York. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, film produced by S.C. Siegel, United States, distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, 1953, film, 91 min. Hamad, H., 2015. “Introduction: Intersections of Fame, Politics and Power in the Contemporary Celebrity Mediascape,” Celebrity Studies 6, 601–602.

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Hod, I., 2019. “Captain America v. Trump: Chris Evans to Launch Politics Website, a Starting Point,” The Wrap. Jaeger, C. Stephen, 2012. Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in Arts of the West. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Jezebel, film produced by Hal B. Wallis and William Wyler, United States, distributed by Warner Bros., 1938, film, 104 min. Jones, J., 2005. Entertaining Politics: New Political Television and Civic Culture. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham. Marshall, P.D., 2014. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. McDonald, P., 2013. Hollywood Stardom. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden. Of Human Bondage, film produced by Pandro S. Berman, United States, distributed by RKO Pictures, 1934, film, 83 min. Roach, J., 2007. It. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Schatz, T., 1995. “ ‘A Triumph of Bitchery’: Warner Bros., Bette Davis, and Jezebel,” in: Staiger, J. (Ed.), The Studio System. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. Siegel, T., 2019. “Bryan Singer to Keep ‘Red Sonja’ Directing Gig Even After New Accusers Speak Out.” The Hollywood Reporter. Stamp, S., 2004. “ ‘It’s a Long Way to Filmland’: Starlets, Screen Hopefuls and Extras in Early Hollywood,” in: Keil, C. and Stamp, S. (Ed.), American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices. University of California Press, Berkeley. Totman, S. and Marshall, P.D., 2015. “Real/Reel Politics and Popular Culture,” Celebrity Studies 6, 603–606. Vaughn, S., 1994. Ronald Reagan in Hollywood: Movies and Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Weber, M., 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University Press, New York. Weber, M., 1966. Max Weber: The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. The Free Press, New York.

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34 Celebrity, charisma, and post-truth relations Agnogenesis, affect, and Bollywood Pramod Nayar

Introduction: defining charisma and post-truth Max Weber famously defined charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary” (cited in Potts 2009: 127). Charles Lindholm defines it thus: “the admiration offered to glamorous movie stars, exciting sports heroes, and Kennedyesque politicians – adulation which goes far beyond mere admiration of someone with special expertise” (1990: 9). Moving beyond the traditional Weberian analysis of charisma, Stephen Jaeger sees charisma as a kind of force and authority exercised by people with an extraordinary personal presence, either given by nature, acquired by calculation, training, or merit. In contrast to most forms of authority, charisma is always seen as benevolent and life-affirming, at least until disenchantment sets in. (2012: 9) Further, “[T]he effect of charisma is ‘enchantment,’ engaging the whole range of meaning of that word from a shallow moment of pleasure (‘Enchanted to make your acquaintance’) to a spellbound state of participation and imitation, to idolatry and transformation” (9). The Oxford Dictionaries (2016) defined post-truth as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”1 The language of reporting and information lacks any reference to facts, truths, and realities. Bruce McComiskey in Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition writes: In a post-truth communication landscape, people (especially politicians) say whatever might work in a given situation, whatever might generate the desired result, without any regard to the truth value or facticity of statements. If a statement works, results in the desired effect, it is good; if it fails, it is bad (or at least not worth trying again). (2017: 6)

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When a Bollywood star exudes the charisma effect, I suggest, the “scene” is ripe for the adoring audience to affectively believe in the star, whether it is in Salman Khan’s innocence or Sanjay Dutt’s “reform” in prison, in Karan Johar’s sexuality, in Alia Bhatt’s low intelligence, or in sharp contrast, Aamir Khan’s image of the “thinking star.” Charisma, then, is primarily an affective condition, an appeal to the sentiments. Linking Bollywood’s charisma effect with the regime of post-truth is the operation of two specific processes in the realm of representations, mimetic capital, and sensuous fidelity.

Mimetic capital and sensuous fidelity Star/celebrity representations draw upon and benefit from “a stockpile of representations, a set of images and image-making devices that are accumulated, ‘banked’ as it were, in books, archives, collections, cultural storehouses, until such time as these representations are called upon to generate new representations,” what Stephen Greenblatt in Marvelous Possessions terms “mimetic capital” (1991: 6, emphasis in original). This capital stays open to repetition and reuse, and it is malleable in a variety of (imitative) contexts. There is cultural capital to be made out of such imitative repetition. Mimetic capital can be banked upon because of a very specific feature of celebrity culture: iterability. Consequently, the aura, the enchantment, and the illusion around the celebrity no longer require the star-presence as a corporeal entity. These images generate capital – economic and cultural – and endless mimesis is at the heart of the process (“the images that matter, that merit the term capital,” as Greenblatt phrases it; [6]). Stars are drawn upon and mimetically mined as models, objects of desire, and fantasies because they are, more than anything else, trusted and believed in due to the sensuous fidelity of their cinematic and public representations. Advertisements, biopics, and auto/biographies draw upon a particular image of the star – Salman Khan and the action hero in the Thums Up ad (his contract ended in 2016, and he has since been replaced by Ranveer Singh) comes to mind – irrespective of the common knowledge that action stunts are performed by body doubles in almost all cinema or that what we are watching/reading is a mediated, edited, redacted version of a life. As in the case of all celebrity culture, the charisma of the star is made available through the circulation of hairstyles, clothing, posters, interviews, and other cultural apparatuses. Over time, these adaptations drawing on the (supposed) magical nature of the hero/ine ensure that the representation is the hero/ine for all purposes. Dutt becomes an embodiment of Gandhiism as a result of his film, and Khan becomes an embodiment of humanitarian causes because of his non-filmic role. This oscillation between the filmic and the non-filmic generates a mimetic capital that owes its existence to both domains. This mimetic capital in turn can be banked on for generating affective attention. Mimetic capital, then, is also the miming of reel-life roles by their real-life actions and affiliations. The capital that emerges among fans and audiences is indispensable to the charisma effect which, I propose, does not distinguish between the fleshly body and the cinematic body of the star in terms of the reception accorded to it. The miming of one by the other is charismatic, so that the charisma is inseparable from the images (cinematic, popular) circulating of the star. The mimetic capital of films, advertisements, biopics, etc., generate a “sensuous fidelity,” as Michael Taussig theorizes it (2016), a condition between fidelity and fantasy, where the copy or mimetic version draws so much power from the original that it may assume the power of the original itself. It is near-magical, argues Taussig. Sensual fidelity is the loyalty to the image of the hero, his cinematic body. We “know” the hero only in terms of the cinematic image on

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screen and in marketing (“promos,” meaning promotional) materials. Taussig’s use of the term “sensuous” implies an affective element but also gestures at the sensory and sensual appeal of the cinematic image. But sensuous fidelity relies on the star’s two bodies, the corporeal and the cinematic, and it is a hybrid of the two that circulates publicly even when the actor/star appears in the flesh. Charles Lindholm, writing about contemporary charisma, has argued that in consumer culture certain symbols (or symbolic goods) “serve to convince the shoppers that while supporting capitalism they are simultaneously participating together in a shared vision of a more vital and sensual world” (195). This emphasis on the sensual world in Lindholm’s reading is for me the affective nature of the parasocial relations (Rojek 2004) of celebrity culture that is the epicenter of charisma. Sensuous fidelity as generative of star-charisma is seen in other genres of pop culture such as the biopic and the star-auto/biography. In Sanju, the biopic on Sanjay Dutt, just out from prison for possessing terrorist weapons, and in Yasser Usman’s biography (Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy), he is still referred to as “Sanju Baba.” The infantilization (the reduction of adults into child-like traits through tropes) implicit in the term ties in neatly with the supposed craziness and careless behavioral traits (“foolish and impetuous,” is how he is described in Usman’s book, [6]). I will return to this infantilization theme later in the chapter. Legally admissible evidence notwithstanding, the biographical mode seeks an affective “understanding” of the star’s several crises (from drug addiction to owning guns). In the blackbuck poaching case when Salman Khan was convicted in April 2018 – Khan and a few friends, in 1998, shot a blackbuck in Jodhpur – the media was filled with disbelieving Bollywood responses.2 Several referred to his kindness toward people (and animals) and the “humanitarian work” that he undertakes. Fans gathered outside Jodhpur Central Jail, according to media reports, after his conviction, many holding up placards and boards with his filmic representations on them. Pictures of Dutt and Khan in prison talking to police officers went viral on the internet. One report says about the day of Khan’s conviction: April 5 was a ruinous day for Salman Khan’s fans as the actor was sentenced to five years in jail after a court in Jodhpur convicted him in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case. Outside Jodhpur Central Jail, where Salman Khan spent his Thursday night, locals gathered with posters of the actor, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the actor.3 Coverage of Sanjay Dutt’s last day in prison was documented by Deccan Chronicle in some detail, focusing on his simple life therein.4 Charisma is the carrying over of the filmic hero into real life, as in the previously mentioned cases. I suggest that when the “hero” appears in the flesh – as both Dutt and Khan do – he wears the aura of the star, and the star on-screen is also evaluated for his real-life crises. The choice of films made after these crises in their lives are some indication of the charisma effect managed by necessary PR firms and the creative industries: Munna Bhai M.B.B.S (2003); Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) in the case of Dutt; films where he is a Samaritan and/or an “innocent” like in Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015); Tubelight (2017); and jingoistic nationalism-driven Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Jai Ho (2014) in the case of Khan. Dutt’s “Gandhigiri” in Lage Raho Munna Bhai altered the cinematic and public image of the convicted star, meriting a Wiki entry for the term “Gandhigiri,” and global coverage of “Sanju Baba.”5 Another channel went on to claim that Dutt taught us the “5 principles of Gandhigiri,” in which Hirani’s film was described as the “perfect ode to Gandhi Ji.”6

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Chris Rojek has argued that [c]elebrities may slip out of role in chat show interviews so as to appear more human. But if they do so continuously they neutralize the charisma on which their status as exalted and extraordinary figures depends. (2004: 76) While the conviction, public opprobrium, and imprisonment does render Khan and Dutt more human, as Rojek suggests, it does not quite alter the charisma. My proposition is that the charisma effect survives the negativity when the negativity is presented as aberrant behavior. It is not a flawed personality, but an aberration. It is not an embittered or angry man, but one prone to flashes of temper and irrational actions. The charisma effect needs to be seen, then, as an “explaining-away” of such actions and events by fans, so that sensuous fidelity is the same as affective filiations. The “bad boy of Bollywood” image serves the star’s charisma effect very well. Being misfits in real life has some advantage to the kind of screen roles they play. Part of their charisma, as celebrity theorists have argued, stem from their mishaps and mistakes (then built up as the “wronged” Dutt or Khan) that then render them vulnerable. Their public images, especially of those in court, emerging from prison, in the police vehicle, render them of the public in an affective sense: generating sympathy. David Aberbach has argued: “charisma is closely linked with impulses and actions which in normal conditions would be socially unacceptable or illegal. The art of charisma creates a hypnotic spell by which morality is redefined” (106). The acceptance of the star despite the legally and socially unacceptable actions they are proven (in courts) to have committed, creates the “hypnotic spell” that Aberbach speaks of. Indeed they thrive on the gap between the ideal and idealized “hero” and roles they enact in real life, including gun-ownership, violence, mafia-involvement, substance abuse, among others. Aberbach writes: The Public’s deflection from the charismatic’s distorted inner self and the potential for disaster onto the selfish question: what can he do for me? In its purest forms, charisma transforms politics, religion and the media into art, disguising and sweetening the risk. (1996: 105) Further, the star incorporates the mediated symbolic materials – imprisonment, legal arraignments, and the media images of these events – into his life. A celebrity’s gestures of authenticity, David Marshall argues, have significant affective power and are useful for creating and enhancing celebrity – audience relationships (1997). These gestures, in other words, humanize them and bring them just a bit closer to their audience, which then is “moved” by the “genuineness” of the star. Gestures of authenticity in these two cases also include their fraught expressions going to and from courts or prisons, the relief writ large when Dutt is freed, or when Khan is granted bail. Thus, despite the common knowledge that these stars emote for a living, their stricken expressions carry enormous weight before reporters and fans, who quickly detect contrition, guilt, apologies in their expressions – and find them authentic. In the era of a heightened emphasis on transparency and visibility, there is an assumption that being exposed to the public gaze reveals the inner workings of people, organizations, and processes (Nayar 2014: 16). The crucial democratic challenge, writes Andrea Brighenti, is to “achieve a deployment of power that is ideally without secrets.  .  .  .  [T]he device of public

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representation is necessarily public” (2010: 54). Visibility, writes Brighenti, “contributes crucially to the demarcation of the public domain” (58). Thus, scenes of a penitent Khan/Dutt, their arrests, and their families in mourning are assumed to render them transparent to the public gaze and more accountable for what they did. That is, the public spectacle of arrests, mourning, and emoting are deemed to reveal the truth of their interiority – reform, penitence, guilt – because this interiority has been revealed in public. These gestures of authenticity, or staging of authenticity, in public view, hinges upon the affective belief in their “genuineness” and becomes acceptable as truth. This is a version of enchantment too, wherein people whose life depends on their ability to emote are deemed to be not-performing when they appear teary-eyed in public: on the contrary, they are believed to exhibit genuine contrition at their acts. Enchantment in the age of charisma and post-truth demands not authenticity but the public staging of authenticity, where the publicness (and transparency) is believed to make emotions genuine. Therefore, continuing the previously mentioned line of argument, when interviewed, stars like Salman Khan admit to financial difficulties – he mentions his high lawyer fees in one7 – supposedly rendering them vulnerable, like all middle-class Indians, and therefore believable in very affective terms. In an appearance in the show Aap ki Adalat, Sohail Khan, preparing to leave the “witness box” says this [as in a court appearance/witness box] is a first time for him, but Salman Khan “is used to it.” The constant referencing of Khan’s legal troubles is part of the charisma wherein to be accused, tried, and even convicted does not necessarily detract from the star persona and appeal, but instead renders them human and transparent. That is, the charismatic stars, Khan and Dutt, incorporate the symbolic materials of socially unacceptable behavior into their very self-formation, so that Dutt will forever be the star-turned-terrorist-turned-Gandhian, merging the corporeal Dutt who went to jail and the cinematic Dutt who showed us the Gandhian path. Likewise, Khan will be the good-­ Samaritan-with-a-temper who behaved rashly (running people over on a pavement, shooting blackbucks), again incorporating the corporeal Khan who is photographed outside the court and the cinematic Khan who is this daring vigilante, nationalist soldier, etc. The reformed Dutt and the nationalist Khan, as they circulate in the media, constitute post-facto “ethicalization of persona” (Chouliaraki 2013: 92), which enables the two “bad boys” to communicate a new persona itself. It is in the flawed-but-believable nature of the star that the charisma effect originates, and which appeals to the audience. If the origins of the word charisma (in the Greek charis) means “spiritual gifts” (in addition to attractiveness and charm), then it is the very opposite of such gifts in Dutt and Khan – manifest as their tendency to perform socially unacceptable actions – that drives their charisma in the post-truth era. The charisma effect, then, is integral to post-truth relations.

Post-truth relations and agnogenesis Post-truth is the era of plausible and non-verifiable truths, made possible, commentators note, through social media apparatuses. In post-truth relations, no matter what the evidence of villainy, stupidity, or bad behavior is, he or she remains a loved, bankable star. Knowledge about the star drawing upon a fund of circulating suspicions – Salman Khan’s underworld connections, his temper, the role in the black buck killing, or Dutt’s involvement in the 1993 terror attacks – cannot be fully believed in because the exact opposite is what the mimetic capital of his representations draws upon: Salman the action hero, the do-gooder (fronted by his organization, Being Human, with clothing and accessories), the bumbling golden-hearted messiah (say, Bajrangi Bhaijaan). 412

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Throughout Usman’s biography, for example, Sanjay is described as: “unaware” (39), “nobody had the slightest inkling” (48), “unaware of the magnitude of his errors” (125), in order to paint the picture of a rather naïve young man. The affective appeal is very clear: here is a bumbling, drug-addled star who has taken leave of common sense. Indeed, Usman’s biography makes the connection between this image and his on-screen roles: On screen, Sanjay’s fans loved to see him play the spoilt brat – macho, unintelligent and naïve. His most successful films were based on that formula. And many of his films were centered on the underworld and crime syndicates. Many believe that an unthinking Sanjay let himself get carried away by his love for guns, cops and robber games. That he was just plain stupid, didn’t know what he was doing, and didn’t mean any harm. (128) After the legal cases and the indictments, the reiteration of this image enables post-truth relations unfounded on anything provable or proven about Dutt’s real intentions (Usman admits Dutt knew his guns, and was aware of the “lethality of various firearms,” 126), but founded on the affective and affecting image of the star-gone-wrong. Post-truth relations are marked by what Zizi Papacharissi (2014) terms “affective attunement” in which we engage in meaning making of situations unknown and unknowable to us by evoking affective reactions, itself reminiscent of the sensuous fidelity of charisma effects discussed earlier. Affective attunement is less about an intellectual or rational appeal to the audience than about the appeal to the emotions, supposedly universal, in all humans. We begin, as a consequence, to interpret from our emotions toward a star rather than our knowledge of the star. As the audience, we are prompted to interpret situations “by feeling like those directly experiencing them, even though, in most cases, we are not able to think like them” (Papacharissi 5, emphasis in original), instantiated in the form of publicly circulating images of a sorrowful Salman Khan, a penitent-looking Sanjay Dutt, among others. This affective attunement may be transient, but it spreads virally in the age of social media, and generates the aura around the star, again, as Papacharissi suggests, because the media creates the “affective feedback loops that generate and reproduce affective patterns of relating to others that are further reproduced as affect – that is, intensity that has not yet been cognitively processed as feeling, emotion, or thought” (22–3). We are no longer expected to cognitively process innocence or guilt, truth, or falsehood, only to trust the emotional “truth” writ large on their faces. With affective attunement, the necessity to believe in binaries like true/false is done away with. I go a step further. In the case of celebrities, the affective attunement even preempts and disbelieves any inquiry into the star. This means, irrespective of what the law may interpret and make meaning out of Dutt’s or Khan’s actions, the charisma effect generates its own set of affective meanings. In other words, the popular and populist meanings around Khan and Dutt occupy a different meaning domain and therefore truth regime, from that of the law. We do not need knowledge or meaning as determined by the law, as long as affective attunement and fidelity to the star continue. Affective attunement and the sensuous fidelity of the charisma effect induce what has been called by Kevin P. Martyn and M. Martin Bosman as “agnogenesis,” or culturally induced ignorance (2018). In the case of stars and their post-truth relations, two principles work in tandem: “even if it didn’t happen, it is true,” and its converse, “even if it did happen, it isn’t true.” The charisma effect ensures that evidence and documentation, fact verification and establishing authenticity do not necessarily generate alternative knowledge, they only create uncertainty in the minds of the audience that then enables a retention of the status 413

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quo of the star’s “real” nature. Post-truth in celebrity culture is not necessarily alternate facts or patent falsehood. It is primarily an indifference to the false or true nature of information about the stars. I suggest that the agnogenesis made possible by the charisma effect may be seen as a form of resistance to the alethic discourse of the law, and the consequent alethicism in public discourses about public figures. Adam Chmielewski (2018) argues about the role of alethic populism in political life: Alethic populism is adamant belief in the validity of truth and an unwavering demand that it be restored to, and respected in, political life. Alethic populism as a moralistic defence of truth is a progeny of a naïve belief in the unproblematic status of “truth”, and is a ground on which many forms of populism forage. Believing in the moral dimension of truth, alethic populists demand respect for truth, but usually only the truth they profess themselves, while at the same time seeking in it a justification for an exclusivist, and not infrequently exterminative, brand of politics.8 That is, when alethicism informs discourses on public life, affective attunement generates its exact obverse, agnogenesis, in the case of celebrities. The celebrity’s charisma then may be said to owe its existence in the case of Khan and Dutt to the intersection of two specific economies and their discursive strategies: the alethic, as embodied in the discourse of law, public morality, and public life, and agnogenesis. If alethic populism drives the exact opposite in terms of agnogenesis, neither can exist without the other. We at once know and not know, it matters and yet does not matter, whether these stars are guilty in the eyes of the law. Charisma is the antithesis to alethicism, because it does away with the necessity of proving or disproving anything called truth. Post-truth relations are therefore essential to the charisma effect and vice versa because they constitute an aura independent of the alethic discourses and render the star vulnerable. Posttruth relations produced between alethic populism and agnogenesis are a part of truth regimes with multiple techniques of establishing truth. The law is only one of them. Affect, however, is the most dominant. Truth regimes, writes Susanne Krasmann determine what counts as a true and false statement, and how this is sanctioned; they accept particular modes of how things come to be presented and represented, and they encourage and constrain the subject to perform truthfully in accordance with particular rules. (2018: 5–6) In the case of Dutt and Khan, as is very evident from their biopics, interviews, and public reception, the truth regime of affective attunement is the dominant mode, distinct from and often opposed to the alethic populism of courts and the public. One final point. Agnogenesis is also willful ignorance, the social construction of ignorance and a cultural refusal (or refutation) of specific information and visible data. In the case of stars like Dutt, infantilization is an integral part of their affective attunement. I have already referred to the “Sanju baba” epithet used to describe Dutt. It is no coincidence, surely, to note how both, Karan Johar’s autobiography (2017) and Usman’s biography of Dutt (2018), use “boy” in the title. To describe 40+ adults, successful stars at that, as “boys” is, I suggest, a form of cultural agnogenesis. Through this, we first deny they were responsible for their actions, being mere “boys,” and second, we relocate their adult actions to a pre-awareness and pre-rational age (“playing cops and robbers,” in Usman’s phrase). 414

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Rather than discrediting the veracity of evidence produced out of the relations between legal processes and biographical data that dominate star “knowledge,” it could be argued that the very field of publicly “acceptable” evidence has been structured by these relations. Charisma determines not only what is known within these domains (legal, juridical, fictional, biographical, etc.) but also what is or believed to be knowable. I am not proposing that this is a willful production of ignorance but rather that the epistemic form that law has acquired – its evidentiary norms, an emphasis on causality – render many relations invisible, such as that between “influence” and the law. For example, Usman suggests that Sunil Dutt’s appeal to the Thackerays made a difference in the legal outcome of Sanjay Dutt’s case, and he was consequently granted bail (153). Now, what exactly is the role of political influence/intervention in legal processes which are supposed to “objectively” establish “truth”? Here legal “knowledge” as a domain is at odds with the common “knowledge” about the role of social capital and influence. There is, subsequently, an interesting creation of a specific kind of black hole around the bail: what caused the courts to grant bail? This construction of ignorance occurs at the intersection of legal and common knowledge – objective evaluation by the law of guilt/innocence and the subjective, affective and tangible influences asserted by social capital. The audience is left uncertain as to whether the bail petition was granted on any kind of legal rationality or whether emotions, pressure, and influence were instrumentalized toward the approval. In a study of the scientific discourse around a particular medical condition and the construction of ignorance, Emilia Sanabria writes of the instrumentalization of uncertainty in vertical relations between scientific elites and disempowered publics or their governments. Undone science [David Hess’ idea] refers to those known unknowns that civil society organizations highlight as having potential public benefit but that industrial elites may actively seek to elide through their influence. (2018: 133) In Sanabria’s evocative phrasing, it is the “epistemic and social goals of science, against which practices of ignorance construction can be measured” (133). That is, the charisma effect enables the public to situate legally established knowledge alongside mediated biographical knowledge or even screen knowledge (which is fictional but believed in) of the naïve Dutt or the innocent Khan. It is no longer possible to claim either knowledge or ignorance in the age of agnogenesis when it is eminently possible to continue to see (and address) aging stars as naïve and “baba.” This agnogenesis is a part of the key component of charisma: enchantment.

Conclusion and future research I suggest that charisma effects that generate post-truth relations driven, as noted here, by affective attunements and an investment in affect, may be read as not only a diminishing trust regime but also as a form of resistance to algorithmic governance. Such algorithmic governance (Crampton and Miller 2017) is described as the ways in which our digitally mediatized experiences of the world are shaped by artificial intelligence of algorithms designed according to commodified, consumer-oriented logics. On the basis of accumulated data from profiling a user’s history and preferences, the user is fed personalized findings which functionally determine one’s windows on the infoworld. I extend this concept of algorithmic governance to mean the following: the outcome of court cases, legal investigations, and even the confession makes little or no difference, because such information has come to be seen as part of the 415

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algorithmic governance assemblage, leading to a distrust of such previously reliable modes of “truth.” Rather, the audience turns away from such sources toward affective accounts and image making as a perceived counter to such algorithmic governance. The point I wish to emphasize in the case of the “bad boys” of Bollywood is this. In the case of stars, we are used to a set of characteristics and attributes drawn from on-screen and off-screen representations. We attribute such-and-such a character to such-and-such a star. We are not surprised at their actions (as Usman notes about Dutt, we are used to seeing him in gangster flicks, and involved in illegal and illegitimate actions in his film roles) – it is as if we know them already. Then, how do the biographer, the biopic, and the memoirist represent the unrepresentable aspects of the star (such as naiveté or innocence) for it to be believed in? It has to hint at something more behind public knowledge or legal knowledge. As stated earlier by Emilia Sandriana, it is the very episteme of the law and its processes, a component of both alethic populism and algorithmic governance where all things are quantified, that is at stake in the charisma effect. I see charisma, then, as enabling enchantment often in the face of any other evidentiary systems of law, biographical data, or recorded behavior. Sanabria quotes commentators who speak of “evidential landscaping,” wherein influential corporations change the terms of policy debates by misquoting evidence, mimicking scientific critique, and introducing alternative research (150). Charisma effects are an instance of such evidential landscaping where questions of law are elided in favor of questions of, say, temperament (Dutt’s acquisition of guns against the law versus Dutt’s stupidity). When Dutt’s or Khan’s image is so overdetermined by the public’s preconceptions and affective attunements, how does a biographer demonstrate impenetrable and unknowable depths to these humans? Within the affective, sensuous fidelity already circulating of these stars, biographies, biopics, and memoirs work so that the charisma effects generate post-truth relations, leading to a public belief in the naïveté of a Dutt or the innocence of a Khan. This naïveté and innocence is what has to be drawn out, played upon and played out, informed, and influenced by the enchantment they command, irrespective of any legally established knowledge about them. Charisma, then, is integral to the post-truth era, especially when it comes to celebrities, public figures, and public processes. While this chapter stayed focused on the role of charisma in generating willful ignorance and forms of governance, there are other areas this discussion could go into. For instance, it may be productive to see how charisma is employed to further public opinion making: does the “mis-use” or abuse of charisma by cult leaders, priests, physicians and movie stars reported in the media determine the reorganization of their glamour? How does public opinion get leveraged through, say, scandal or rumormongering, which, as research has shown, actively contributed to the star’s celebrity power? As an extension of the above, it would be challenging and interesting to consider how a “celebrity public sphere” itself emerges around the star persona: the influence they have on trends in clothing, makeovers, housing, cell phones, leisure, etc., which would also arguably be forms of governance.

Notes 1 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016. 2 www.timesnownews.com/entertainment/news/bollywood-news/article/salman-khan-blackbuckpoaching-case-verdict-5-year-imprisonment-shera-varun-dhawan-simi-garewal-twitter-fans/214559. 3 www.timesnownews.com/entertainment/news/bollywood-news/article/salman-khan-fans-gatheroutside-jodhpur-central-jail-after-his-conviction-in-blackbuck-poaching-case/214556. 4 www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/bollywood/260216/the-man-walks-free-we-follow-histrail.html.

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5 See, for example, www.freepressjournal.in/entertainment/lage-raho-munna-bhai-actor-sanjay-duttremembered-mahatma-gandhi-on-martyrs-day/1212908. 6 www.timesnownews.com/entertainment/news/bollywood-news/article/gandhi-jayanti-when-sanjaydutts-lage-raho-munnabhai-taught-us-the-5-principles-of-gandhigiri-bollywood-news/292915. 7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=17MDEbKjBos. 8 https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/6-2018-34/post-truth-alethic-populism/.

References Aberbach, David. 1996. Charisma in Politics, Religion and the Media: Private Trauma, Public Ideals. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Brighenti, Andrea Mubi. 2010. “Democracy and Surveillance.” In Kevin D. Haggerty and Minas Samatas (Eds), Surveillance and Democracy. London and New York: Routledge, 51–68. Chmielewski, Adam. 2018. “Post-Truth and Alethic Populism.” Public History Weekly, 8 November. https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/6-2018-34/post-truth-alethic-populism/. Chouliaraki, Leila. 2013. The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Crampton, Jeremy and Andrea Miller. 2017. “Introduction.” Intervention Symposium  – Algorithmic Governance. Antipode. https://antipodeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1-crampton-andmiller1.pdf. Greenblatt, Stephen. 1991. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jaeger, C. Stephen. 2012. Enchantment: Of Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Johar, Karan and Poonam Saxena. 2017. An Unsuitable Boy. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Krasmann, Susanne. 2018. “Secrecy and the Force of Truth: Countering Posttruth Regimes.” Cultural Studies. DOI:10.1080/09502386.2018.1503696 Lindholm, Charles. 1990. Charisma. London: Blackwell. Marshall, P. David. 1997. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Martyn, Kevin P. and M. Martin Bosman. 2018. “Post-Truth or Agnogenesis? Theorizing Risk and Uncertainty in a Neoliberal Nature.” Journal of Risk Research. DOI:10.1080/13669877.2018.1454497. McComiskey, Bruce. 2017. Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition. Logan: Utah State University Press. Nayar, Pramod K. 2014. Citizenship and Identity in the Age of Surveillance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papacharissi, Zizi. 2014. Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Potts, John. 2009. A History of Charisma. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rojek, Chris. 2004. Celebrity. London: Reaktion. Sanabria, Emilia. 2018. “Circulating Ignorance: Complexity and Agnogenesis in the Obesity ‘Epidemic’.” Cultural Anthropology 31.1, 131–158. Taussig, Michael. 2016. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. London: Routledge. Usman, Yasser. 2018. Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood’s Bad Boy. New Delhi: Juggernaut.

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35 Charisma in sports Tim Delaney

Introduction The topic of “charisma” is quite fascinating, and it is a term that we have heard referenced our entire lives. It is likely that in our private lives we all know people who are quite charismatic just as we are likely to know many people who seem awkward, boring, distant, and dull. It is the public sphere, however, that we often think of when discussing charismatic people. Many politicians possess charisma. In fact, charisma is so important that it can be connected to power and authority as in Max Weber’s proposal of three types of authority (rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic). Christopher Adair-Toteff (2005, 191) states that Weber was not originally “interested in charisma because it was irrational, personal and temporary. For the most part, he was concerned with that which was rational, impersonal and permanent, hence his interest in legal Herrschaft.” (Note: Herrschaft refers to institutionalized authority inducing obedience.) It is Adair-Toteff’s (2005, 191) contention that Weber grew interested in the concept of charisma because it was a fascinating notion, extremely personal, and highly irrational. Weber believed that charismatic political leaders come to the forefront in chaotic times because a person with unique character traits was needed (Adair-Toteff, 2005, 191). In this chapter, we will not concern ourselves with the realm of politics but with the world of sports. (Note: As discussed in Delaney and Madigan’s The Sociology of Sports, many sportspersons have become prominent politicians, using their charisma to gain political power.) We will discover, among other things, that dynamic character traits are important when discussing charismatic persons and that possessing charisma can be transferred to power and influence in the sports world. It is necessary, however, to first briefly explain the concept of “charisma,” as we cannot discuss a topic without establishing some parameters as to its meaning. With this rationality in mind, it is also true that we need to then describe the social institution of sports so that we can consider the role of charisma within this domain.

Explaining charisma Charisma involves a number of related characteristics, including allure, appeal, attractiveness, captivation, charm, desirability, duende, enchantment, fascination, glamour, influence, magic, 418

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magnetism, pizzazz, pleasantness, power, and seductiveness. With these attributes in mind, charisma will be defined here as a type of persuasive magnetism that can inspire fervent popular devotion and loyalty in others. A charismatic person is someone who has developed a number of these previously mentioned traits and molded them into their personality and thus, they have acquired the ability to attract and influence others. The charismatic person has a personal magnetism or charm that can be transformed into power, admiration, emotional devotion, enthusiasm, and popular loyalty. When applied, charisma appears as a type of magical leadership quality that leads to loyalty and enthusiasm for a public figure, such as a popular athlete. This sentiment can be expressed as follows: The team captain was chosen as a result of his or her charisma and not necessarily because of athletic prowess. The benefits of possessing charisma are numerous, and yet many people lack in it. While it might be tempting to think that charisma is something that a limited number of people are born with, this is not the case, as most people have the ability to attain charismatic attributes via the learning process. As articulated by the sociological theoretical perspective of social learning, individuals have the ability to learn how to become charismatic. Social learning theory begins with the idea that all behavior is learned via the socialization process in general and reinforcement and modeling in particular. Social learning theory can trace its origins to the work of Gabriel de Tarde in his The Laws of Imitation (1903 [1890]), where he linked crime with imitation. “One of the first theorists to associate the origins of crime with a learning process was Gabriel Tarde. . . . Tarde argued that crime results from one person’s imitation the actions of another. Although he took into account biological and psychological factors, he believed that crime is essentially a social product” (Kratcoski and Kratcoski, 1996, 56). Tarde promoted the idea that the social environment is vital in both the development and control of human behavior (New World Encyclopedia, 2017). Social learning theorists believe that the process of imitation is not possible without interaction with others and further argue that individuals learn behavior through interaction with others (Delaney, 2017, 77). As a result, individuals may learn and imitate the behavior of charismatic people and take on such characteristics themselves. From the social learning perspective, learning takes place through three related processes: acquisition (initial introduction), instigation (actually participating in a particular behavior), and maintenance (consistently repeating the behavior over a period of time). The maintenance aspect of social learning is what Tarde (1903, chapter 1) referred to as “universal repetition.” Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association, which he first introduced in the third edition of his Principles of Criminology (1939), expressly incorporates the idea that all behavior is learned and focuses on the notion that individuals are more likely to pick up the behaviors of those with whom they associate with socially. As this theory pertains to our concern here, individuals are more likely to absorb charismatic traits via association with charismatic others. Count Jane Peters (2015, 3–4) among those who consider it a myth that charisma is an inborn trait or that it is inherent with some people and not others. Instead, she takes the sociological perspective by describing charisma as a learned behavior. She believes that even those who do not possess a magnetic personality can learn to develop charisma. Peters argues that nonmagnetic individuals have not learned to utilize the many nonverbal behaviors that combine to make a person charismatic. Charismatic people are those who learned from an early age how to draw attention to themselves in such a manner that others find appealing. Learning to develop charisma, according to Peters (2015, 4), is an important life skill, as charismatic people often enjoy social benefits that are not found in the lives of those who are not magnetic. 419

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The development of the life skill of charisma is what Peters (2015, 4) describes as the “magic of charisma.” This magic is revealed in four ways: (1) Charisma attracts people (people listen to everything they say and may wish to be led by them), (2) Charismatic people make good leaders (people tend to want to do what charismatic people tell them to do), (3) Charisma is critical for business (organizations like to employ charismatic people, and they are likely to receive more accolades than their peers), and (4) Charisma is applicable to all social fields (it is important in all spheres of life, including parenting, friendship circles, and, of course, in the employment sector). As will be demonstrated later in this chapter, Peters’s ideas on charisma are certainly pertinent to the realm of sports. In the Introduction to her book Captivate, Vanessa Van Edwards (2017) describes how she is a “recovering awkward person.” She felt so uncomfortable while growing up during her school years that she broke out into hives worried about having to attend social events. She eventually decided to study characteristics of people (teachers and confident students), such as facial expression, small-talk patterns, and emotion control techniques, and to read books on human behavior in her attempt to become more self-assured and charismatic. In chapters 1–5, Van Edwards (2017) emphasizes the importance of the first five minutes of social encounters and offers techniques on: Control (how to win the social game); Capture (how to make a killer first impression); Spark (how to have dazzling conversations); Highlight (how to be the most memorable person in the room); and Intrigue (how to be very likable). The rest of her book focuses on continued interactions with others and methods to maintain the interest of others. With an understanding of the concept of charisma, we can now take a look at sports as a social institution.

Sports as a social institution Sports is a pervasive social institution in nearly every society around the world. It has as much influence on culture as such other major social institutions as the family, religion, politics, economics, and education. To ignore sports is to overlook a phenomenon that extends into a multitude of social arenas, including the arts, mass media, the economy, the community, politics, and international diplomacy (Delaney and Madigan, 2015, 3). Consequently, the examination of charisma in sports is certainly relevant. We have two terms that need to be clarified, “sports” and “social institution” before we look at specific examples of charisma in sports. Social institutions are structures and/or systems of behavioral and relationship patterns that are interwoven and enduring aspects of society that fulfill societal needs; they are essential complex social entities based on a set of organized beliefs and rules. Jonathan Turner (1997, 6) describes a social institution as “a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organizing relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing lifesustaining viable societal structures within a given environment.” Supporting these ideas, Anthony Giddens (1984, 24) states that “[i]nstitutions by definition are the more enduring features of social life.” As for the concept of “sports” itself, we have yet another term whose meaning most people assume that they know. But what exactly is sports? Nearly everyone would agree that baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, running, swimming, tennis, and track and field are clear examples of sports. However, in more localized parts of the world, activities such as anvil shooting, buzkashi, cup stacking, dodgeball, elephant and zebra racing, and kite fighting are labeled as sports. While there is ambiguity as to what activities constitute sports, the word “sports” itself 420

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has its origins rooted in the idea that it is an activity designed to divert people from the routines of everyday life. According to Harry Edwards: Sport derives its root from ‘disport,’ meaning ‘to divert oneself.’ It carried the original implications of people diverting their attention from the rigors and pressures of daily life by participating in the mirth and whimsy of frolic – some physical activity. (Edwards, 1973, 55) Edwards, the creator of the field of sports sociology, insists that “[o]ne of the most salient features of sports is that they always involve physical exertion” (1973, 55). Gunther Luschen (1967, 1970) defines sports as an institutionalized type of competitive physical activity located on a continuum between play and world. He felt that it was particularly important to emphasize the fact that sports is a physical activity which would therefore automatically eliminate such activities as playing cards as being considered sports – an important point to make as there are some members of contemporary society that would have us believe that playing poker is a sport. Delaney and Madigan (2015, 13) define sports as “institutionalized, structured, and sanctioned competitive activities that go beyond the realm of play that involve physical exertion and the use of relatively complex athletic skills.” Another important aspect to the study of sports is the idea shared by many sports ­sociologists – that sports serves as a microcosm of society. The notion that sports can be viewed as a microcosm of society is the result of the realization that they reflect, or mirror, the cultural ideology of a specific society and culture. The sports culture, like society itself, consists of mores (morals), values, and general norms which govern behavior. Let’s recall the earlier description of charisma and the idea that it consists of a number of related characteristics, including allure, appeal, captivation, fascination, and personal magnetism. The charismatic person is someone who has developed a number of traits deemed desirable by members of a particular society. However, a person described as charismatic for their actions on the playing field in one culture may, in fact, be deemed as arrogant, cocky, and self-absorbed in another culture. Even within a given culture, some people may find an athlete as charismatic and one who draws a huge fan base of followers while also turning off others who find certain deeds as conceited, egotistical, offensive, or snobbish. In other words, what one person may find as charming, another may find as repellent. The idea of sports as a microcosm of society comes into play here, as we can see how sports figures, like public (or private) figures from other spheres of life, may come to be considered as charismatic by many people in a given society because they admire the individual’s personality traits. Other people in that same society, however, may find those same traits off-putting.

Measurements of charisma in sports Up to this point, the concepts of “charisma” and “sports” have been briefly explored and explained. This leaves us with the specific task of describing charisma in sports. To that end, a number of charismatic athletes will be identified, and then we will apply four specific measurements that should help us understand the role of charisma in sports.

Charismatic athletes Athletes generally represent the “face” of any sporting endeavor, and they are the sportspersons who garner the most public attention. Charismatic athletes are the ones who will most likely 421

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enjoy the many social benefits of their magnetism, including adulation, fame, fascination, and fortune. If we include athletes from the past, and not just the present, a number of charismatic sportspersons immediately come to mind, including (in no particular order): Jim Thorpe; Babe Ruth; Paavo Nurmi; Jesse Owens; Rocky Marciano; Chi Rodriquez; “Sugar” Ray Leonard; Joe Lewis; Gordie Howe; Mark Spitz; Michael Phelps; Pele; Lance Armstrong; Dale Earnhardt, Sr.; Michael Jordan; Alexander Ovechkin; Usain Bolt; David Beckham; George Foreman; Shaquille O’Neal; Kareem Abdul Jabbar; Mike Tyson; Jim Brown; Mickey Mantle; Wilt Chamberlain; Maria Sharapova; Serena Williams; Martina Navratilova; Diego Maradona; John McEnroe; Joe Namath; Satchel Paige; Jackie Robinson; Earvin “Magic” Johnson; Muhammad Ali; Wayne Gretsky (the “Great One”); Cristiano Ronaldo; Kobe Bryant; Kelly Slater; Sachin Tendulkar; Tiger Woods; LeBron James; Lionel Messi; Stephen Curry; and Neymar. All of these athletes made significant impact on their respective sports and the sportsworld. Coming up with a (non-exhaustive) sample list of charismatic athletes is a relatively simple task. However, what is slightly more complicated is identifying the reasons why an athlete (such as those mentioned previously) can be described as charismatic. To address this issue, the following four measurements of charisma will be utilized: power and influence; endorsement deals; popularity in social media; and fame. We will also see how these elements of charisma are applicable to the contemporary athletes identified here.

1.  Power and influence Social thinkers have discussed the concepts of “power” and “influence” for centuries. Max Weber linked these two concepts to charisma in the early 20th century. For Weber (1978), power refers to the probability that certain actors within a given relationship, or within society, have the ability to carry out their will over others because of their privileged position. Contrasting power with authority, Weber believed that power is tied to the personality of individuals, whereas authority is always associated with social positions. For example, in a sports franchise, the owner and coaches have authority, but many star players have power because of their charismatic personality. Not only can charismatic players influence sports fans and the general populace, but they have demonstrated their ability to get their head coaches fired when they do not share the same vision for the team and there is conflict between the player and the coach. In the National Basketball Association (NBA), for example, Magic Johnson was able to get his coach Paul Westhead fired during the 1982–83 season; Penny Hardaway of the Orlando Magic influenced the firing of his coach Brian Hill during the 1997 season; Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets was able to get Byron Scott fired during the 2003–04 NBA season; Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz did not like Jerry Sloan’s play-calling style, and his constant complaints led to the Hall of Fame coach resigning during the 2011 mid-season; and in 2012, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic was able to get his coach, Stan Van Gundy, fired. These are just a few examples, and from just one sport, of charismatic players exercising their power over people with authority because of their charisma. The conflict between players and head coaches serves as a transition to the validity of sociology’s conflict theory. This theoretical perspective argues that there is a clear power differential among individuals and social classes and this conflict in interest leads to resentment and hostility. The role of power is the centerpiece of the conflict perspective, as conflict theorists put forth the notion that power is the core of all social relationships. Conflict theorists believe that society is composed of competing elements (interests groups, such as players and coaches) that fight over scarce resources (e.g., wealth, power, and prestige) and that power differentials ultimately determine the allocation and distribution of these scarce resources (Delaney, 2014, 218). While 422

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players do not have the authority to fire head coaches, their power can influence the franchise owners who do control the scarce resources and thus, the definitive power. Not all players, of course, have enough power to influence team owners to fire a coach; in fact, most players do not have such power. The truly gifted players, the ones with charisma, however, may possess enough power to influence favorable decisions. Power is clearly associated with influence, as someone with power is in an advantageous position to affect, change, compel, and impact the behavior of others. Conflict theorist Lewis Coser (1913–2003) described the relationship between power and influence by defining power as “the chance to influence the behavior of others in accord with one’s own wishes” (Coser, 1956, 134). The role of power is so strong in its ability to influence others that Randall Collins believed that power has the ability to “affect, or even control, an individual’s subjective experience” (Ritzer, 2000, 130). Collins (1975), as with all social conflict theorists, makes a distinction between power and coercion, with coercion referring to the ability to “force” others to behave in a certain way rather than to influence someone to behave in a certain way. As it has been established that power and influence are important aspects of charisma, let’s identify some powerful and influential athletes. Writing for Bleacher Report, Matt Haupert (2014) describes how professional sports are driven by superstars and states, “Without marketable, charismatic superstars, sports wouldn’t have heroes. They wouldn’t provide role models for little kids. They wouldn’t have storylines that fans could relation to.” Some star athletes are so talented and charismatic that they transcend their teams; they become more important than coaches, teammates, and the sport the athlete plays, according to Haupert (2014). Haupert identifies a “Top Ten” list of the most powerful athletes: 10 Usain Bolt – Jamaican-born Bolt is the face of track and field, and his shattering of world records combined with his magnetic charisma has led to this star athlete’s ranking as a topten powerful athlete.   9 Cristiano Ronaldo – As we shall see later, Ronaldo (born in Madeira, Portugal) is a social media star who attracts the most followers; add to this his athletic soccer abilities, high salary, and endorsements and it is easy to see why he is a powerful athlete. However, make no mistake about it; he does not transcend the sport of soccer.   8 Sidney Crosby – This National Hockey League (NHL) star player from Canada is the heir apparent of Wayne Gretsky (considered among, if the not the, best hockey players of all time), and while he has not completely dominated the NHL, Sid “The Kid” Crosby has enjoyed great success both in the NHL and in representing his home country in international competitions. His power was evident in support of the NHL Players Association contract negotiations with League officials in collective bargaining. As Haupert (2014) states, “The NHL needs Crosby more than Crosby needs the NHL, so when he speaks, the league has no choice but to sit down and listen.” While no longer a “kid” Crosby remains a star player, having won the 2019 NHL All-Star game Most Valuable Player award.   7 Kobe Bryant – Playing his entire career with the iconic Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe was considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time (some people argue that he was the greatest player ever). Bryant died early in 2020 in a plane crash, but he still has an impact on the National Basketball Association (NBA) as many players attest to aspiring to being as great as he was. This Philadelphia-born athlete was considered not only one of the most powerful players in the NBA; he was, for years, the most powerful athlete in Los Angeles, a city full of dominant sportspersons. No one ever questions the personal magnetism of this charismatic athlete. 423

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 6 Peyton Manning  – This New Orleans native is the son of a famous National Football League (NFL) football player and brother of another NFL star quarterback. While he certainly is not the greatest NFL player of all time, according to Haupert: “Manning singlehandedly turned the entire city of Indianapolis into a legendary football town. He didn’t just run the Indianapolis Colts – he ran the whole city” (Haupert, 2014). Perhaps a truer testament to the charisma of Manning is his extreme popularity in very entertaining commercials and his much acclaimed hosting duties of a March, 2007, Saturday Night Live episode that included classic sketches still discussed today.  5 David Beckham  – London-born Beckham was a soccer phenomenon since childhood and was a star player for Manchester United, the legendary English soccer team (he would play for other teams as well). This highly talented and admired athlete exudes charisma. His role as an English UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador helped London in its successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. His marriage to Victoria Caroline Adams, known as “Posh Spice” of the English pop girl group The Spice Girls, formed in 1994, kept Beckham in the English tabloids and foreign press, which further added to his name appeal and charismatic popularity.  4 Floyd Mayweather  – The world of boxing, lacking in the popularity it once enjoyed, would be virtually nonexistent if not for this American boxer. He won championships across five weight divisions and an Olympic bronze medal before turning professional in 1996. Mayweather fights on pay-per-view events that have generated him much attention and hundreds of millions of dollars in income. He keeps himself in the public eye by attending many top athletic events and is admired by athletes across many sports.   3 Derek Jeter – This American-born athlete was a longtime star player for the world-famous New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). His 20-year career, all with the Yankees, left a permanent imprint on the baseball-sporting world. Although he is recently retired, Jeter is known and admired by athletes and sports fans across the globe. He was single throughout his playing days and was romantically linked to several high-profile women (i.e., Mariah Carey. Minka Kelly, Jessica Biel, and Scarlett Johansson), a testament to his charisma and power. In 2016, he married a former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model named Hannah Davis. He appears in many commercials which helps to keep him in the public eye. He is presently a part of an ownership group of the Miami Marlins MLB franchise.   2 Tiger Woods – It is not a coincidence that many of the most powerful athletes listed here are also known as the “face” of their respective sports, and this is certainly the case with American golfer Tiger Woods. For years, Tiger was seemingly unbeatable on the links, and although his prowess is not what it once was as a result of many injuries, the evidence of his continued power is the ratings boost of any golf tournament that he participates in. Many golf fans do not even tune in to a golf tournament if Woods is not playing.   1 LeBron James  – This Akron, OH, native NBA player is considered the world’s greatest active basketball player and is often compared to Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan as the greatest of all-time. James is one of the world’s most popular athletes, and sales of merchandise bearing his name results in a fortune. He has won NBA titles with the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers, and he hopes to win one with his current team, the Los Angeles Lakers. He is an often-outspoken critic of contemporary racial social injustices, which endears him to many but alienates others. He is involved in movies and television production, and his magnetic charisma will surely keep him in the forefront of powerful athletes. Undoubtedly, there are athletes that could have, or should have, also appeared on a list of most powerful athletes; however, we would need a Top 100 List to please everyone, and even then, 424

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there would be those who would suggest that other specific athletes should be included in a list of the most powerful athletes. But that is not the important issue here; the most relevant point of a review of such a list of top powerful athletes is to connect the role of charisma to power. The ability to influence others is another aspect of charisma. Influence can be defined as the capacity to change or affect the character, development, or behavior of someone or something (e.g., a person’s opinion about something) without directly forcing such a change to occur. In sports, there are many influential people other than the athletes themselves. Influential sportspersons include the following categories: 1

The Owners of Sports Franchises – It is generally implied that the owners of major sports franchises are very wealthy, and while many owners like to take a back seat to the day-today operations of running a team, other owners enjoy the influence they have over others by making themselves public figures. In the United States, for example, billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, is an outspoken advocate for certain civil rights, a political commentator (and possible future presidential candidate), and a television personality on Shark Tank. Jerry Jones, the owner of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, is another outspoken owner who loves to remain in the public eye, and his influence on the NFL is undeniable. The power and influence of Jones is easily understood when one realizes that his Cowboys franchise is rated the most valuable sports team in the world (for the third consecutive year), valued at $4.8 billion in 2018 (Forbes, 2018). The owners of the next four highest valued franchises – Manchester United ($4.12b); Real Madrid ($4.09b); Barcelona FC ($4.06) billion; and the New York Yankees ($4b) – are also very powerful and influential (Forbes, 2018). 2 Sports Coaches – Many sports franchises, especially the successful ones, have enjoyed the benefits of brilliant coaches on the sidelines, Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United (from 1986 to 2013) is one such example. In the United States, where college sports are often as popular as professional sports, many university coaches enjoy a great deal of power and influence on their campuses as well as within the community. There are far too many influential coaches globally to try to identify them here. 3 League Commissioners  – When one person essentially runs an entire league of sports franchises whose total value exceeds billions of dollars, you have a powerful and influential league commissioner. David Stern, for example, took over a struggling NBA in 1984 and transformed American professional basketball into a worldwide phenomenon. It was his charismatic leadership (1984–2014) that helped to transform this sports league. A  controversial commissioner, Roger Goodell, has led the NFL since 2006; football is by far the most popular sport in the United States. However, the influence wielded by Goodell has not only led to rule changes designed to keep players safer; it has also helped make American football a global commodity. Certainly the league commissioners of the leading international soccer and cricket leagues would also qualify as powerful and influential. 4 Sports Television – One of the contributing factors to the rise in the astronomical financial realities of sports is media, especially television and streaming. Major sports television chairmen and executive producers exercise a great deal of power because of the money they can throw at professional and collegiate sports leagues. 5 Sportswear Designers – Athletes at all levels of competition generally wear specific clothing and shoes which in turns leads to sports fans purchasing the same sportswear. For example, when athletes like Stephen Curry, Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Michael Jordan design new shoes, their charisma has great influence in the decision-making behaviors of mass consumers. Perhaps the single most recognizable sports logo in the world, however, is the Nike “Swoosh.” Created by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, the Nike “Swoosh” is 425

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ubiquitous. Knight, an alumnus of the University of Oregon, has great influence at his alma mater and has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Eugene campus and especially into the development of one of the most elaborate sporting facilities in the world. Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank is another charismatic sportswear entrepreneur. Sports Agents – The world is populated by many who wish to make money from the labor of others and who seek a share of the trillions of dollars that are part of the world of sports; this is not a reference to the sports owners but to the sports agents who represent professional athletes. It is the job of sports agents to negotiate with ownership for the best deals possible for their athletic clients. Because of this, sports agents have a great deal of influence, and not surprisingly, the most successful agents have a great deal of charisma. Scott Boras, for example, is one such sports agent who has the ability to “call the shots” with both players and teams, and he represents some of the biggest and richest athletes in sports (Dimengo, 2013). Drew Rosenhaus is another powerful sports agent in the United States. Constantin Dumitrascu of Germany and Jorge Mendes of Portugal are considered powerful sports agents in European soccer (Belzer, 2017). Peripheral Sportspersons – There are people not directly involved in sports who also have great influence, and this includes Jason Robins, the founder of DraftKings, a daily fantasy sports website and mobile app. People have always enjoyed gambling on sporting events, but historically, most of it has been illegal. In the United States, the influence of people like Jason Robins has led to the change in many laws to allow legal off-site betting. One of the most popular growing forms of sports gambling is on fantasy sports and Robins knew enough to gamble on his start-up idea.

2. Endorsements Because charismatic athletes have acquired personality traits and the ability to attract and influence others, they also tend to receive the biggest product endorsement deals. The exposure from endorsement commercials and advertisements further enhances the popular loyalty and emotional devotion of the fans of charismatic athletes. In his research of team sponsors in cycling, Verner Moller (2017: 52) found that “athletes maintain their appeal and marketing value so long as their performances transcend the capabilities of ordinary people.” As a result of these realities, leading the list of product endorsement deals is often an indicator of an athlete’s charisma. Sports Illustrated (2018) compiled a list of the top athletes by endorsement income (USD) for 2018: Roger Federer, $65 million (primary sponsor, Nike, Uniqlo); LeBron James, $52m (Nike); Cristiano Ronaldo, $47m (Nike); Stephen Curry, $42m (Under Armour); Tiger Woods, $42m (Nike); Phil Mickelson, $37m (Titleist); Rory McIroy, $34m (Nike); Kei Nishikori, $33m (Uniqlo); Kevin Durant, $32m (Nike); and, Usain Bolt (Puma) and Jordan Spieth (Under Armour), $30m. It is a special testament to an athlete’s charisma when they earn even more money from endorsements than their sports careers. This list includes some of the athletes mentioned earlier, but a more significant example of allure and attractiveness helping someone gain a lucrative endorsement deal is Maria Sharapova, who earned $21.9m in endorsements in 2016 but just approximately $2m playing tennis (Forbes, 2016).

3.  Social media Social media refers to forms of electronic communications such as popular networking websites, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, which allow individuals the ability to engage in conversations with one another. Among the uses of social media is the opportunity for popular people 426

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to establish, maintain, and increase the popular devotion and loyalty of fan bases. Having a large fan base is most assuredly a sign of charisma, as this demonstrates that followers want to know more about the personal lives of the athletes they emulate. The top ten athletes in total followers of the three major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) in 2019 are Cristiano Ronaldo (399.6  million followers); Neymar (236m); Lionel Messi (230.1m); LeBron James (121.8m); Virat Kohli (117m); David Beckham (112m); Ronaldinho (103.8m); James Rodriguez (5.3m); Gareth Bale (89.2m); and Andres Iniesta (83.8m) (Weber, 2020). Top athletes have recognized for years now that social media is a means of controlling the flow of information that they wish to share with their followers in an attempt to maintain the enthusiasm and emotional devotion of their fans.

4. Fame Fame refers to the state of being known or talked about by many people and is clearly an aspect of charisma. In sports, fame is measured by a “search score” (how frequently a player’s name is typed into a search engine on the internet); endorsements (the amount of money an athlete generates based on their brand value); and social media followers (how many millions of followers does an athlete have on his or her biggest social media channel) (Dawson, 2018). Not surprisingly, many of the same athletes already identified appear on this list too and the “Search Score” leader is Cristiano Ronaldo, followed by LeBron James; Messi; Neymar; Federer; Tiger; Kevin Durant; Rafael Nadal; Stephen Curry; Phil Mickelson; Virate Kohli; and Serena Williams rounding out the top 12 (Dawson, 2018).

Parting thoughts When I was first asked to contribute to this volume on charisma I was hesitant for two reasons. The first reason was purely a pragmatic one, as I had many other projects in the works. However, as I pondered the topic of “charisma in sports” I became more intrigued and found that there is very little academic literature on the general topic of charisma and the specific subject of charisma in sports. This lack of literature in the field was the second reason to question whether to participate in such a volume. However, as a person who loves to do research and who possesses a specialty in sports I had to accept! I suspect that this entire book on charisma contains many interpretations of its meaning and parameters (I have to suspect because, of course, I did not have access to the other articles in this volume), but I found that it was necessary for me to begin this chapter with my own research on the subject. I had to also assume that not all readers of this volume have a full understanding of the importance of sports in society; and thus, my brief description of this social institution. It was then decided that the best way to approach the topic of charisma in sports was to look at various people in the field of sport that are considered charismatic. Future research in the area of charisma in sports should examine a number of sociological areas of concern, including the potential influences of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age. A  comparative study of cultural differences on the traits deemed charismatic would allow for a global contrast. Research could also be conducted to examine the correlation between charisma and leadership and whether or not charisma can be transferred to power, influence, manipulation, and persuasion in the sports world. In addition, research could be conducted on charismatic athletes to determine whether they are more likely to serve as heroes 427

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and if so, which category of hero (e.g., the winner, skilled performers, social acceptability, group servant, risk taker, reluctant, and the anti-hero) is most applicable. While the approach to the study of charisma in sports put forth here seems logical to me, there are perhaps others who would have utilized other strategies. I  would encourage other interested scholars in the area of charisma in sports to follow through with their research ideas and share it with the rest of us. Regardless of the method one takes to study this topic, it is clear that charisma plays an important role in sports.

References Adair-Toteff, C. 2005. “Max Weber’s Charisma.” Journal of Classical Sociology, 5(2): 189–204. Belzer, J. 2017. “The World’s Most Powerful Sports Agents 2017.” Forbes, September 25. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2017/09/25/the-worlds-most-powerful-sportsagents-2017/#22cf33e21086 Collins, R. 1975. Conflict Theory. New York: Academic Press. Coser, L. 1956. The Functions of Social Conflict. New York: Free Press. Dawson, A. 2018. “The 18 Most Famous Athletes in the World in 2018.” Business Insider, May 24. Retrieved January 28, 2019, from www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-athletes-in-the-world-2018-5 Delaney, T. 2014. Classical and Contemporary Social Theory: Investigation and Application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Delaney, T. 2017. Social Deviance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Delaney, T. and T. Madigan. 2015. The Sociology of Sports: An Introduction, Second Edition. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Dimengo, N. 2013. “Ranking the 25 Most Influential People in Sports.” Bleacher Report, May  9. Retrieved January  26, 2019, from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1633493-ranking-the-25most-influential-people-in-sports#slide7. Edwards, H. 1973. Sociology of Sport. Homewood, IL: Dorsey. Forbes. 2016. “#88 Maria Sharapova.” Retrieved January  26, 2019, from www.forbes.com/profile/ maria-sharapova/#6fc73a5745d5. Forbes. 2018. “Forbes Releases 2018 List of the World’s Most Valuable Sports Teams.” Retrieved January 28, 2019, from www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2018/07/18/forbes-releases-2018-list-of-the-worldsmost-valuable-sports-teams/#1381f9fe75ff. Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Haupert, M. 2014. “Top 10 Most Powerful Athletes in Sports.” Bleacher Report, June 30. Retrieved January  25, 2019, from https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2112740-top-10-most-powerful-athletes-insports#slide0. Kratcoski, P. and L.D. Kratcoski. 1996. Juvenile Delinquency, Fourth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Luschen, G. 1967. “The Sociology of Sport: A Trend Report and Bibliography.” Current Sociology, 15(3): 5–140. Luschen, G. 1970. The Cross-Cultural Analysis of Sports and Games. Champaign, IL: Stipes. Moller, V. 2017. “Sport, Religion and Charisma.” Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 11(1): 52–62. New World Encyclopedia. 2017. “Gabriel Tarde.” Retrieved January 15, 2019, from www.newworldency clopedia.org/entry/Gabriel_Tarde. Peters, J. 2015. Charisma: How to Develop Personal Charisma and Leave That Lasting Impression on Everyone You Meet. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing. Ritzer, G. 2000. Modern Sociological Theory, Fifth Edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Sports Illustrated. 2018. “Ranking the Top 10 Athletes by Endorsement Income for 2018.” Retrieved January 26, from www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2018/ranking-top-10-athletes-endorsement-deals-income. Sutherland, E. 1939. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. Tarde, G. 1903 [1890]. The Laws of Imitation. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 428

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Turner, J. 1997. The Institutional Order. New York: Longman. Van Edwards, V. 2017. Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. New York: Portfolio, Penguin Books. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society, edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, S. 2020. “The Top 100 Athletes on Social Media: 2019.” Opendorse.com, January 28. Retrieved August 19, 2020 from https://opendorse.com/blog/the-top-100-athletes-on-social-media-2019/.

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Section VIII

Rising topics

36 The evolutionary foundations of charismatic leadership Ronald F. White

Charismatic leadership theory The origin of the term “charisma” can be traced back to the Ancient Greek term “charis,” which means “charm, beauty, or allurement” (Grabo, Spisak, and van Vugt 2017). Among the early leadership scholars, that aura of mysticism associated with charismatic leadership was gradually undermined by serious scholarly debate over which charismatic traits and/or skills are necessary and/or sufficient for leaders to attract and maintain followers in various organizational contexts. Those traits and skills tended to be associated with “tall, healthy male leaders.” Today, Evolutionary Leadership Theory (ELT) employs both biological and cultural evolution to explain charismatic leadership. Here, it is important to note that charismatic leadership has been largely demystified by behavioral psychology and that today the concept is rarely encountered outside of the historiography of leadership studies. Recent scholars now explore “charisma” under the rubric of the concept of “influence” (Sunstein 2014, 2016, 2017). In its initial form, CLT was one of ten competing theories of leadership (van Vugt 2011). CLT posits that the most positively influential leaders, such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi, attracted followers via a set of personal attributes called charisma. The early leadership theories focused on the extraordinary traits of male leaders who effectively elicited a positive, trusting emotive response among followers. Although the early charismatic scholars sought to identify timelessly universal traits and or skills, later scholars observed that charisma is also contextual and relative to specific cultures, times, and/or places. Thus, what might be interpreted as charismatic at any given place or time was often relative to group identity expressed by culturally specific variables, especially tribe, race, ethnicity, religion, or political party. This complexity, no doubt, contributed to the long-standing undercurrent of inexplicable mystery associated with charisma, which tended to discourage serious empirical analysis (Marturano and Arsenault 2008). It is important to acknowledge that charismatic influence has long been associated with traits and skills most often possessed by male leaders. Beginning in the 1960s, leadership theorists steeped in the social sciences proposed and defended a series of alternative “leadership theories,” including: trait theories, behavioral theories, cognitive theories, emotive theories, transactional theories, transformational theories, authenticity theories, and contextual theories (Sontag, Jenkins, and White 2011). Thus, those 433

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early leadership theories were idealistic, and therefore sought to empirically describe how “good leaders” (in fact) lead followers toward socially valued goals. There was little (if any) analysis of the behavior of “bad leaders” who pursued negative, socially disvalued consequences or leaders who were less than effective or efficient. Moreover, there is little if any analysis of followers, nor discussion of “good followers” or “bad followers.” Subsequent theories began to explore the various organizational contexts where leader-follower relationships take place. Scholars developing those theories argued that “values” differentiate between good/bad organizations, good/ bad leaders, good/bad followers, and good/bad leader-follower relationships. Most recently, leadership scholars have sought to develop a “general theory of leadership” that might unify the aforementioned theories, facts, and values associated with both good and bad leadership and/ or followership (Goethals and Sorenson 2006). That’s where Evolutionary Leadership Theory (ELT) comes in. This chapter explores how and why charismatic leadership among humans changed over time and how and why charismatic political leaders, today, attract, maintain, and/or lose followers. ELT proposes that biological and cultural evolution, together, explain human leadership, including charismatic leadership (van Vugt 2006, 2012). Therefore, charismatic leaders and their followers are both “born” and “made.” And why both biological and cultural evolution are necessary components of any complete explanation of charismatic leader-follower relationships. Although charismatic leadership is embedded in human nature, throughout most of human history charisma alone has never been sufficient for maintaining leadership. Leaders have always had to effectively lead followers toward the fulfillment of organizational goals, ends, or purposes that followers value. Critics of contemporary leadership observe that today we are suffering from a dearth of effective/efficient organizational leadership. If this observation is true, then how might ELT explain this phenomenon and perhaps contribute to the emergence of more effective and efficient political leaders and organizations? This chapter builds upon three bodies of theoretical knowledge that elucidate the nature of charisma: Organizational Theory, Political Theory, and Evolutionary Theory. First, humans, naturally, organize themselves into groups based on leadership and followership. The myriad organizations that we spawn serve a wide variety of human ends or purposes in many different contexts. Our participation in organizational activities is highly variable, as we all tend to cooperate with many organizations to variable degrees. We participate and/or withdraw from organizations in order to advance our personal and/or collective interests and avoid or remove harms. Some organizations pursue morally praiseworthy goals, with greater or lesser degrees of effectiveness (and efficiency), while other organizations pursue blameworthy goals with greater or lesser effectiveness and efficiency. Some organizations are more effective at bringing about intended organizational ends or purposes, and among those effective organizations, some are more efficient than others. Unfortunately, some of the most effective and efficient political leaders in human history, such as Adolf Hitler (Toland 1976), were very effective and efficient at maintaining followers and bringing about morally repugnant goals via malevolent organizations. Today, organizational leadership scholars agree that any complete theory of organizational leadership must explain both good and bad organizations, good and bad leaders, and good and bad followers. Second, since the time of Plato and Aristotle, political philosophers have distinguished between authoritarian and democratic political organizations. Within authoritarian regimes, leaders rule followers by coercive force, while democratic regimes rule by consent of the followers. Democratic Political Theories, therefore, explain, predict, and control democratic institutions. Much of it devoted to identifying contextual variables such as who can legally vote, how voting 434

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is conducted, where are the polling places, when is voting conducted, who shows up at the polling place, who transports ballots, and who counts the ballots. Within diverse democratic regimes, identity-based voting patterns have also become increasingly relevant, especially patterns based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality. Third, this chapter will focus primarily on the Biological and Cultural Evolution of charisma in the context of “political organizations” and the role that effectiveness and efficiency historically played in limiting the initial power of charisma. It will, however, occasionally refer to other contexts, such as: military, religious, and business organizations. By way of conclusion, this chapter will suggest that recent changes in Information Technology have had a profound influence on the survival of charismatic political leaders, especially within democratic regimes.

Biological and cultural evolution In the late 19th century, Darwin theorized that all living species survive by adapting to everchanging environmental conditions. Darwin identified three interacting mechanisms: replication, chance variation, and natural selection. All living things replicate themselves via biological reproduction. Reproduction takes place within and between closely related species, and therefore, organisms within the same species (and/or closely related species), share common traits. By sheer chance (as Darwin put it), the process of replication also generates variation among those traits, individuals, and species. As biological environments change over time, some “chance variations” become advantageous to the individuals and species that inherit those traits. Hence, those advantaged life forms (individuals, species, and ecosystems) are more likely to survive long enough to pass those genes onto the next generation; and consequently, those descendants, also tend to survive. Conversely, other variations turn out to be a liability and ultimately contribute to the extinction of the life forms that inherit them. Darwin discovered the mechanism responsible for selecting winners and losers within various environments. He called it Natural Selection. Some living systems and the environments in which they survive remain stable for long periods of time only to be interrupted by revolutionary change wrought by variation and selection. Microcosmic organisms (especially bacteria and viruses) tend to evolve at a fast pace, while macrocosmic organisms (especially animals and humans) evolve at a slow pace. Evolutionary changes are “adaptive” and increase the ultimate survivability of those life forms (genes, individual organisms, species, and ecosystems). But other variations are “devolutionary,” because those changes contribute to the long-term extinction of those life forms. Post-Darwinian scholars later observed that the history of human culture, including beliefs, skills, and technologies, can also be theoretically explained in terms of replication, variation, and selection, and therefore that the history of human cultures and subcultures can be similarly explained in terms of “survival of the fittest ” (Wilson). Fast-paced cultural revolutions can beget systemic changes that effect the survivability of entire cultures and subcultures, including their collective beliefs, skills, and technologies. During the 20th century, evolutionary epistemologists debated whether various human cultures and/or subcultures objectively exhibit stability, progress, or regression and questioned the degree to which biology shapes culture and/or culture shapes biology. This debate has only accelerated in the 21st century. In The 10,000 Year Explosion (2009), for example, anthropologists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending argued that the forces of evolution are noticeably shaping humankind and that genetic advantages and natural selection still thrive. Given that the traits that comprise the human species tend to evolve very slowly, and our cultural systems evolve much faster, bio-cultural mismatches are inevitable. Some mismatches 435

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are evolutionary, progressive, and life-enhancing; some are devolutionary, regressive, and lifethreatening, and some mismatches are inconsequential. Some mismatches are progressive or regressive over the short run and some are progressive or regressive over the long run. The impact of bio-cultural mismatches is usually easier to predict over the short run than over the long run.

Evolutionary leadership theory How does ELT explain charismatic political leadership? The first step is to distinguish between proximate and ultimate explanations (White 2017). Proximate Explanations explain who, how, where, and when leaders lead. Ultimate Explanations explain why those leaders lead. For many centuries, the ultimate explanation for all human behavior was based on the Doctrine of Special Creation, whereby God created the world, and then plants and animals. The human species was regarded “special” in that God created us in “His own image,” and selected certain men to lead organizations. Beginning in the late 19th century, ultimate explanations based on Divine Command Theory were supplanted by Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. Of course, defenders of biblical authority objected to the fact that Darwin attributed variation to chance, rather than God’s will, and Darwin’s insistence that the borderlines between various species are malleable. Like all biological traits, patterns of leadership and followership among various species are the products of biological evolution. Scientists who embrace ELT observe that that there is both continuity and variation within and between the various species of social animals; especially between humans and our closest primate relatives: chimpanzees and bonobos (De Waal 2005). Among political scientists, this observation spawned a debate between defenders of the “good-natured hypothesis” (Corning 2011, 2018) and the “bad-natured hypothesis” (Somit and Peterson 1997; Wrangham and Peterson 1996). The good-natured hypothesis views human nature as mostly nonviolent and peaceful. The bad-natured hypothesis sees human nature violent and warlike. In terms of political psychology, chimpanzee societies are male-dominant, hierarchical, and authoritarian. Leadership is often sustained via violence and/or threats of violence (Wrangham and Peterson 1996). In contrast, female-led bonobo societies tend to be non-hierarchical, democratic, and peaceful. Although, human beings exhibit both chimpanzee and bonobo political behaviors, scholars disagree over whether our genes naturally predispose us more toward authoritarianism or egalitarian democracy. State-of-the-art genetic testing indicates that present-day humans are slightly more closely related to bonobos than chimpanzees and that authoritarian leadership, exercised by physically dominant alpha males is primarily the product of cultural evolution. So how, when, and why did cultural evolution bring about and sustain male-dominated authoritarianism? Again, proponents of ELT rarely use the term “charisma” but instead seek to identify the specific traits and/or skills that successful political leaders must possess and/or acquire. ELT acknowledges the fact that at all times and all places the vast majority of political leaders have been “tall, fit, male leaders” (van Vugt 2011). That simple observation raises a host of age-old questions. Is charisma primarily comprised of traits and/or skills? Why are those traits and/or skills seemingly possessed mostly by males? If charisma is overwhelmingly a biological trait, then someday, might future charismatic leaders be identified at birth via a DNA test or a brain scan. Or perhaps the physical components of charisma might someday be manufactured via surgical techniques. If charisma is purely a matter of acquiring a skill set, then can any aspiring leader acquire those skills and thereby attract and maintain followers? If so, what precisely are those 436

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skills, how are those skills best taught and/or acquired? Have those essential leadership skills changed over time? ELT observes that the human brain has evolved very slowly and that it is still nearly identical to that of our Stone Age progenitors. Hunters and Gatherers survived (if not thrived) for 3.5 million years wandering the savannas of Africa in groups of 100–150 individuals (Giphart and van Vugt 2018). Throughout the Pleistocene Era, there was no single leader perched on the top of an authoritarian hierarchy. Leaders were contextually chosen on the basis of merit; that is, those who obviously possessed the specific traits and skills necessary for group survival. In short, the most effective/efficient hunter(s) led hunting expeditions, the most effective/efficient gatherer(s) led the gathering process, the most effective/efficient warrior(s) led the group in warfare, and the most effective/efficient navigators led migration. Those traits and skills were rarely (if ever) possessed by the same person. There were no elections. The most effective and efficient hunters, warriors, and navigators tended to be “tall, fit, males” (van Vugt and Ahuja 2011), even if shamans, for example, displayed charisma but were often physically unattractive. But among hunter and gatherers, possession of those traits was never enough to sustain leadership. Based on observational consensus, ineffective and/or inefficient leaders were readily detected by followers and replaced by leaders that were more effective/ efficient. Thus, for over 3.5 million years, effectiveness and efficiency trumped initial charisma. Why? Because, over the long run, communities that protected charismatic, but ineffective and/ or inefficient leaders, suffered extinction; via either starvation, or by being conquered by other groups with more effective and efficient leaders. The question of how often Pleistocene hunter-gatherers changed leaders is still open to scholarly debate (Buckner 2017). The vast majority of hunter-gatherer societies are now extinct and the accuracy of anthropological studies of those few remaining hunter-gather societies has been called into question. Nevertheless, over the course of 3.5 million years, it is probably safe to assume that while the human population remained rather sparse, and when food was plentiful, most hunter-gathers groups rarely encountered out-groups. When they did . . . those groups looked a lot like themselves and were mostly friendly. If either group felt threatened, group leaders probably chose to move to another location rather than risk a lethal confrontation. At least some groups of early Homo sapiens emerged out of Africa, and therefore, for millions of years, those humans looked and acted alike. However, over millions of years, human population groups began to migrate into different environments and physically adapt to those environments, and developed different physical attributes such as skin color. Henceforth, charismatic political leadership became linked to “group identity,” which is comprised of a host of contextual physical attributes, which were later associated with gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and socioeconomic class. Worldwide there is still strong propensity for various immigrant groups to live together based on group identity. In democracies, there is still a strong propensity for voters to elect leaders based on gender, race, ethnicity, and/or nationality. After the Agricultural Revolution (AR), those essential leadership contexts (migration, hunting, warfare, and gathering) were replaced by the emergence of a host of new opportunities for leadership. Those emerging contexts were spawned by fast-paced, cultural evolution initially associated with animal husbandry and agriculture. As the size of human communities grew, and food production was collectivized, communities became increasingly reliant upon technical knowledge and skills. As the size and population of stationary communities increased, food was stockpiled, which created opportunities for invasion by outside groups. This motivation contributed to the cultural evolution of both offensive and defensive military leadership and rapidly evolving military technologies. Thus, over the last 12,000 years or so human politics evolved (or devolved) from informal democratic meritocracies to into formal authoritarian regimes. At first 437

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these Post-AR communities were led by military authorities, later by religious authorities, and eventually by business authorities. Modern humans are still charismatically attracted to those tall, fit, male leaders. While human biology evolved slowly over millions of years, human culture has been shaped by fast-paced, revolutionary change. Information technology has expanded and accelerated the growing mismatch between charismatic political leaders and the sustainability of political organizations. Aspiring charismatic leaders who were able to adapt to this rapidly changing cultural environment survived, while those who could not evolve, suffered extinction. For at least 3.5 million years, charisma was a reliable indicator of effective/efficient political leadership. Throughout the Pleistocene Era the primary leadership opportunities were associated with hunting and gathering. For those small groups of hunter-gatherer societies, charismatic leaders tended to be tall, strong, healthy males who tended to be the most effective and efficient hunters, warriors, and migratory leaders. Thus, for millions of years, charismatic leadership; as signified by tall, strong, healthy males contributed to the survival of the human species. However, subsequent to the AR, tall, fit males no longer signaled effective/efficient leadership. As the size and population of post-AR communities increased, other skills, including oratory prowess, became increasingly important components of charismatic leadership. Henceforth, tall, fit, articulate males monopolized political leadership. Revolutions in information technology, transportation technology, and weapon technology accelerated that process. Ironically, although large-scale leaders today have become increasingly ineffective and inefficient, marketing technology has become increasingly effective and efficient. Thus, it has become increasingly difficult to determine exactly what large-scale, charismatic leaders do and whether their stated goals have been effectively and efficiently achieved. Since the dawning of the AR 12,000 years ago, political organizations have been increasingly dominated by charismatic male leaders. Even today, large-scale military, religious, business, and political organizations are still led by those “tall, fit males.” Charismatic leaders today not only look the part but also claim to possess technical knowledge that followers and the community at large value. Military leaders claim to know how to effectively/efficiently win wars. Religious leaders claim to know how to effectively/efficiently please God. Business leaders claim to know how to effectively/efficiently earn a profit. And political leaders claim to know how to effectively/efficiently govern.

Charisma and distress Today, given the rapid pace of cultural evolution as compared to the slow pace of biological evolution, there is a rapidly growing “mismatch” between our natural propensity for democratic, merit-based leadership and our more recently acquired cultural attraction to leaders who promise to save us from an endless stream of emergencies, both real and imagined. Max Weber observed that followers are most vulnerable to the lure of charismatic leaders when they find themselves in “moments of distress” (Weber 1978). Fear often increases followers’ willingness to follow charismatic leaders who promise to alleviate those fears. However, given the fact that it is often much easier to “promise” to alleviate distress than it is to fulfill that promise, we should not be surprised to learn that many (if not most) charismatic leaders fail to alleviate the various forms of distress that followers experience. Therefore, throughout most of human history, ineffective/inefficient political leaders have lost followers via political revolutions. 438

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In democratic political regimes, charisma still serves as a necessary initial condition for acquiring political leadership. The hallmark of modern leadership has been the cultural evolution of a set of skills that now enable charismatic leaders to create and/or manufacture “moments of distress” and the belief among followers that they alone can alleviate those real or imagined sources of distress. In the Middle Ages, Nicolo Machiavelli observed that charismatic leaders must possess human management skills, which include skills that enable them to manipulate the feelings and emotions of followers and skills that enable them to manipulate information. Thus, historically, the most enduring autocratic leaders have always been highly skilled at flaunting their effectiveness and/or disguising their ineffectiveness. Machiavelli also noted that charismatic leaders survive by effectively manipulating the fear of followers. According to him, “It’s better to be feared than loved” (Machiavelli 1532). In today’s large-scale modern democracies, charismatic leaders also manipulate information by arguing that their policies serve “the greater good” and that self-sacrifice by distressed followers is necessary, over the short term, in order to bring about the “greater good” over the long term. This strategy can often placate those who remain in distress, at least temporarily. Indeed, that’s how ineffective/inefficient charismatic leaders can maintain political power for a long time, even though objectively speaking they accomplish very little of substance. It is also worth noting that advancements in organizational psychology and behavioral economics have made political leaders and business leaders more effective and efficient at marketing themselves and their ideas. Behavioral scientists such as Cass R. Sunstein and others have decoded much of the brain science that underlies charismatic influence. They base their findings on two cognitive operations of the human brain. System 1 operations are “fast, automatic, and intuitive.” System 2 is slow, calculative, controlled, and deliberative” (Sunstein 2017). Unfortunately, as behavioral economics continues to advance, both “good leaders” and “bad leaders” will be able to more effectively and efficiently “nudge” followers (White 2018).

Gender, age, and charismatic politics Since the 1960s, there has been growing debate over the role that women “in fact” play in democratic politics and the role they “ought” to play. As noted earlier, since the Pleistocene Era, political behavior has been male-dominated. Today, aspiring female political leaders are rarely (if ever) described in charismatic terms. Even in modern democracies, it’s been only in very recent times that women have been legally empowered to vote, let alone run for political office. Today, when women do run for office, they often compete with charismatic men. This raises the obvious question of whether charisma is merely a remnant of post-AR sexism and whether biology, culture, or both have sustained male political dominance. Human survival has been shaped and reshaped by both natural selection and sexual selection. Both involve both competition and cooperation. Natural selection most often emphasizes competition/cooperation in the quest for food and protection. Sexual selection focuses on competition/cooperation in the area of reproduction. Early research reduced human reproduction to the “battle of the sexes” metaphor, which focused on dating, mating, and child rearing. For many years, scholars embraced the “standard narrative,” which argued that “men are cads and women are whores” (Ryan and Jethá 2010). That is to say: males promise to share their resources with the most beautiful females with “hourglass figures” in exchange for those resources, and in exchange, females promised to exchange exclusive sex for those resources. In short, human reproduction was reduced to competition between interested males, competition between willing females, and cooperation between the two in producing and raising children that survive 439

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long enough to reproduce. Of course, females were attracted to the most effective and efficient “breadwinners” and the males were attracted to females that were the most effective and efficient “child bearers” and “child nurturers.” Those early scientists also believed that monogamy is the natural strategy for bearing and caring for children. However, more recent ethnologists now agree that there are no monogamous primates and that hunter-gatherer societies were polygamous. Given the reality of multiple sexual partners, no one really knew who was their daddy. Children, they argued, survived thanks to groups of cooperative mommies and daddies. And of course, women were sexually attracted to those tall, fit male leaders who tended to be the most effective/efficient hunters, warriors, and navigators, even if social status – and the psychology likely to achieve status – was also determinant in women’s mating strategies (Buss and Schmitt 1993). In sum, for 3.5 million years, leadership was contextual. Although charismatic males that exhibited strength and health were often initially selected as contextual leaders, in the end sustained political leadership was contingent upon demonstrable contextualized effectiveness and efficiency. Hence, throughout most of human history, leadership was contextual based on demonstrated competence in hunting, warfare, and migration. And females were sexually attracted to these strong healthy males. This contextualized merit-based democratic political system worked for about 3.5 million years. However, a mere 12,000 years ago the Agricultural Revolution changed all that, as those small, itinerate communities began to live in stationary settlements which grew larger in terms of population and occupied territory. As these settlements grew, the need for more food led to the cultural evolution of ever-increasingly effective and efficient food production. Thus the cultural emergence of agriculture and husbandry, and the technical knowledge and skills required for the large-scale production of food, facilitated the creation of increasingly larger stationary settlements. This led directly to a meteoric increase in human occupational diversity and new opportunities for leadership. As food production in some communities became increasingly effective and efficient, so did the knowledge and skills associated with theft and lethal raiding by both insiders and outsiders. Thus, political leadership changed as our natural democratic instincts were undermined by the cultural emergence of self-defense mechanisms, especially police, military, religious, and business institutions. As men gravitated toward this growing number of employment and leadership opportunities, women were culturally restricted to home life and child care via both morality and legality. The question of the role that advanced age might play in recent instances of charismatic male leadership remains a puzzle, especially in light of advancements in human health and healthcare. To what degree are organizations predisposed to select “older, tall, fit, males?” During the Pleistocene Era, age was certainly a reliable indicator of accumulated experiential knowledge in both hunting and warfare, but also an indicator diminished physical fitness. Of course, today much depends on what we mean by “older,” especially in Western cultures where both males and females can expect to live into their eighties. Some older leaders possess knowledge from past generations but lack detailed knowledge of the most recently culturally evolved technologies, skills, and knowledge.

Information conveyance technology ELT acknowledges that throughout human history, charisma played at least an initial role in the empowerment of male political leaders. Throughout the Pleistocene Era, charismatic leadership was contextual and merit-based. “Tall, fit, male leaders” tended to be successful in the contexts of hunting, warfare, and migration and therefore were reproductively successful, as females were 440

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attracted to these males, and ultimately produced tall, fit male progeny. But in the realm of democratic politics, merit, in the form of effectiveness and efficiency, trumped that initial charisma. If it is true that we in the United States are now suffering from a contagion of bad political leadership, how and why did that come about? (Allison 2015) One likely explanation is that leadership and followership have been profoundly reshaped by the cultural evolution of information conveyance technology. The history of information conveyance includes both travel and communication technologies. Early travel technologies included the wheel, cart, saddles, etc. More recent transportation technologies include trains, automobiles, and airplanes, and recent communication technologies include telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. Throughout the Pleistocene era, information was communicated face-to-face via gestural language and later the spoken word. The earliest information technologies included writing on clay tablets and papyri. The most recent communication technologies are digital and computer related, including internet, e-mail, and social media. So how has the rise of digital technology affected charismatic leadership? Gregg Murray described that growing mismatch most succinctly. We now live “in a digital world with a stone age brain” (Murray 2019). The most profound consequence of the cultural evolution of information technology has increased opportunity for charismatic leaders to instantaneously display their charisma (real or manufactured) on a manifestly larger scale. Correspondingly, those “tall, fit males” also rapidly adapted to the digital environment by developing a new set of skills designed to initially attract and retain targeted classes of followers. However, as noted earlier, at least historically speaking, charismatic political leaders have always had to lead followers toward desired goals with an acceptable level of effectiveness and efficiency in order to communicate that information to followers. But the transmission of information has always been variably effective and efficient. And (of course) today’s information technologies can be deployed in order to transmit both Truth and Falsehood. But over time, followers, have become increasingly trusting of leaders, which, has also made followers more easily manipulated by those techno-savvy leaders. The most puzzling question for today’s democracies is whether followers can effectively and efficiently resist the initial lure of charismatic leaders, at least long enough to determine whether those leaders are (in fact) trustworthy and whether they are effectively/efficiently fulfilling their promises. Given the recent explosion of information, misinformation, and disinformation which is now easily transmitted into Western culture via new information technologies, it has become increasingly more difficult for Americans to decide whom to vote for. Recent research on voting behavior is a bit disappointing, as most members of the US Congress are still white males who get reelected year after year, regardless of whether they have (in fact) done anything effectively and efficiently that followers value. Thus, the next generation of political leadership scholars must be able to explain how and why political leaders manipulate followers via information technologies. There is also growing concern over the role that information technology plays in the promulgation of follower distress, especially via warfare. Since the AR, human communities have been engaged in various forms of warfare promulgated by those “tall, healthy male leaders.” In the United States we now have an endless stream of declared and undeclared wars, including “war on poverty,” the “war on drugs,” and the “war on terrorism.” The most important factor in this most recent militarization by large-scale political leadership has been the emergence of fast-paced, effective/efficient information technologies and the resulting re-emergence of charisma as both a necessary and (often) sufficient condition for political leadership. Also emerging are the skills necessary for organizational leaders to manipulate charisma to their own political advantage. Although post-AR charismatic political leaders have always employed warfare as a means of maintaining perpetual distress among followers, the hallmark of recent political 441

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leadership has been their ability to manufacture imaginary forms of “distress” and disguise their ineffectiveness and inefficiency at relieving those forms of distress. Thus large-scale charismatic political leaders today have become increasingly effective/efficient at manipulating follower distress (both real and imagined) via information technology.

Conclusion and future research This chapter has suggested that charismatic leaders have always been both “born and made.” During the Pleistocene Era charismatic leadership was irrevocably contextual; based on the observable possession of the traits and skills that were necessary group survival. Tall, fit males signaled effective/efficient leadership in the essential contexts of hunting, military activity, and migration. We are still naturally attracted to those “tall, healthy, older males,” even though those natural attributes no longer signal competent leadership, even if there seems to be a positive correlation between height and intelligence (Kanazawa and Reyniers 2009). Since the dawning of the Information Revolution, those “tall, healthy, older males” discovered that the ability to effectively communicate with followers has become an increasingly important skill that largescale leaders must acquire. We all hope that that with increasingly effective/efficient modes of communication technology we might someday acknowledge the fact that our natural leadership preferences and our present-day leadership needs are mismatched. Perhaps we will, someday, be able to transcend our natural preference for those “tall, healthy, articulate male leaders” and elect political leaders who are more likely to be effective and efficient, including more female leaders. But despite increasingly effective and efficient modes of information technology, today’s political leaders, military leaders, religious leaders, and business leaders are still overwhelmingly “tall, fit, articulate males.” Admittedly, charismatic, male-dominant organizational leadership contributed to the survival of the human species for 3.5 million years. However, since the dawning of the Agricultural Revolution other contexts and leadership opportunities have become essential to human survival, beginning with the knowledge and skills associated with horticulture and animal husbandry. Today, it is not clear to what degree cultural education can override our natural instinct for following those “tall, fit, articulate male leaders” and reverse the exclusion of less-attractive, less-articulate males and females. As females continue to prove themselves to be effective, efficient, articulate leaders in military, religious, business, and political contexts, there is hope. Finally, we must not underestimate the role that rapidly evolving mass media now plays in democratic politics. Some of the most important unresolved political issues of today arise from the fact that charisma can be readily manipulated via information conveyance technologies, especially via social media. Ineffective and inefficient political leaders can now hide their lack of effectiveness and efficiency behind a wall of misinformation and disinformation. Consequently, political leaders today expend an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources manipulating information in pursuit of would-be voters, campaign contributors, and campaign workers. Political skills now include the ability to look good and sound good in a 30-second media presentation or in a televised debate with 10–20 other candidates. Global media outlets dutifully encourage perpetual political campaigning, while even newly elected officials continue to pad their “war chests” and run for reelection. So how might we go about restoring the democratic ideals of organizational effectiveness and efficiency? Unfortunately, we can’t simply return to our hunter-gatherer roots. That genie is out of the bottle. As noted earlier, many leadership scholars now observe that there is a worldwide epidemic of ineffective, inefficient leadership. The apparent inability and/or unwillingness of our corporate media to expose ineffective, inefficient political leadership has serious implications for the future of global democracy. Until we 442

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as followers demand more out of our political leaders and the mass media, we can expect little change. Future research on Charismatic Leadership Theory1 will, no doubt, focus on Bio-Cultural Mismatch Theory and the question of whether the prevailing mismatch is evolutionary (progressive), devolutionary (regressive), or a stable phase of bio-cultural evolution. There is also the related  question of whether the long-term goal of bio-cultural evolution is for the  human species to merely survive or thrive. Future researchers, will continue to explore how technological evolution will affect the future of Charismatic Leadership; especially the rapidly evolving  media  technologies that  now  shape and reshape the  various bio-cultural environments that characterize human life today. And finally, there is the question of whether the future of Charismatic Leadership is already determined by past events, or whether we can still reshape it  for the betterment of human politics.

Note 1 On future research see also the special issue of the journal Leadership Quarterly dedicated to the theme of “The evolution and biology of leadership: A  new synthesis,” edited by Mark Van Vugt and Christopher R. von Rueden (2020). Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. leaqua.2020.101404

References Allison, John A. 2015. The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why the Future of Business Depends on the Return to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. New York: McGraw-Hill. Buckner, William. 2017. “Romanticizing the Hunter-Gatherer.” Quillette.com 12/16/17. Buss, David M. and Schmitt, David P. 1993. “Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating.” Psychological Review, 100 (2), 204–232. Corning, Peter. 2011. The Fair Society and the Pursuit of Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Corning, Peter. 2018. Synergist Selection: How Cooperation Has Shaped Evolution and the Rise of Humankind. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific Publishing. De Waal, Franz. 2005. Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. New York: Penguin Books. Giphart, Ronald and van Vugt, Mark. 2018. Mismatch: How our Stone Age Brain Deceives Us Every Day and What We Can Do About It. London: Robinson. Goethals, George R. and Sorenson, Georgia Jones. eds. 2006. The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Grabo, Alan, Spisak, B. and van Vugt, M. 2017. “Charisma as signal: An evolutionary perspective on charismatic leadership.” The Leadership Quarterly. Http://dx.doi.ord/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.05.001 Kanazawa, Satoshi and Reyniers, Diane J. 2009. “The role of height in the sex difference in intelligence.” American Journal of Psychology, Winter (4), 527–536. Machiavelli, Nicolo. 1532. The prince. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm Marturano, Antonio and Arsenault, Paul. 2008. “Charisma.” In: Antonio Marturano and Jonathan Gosling, eds. Leadership: The key concepts. London: Routledge. Murray, Gregg R. 2019. “Living in a digital world with a stone age brain: What could go wrong?” In: Caveman politics. Psychology Today Blog, April 21, 2019. Ryan, Christopher and Cacilda Jethá. 2010. Sex at dawn: The prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. New York: Harper Collins. Somit, Albert and Peterson, Steven. 1997. Darwinism, dominance, and democracy: The biological bases of authoritarianism. New York: Praeger. Sontag, Michael, Jenkins, Paul and White, Ronald F. 2011. “Leadership ethics: An emerging academic discipline.” Choice Magazine, October. 443

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Sunstein, Cass R. 2014. Why nudge? The politics of libertarian paternalism, The Storrs Lectures Series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sunstein, Cass R. 2016. The Ethics of influence: Government in the age of behavioral science. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sunstein, Cass R. 2017. Human agency and behavioral economics: Nudging fast and slow, Palgrave Advances in Behavioral Economics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Toland, John. 1976. Adolf Hitler (Vol.1 & 2). New York: Anchor Books. van Vugt, M. 2006. “Evolutionary origins of leadership and followership.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 354–371. van Vugt, M. 2012. “The nature in leadership: Evolutionary, biological, and social neuroscience perspectives.” In: D. D. Day and J. Antonakis, eds. The nature of leadership (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington, DC: Sage, 141–178. van Vugt, M. and Ahuja, A. 2011. Naturally selected: The evolutionary science of leadership. New York: Harper Business. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press. White, Ronald F. 2017. “Political behavior and biology: Leadership and followership.” In Al Somit and Steve Peterson, eds. Handbook on biology and politics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Press. White, Ronald F. 2018. “Cass R. Sunstein’s nudge science: Ethics, influence, and public policy.” Politics and the Life Sciences. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/ cass-r-sunsteins-nudge-science/BCDBB4F95B3DBD5E03E8DB4528A5133D Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. 1996. Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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37 Charisma and gender among leaders Jean Lau Chin†

Introduction What is charisma? Can women have it? Popular definitions draw on charisma as the ability to attract, charm, and influence the people around you.1 A dictionary definition defines charisma as a “personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure such as a political leader” (Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed.). Weber first discussed charismatic leadership by contrasting it with “legitimate” leadership through traditional (e.g., monarchies) and legal/rational authority (e.g., democracies). He defined a charismatic leader as one having extraordinary qualities, with the power derived from his personal gifts, i.e., the charm and persuasiveness of the leader, and driven by the leader’s convictions and commitment to his cause. The charismatic leader holds sway over his followers with such abilities as being able to perform miracles, or being viewed as the chosen one, and leads to their personal devotion (Adair-Toteff 2005; also in this volume). Weber uses Jesus as an example of a charismatic leader, who most Christians believe to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. Current day definitions of charisma include the ability to persuade others – using powerful and reasoned rhetoric, establish personal and moral credibility, and then rousing followers’ emotions and passions. Charismatic leaders are viewed as energetic, charming, enchanting, decisive, and engaging. They can sway a crowd to their point of view with only words and body language. They’re natural leaders and are often said to have magnetic personalities, or to be seductive. Charisma has often been defined as a desired characteristic of leaders in many leadership theories. Riggio (1987) calls it the Charisma Quotient or the foundational communication skills that underlie an individual’s charisma potential – including factors of confidence, exuberance, optimism, a ready smile, expressive body language, and a friendly passionate voice. However, examples of charismatic leaders generally evoke male-dominant paradigms and Eurocentric cultural norms – in the form of an alpha male image of strength, self-confidence, and openness. This charisma was prominent in the leaders immediately following World War II in the 20th century in the likes of Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Their “charisma” appealed to a world in turmoil, devastated by war, 445

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economic decline, and poverty. While command and control styles of leadership gave way to more collaborative forms of leadership following the Civil Rights era and Women’s Movement of the 1960s, we once again face rapid change, volatility, and uncertainty in our environment. Instantaneous communication via the internet and technological advances in travel make our borders fluid and permeable. Perhaps charismatic leadership as a preferred form of leadership will be resurrected in the 21st century. There are few comparable images of such charisma in women. Weber’s example of Jesus is paralleled by Mary Magdalene who was at Jesus’s side and became the embodiment of Christian devotion, which was defined as repentance – a very different image and role of women. Within the Asian religion of Buddhism, we have Guan Yin, commonly known as the Goddess of Mercy, who is viewed as the pinnacle of mercy, compassion, kindness, and love – legend has it that she paused at the threshold of heaven as the cries of the world reached her ears. Riggio (1987) points out that not all will be drawn to “charismatic” leaders, only those to whom the leader is able to stir their feelings and create an emotional bond – i.e., communicate a message that resonates with the willing receptivity of particular followers. The common element underlying charisma potential seems to be the ability to communicate both emotionally and verbally to others, i.e., to inspire with words and communicate emotions nonverbally.

DLMOX paradigm Can women evoke the same response as men in being charismatic? Is there a willing receptivity among followers to be inspired by women? Often overlooked as charisma is the gracefulness of Jackie Kennedy or the exuberance and passion of Oprah Winfrey, who as women, also had the ability to connect with and “captivate” followers. Using the definitions provided by Weber, charisma might be different for or nonexistent in women given the status of women in maledominated societies throughout the world and the prevailing paradigm of Eurocentric cultures as dominant world powers. As we have become more global and diverse in our communities throughout many countries in the world, we must reexamine if charisma can be different from Weber’s definition. Research by Chin and Trimble (2014) demonstrate that culture and diversity matters; diversity leadership is a way to incorporate the growing importance of population diversity and globalization in society. Accordingly, effective leadership will incorporate how diverse leaders and followers interact within complex social and organizational contexts; social identities and lived experiences of both leaders and followers will shape that interaction – what is termed the DLMOX paradigm, i.e., Diverse-Leaders-Members-Organizational-Exchange paradigm. Yet attention to how diversity and gender influences the exercise of leadership is quite limited in the literature (Eagly & Chin, 2010). The GLOBE studies (House et al., 2004) is the single most comprehensive study of culture and leadership across 62 countries; while it is cross-cultural, it is not diverse. Its samples were homogeneous within the countries studied and were predominantly male. Of note is that Charismatic/Value Based leadership has been identified as “near universal” of the six leadership dimensions and predicted to be the most effective across cultures. GLOBE researchers describe Charismatic-Value Based leadership as including dimensions of visionary, inspirational, and leader integrity. It is conceptually similar to transformational leadership but also encompasses being performance-oriented and a willingness to sacrifice self-interest. The inclusion of integrity, performance-oriented, modesty, and sacrificing self-interest, and their omission from the other five leadership dimensions, in essence, privileges this style as near universal when in fact, it is culturally specific to Western cultures. 446

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Social and global contexts Prior to the 21st century, a conqueror-colonial mentality characterized political leadership. Western countries colonized the countries they conquered; members of their group then became the country’s new power elite. Political and global leadership in the 20th century was based on military power – evidenced in the post-World War II arms race and the race to the moon  – of countries aspiring to be the first and most powerful. Leaders were generally men, and charismatic leaders were valued in this climate. For example, Dwight D. Eisenhower, returning from World War II as a four-star general and Commander of the Armed Forces in Europe, became president of the United States; he was noted for his charisma and “command and control” type of leadership. With the threat of nuclear destruction, world governments began to seek peace and nuclear disarmament; command and control models of leadership gave way to more collaborative models of leadership. Global efforts to address the inequities of gender and race in society flourished with the Women’s Movement and Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s Leadership models mirrored this global and societal trend with a strong Eurocentric and North American influence, largely reflecting the leadership of white, heterosexual men (Den Hartog & Dickson 2004). These collaborative approaches of the 1960s deemphasized the charismatic and command and control types of leadership where the leader needed to be out front, highly visible, and present. In the 21st century, society is marked by innovation and change, and a Digital Age – shifting from the production of goods dominant during the Industrial Revolution to the delivery of services and information via digital technology. Images of charisma now come in soundbites over the internet. In the 2016 political race for the US presidency, Donald Trump came to be known for his aggressive style and toxic masculinity in his derision of opponents; he has been hailed as “telling it like it is” with his arrogant and braggart style embodying the negative alpha male image of the 20th century. Admiration of this toxic form of charisma may well reflect the loss experienced by many of the “traditional masculinity” that “made America great.” Women account for less than five percent of leaders throughout the world. There have been only 70 female prime ministers and presidents in the world. Sri Lanka was the first country to elect a woman prime minister, choosing Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, and, at the time of writing, the Danish politician Mette Frederiksen was the latest woman appointed as prime minister in June 2019; Argentina was the first country to elect a woman president, choosing Isabel Peron in 1976 and, at the time of writing, Zuzana Čaputová, was the latest one in Slovakia ; San Marino alone accounts for 17 of the female leaders. More than half these women leaders were elected post-2000 with immense variation in their length of tenure and their powers (RobinsEarly, 2015). In 2015, there were only 22 female leaders in power worldwide as presidents, prime ministers, or chancellors (McCullough, 2015). In 2015, there were only 23 female CEOs of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, a mere 4.6 percent of all CEOs (Catalyst, 2016). It is illuminating to examine two women political leaders in history – Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (from 51 BC to 30 BC) and Dowager Cixi, Empress of China (from 1861 until 1908). The social zeitgeist and context of their leadership greatly influenced how their leadership was perceived and allowed. Both are viewed as having emerged as leaders by seizing power. They ascended to power through their seduction of men and reigned because of their alliances with the men of their times. Their route to power and leadership is generally viewed as invalid, tyrannical, and exercised in a masculinized context. It was their relationship with powerful men of their time that resulted in their significant influence and power. While each made major social reforms and military conquests, they are remembered for their “feminine wickedness,” 447

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seductress powers, and “iron-willed” characters. If we examine strong women political leaders throughout history, we find their strong, dominant characteristics are rarely defined as charismatic, as they would be if they were men. Instead, most were characterized as “iron ladies” or “seductresses” getting their power through their men, and publicly derided for displaying these characteristics (Chin, Ladha, & Li, 2018). Forbes magazine’s 2015 list of The World’s Most Powerful People lists nine women out of 73 people – a mere 12 percent, although this is up from 2009 where only three women of 61 leaders (or 5 percent) made the list. Forbes’ list contrasts with Fortune magazine’s list of 2015 World’s Greatest Leaders, where 26 percent were women. This 12 percent difference reflects the different criteria used to judge leadership. Fortune’s 26 percent equates leadership with transformational and significant change while Forbes’s 12 percent equates leadership with power based on influence and control of resources. We are more willing to attribute women leaders as influential in transformational change but less willing to attribute to them power based on influence and control of resources. We are even less willing to label them as charismatic.

Double binds for women leaders An examination of contemporary women leaders on the Forbes 2007 and 2015 lists of the World’s Most Powerful Women places German Chancellor Angela Merkel in first place. While some see her as “not caring enough,” others view her as going for consensus and compromise (dos Santos, 2013) – suggesting weakness. Despite being childless, millions revere her soft, caring image and fondly call her “Mutti” or “Mummy” (Dejevsky, 2005). Her effectiveness has been attributed to her hard-nosed, non-feminine characteristics; she rose to the top by outsmarting rivals  – earning her the label of “Iron Lady.” Hillary Clinton and Melinda Gates also place in the top three positions on the Forbes list in 2015, but are hardly described as charismatic. Hillary Clinton, former US First Lady, senator, and the first woman to be a leading presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in the US, also came to be known for her aggressive style; however, she has been criticized as being “untrustworthy,” too aggressive, and not “feminine” enough. Melinda Gates gained her prominence as the wife of billionaire Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. When Nancy Pelosi was elected as House Minority leader of the US Congress in 2002, she became the first woman ever to head a party in either chamber of the US legislature. McGrory (2002) wrote, “He is called the Hammer. She’s a velvet glove. He is Tom DeLay, the newly elected House majority leader, who is all coercion and threat. She is Nancy Pelosi of California, who is all persuasion and smiles.” This dichotomous description of male vs. female power reflects the gender bias and differential language used to describe what we might see as charisma. In pointing to Nancy Pelosi’s collaborative and interpersonal strengths, McGrory also “feminizes” Nancy Pelosi and inadvertently reinforces the double bind for women leaders. Their “femininity” suggests weakness or incredulity while their decisiveness and assertiveness earns them the label of “Iron Lady.” Eagly and Karau (2002) suggest that this perceived incongruity between female gender and leadership roles leads to two forms of prejudice: women tend to be viewed less favorably than men when in leadership roles, and women are evaluated less favorably than men when performing the same behaviors as a leader – hence a double standard. Eagly (2007) points to women’s communal qualities as an advantage for leadership contrary to the common view of it as a weakness. However, communal qualities are inconsistent with charisma as traditionally defined. Even when women behave with the characteristics that make men charismatic, the characteristics are negatively perceived as unbefitting. Expectations of women to be communal and of leaders to be agentic create double binds for women leaders. 448

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Their confidence and assertiveness, praised when displayed by charismatic men, are often perceived as overbearing or domineering while their communal and nurturing characteristics are perceived as weak and ineffectual as leaders. When they demonstrate strength and influence, they are often derided as “Iron Ladies” for their ruthlessness and manipulation (Chin, Ladha, & Li, 2018). A growing body of literature on intersectionality identifies differential responses across gender and ethnicity. Livingston, Rosette, and Washington (2012) found that dominant Black female leaders did not create the same backlash that dominant White female leaders did; White female (and Black male) leaders were conferred lower status when they expressed dominance rather than communality, whereas Black female (and White male) leaders were not. The authors point out the demonstrated advantage of a submissive appearance for Black male leaders as well as the proscription against dominant behavior for Black men as explaining this backlash. They posit that Black female leaders would not experience backlash for exhibiting dominant behavior, because of the weaker proscription against dominance for Black women.

Charisma in the narratives of women leaders Drawing on our study of diverse leadership styles and how it is influenced by gender, ethnicity, and contexts (Chin, 2013, 2019; Chin & Trimble, 2014), we did a secondary analysis of charisma based on responses to the questions: What is charisma? And is there a woman you consider to be charismatic?

Sample A total of 76 women leaders ranging in age from 28 to 73 were in the subset of four qualitative studies using semi-structured interviews. Eight were women leaders of Chinese descent from Hong Kong. Forty-nine were women leaders from the US in which 19 were White, six were Black, six were Native American, seven were Latinx and ten were Asian. Ten Asian American women leaders were from community-based organizations in the United States. Nine were Australian women leaders who were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. While the US sample skewed the distribution, the ethnic subgroups enabled an analysis of diversity within the US and between countries. A comparison was made between Asian US and Hong Kong women leaders, indigenous Native Americans and indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from Australia, and Black Americans and Black Australians. Their professions varied in the corporate, government, community, arts, social services, and higher education sectors; many also held volunteer leadership roles on community and corporate boards.

Social and organizational contexts All three regions had a Women’s Movement during the 1960s. In the US, it dovetailed with the Civil Rights Movement. In Hong Kong, it dovetailed with the fight against colonialism and its status as a British colony. Although 93 percent of the Hong Kong population is Chinese, English was the official language until the 1970s and the British was the dominant group in power until 1997, when the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to the People’s Republic of China, commonly known as the “handover of Hong Kong” took place. The Australian Women’s movement dovetailed with the Aboriginal fight for land rights and indigenous sovereignty. These contexts reflect a shifting reality of groups demanding liberation from their colonial “masters” toward self-governance. 449

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Charisma redefined – charming or feisty? Women from all three regions shared the experience of being marginalized as women and facing oppression and discrimination in male-dominant contexts. Except for the White women, the women shared being ethnic minorities or the non-dominant group within their countries. While some did not feel they were personally affected by this in their careers, they nevertheless acknowledged that this context led to difficult and challenging moments. While all acknowledged gains women have made in the workplace and society, most felt that women remain underrepresented in leadership roles across all sectors. None of the women questioned in the interviews saw themselves as charismatic. In fact, many of these self-descriptions favored a different, more sedate but firm, form of leadership. Many claimed that the definition of charisma really applies to males or is defined from a male perspective. As Tina (Chinese-HK) said: Charisma’s a kind of multi-syllable word. I  think the other word that I  like more is charm. . . . Charisma is more razzmatazz. I think charm is a quieter kind of value, and I think a lot of women can be very charming. (Chin, J. L. 2019) McCoy (2011) distinguishes Alpha charisma from women’s charisma. For women, charisma is often associated with being warm, nurturing, and interpersonal while men’s charisma is often associated with a confidence about themselves that make people gravitate toward and be influenced by them. For men, this is sometimes associated with a detachment, sense of entitlement, and often times being the center of attention. These masculine definitions of charisma get associated with superficial characteristics of size and strength – a tall and powerful carriage connoting influence and strength. Anne (Chinese-HK), former Secretary of State in Hong Kong, was described by many in Hong Kong as charismatic. When she was interviewed, she explained how she maintains her reputation for being approachable by “always having this big smile on my face which makes a lot of people very happy.” She did not describe herself as charismatic, although everyone else did. This phenomenon was also noted among the Aboriginal sample. Bronly described being offended when another “senior leader publicly called me ‘feisty’ . . . and that we were three ‘feisty’ women because of our approach.” She went on to describe how someone else introduced her saying, “Oh, I used to be very frightened of Bronly. She used to be very scary [because of her feistiness].” She explains, “[I]t is their interpretations of us. . . . When we are assertive and articulate in the same way that nonindigenous white women are, they’re described as assertive or as leaders, but we are positioned as nasty, aggressive, angry black women.”

Toward a new definition of charisma for women leaders If we deconstruct the “traditional” definition of charisma as identified at the beginning of this chapter, women leaders expressing the forceful, powerful, magnetic, confidence components of charisma were likely to be perceived negatively and as overbearing, irrespective of race/ethnicity. Those who expressed the charm, energy, enchanting, seductive, smiling components were more accepted but rarely described as charismatic. None saw themselves as charismatic or used that to characterize their leadership. Betty, a Native American female, places the emphasis on “leading from behind,” being respectful of elders, and comfort with relationships in leadership; this was contrasted with being 450

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“dictatorial,” demanding, or out front. This style, consistent with cultural values, mitigates against traditional definitions of charisma as an ideal for leaders to achieve. Liz, an African American female, draws on religion, placing a responsibility to the race for what you do and how you present yourself, which was also heard among other nonwhite women leaders. This contrasts with Grace, a Latina working in the military. Having chosen a very masculinized context compared to Betty, who chose contexts supportive of ethnic values, they chose very different leadership styles and had different leadership experiences. Nellie, a Latina, placed an emphasis on respect, community, relationships, and cultural values. Her Latina culture and identity is always with her as she negotiates contexts within mainstream culture. Like other nonwhite women, she often met challenges which presumed incompetence or questioned her competence. White women in the sample had strong feminist values, but few talked of ethnicity and culture as influencing their leadership.

Collaborative leadership Charisma is often associated with transformational leadership, if not as a leadership style on its own. Women leaders interviewed across ethnicities of Asian, White, Black, Latina, and Native American mostly endorsed a collaborative, inclusive, or consensus leadership style over a transformational one, feeling this to be more consistent with their feminist principles and cultural values. They emphasized the people side of leadership associated with teamwork, connectedness, and empowerment when talking of vision and change. Doing so deemphasizes the importance of charisma in their leadership. Anne (Chinese-HK), deemed the “conscience of Hong Kong” for her forceful support of populace values and collectivism, spoke of her being a servant of the people. Fran (higher education-HK) talked of participatory decision making so there would be “no ownership for the decision” consistent with a collectivist view. Edie (corporate-HK) said her “employees know I care for them, . . . and will roll up my sleeves (with them) and not just observe.” Agnes, founder of her own company, talked about being brave, daring, and liking to see things germinate from her work.” All might have be described as charismatic.

Servant leadership Many of the women leaders emphasized servant leadership. Gladys (public health-HK) emphasized being a civil servant; Anne (government-HK) emphasized her sense of duty and “doing the right thing” for the people. An emphasis on duty and loyalty was greater among the Hong Kong women leaders than the Asian American women leaders. Given the emphasis on filial piety and obligation in the Asian culture, this may reflect the greater distance experienced by Asian Americans from the “mother culture.” Asian American leaders talked more about giving back to the community. They did not talk about being persuasive (per definition of charisma). This was especially true of the communitybased leaders who described the community as their base of leadership. Brenda (Arts-US) talked of “speaking up for my groups”; Suzanne (Community-US) talked of connecting people. Mary (community and labor union organizer in the US) emphasized her leadership as “rooted in grassroots organizing” and prided herself for “being a spokesperson for the views of the group.”

Humanistic leadership Almost all the women talked of being nurturing in their leadership and using that to empower constituents. Tina (Arts-HK) said she was “like everybody’s grandmother”; Anne 451

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(government-HK) was nicknamed the “conscience of Hong Kong”; and Fran (higher educationHK) was nicknamed the “mother of gender studies.” Humanistic Leadership, also endorsed by many women leaders, is also incongruous with expressions of charisma. A  form of humanistic leadership is Confucian leadership which emphasizes personal and sociopolitical order, and the reciprocal interpersonal relationships between superiors and subordinates; it is both hierarchically and authoritative as well as reciprocal humanistic. These leaders may well fit the notion of an “invisible leader” who shares such characteristics as modesty, respect, and generosity; avoids the limelight, and acknowledges the value and work of others (Tsui et al., 2004).

Influence of gender and ethnicity on charisma Almost all the women leaders felt that gender and ethnicity influenced their leadership style. The absence of women in the upper echelons of leadership often made them the lone voice within a male-dominant culture, encountering stereotypes and facing inequities along the way. Asian women faced ethnic stereotypes of being viewed as “quiet and observing” resulting in their having to actively counter the accompanying expectations of being docile. Black women, in contrast, talked of having to avoid being viewed as “the angry Black woman.” Many were critical of male leadership. As Gladys says, “Men are still in power. They hate to see a lady be as good as them or even better than them.” Tina quoted Mao Tse Tung that “women hold up half the sky” but goes on to say that “sometimes you wish the other half would hold up the other half of the sky a little bit better and stop making such a mess of it.” Agnes believed “the negative part of power being in the hands of men is so obvious when I think about domestic violence . . . sex trafficking . . . [and of] wars waged by men . . . where little girls and women are the first victims. . . . The warlords sent the troops in to rape the women . . . to disempower the men in the family.”

Proving your competence As a result of these gender and ethnic perceptions and expectations, many of the women felt they always had to be conscious of their social identities while men do not. “I think of myself as an Asian American and a woman all the time” says Pat as she laments how people often perceive her only on this dimension, e.g., wanting to tell her about their experiences with other Asian women, and often conjuring up their stereotypes of Asian women as sex objects. Microaggressions related to gender and ethnicity were common. Many of the Asian women leaders recall being told that they are “too quiet and nice,” often coupled with surprise or disbelief that they were leaders. Karina (community arts-US) and Bronly (higher educationAustralia) describes not being taken seriously, being belittled mostly by white men “being very condescending or disrespectful to me.” Many Aboriginal women bore the burden of being viewed as less competent or not having the “smarts.” Asian women bore the burden of being smart, but having to counter the “widespread perception that Asians, particularly women, are not good leaders” (Rose). As a consequence, many feel they have to be strong to show that they are leaders, i.e., “You need to show that you could do it. You must “look the part and always have to prove your competence . . . ultimately people will give you the same respect [as the men]” (Pat-social services, HK). “Men don’t have that same initial step. When they show up [to a meeting, they are already seen as competent], but women have to prove it “(Edie-corporate, HK). When men are asked the same question as to whether or not gender influences their exercise of leadership, men of all ethnicities are often surprised, i.e., “I never thought about it,” or 452

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minimize its importance, i.e., “it is what it is” (Chin & Trimble, 2014). The influence of gender and ethnicity on leadership inhibits the emergence of charisma because these stereotyped perceptions of women are incongruent with expectations of leadership.

Strong personalities Many of the women were viewed as having “strong personalities” or described themselves as being outspoken in contrast to gender and ethnic expectations. This incongruity was often misperceived or negatively characterized. Tina (Arts-HK) recalled once when she had to refuse entry to a tall, large Caucasian male to her Art event. He was insistent and pointed to the incongruity of her facial expression, asking, “Why are you smiling when you tell me I can’t go in?” Tina’s reply was “It is in my culture to try and deliver bad news pleasantly. If you prefer me to yell at you and scowl, I will and I can.” Edie (corporate-HK) notes that “many people think I am aloof, and that I am not easily approachable (as expected of a woman) . . . but people who know me call me a paper tiger. When I need to be a Tiger, I will be a Tiger.” Many who met hostility or condescension about their gender or ethnicity felt it only led to their developing a stronger identity about who they were and a pride in their ethnic identity women. There was a sense of rebelliousness among most of the women leaders. Most developed compensatory strategies to work against prevailing stereotypes and norms about women and their ethnic group. Edie sees herself as feminine but remembers being characterized early on by a fortuneteller as having a male character (to explain her unconventional feminine behavior).

Influence of cultural values and lived experiences Despite the influence of gender and ethnicity on their leadership, cultural values and lived experiences often set a context which mitigated against a charismatic presentation of self. Many of the women leaders drew on their lived experiences as immigrants, living in poverty, or growing up during the Women’s Movement as influential in shaping their leadership. Anita (Koreancommunity social service-US) talks of an “immigrant mentality” which emphasized frugality. June’s (Japanese, corporate-publishing-US) family survived the internment camps which led to their resignation to “just accepting their lot in life” in contrast to her community activism and building community connections. Suzanne (Japanese-community-US and lawyer), felt the pressure and stress of her mother always telling her to perform well so her race would not be judged negatively by her behavior. These lived experiences shaped the personal philosophies of many of the women leaders – often in the form of pursuing social justice goals and building passion and commitment to improve their ethnic communities and promote social change. Their dedication is reflected in their personal mottoes, e.g., Anne emphasizes that you must “know who you are and who you want to be”; Edie advises women to “be your personal best”; Tina proclaims that “I know who I am; I am who I am”; and Fran always speaks up “when I see something that needs to be done.” Despite the strong gender or ethnic pride, most Asian women felt their culture dictates that it is up to others to grant them titles of leader. Cultural values of modesty often led to many of the women forcing themselves to speak up to counter the image of being quiet or soft-spoken to gain credibility. Sometimes they felt they needed to unlearn things valued in the Asian culture in order to succeed. As Rose said, One of the really important things that I learned (working within the mainstream) was that sometimes just speaking up was more important than what you say . . . although this 453

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counters the prevailing Asian norm. Asian Americans tend to be very content oriented people. We don’t feel comfortable speaking out unless we feel very comfortable about a subject or unless we want to make a new point that someone else hasn’t made. (Chin, J. L. 2019) These cultural values are incongruous with the components of charisma identified in the definition.

Influence of social contexts The broader social context is also significant in shaping leadership. The Hong Kong leaders were interviewed in 2012, less than 15 years after the “handover of Hong Kong.” Societal sentiment and debate remained strong about which language or dialect was to be the main mode of communication. English was privileged under British rule and used in commerce and trade; now the debate was over whether Mandarin or Cantonese should be the dialect of choice for education and trade. This debate was about autonomy and power of the Hong Kong people. Prior to the 1997 handover, many Hong Kongese felt in relative positions of power, if they spoke English and were educated overseas. The US sample was interviewed in 2010 after the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City. The Asian leaders from community-based organizations were drawn from New York City. While many of the Hong Kong leaders were members of the power elite in Hong Kong, those in this sample were focused on community activism within the Asian community. Differences between these two are important. The Hong Kong Chinese women leaders emphasized cultural values of loyalty and duty prevalent in Hong Kong culture, while the Asian American community-based organization leaders emphasized values specific to community activism and empowerment for Asian Americans as a minority group. Both groups endorsed a collaborative leadership style. Fran from Hong Kong noted that “we seldom have to vote because we make decisions based on consensus. You hear things indirectly (a cultural value and strategy).” Rose from New York, noted that her Asian American staff tend to not question authority, and to just agree with each other so as not to create waves. Both groups, though removed from China, continue to endorse Chinese cultural values of modesty, humbleness, and indirectness – inherent in social etiquette prescribed by Confucianism. The blend of East-West cultures was evident in both groups through their lived experiences.

Conclusions and future research Examining charisma suggests that commonly accepted definitions of charisma draw on masculine and Western perspectives. Hence women are less likely to own charisma or be perceived as charismatic. Redefining charisma among women suggests that we are talking about charm and a sense of magnanimity – with an emphasis on their engaging through smiling and interpersonal connectedness. When taking lived experiences, cultural values, and social contexts into consideration, there is much that mitigates against women being charismatic. Prescriptive norms shaping gender development are incongruous with some components of charisma; many women leaders find they need to challenge existing norms and stereotypes and end up being atypical and rebellious. Others find they need to unlearn cultural values if they are to succeed in the mainstream. As a result, this creates a different narrative for women. Men can and have shown an overconfidence because social and cultural norms reinforce charisma as valued for them, while women find they are always countering the norms.

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While charismatic leadership is one of many leadership styles, none of the women endorsed this. Instead, they emphasized a collaborative leadership style and spoke to the influence of gender and ethnicity on their leadership. It is clear that social identities, lived experiences, and social contexts strongly influence their leadership. A  commitment to change and advocacy characterized the leadership of these women. While normally associated with charisma for men, several factors mitigate against this characterization. Only those whose feelings the leader is able to awaken and create an emotional bond with – i.e., communicate a message that resonates with the willing receptivity of particular followers (Riggio, 1987) will be able to receive the leader’s message. While differences across ethnicities were observed, all the women leaders experienced oppression related to their gender. Nonwhite women had the added complexity of their ethnicity intersecting with gender in how they exercised their leadership and how they were perceived, which included restrictive expectations to behave according to both gender and ethnic stereotypes. Cultural values mitigate against women behaving in the more traditional charismatic style. Whereas charisma is defined from a male vantage point, future directions of research ought to start with the recognition that definitions and expressions of charismatic leadership may differ by gender and ethnicity. We need new or revised definitions of charisma that include how women might communicate their charisma through a smile, interpersonal connectedness, or communal nurturing qualities, while men generally communicate their charisma through their strength, strong physical presence, confidence, and ability to persuade others. In both cases, charm and a sense of magnanimity is communicated. Further research might examine what happens when women behave according to female vs. male norms of charisma. Are women leaders displaying bold and strong male charismatic characteristics likely to be criticized and viewed negatively? Do women evoke a negative response because they are communicating their message differently, or are their messages not being received in the same way as those by men? Future research needs to recognize how social contexts and cultural values shape prescriptive norms for women that may be incongruous with our current definitions of charisma and to explore whether charisma, as defined, is a necessary component of leadership. While charisma is the ability to awaken feelings to resonate with one’s followers and create an emotional bond, why is it that this “strength” of women is not recognized as charismatic? Nonwhite women have the added complexity of their ethnicity intersecting with gender in how they exercise leadership, how they are perceived, and restrictive expectations to behave according to both gender and ethnic stereotypes. How might future research address these social constraints and recognize charisma in women?

Note 1 For example, Psychology Today – www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/charisma.

References Adair-Toteff, C. 2005. “Max Weber’s Charisma,” Journal of Classical Sociology, 5(2), 189–204. Catalyst. 2016, February 1. Women CEOs of the S&P 500, New York: Catalyst. Chin, J. L. 2013. “Diversity leadership: Influence of ethnicity, gender, and minority status,” Open Journal of Leadership, 2(1), 1–10. Chin, J. L. 2019. “Asian American and Hong Kong Chinese women leaders,” in J. Chao & L. Ha (eds.), Asian women entrepreneurship, London, UK: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

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Chin, J. L., Ladha, A., & Li, V. 2018. “Women’s leadership within a global perspective,” in C. B. Travis & J. W. White (eds.), APA handbook of the psychology of women, Washington, DC: APA books, pp. 565–582. Chin, J. L., & Trimble, J. 2014. Diversity and leadership, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dejevsky, M. 2005, February 13. “Angela Merkel: The iron lady of German politics hoping to e­ mulate Thatcher’s unlikely rise to power,” Independent, Retrieved from www.independent.co.uk/news/ people/profiles/angela-merkel-the-iron-lady-of-german-politics-hoping-to-emulate-thatchersunlikely-rise-to-power-483326.html. Den Hartog, D. N., & Dickson, W. 2004. “Leadership and culture,” in J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, & R. J. Sternberg (eds.), The nature of leadership, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 249–278. dos Santos, N. 2013, September 26. “Germany’s modest Mutti Merkel is no Iron Lady Thatcher,” CNN, Retrieved from www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/business/angela-merkel-is-no-maggie-thatcher/. Eagly, A. H. 2007. “Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: Resolving the contradictions,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31(1), 1–12. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. 2002. “Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders,” Psychological Review, 109(3), 573–598. Eagly, A.H.’ Chin, Jean-Lau. 2010. “Diversity and leadership in a changing world,” American Psychologist 65(3):216-24 House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (eds.). 2004. Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Livingston, R. W., Rosette, A. S., & Washington, E. F. 2012. “Can an agentic Black woman get ahead? The impact of race and interpersonal dominance on perceptions of female leaders,” Psychological Science, 23(4), 354–358. McCoy, K. 2011. Alpha charisma, Retrieved from http://myalphapower.blogspot.com/ McCullough, J. J. 2015. “Female world leaders currently in power worldwide,” JJMccullough, Retrieved from www.jjmccullough.com/charts_rest_female-leaders.php McGrory, M. 2002, November 16. “Pelosi’s a salve for a wounded party,” The Boston Globe. Riggio, R.E. 1987. The charisma quotient: What it is, how to get it, how to use it, New York: Dodd-Mead. Robins-Early, N. 2015, April 17. “Here’s when the rest of the world elected their first female leaders,” The World Post. Tsui, A. S., Wang, H., Xin, C., Zhang, L., & Fu, P. P. 2004. “Let a thousand flowers bloom: Variation of leadership styles among Chinese CEOs,” Organizational Dynamics, 33(1), 5–20.

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38 Charisma and the digital age Mass re-enchantment online and networking the new iron cage Raymond L.M. Lee

Introduction Charisma is often considered a spellbinding power bestowed upon a unique individual assuming leadership, especially in turbulent times of change. The recipient of this power is, however, never seen as its exclusive proprietor but only as its vehicle in drawing the masses and fulfilling the defined mission. In other words, charisma is a force without permanent personalization. Fascination with the use of this power in public life is exemplified by the way researchers apply this concept to their understanding of a wide range of cultural and political actions. Particularly in the fields of study focusing on leadership in environments of sociopolitical change, the idea of charisma is frequently applied as the explanatory principle of individualistic power in crisis creation and management (e.g., Ake 1966; Apter 1968; Tucker 1968; Perinbanayagam 1971; Dekmejian and Wyszomirski 1972; Cell 1974; Schweitzer 1974; Wilson 1975; Knorr-Cetina 2009; Zúquete 2011). This large body of work may be treated as an outgrowth of Weberian scholarship on the nature of sociopolitical authority in premodern and modern societies (Weber 1946, 1947, 1968). Writings based on this scholarship have the hallmark of reintroducing agency into social change without deemphasizing the meaning of structure. Yet, many writers have tended to gloss over the question of disenchantment in Weber’s writings. While Weber’s work ranged over many fields, it could be inferred as being held together by his redefinition of modernity as a progression toward disenchantment in the increasing rationalization of nearly all aspects of social life. How, then, does charisma feature in this landscape of overwhelming bureaucratization and disenchantment at the expense of any expression of the supramundane? For Weber, modernity was its own conundrum because its power to change also constituted the power to undermine. Charisma in this context of ambivalent power would imply the constant presence of the supramundane as a counterforce to the modern supports of disenchantment. An appropriate understanding of charisma must be placed within this context of Weber’s attempt to pose the supramundane as always on standby to counteract the structures of disenchantment. But how would this tension between the supramundane and disenchantment be seen as modernity moves into a more complex and innovative digital phase? Can charisma be reconsidered as a counterforce that has morphed into the very structures of digitality with their inherent capability to 457

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re-enchant? In short, is charisma no longer a source of unique power but a blending component of digitalized re-enchantment? The aim of this chapter is to diagnose the status of charisma in social environments shaped by digitalization. Charisma in these environments can be considered a product of digitalized re-enchantment, instead of a leader’s re-enchanting powers (Ladkin 2006; Islam 2014), since it pervades entire networks to awe and holds the attention of innumerable participants in their journeys through digital space. The presence of this space suggests a type of infotopia where masses are linked online in global networks disseminating informational bits and pieces as sources of personal beguilement. It may also resemble a new iron cage in which sojourners become ensnared by their charismatic experience of apparent omnipresence and instantaneous reachability that they end up having little or no chance of escaping it. In this sense, charisma focuses on an impersonal power that magnetizes masses, in the way that some leaders do, to form connective bonds with the system itself. In shifting the focus from leaders to mass reenchantment online, it is necessary to chart, firstly, the meaning of charisma in relation to disenchantment and, secondly, re-enchantment in an era of digital rationalization. The power of re-enchantment is, therefore, not treated strictly as a subjective outcome of a leader’s mass appeal but rather as a covert force of euphoric attachment to a system instantiating any form of digital connectivity.

Charisma vs. disenchantment Charisma was not one of Weber’s original concepts. He had borrowed it from the work of the legal theorist Rudolph Sohm on early Christianity in order to contrast new sources of authority with those found in traditional systems and legal-bureaucratic structures. Sohm himself had used the term quite differently to suggest a type of power underlying the grouped membership of apostolic communities. But Weber considered Sohm’s argument “one-sided from a purely historical point of view” and redefined charisma as a quality inherent to a particular leader, someone who “seizes the task that is adequate for him and demands obedience and a following by virtue of his mission.” In addition, it is the opposite of all patriarchal domination and all ordered economy “because by its very nature it is not an ‘institutional’ and permanent structure” (Eisenstadt 1974, 19–21). Charisma stands for a type of antinomian power, a power outside of all other powers to be wielded with such effect as to transform almost everything with which it comes into contact. Yet it is also a power that can only run its course and become co-opted by the institutions of its own making. How, then, can we reconcile the fleeting nature of this power with its containment as the institutional basis of a new order? First, we need to consider Weber’s treatment of modernity in terms of a problematic link between rationalization and disenchantment. Swatos (1981, 122; original italics) referred to this link as “the tension of the cost-benefit analysis of rationalization-disenchantment” that was never fully resolved since Weber himself failed to provide “even proximate solutions applicable at the societal level.” What this tension implied was that even as modern forces sought to disengage everyday actions from the influence of older supernatural beliefs, their impact on the way social lives were organized became inimical to those very lives. The processes of disenchantment that were erasing the grip of the mystical were also producing their own forms of irrationality to affect personal choice and autonomy. For instance, moneymaking as an end in itself may be considered irrational from the standpoint of rationalization for self-preservation, but then this form of economic activity cannot be treated as though it were part of the planned system. For Weber, it was only an unintended consequence of economic rationalization (Cohen 1972, 78; see also Sica 1988). To address irrationality in this way may be taken as one aspect of Weber’s 458

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interest in the nature of unexpected outcomes, especially in “his greater recognition of and appreciation for life’s irrationalities” (Adair-Toteff 2005, 199). This struggle to juxtapose irrationality to increasing rationalization could be regarded as the context in which the idea of charisma was introduced to provide dialectical understanding of social change in modernity. It also provided, in the second place, insight into its scope as a genuine revolutionary force of history. For quite some time, this force became a puzzle to researchers trying to explain how it was possible for an impulse as irrational as charisma to be received successfully in highly rationalized systems. Bendix (1962, 299ff) attempted to clarify this problem by claiming that Weber did not regard charisma as conceptually homogeneous. Instead, it could be elucidated as ceremonial or familial – in which case it became an aspect of the rationalized system itself. The effects of depersonalization meant that charisma was not exclusively an individualized attribute or a gift owned by a sole possessor. But he also considered charismatic leadership to be a “product of crisis and enthusiasm” (Bendix 1962, 301) to suggest its special emergency character that could become transformed into a new system of rule and governance. It would explain why this quality was not really an enigma because its ephemerality underlay its power to create and mold a new system. The depiction of charisma’s impermanent nature, therefore, made it more plausible as an intervening as well as a contravening force in bureaucratized and disenchanted social systems. Its irrationality could be represented as both a threatening and innovating power not just to overwhelm preexisting systems but also to remodel them in a manner without fully disposing of their rationalized features. However, the question of the leader’s career as a wielder of charisma remained problematic because resolution of the irrationality conundrum was not the same as addressing the implication of what made the charismatic leader charismatic. Spencer (1973, 344) tackled this question by proposing that of the three levels in which charisma was originally defined (as divine gift, group property, and personal quality), only the third type might be considered sufficiently compelling as a special factor of leadership bridging the rational-irrational divide. This factor was named secular charisma because it encompassed the attitude of awe but “no longer wrapped in the conceptual package of supernatural belief.” In other words, the secular charismatic leader awes members of his following without resorting to magical demonstrations. Such a leader exhibits mastery of order or representation of deeply felt needs or both in disenchanted milieus where innovative skills are not dependent on the display of otherworldly powers. Irrationality on the part of the leader’s idiosyncratic ways is ostensibly a measure of his antinomian powers meant to rearrange or reconstruct what has already been rationalized. There are two outcomes of secularizing charisma. Firstly, it renders the irrational quality of charisma compatible with the process of disenchantment. Researchers no longer need to struggle with trying to resolve the meaning of charisma within a modern context dominated by the rationalization-disenchantment syndrome. Within this context, charisma is not totally out of synch with beliefs and actions based chiefly on scientific, technological, and non-magical modes of thinking. As part of the secularized milieu, charismatic power is not really seen as a type of ersatz authority but possibly an extension of secularized power wielded with greater dynamism and effect. Secular leaders with charisma are, therefore, not marginalized from their environments and are able to convince their followers without needing to abandon the disenchanted outlook. Secondly, these leaders can draw attention to themselves as members rather than opposers of the secularized system. This creates a special advantage since their claim to power is not rooted in something alien but based on the very mundane relationships and forms of social arrangements they wish to change. Their mission may be defined as being empowered by personal interests aided by the projection of greatness in a system to which they still belonged. 459

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Yet secularizing charisma is not merely an exercise in making sense of the irrationality conundrum. It is also a way of looking beyond Weber’s probe into personalized non-legal and non-traditional power. When charisma is invoked as a special force within the same system that it seemingly designs to change, its status as both an exclusive and non-outside form of authority has the tendency to gain it a reinvitation into that system as something less centered in specific leaders. For instance, in distinguishing between charisma based on rational-legal legitimation and that resting on charismatic legitimation alone, Shils (1965, 205) argued that In the rational-legal system, the charisma is not concentratedly imputed to the person occupying the central role or to the role itself, but is dispersed in a diminished but unequal intensity throughout the hierarchy of roles and rules. The charisma is felt to inhere in the major order-affecting system of roles. This reinterpretation of charisma signals an understanding of nonconventional forms of power as chameleon-like in their ability to shift between persons and systems. At certain times charisma is seen to be inherent to the actions and behavior of particular individuals, while at other times it is posited as pervading the corridors of highly respected institutions. Because it cannot be pinned down as a specific or fixed identity, secular charisma has a tendency to be viewed as having a manufactured quality. This was the point made by Glassman (1975, 618) in his depiction of the charismatic leader as being set up to appear charismatic by means of created physical and psychic grandeur. In the modern secular world, radio, television, and movies, and the print media, assist in enhancing the characteristics associated with this type of grandeur. It leads inadvertently to the argument that charisma can be purposefully removed from leadership roles and dispersed through “a maze of hierarchies” (Glassman 1975, 633). Thus, by deconstructing “the great man” approach to charisma, the special identity of leaders allegedly endowed with such powers is reduced to the question of how social and cultural environments provide the catalyst for making such powers believable to the masses. Charisma is no longer treated as something unique but a prop or a commonplace affair as suggested by Turner (2003, 24), who thought that it has lost its special force. If charisma is now considered a spent force or a form of manipulated performance, its implication is that a post-Weberian conceptuality is needed to explain the dispersal of this power into the wider population. How is it possible that a gift of grace can be diffused to masses of people who are, in the first place, seen to be responders rather than recipients of an extraordinary power? Weber’s original discussion of disenchantment was meant as the context from which charisma could be invoked as the irrational dénouement in a world that had become demystified in almost all departments of life. The idea of routinization was likely his theoretical escape clause because it made irrationality tamable (see Freund 1972, 25–27 for an account of Weber’s handling of this problem). Similarly, reappraising charisma as a mundane phenomenon logistically brings it back into the folds of disenchantment. Otherwise, how else can we speak of its power as spent or manufactured? Yet it could be argued that Weber had not intended to portray disenchantment as a permanent condition of the modern world. In his view, even though the era in which he lived was characteristically rationalized and disenchanted, he still felt “in pianissimo, that something is pulsating that corresponds to the prophetic pneuma, which in former times swept through the great communities like a firebrand, welding them together” (Weber 1946, 155; original italics). It is likely he implied that what “is pulsating” is a charismatic force that was going to remake the rationalized world through the prism of re-enchantment. This might have formed part of his treatment of alternative social futures (Lee 2010), even if the term “re-enchantment” did not actually appear in his vocabulary. A post-Weberian rendition 460

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of this term would suggest that the modern world is no longer one-sidedly or single-pointedly disenchanted. The new millennium may in fact be construed as an era of heterogeneous beliefs and practices governed by both processes of disenchantment and re-enchantment to affect the meaning of rationalization and, more specifically, the location of charisma. Disentangling these processes implies that one can no longer take for granted the equivalence of modernity and disenchantment. Instead, it would be necessary to ask whether modernity has also become a conduit for re-enchantment and the reorganization of charisma.

Beyond disenchantment: mass re-enchantment online In the late phase of modernity marked by crisscrossing currents, how does one disentangle the complexities arising from disenchantment, enchantment, and re-enchantment? Weber himself did not fully anticipate the brunt of this admixture despite his reservation concerning the stranglehold of disenchantment. A  post-Weberian analysis could only attempt extrapolations from his varied writings on the subject, and this is what many Weberian researchers have done. Deliberation on the word disenchantment (Entzauberung) has parried it down to the means for emptying the world of magic and associated traditions and its replacement by rational calculation (Tiryakian 1992). Marginalizing the old ways strengthened the hegemony of scientific and technological rationality. Enchantment, on the other hand, has an opposing ring to disenchantment in its continuing grip on beliefs and practices tied to the influence of alternative social and sometimes unseen forces. In one sense, these are forces that may support “an everyday lifebased reproduction of a social system” as mundane as sailing (Numerato 2009, 442) or provide a basis in the quest for discovering everyday spirituality (McKian 2012) and inspiration in the workplace (Endrissat et al. 2015; Frenette and Ocejo 2018). In another sense, they may come to represent organized spectacles that are concurrent with the cultural displays of late capitalism, a form of “disenchanted enchantment” (Ritzer 1999) or the commodification of children’s entertainment (Langer 2002). However, re-enchantment is not assumedly a revised scenario of enchantment, because it connotes a form of activation against disenchantment by organized reclamation of the mystical and uncanny elements of human existence. For instance, Tiryakian (1992, 85) addressed re-enchantment as “the infusion and profusion throughout the nineteenth century and into the present age of themes of the fantastic, the imaginary, the grotesque, the mythic, and a particular fascination with the demonic and ‘darkness’ ” (also see Partridge 2004/5). Concomitant with these themes is the reimagining of the time-space factor as central to the organization of modernity (see Harvey 1990). If disenchantment were defined in terms of this factor’s rationalization, re-enchantment could be seen as representing its subversion (Jenkins 2000, 28). Re-enchantment would imply that within modernity the tenets of disenchantment are never fully hegemonic because the impulse to challenge them may be deeply rooted in the perennial quest for the irrational. But what happens when this impulse becomes part of an environment in the throes of disenchantment brought on by the rise of digital technology? The advent of the digital age offers an important context for rethinking modernity as the intertwining of disenchantment and re-enchantment. From a post-Weberian viewpoint, disenchantment should not be construed as inexorably one-dimensional or untainted by any type of development seemingly foreign to it. In short, modernity should not be simplified as an era of unlimited control by disenchantment. The indispensability of electronic communication and digitalized relationships in this era has, of course, given the impression that we are now in a new phase of disenchantment where computers and mobile media form a highly rationalized milieu for social interaction. Prompted by this impression, Castells (1996, 375) announced that “[s]ocieties are finally and truly disenchanted because all wonders are on-line and can be 461

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combined into self-constructed image worlds.” In this depiction of the networked society, disenchantment represents the overt and systematic reduction of social relationships to the level of computer images and texts that are only discernible as digital realities. The efficiency and speed of transmission of these realities make it possible to think of social relationships as algorithmically determined to the extent that the plausibility of invisible, mystical forces at work in “life on the screen” (Turkle 1995) cannot be entertained. Instead, the ghost in the machine is nothing more than the logic and compatibility of computer software in rationalizing the ways in which people relate to one another. Yet there is also the wonderment of online communication creating new realities that are regarded as even more attractive and desirable than the mundane physicality of everyday life. These realities have become dominant in all walks of life through high-speed interconnectivity that dissolves the boundaries between work, play, and idleness (Tomlinson 2007; Hassan 2009). Denizens of these self-constructed image worlds are beholden to the screens and networks of their choice with little or no time out from the enchanting pull of the digital universe. Is this another form of re-enchantment contradicting the newly rationalized interactions based on computer and mobile mediations? On the one hand, digitalized re-enchantment comes in the form of space-time distortions. For instance, Castells (2001, 171) argued that fascination with networked relationships has much to do with a new form of time called “timeless time,” which compresses chronological time and blurs time sequences by twisting career patterns away from predictable progressions. There is an irrational element at work in this form of time that surpasses the desire for fixed paths and plain predictability. The unexpected and chaotic compose the undercurrent of online communication that elicits an excitement of discovery from rapid exchanges of data and information. Ling (2008, 172) referred to this irrationality as the elixir of communication that opens up “the development of argot in texting and provides the stage upon which Romeo and Juliet wannabes can work out the crossing of their stars.” It also emphasizes the instantaneity of mediated communication where interactions are not regulated by a separation of time and space but by their compression. Thus, texting and dating online become flows rather than set arrangements in time and space. On the other hand, the irrationality of flows must also allow for the intrusion of technological didacticism that enables the navigation of digital space. No one can really feel re-enchanted by digital technology without some understanding of the codes for navigating this space. It simply means that re-enchantment cannot happen unless there is some willingness to be rationalized by the adjuncts of digital technology. This juxtaposition of re-enchantment and rationalization in digitalized environments suggests that technology is not necessarily nonmagical since by imbibing it users can discover “novel and protean spaces of possibility within social reality” (Davis 1998, 181). The “magic” of digital technology is not just found in the infinite coding of ones and zeros but also in the infinite possibility of reality transformations. Entering digital space can be seen as magical in the sense of identifying with impossible situations that increasingly become personally possible. Aficionados of computer games, virtual reality, augmented-reality programs, and performance-capture technologies would all have experienced the magical moments of discovering those protean spaces of interactive possibility and, perhaps, even considered them to be more real than everyday reality. Regular surfers of the internet might similarly take for granted the magic of being able to interconnect with anyone at any place and time. These transformations resurrect plural identities or a kind of interchangeability that often fails to occur in the disenchanted workaday world. This composes the magical substratum of digital technology because it is the breeding ground for “multiplicities, not stable identities” (Davis 1998, 327). One could say that there is something charismatic about these multiplicities since they empower newness and difference, and at the same time inspire a sense of awe in the ability to 462

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switch attention and manipulate environments with no regard to place and time. Experiencing instantaneous fluidity in digital space may also be the occasion for that awe to coalesce as an invisible force driving the need to stay within that space in order not to lose it. Perhaps, it would explain the pull of being online and the indispensability of mobile devices not only as tasting the elixir of communication but also imbibing the ecstasy of digital charisma. This is a form of leaderless charisma where the power of attraction lies in hyper-connected, encoded interactions supported by digital matrices that link communicators conditioned by network contagion (Sampson 2012). It thrives on circularity and reproducibility, generating the excitement of an irrational attachment to repetition, re-mixed, and repackaged data and imageries. In this environment of data excess, the re-enchanted masses become their own source of charisma to throng the citadels of cyber-truth and fuel the search for a new kind of salvation. To reconceptualize charisma as systemically induced in digital space would distance it from the revolutionary impetus that was its raison d’être in the first place. Digital charisma thrives on the awe of consumption, which forms the pulse of late capitalist secularization for turning the search for otherworldly salvation into the utility of technological utopia. Now the masses flock to the grand openings of the latest mobile and game offerings instead of the impresario displays put on by political parvenus. Charisma has never been so adroitly depersonalized than in the digital age where the non-magical, logic-driven heuristic outlook of technology is also magical in its own right, charming and seducing billions of consumers into the arenas of information excess. These are arenas populated by masses, crowds of people converging in digital space that permits non-physical forms of gathering not witnessed in the eras before the spread of wireless communication (Lee 2017). Lacking physical proximity, digital masses do not possess the features often attributed to revolutionary crowds (cf. Rudé 1964). They are fluid, decentered, and abstract but are also easily swayed by strong opinions, fashionable statements, and viral postings and images (Lee 2016; Wiedemann 2014). These characteristics do not necessarily imply that digital masses are less than revolutionary, because there are occasions, aided by electronic devices, which foster the organization of mass movements primed for radical change (Olofsson 2010; Bennett and Segerberg 2012). What distinguishes them from the older revolutionary crowds is their increased proneness to the irrational zeitgeist of mass re-enchantment. In a sense, Weber’s (1968, 244, 1460) reference to both the irrationality of masses and charisma was prescient of the present condition where digitalization provides an ideal basis for “charismatizing” the masses. Challenging his portrayal of irrational masses (Baehr 1990) may miss the point that the irrational underpins re-enchantment, and in digital networks it emerges from technological rationalization to inspire the desire for the charmed prospect of never leaving the digital universe. Mass re-enchantment online is, therefore, an instance of the conjunction of the rational and irrational where one cannot work in the absence of the other. Without rationalization, masses might fail to achieve the know-how and levels of competency to navigate the digital universe and maintain network interconnectivity. Yet with rationalization, masses engender a special blend of longing and attraction that comes to activate an irrational pull into the unending flows of digitalized interaction. Is this pull the charismatic force that could be a contributing factor to the emergence of a new iron cage?

Reinventing the iron cage: charisma relocated The metaphor of the iron cage first appeared in Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958, 181). Parson’s original translation of Stahlhartes Gehaüse as the iron cage was intended as an uncompromising description of bureaucratic rationalization evolving into a structure with no exits. Misgivings about this translation led Baehr (2001) to reword it as the 463

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“shell as hard as steel” since steel is a man-made alloy representing a self-constructed prison masquerading as an innovative means for reorganizing the world. More specifically, the idea of a steel shell implies not only a new dwelling for modern human beings, but a transformed nature . . . a different being, a degraded being . . . the symbol of passivity, the transformation of the Puritan hero into a figure of mass mediocrity. (ibid.,164) The new translation seems to add more punch to the sense of delusion and entrapment but does not elide the meaning of captivity and confinement alluded to in the word “cage.” It simply suggests that whether we think of shell or cage, the metaphor is a critical statement on decreasing personal freedom in and increasing stultification of the life-world. Can this be applied to the world of digital media? How does charisma feature in a world re-formed by digital rationalization, or is it a tool in the process of digitalization itself? Secularizing charisma enables another perspective that refocuses the manifestation of awe and power in disenchanted systems rather than leaders who thrive in milieus of magical hope. The rise of digital technology and social media may be construed as a product of paradigmatic changes in communication far removed from that presided over by the clerical elite and claimants of messianic missions. It is, first and foremost, a part of the secularized system where the ethos of disenchantment holds a commanding position over many aspects of communication. This ethos provides the down-to-earth tools of discourse and practice for actions directed toward mastery of this-worldly and not otherworldly spheres. Participation in digital communication principally employs empirical rather than religious know-how for immediate interaction, even though religion itself could also be considered a component of the digital universe (cf. Dawson and Cowan 2004). Reconceptualizing charisma as a vital force in this system would suggest the dispersal of its magnetizing influence among varied and innumerable travelers of digital highways. Powerful figures of these highways may not necessarily be imagined as charismatic nodes because they themselves depend on systemic flows of digital charisma generated by the limitless participation of networked individuals. By logging in to these flows, the speed and precision of digitalized searches, contacts, and discoveries may give participants a sense of omniscience in traversing the vast networks of cyberspace. It is as if participants become both consumers and carriers of digital charisma in their craving for more information. An opportunity to enter the digital universe may be likened to a form of entrapment by the desire to be in “constant touch” (Agar 2013) and in access to multiple sources of information and data (Lee 2018). Mass re-enchantment online fuels this desire to reshape participants not only as rationalized pursuers and users of digital data but also as a type of being that sees algorithms as the new path to individual freedom. Is this path also the path leading to a digitalized iron cage? If we take Parson’s translation of Weber’s term to mean a new order of rationalization, it would suggest that the quest for freedom in this new order might also be seen as an invitation to membership in a vast matrix of interlocking dependencies. These dependencies are systematic arrangements of networked linkages where freedom of movement is always mediated to the extent that every login activity can be tracked, recorded, and filed for posterity. Constantly increasing numbers of databases in the digital universe provide new grids of information for rationalizing human relationships in the cultural, economic, and political spheres. There is no dearth of data in this universe to forgo the need for mass profiling or mass marketing of information. However, if Baehr’s rewording of Parson’s translation were adopted to imply another paradise of passivity, it would lead to the 464

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impression of the quest for freedom as uninhibited self-indulgence in engaging with the paraphernalia of the digital world. Passivity in this case would refer to the untold numbers of communicators fixed on the screens of their choice as indicating the power of digital consumption. It is a power that transforms desires into spectatorship where viewing takes precedence over all other activities that may or may not require locomotion. Participants, therefore, appear to be constantly under the passive control of screened imageries in a world captivated by the power of digital performance (Leeker et al. 2017). Passivity occasioned by widespread mediation would not be considered a setback to individual freedom because it might even be taken as a sign of utmost devotion to burgeoning realities constituted by the new technologies. In this sense, digital charisma infusing the growth of these realities may no longer retain the revolutionary status attributed to it as the counterforce to established authority but as a power segueing it to the new iron cage of digital consumption. In treating the present phase of modernity not only as one of networked disenchantment but also a window to technological re-enchantment, we may find it necessary to address charisma as located in the interchanges of digital space rather than in the commanding presence of a single individual. While digital rationalization itself represents a new iron cage in the making, it is also a steel shell bristling with an attraction that draws in participants just as charismatic leaders are alleged to be brimming with mantic powers for mesmerizing the hoi polloi. In other words, digital charisma flows in spaces that are also shaped by the new forces of rationalization. This intertwining of charisma and the steel shell suggests that the mysterious powers once attributed to gifted and exceptional leaders are not necessarily lost to the march of history or transformed as tools of advertising but have relocated to the abstractness of the digital universe. It implies that this universe itself radiates charisma because without it the digital world would only be as staid as the analog sphere of communication. The charismatic might still be seriously researched as an independent variable of warm-blooded human beings, but in the context of vast changes centering on digitalization it would not be inappropriate to refocus the research on the extraordinariness of a new cage powered by the codification of ones and zeros.

Conclusion and further research It is now more than a century since Weber first introduced charisma as a political concept of social change focusing on the revolutionary work of specific leaders. Many researchers still subscribe to this person-centric approach to charisma since the question of how extraordinary power is perceived and received has yet to be fully reworked as one dealing with systemic changes, reorganization, and innovation. In the digital age where the online has become an indispensable aspect of everyday life, we encounter the opportunity to redirect focus on personalized charisma to its dispersal in a system that has transformed remoteness into the affordances and conveniences of human interaction. People no longer need to meet up to carry out various transactions and yet the pull to participate in such a system cannot simply be taken for granted as a new form of communication. It is a high-tech system with little or no face-to-face interaction empowered by digital flows that have charismatic qualities to awe and excite participants into a state of mass euphoria and dedicated distraction. The global spread of this system suggests that people may no longer need to train their attention on the charisma or charismatic performances of revolutionary figures because they themselves have become suffused with the flows of digital charisma. By focusing on the decentered nature of these flows, further research can be directed to address the new configuration of charismatic mediation, digitalized re-enchantment, and cyber-rationalization as the connective power of emerging networks and online communities. 465

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It would imply that the key question concerns charisma as a new form of affective contagion cascading through the myriad linkages of digital space to mesmerize the masses online. Finding out how it works in digital space entails empirical investigations of the infrastructures in media platforms playing a principal role in the encoding and transmission of a forceful contagion that can enhance moods, emotions, and feelings without requiring any personal contact. This could lead to a new sociometry for analyzing interconnectedness not just as statistical patterns of acquaintanceship or comradeship but, more importantly, as conduits of charisma that even Weber likely had not anticipated as the new shell of steel composed by ones and zeros.

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39 Death becomes us! Rethinking leadership charisma as a social inference Louisa Fink, Rolf van Dick, Niklas K. Steffens, Kim Peters, S. Alexander Haslam

Introduction The notion of charisma has long held appeal as a construct that explains the ability of some leaders to have extraordinary effects both on their followers and on the societies that they belong to. In line with this, in one popular definition, Weber (1968) argued that charismatic leaders are fêted among followers by virtue of a set of personal abilities and qualities that are seen to be extraordinary. However, while there is widespread agreement that charisma is important for leadership, there is ongoing debate about what precisely it is, where it comes from, and how it achieves its effects. In particular, while one major perspective considers charisma to be an attribute that resides within leaders (e.g., Borgatta, Bales, & Couch, 1954; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009) and that emerges from the fixed expression of a leader’s personality (House & Howell, 1992), a rival perspective considers charisma to be an attribution that followers make which results from their perceptions of a leader’s behavior (e.g., Howell & Shamir, 2005). Both of the previously mentioned perspectives regard charisma as bound up with a leader’s actions – whether these are understood to be intrinsically charismatic or merely perceived as such by followers. However, in this chapter, we draw on a social identity perspective of leadership to argue for a different approach to charisma. This suggests that it is not necessary for leaders to do anything to be perceived as charismatic. Specifically, we argue that to the extent that a leader is perceived to represent their group – a perception that can be boosted after a leader’s death (Allison, Eylon, Beggan, and Bachelder, 2009) – they should be seen as charismatic. This analysis argues that it is necessary to rethink notions of charisma as a social inference. In what follows, we unpack this argument in three steps. First, we present evidence that the idealized influence of charismatic leaders (i.e., the power through which they secure support and emotional appeal among followers) follows from a process of social construction process that occurs among followers. Specifically, the chapter contributes an understanding of how identity-related phenomena may play into followers’ postmortem evaluations of leaders by shaping the manner in which leaders – and their relation to the group – are represented in followers’ thought systems. Second, we summarize recent findings (Steffens et al., 2017; van Dick et al., 2019) which show (1) that attributions of leader charisma are influenced by perceptions of the leader’s ability 468

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to represent a social identity that they share with followers (Swann et al., 2012; Steffens et al., 2014), and (2) that by increasing these sentiments the death of a leader may actually boost attributions of their charisma. Finally, we explore the implications of these findings for practice and also discuss avenues for future research in this area.

From personality trait to social inferences of leadership charisma According to Weber (1968, p. 19), charismatic leaders most typically emerge “in times of psychic, physical, economic, ethical, religious, [or] political distress” during which followers devotedly place their destiny in those leaders’ hands. Weber explained the charismatic effect as leaders’ capability to inspire followership by the virtue of so-called supernatural qualities that deviate exceptionally from the norm. House (1977) built on Weber’s work on charisma by suggesting that leaders’ charismatic appeal is inferred by followers on the basis of observing or reasoning about those leaders’ character traits (House & Baetz, 1979). As such, followers’ evaluations of leaders were recognized as a significant ingredient for understanding leadership charisma. Lord and Maher’s (1993, p. 11) general definition of leadership, “the process of being perceived by others as a leader,” thereby transcends research on charisma that identifies particular characteristics as the origin of followers’ attributions about their leaders (Ensari & Murphy, 2003). Researchers have, for instance, consistently associated self-confidence, rhetorical and articulation abilities (Towler, 2003; Frese, Beimel, & Schoenborn, 2003), posture and body language (Den Hartog & Verburg, 1997; Cherulnik et al., 2001), and the ability to inspire and instill confidence in followers with perceptions of charisma. More recently, however, social psychologists have argued that inferences about leaders’ charisma are not personal appraisals of a given leader’s face-to-face communication ability or personal style, but rather outcomes of a collective group process (Hogg, van Knippenberg, & Rast, 2012; Haslam & Platow, 2001; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003). More particularly, the social identity approach to leadership provides theoretical groundwork for scholars to reexamine the nature of followers’ attributions of their leaders’ charisma (Platow et al., 2006; van Dick & Kerschreiter, 2016). This approach builds on insights afforded by both social identity theory (Tajfel  & Turner, 1979) and self-categorization theory (Turner et  al., 1987) and argues that individuals who perceive themselves to share membership of a common category (e.g., one defined by ethnicity, ideology, religion) will use that sense of shared social identity as a basis for aligning and coordinating their perceptions and behavior at the same time that they differentiate themselves from members of other categories (i.e., so that they divide the world into us and them; Turner et al., 1994). The social identity theory of leadership argues that these social categorization processes of group membership are critical to leader influence. Given that groups are incorporated into individuals’ sense of self and thereby guide individuals’ perceptions of themselves and others, leaders who are seen to represent the group are likely to be especially influential in defining the meaning of that group (Hogg, 2001; Turner & Haslam, 2001). In line with this point, individuals have been shown to be particularly supporting of leaders who are perceived as prototypical members of the group, (i.e., recognized as one of us; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003; Platow et al., 2006). Along similar lines, leadership charisma can also be conceptualized as the product of social inference which is contingent upon leaders being perceived as representative of a salient in-group. In this way, social identity theorizing argues that the inferences followers make about their leaders are structured by a process of social appraisal in which leaders’ personal abilities and behaviors are interpreted through the lens of their group membership. In the case of followers’ inferences about leadership charisma, this suggests that followers must first recognize certain 469

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individuals as leaders of a meaningful in-group before perceiving them as charismatic (Antonakis et al., 2016). Consistent with this, Castelnovo, Popper, and Koren (2017) observe that leadership charisma results from a variety of signals exhibited by the leader (e.g., pertaining to their professional experience) that encourages followers to perceive themselves as sharing identity with that leader. The researchers thereby contribute to an understanding of charisma as a form of signaling in which followers’ acceptance of the leader fosters increased engagement among them with that leaders’ behavior and presence. The notion of leadership charisma as a group-based social inference invites us to reconceptualize charisma as an attribute that is not fixed but which changes as a function of cognitive and social processes that shape followers’ identification with a group and its leader (Haslam & Platow, 2001). Rather than seeing leaders’ personal characteristics and behaviors as inherently charismatic (or not), this approach also invites further reflection on the social psychological processes that prompt followers to perceive certain behaviors as charismatic. In offering such reflection, the present chapter also builds on recognition of the fact that leaders’ capacity for extraordinary influence arises from followers’ attributions (Vergauwe et al., 2018; Nana, Jackson, & Burch, 2010; Awamleh & Gardner, 1999; House & Howell, 1992). However, because it proposes that attributions of leader charisma are informed by social identity-based group processes, it also allows for the possibility that these attributions may persist – even increase – after the leader’s death. In contrast to previous research which suggests that followers infer leadership charisma from certain so-called embodied cues (e.g., body height, facial expression; Barsalou, 2008; Lakens, 2014), we summarize the findings of three studies which observe an increase in perceived charisma following a leader’s death – where this is in the absence of cues to leader actions of any kind (see Table 39.1). We refer to this as the death-charisma link. Documenting this allows researchers to strip away personality-inferred explanations of charisma which see this as the manifestation of a set of observable leadership behaviors and to reexamine leadership charisma, at least in part, as an exogenous variable that is shaped within a psychological group rather than by the individual leader (or individual followers) alone.

The death-charisma effect: an empirical review on social inference In an initial test of the premise that charisma is a social inference, the third author and his colleagues examined the role that a leader’s death plays in shaping followers’ perceptions of the leader’s charisma (Steffens et al., 2017). In an initial study, US-based participants were invited to read the short biography of a fictitious leader – a biomedical scientist named Richard Din. The excerpt summarized Din’s contribution to science through his groundbreaking development of a vaccine that protected the lives of many people. To test the effect of death on Din’s charismatic appeal, participants were then divided into one of two conditions. In one condition (in which they read about the “death of a scientific crusader”), participants were informed that Din had died as the result of an infection from one of the viruses that he was working on; in the other condition (in which they read about the “life of a scientific crusader”), participants were led to believe that he was still alive. After reading through the biography, participants were asked to make judgments about Din’s charisma. They also indicated whether they thought Din was fused with the collective in which he was a leader – in this case, the United States. Here followers’ perceptions of the leader’s fusion with the group (i.e., identity fusion) can be understood as a reflection of their visceral feelings toward the leader and their perceptions of that leader as being one with the group (Swann et al., 2012). Individuals are perceived as being strongly fused with a collective when their membership in the group accommodates their whole self and does not compromise their social or personal sense of identity (Swann & Buhrmester, 2015). 470

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Advancing Research and Theor y 

Study 1 Steffens 392 et al. (2017)

Biomedical pioneer was Initial (and causal) Online study Online study ‘Dead’ vs. ‘alive’ Fusion with perceived as more evidence for a America; (Mechanical (Mechanical Turk): condition of charismatic following his ‘death-charisma Charisma Turk); Par ticipants read a the biomedical death. The leader ’s fusion link’. between300-word biography pioneer with the group (American subjects of a biomedical citizens), in par t, mediated pioneer (Richard Din) this effect. who was either ‘dead’ or ‘alive’. Findings replicate and Percentage of Study provides evidence for Large-scale 48 Heads of States were Two measuring Study 2 Steffens 2,402,171 an increase in charismacontextualize the points: Media charismaarchival identified who died (in et al. referencing items in media ‘death-charisma referencing study office) between 2000 repor ts of (2017) repor ts published after link’ within news items and 2013: Percentage political leaders’ death. societal/ political of charisma references leaders during sphere. in media repor ts their lifetime were analyzed during and after their leaders’ lifetime and death between after their death 2003 and 2013. Providing evidence Postmor tem increase in Fusion with Online study; Par ticipants completed Two measuring Study 3 van Dick 233 leadership charisma was for the ‘deathGermany; [Schmidt: betweena sur vey about one of points: Online et al. identified. Results point charism’ a link in Identity 134; subjects two German political sur vey was (2019) to a serial mediation: the political sphere, leadership; leaders (Helmut Kohl; administered Kohl: 99] Death related to enhanced via two (pre-post) Charisma Helmut Schmidt) pre and post perceptions of identity measuring points. before their death. leaders’ death. leadership, which in turn, Results shed light Different par ticipants was associated with the on the underlying received the same leader ’s fusion to the group mechanisms of the sur vey after the and, ultimately, increased death-charisma leader ’s death. ratings of leader charisma. link.

Study

Table 39.1 Summar y of studies

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On the basis of social identity theorizing, we expected the leader to have greater charismatic appeal among followers when he had died (rather than when he was alive). Namely, we expected the leader’s death to stimulate a retrospective process of reflection among followers, which in turn would lead them to focus in on the ways in which the leader had advanced their group (as opposed to merely his own persona) during his lifetime. To the extent that the leader’s perceived fusion with the group comprises a critical element for how followers a priori construct him as a leader for the group, his death may hereby rekindle followers’ processes of social construction postmortem, which serves the group to deal with the leader’s death in their social context. Followers’ emphasis on the leader’s meaningful social relation to their group may consequently increase their tendency to idealize the leader’s influence, such as his charismatic appeal. In line with these predictions, participants who were told that Din was dead attributed higher levels of charisma to him than did participants who believed he was still alive. Importantly, we found evidence consistent with the theorized mechanism (1) that participants who thought Din was dead (vs. alive) saw him as more fused with the US, and (2) that this accounted for his enhanced charismatic appeal. This study had a number of strengths, notably its experimental design and control of leader behavior. As a result, the study provides evidence of the causal impact of leaders’ perceived identity fusion with the group on their charismatic appeal. However, the study was also limited by specificities of operationalization (e.g., those associated with the leader’s biography). As a result, it is unclear whether the death-charisma effect generalizes beyond the specific context of this operationalization (e.g., to leaders generally, other than groundbreaking biomedical scientists). A second study was thereby designed to rule out the possibility that the death-charisma link applies only to such limited cases. This study took the form of an archival analysis of newspaper mentions of the charisma of 48 heads of state who died in office between 2000 and 2013. This analysis consisted of nearly two million newspaper articles that had been published during the leaders’ lifetime and over 500 thousand articles that were published after their death. By comparing charisma references before and after the leaders’ death, the analysis was able to explore whether attributions of charisma varied over time for the same leader. In line with the findings of Study 1, the study again provided strong support for hypotheses derived from social identity theorizing. Specifically, articles about leaders were significantly more likely to refer to them as charismatic after (vs. before) they had died. Together, these two studies provide clear evidence that death can enhance charismatic attributions to leaders. However, it is important to consider that charisma-referencing news items are only a proxy for followers’ perceptions of leadership charisma. Thereupon, the question remains, whether the death of a real leader would have an impact on the charismatic attributions that were actually made by followers. In order to address this question, and further explore the role of social identity processes in producing the death-charisma effect, the second author and his colleagues conducted a further study to examine whether follower perceptions of leaders’ charisma changed after the leaders’ death (van Dick et al., 2019). This research explored German citizens’ perceptions of two German political leaders: Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. Helmut Schmidt was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) between 1974 and 1982. During his time in office, he focused on the unification of Europe in its international affairs and partnership with the US (Schwarz, 2012). His successor, Helmut Kohl, served as Chancellor from 1982 to 1998 and was the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). One of his most noted achievements in office was his initiation of the movement to unify East and West Germany (Bering, 1999).

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German citizens who participated in the online study were asked to evaluate one of the two Chancellors either before or after their death (Helmut Schmidt: November 2015; Helmut Kohl: June 2017). Similar to Steffens and colleagues’ experimental study, this study again assessed participants’ perceptions of the Chancellors’ charisma and their sense that these leaders were fused with the collective (in this case Germany). At the same time, the study also went beyond this previous work in assessing perceptions of the Chancellors’ effectiveness as leaders. Specifically, participants completed the Identity Leadership Inventory (Steffens et al., 2014), in which they rated the Chancellors’ identity leadership – which reflects the extent to which these were seen to be (a) prototypical of the group (being one of us), (b) promoting the group’s shared interests (doing it for us), (c) creating a sense of group cohesion (crafting a sense of us), and (d) embedding this shared identity in practice (making us matter). Here we theorized that leaders’ perceived identification with the group to which they belonged to (i.e., German nation) would increase after the leaders’ death – a period in which followers would be encouraged to reflect on the leader’s contribution to group interests (rather than their own personal interests) in ways that would increase their influence (i.e., charismatic appeal). The findings supported our hypotheses and were consistent with those of earlier studies. Specifically, there was evidence that Germans who were asked to evaluate the Chancellors after their deaths perceived them to be more charismatic than Germans who evaluated them before they died. This provides strong evidence that an identical record of actions and achievements (i.e., those of retired politicians) can be associated with different levels of perceived charisma. The study also provided further evidence that this pattern was explained by the hypothesized social identity processes. In particular, participants reported perceiving the dead Chancellors (1) to be more fused with their social group after their death, and (2) more effective identity leaders. In further analyses, van Dick and colleagues (2019) found evidence for a serial mediation effect (see Figure 39.1), whereby the death of a Chancellor increased perceptions that he had represented, advanced, created, and embedded a shared identity among German citizens, which in turn related to increased perceptions that he was fused with their collective (i.e., Germany). Notably, citizens’ evaluation of their leader as being fused with Germany was furthermore associated with increased perceptions of his charisma. These findings speak to the importance of identity leadership as a construct that is implicated in a leader’s perceived fusion with the group, such that it shapes postmortem ratings of their charisma. In this manner, the findings accord with previous research which considers leadership charisma to be a form of signaling (Antonakis et al., 2016) in which followers must first recognize individuals as leaders of their in-group before experiencing their presence and behavior as charismatic.

Identity Leadership

Condition 1 = alive, 2 = dead

Identity Fusion

Perceived Leadership Charisma

Figure 39.1  Serial mediation effect of identity leadership and identity fusion in Study 3

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Another interesting observation concerned the impact of participants’ political affiliation on the emergence of the death-charisma link. This can be seen from Figures 39.2a and 2b. First, Figure  39.2b shows the perceptions of Helmut Kohl’s charisma before and after his death among participants who either were affiliated with his party (or similar ones; CDU/ CSU) or those of the opposition (Green party, SPD). Although this finding did not achieve

The Effect of Follower’s Partisanship on Pre and Postmortem Perceptions of Helmut Schmidt’s Leader Charisma

Perceived Leader Charisma

5

4.5

4 Pre-mortem SPD/Grün

Post-mortem CDU/CSU

The Effect of Follower’s Partisanship on Pre and Postmortem Perceptions of Helmut Kohl’s Leader Charisma

Perceived Leader Charisma

5

4.5

4

3.5

3 Pre-mortem SPD/Grün

Post-mortem CDU/CSU

Figure 39.2 Partisanship and the death-charisma effect for (a) Helmut Kohl and (b) Helmut Schmidt in Study 3 474

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conventional levels of statistical significance, the figure shows that the death-charisma effect for Kohl appeared to be strongest among participants who were followers of his own political party (CDU). Taking into consideration followers’ partisan group membership as having a potential effect on their perceptions of leadership charisma may further the investigation of conditions under which the death-charisma effect is magnified. Hereby, the death-charisma effect may be strengthened among followers who share a subgroup membership with the leader (e.g., political party), compared to those who share a more global, overarching group identity (e.g., German citizenship). Yet it is important to note that Figure 39.2a demarcates a similar effect of CDU partisan group membership on citizens’ perceptions of Helmut Schmidt’s leadership charisma, although he represented a rival political party to the CDU. Nevertheless, it may be the case that the latter pattern arises from a ceiling effect for perceived charisma that emerged among members of Schmidt’s own party – whose charisma ratings were extremely high prior to his death. While these unanticipated findings raise the possibility that partisan group membership may act as a boundary condition to the death-charisma effect, they may alternatively be indicative of a partisan-specific effect (i.e., suggesting political conservatives may be more susceptible to the death-charisma effect than political liberals). Future research is necessary to enlighten this debate and provide insight into whether the death-charisma effect may in fact be moderated (bounded) by ideological factors.

Implications for future research The three studies discussed here provide compelling and complementary evidence for leadership charisma as a social attribution that is shaped by participants’ perceptions of the relationship between the leader and the group they lead. In particular, all three studies indicated that the death of a leader boosted people’s attributions of charisma. Importantly, this was observed across studies that used very different methodologies: an experimental study involving a fictional leader (Study 1), a large-scale archival study of media charisma attributions before and after the death of heads of state (Study 2), and a study assessing German citizens’ attributions of charisma to former Chancellors before and after their death (Study 3). In addition, the evidence for the death-charisma effect provided by Study 1 and Study 3 was consistent with theorizing about the mechanism through which this effect occurred. Namely, these studies found significant indirect effects between the death of a leader and perceptions of his or her charisma through perceived fusion of the leader with the social group that they belonged to. Study 3 more specifically elaborated on the findings of previous studies by suggesting that a Chancellor’s death boosted followers’ perceptions of him as being fused with their group by increasing their perceptions of him as being an effective identity leader. Together, then, these findings challenge the classical assumption that follower attributions about charisma are a reflection of a fixed set of personality characteristics that leaders either possess or do not possess (Borgatta, Bales,  & Couch, 1954). In contrast to this view, it appears that these attributions arise from group-based dynamics that allow the charismatic appeal of leaders not only to live on after they have died but indeed to intensify. This suggests that leadership charisma emerges from active inferences made by followers who (come to) perceive leaders as representative of a shared group membership. While the research that has been presented here has a number of strengths, going forward there are many opportunities to further our understanding of leadership as a social attribution in ways suggested by the death-charisma link. For instance, because the between-subjects design applied in Study 3 did not allow pre- and postmortem perceptions of leadership charisma to be compared among the same participants, future research may benefit from a within-study design 475

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that is capable of reducing the level of error variance that arises from the use of different participant samples. Furthermore, Steffens and colleagues (2017) have suggested that follower characteristics may modulate the death-charisma effect. The type of inferences that perceivers make about their leaders, for instance, may be guided by personal dispositions that inform the evaluation of a leader’s identity and fusion to the group. Another avenue for future research would involve establishing the generalizability of the death-charisma effect across diverse sectors (e.g., sports, religion, education) and cultures. Researchers may thereby extend the death-charisma effect from processes of social identification and fusion that are tied to national identity, to those associated with religious identities which are a transnational source of identification for larger groups of people (Peek, 2005). There would also be value in conducting research that explores the longevity of the death-charisma effect and that maps fluctuations of perceived charisma which may occur over time. Beyond these considerations, we draw attention to the possibility that death per se, rather than the leader’s death specifically, may play an important role in the effects that we document here. The mortality salience hypothesis laid out by terror management theorists (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), for instance, provides grounds for this premise. According to Harmon-Jones, Pyszczynski, and Mcgregor (1997), individuals embrace psychological structures that protect them from the concept of death, such as faith and self-esteem, which contribute to their drive for self-continuity. The mortality salience hypothesis argues that with increased awareness of death, individuals’ needs for self-preservation increases too. These needs may take the form of coping strategies which allow individuals to reduce the terror associated with death, or subtle cues of it. The process of validating one’s cultural worldview, for instance, may assuage death-related feelings of terror as individuals make sense of their experience within a familiar context that provides abiding meaning and structure (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). Arndt and colleagues (2002) suggest that as individuals engage in behaviors and thoughts that uphold their worldview in the midst of death-related experiences, these experiences may take on higher-order meaning (i.e., in relation to enduring schemas of their worldview). It is through this process that they achieve symbolic immortality. In this way, enhanced leadership charisma among followers in the present research may in part be bound up with individuals’ efforts to cope with the terror associated with cues to death. Specifically, followers’ perceptions of their leader’s identity and fusion with the group may emerge as a function of their exposure to notions of death, rather than processes of social attribution. This line of argument stems from previous research which shows that individuals tend to evaluate others more favorably to the extent that they uphold their cultural worldview and the sense of self associated with their norms and values (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). Accordingly, processes of identification and identity fusion may serve as coping mechanisms to reinforce a cultural worldview through which people idealize a dead leader – and their cultural relation to them – via increased perceptions of charisma. For this reason, it may be worthwhile replicating and extending Study 1 by including an additional experimental condition that describes the death of a member of the leader’s family, rather than that of the leader him or herself. The examination of death-related cues that are not specific to the leader may thereby shed insight on whether followers’ processes of identification and identity fusion are informed by their mere confrontation with subtle cues of death.

Conclusion The research presented in this chapter provides a group-based analysis of leadership c­ harisma, which speaks to the potential for charisma to increase in the absence of specific leader 476

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behaviors (and associated traits and qualities). By casting doubt on the notion of charisma as a set of heritable traits (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001), the research is relevant to a range of debates in the leadership literature – including those that relate to the question of whether charisma can be learned and taught (Judge et al., 2002; Judge, Colbert, & Ilies, 2004). Most particularly, the research provides evidence which supports a social identity approach to leadership in showing that leaders’ fusion with the group and their capacity to represent, advance, create, and embed a sense of shared identity are heavily implicated in the emergence of charisma and the associated capacity for a person to be an effective leader (Haslam et al., 2017). This in turn points to a range of ways in which leadership might not only be better understood but also better taught.

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Index

aesthetics 352, 355, 360 Africa: charisma in politics 101 – 111; charismatic rituals in 154 – 155 Alexander the Great 54 – 55, 59 – 61, 356 anarchism 265 – 271, 381 apocalypticism 3, 23, 277 – 285 Aristotle 55, 239 – 240, 247, 340, 434 art/charismatic art 351 – 384 asceticism 8, 180, 265 Augustus 65 – 67, 70 – 72, 75n8, 75n9; see also charisma, routinization of Aura 21, 40 – 41, 68, 70, 72, 92, 190, 238, 261, 271, 319, 367, 371, 375, 396, 409 – 410, 413 – 414, 433; see also embodiment; ritual/ ritualism aurora movements 45 authenticity 24, 338, 343 – 344, 367, 378, 381, 411 – 413, 433 authority: charismatic 1 – 2, 11 – 14, 39 – 40, 47, 58, 62, 66 – 67, 71 – 72, 103, 105, 133, 164 – 165, 167 – 169, 172, 175 – 181, 183, 186 – 188, 195, 235, 289, 388 – 390, 422 – 423, 460; legalrational 10 – 11, 227, 365, 388 – 389, 391, 394, 460; traditional 9 – 10, 53, 60, 66 – 67, 101, 177, 191, 289, 383, 418, 445 baraka 41, 155, 164, 166 – 167 Blair, Tony 249 – 257, 257n1, 367 Bollywood 352, 408 – 416 Bourdieu, Pierre 181, 221, 366, 391 – 392 Buddhism 41, 153, 194, 446 Caesar, Julius 65 – 67, 69 – 72, 75n9 Caesarism 53, 268 – 269; see also charisma, authoritarianism and cargo cults 43, 188 Carlyle, Thomas 164, 204, 207 celebrity/celebrity culture 3 – 4, 26, 102, 202 – 205, 211, 262, 367, 370 – 372, 375 – 384, 406, 409 – 413, 416 charisma: anthropology and 21, 39 – 49, 130 – 133, 320; authoritarianism and 3, 30 – 32, 36 – 37, 216, 219, 262, 264, 268 – 269; cultural sociology 480

and 18 – 26; definitions of 11 – 14, 172n5, 145, 188, 262, 324, 366; devaluation of 2 – 3, 7, 262, 372, 460; ethics of 144, 238 – 247; gender and 4, 121, 135, 171, 207, 327, 344, 427, 439 – 440, 445 – 455; justification of 227, 244 – 247; media and 3 – 4, 19 – 20, 85 – 86, 92, 120, 178, 222 – 223, 363 – 373, 399 – 400, 403 – 406, 460 – 462, 464, 471; populism and 3, 23, 115 – 116, 122 – 123, 220 – 222, 226 – 237, 414 – 416; power and 1, 8, 13, 15, 21 – 22, 40, 85 – 86, 89, 110, 123, 143 – 144, 148n21, 187, 205, 211, 227, 247, 263, 366, 384, 388, 392, 405, 422 – 426, 452, 460; psychology of 28 – 37, 44, 46, 204, 212, 310, 314, 327, 330, 341, 353 – 354, 360, 433, 436, 439; routinization of 14, 60, 71 – 72, 132, 165, 167 – 169, 179, 183, 190 – 191, 278, 285, 290 – 291, 296 – 297, 311, 372 – 373, 378, 460; social media and 159, 184, 373, 412 – 413, 426 – 427, 442; violence and 3, 42, 89, 92, 115, 188, 191, 278, 355, 436; waning of 13 – 15, 19, 40, 103, 177, 180, 236, 311, 319, 353, 372 – 373 charisma and crisis 2, 19, 28, 34, 42 – 43, 55, 65, 67 – 69, 74n3, 78, 82, 85, 90, 91, 101, 111, 133, 146 – 147, 191, 215, 217 – 219, 278, 287 – 290, 292, 295, 297, 310, 327, 329, 366, 459 charisma and destructive leadership 35 – 36, 89, 122 – 123, 310 – 311; toxic leadership 249 – 257; trickster model 45 – 47; see also charisma, ethics of charisma and enchantment/re-enchantment 4, 45, 130 – 132, 135, 262, 309, 355, 360, 378, 408, 412, 415 – 416, 457 – 466 charisma and rationality/irrationality 13, 33, 40, 57 – 58, 124, 146 – 147, 243 – 244, 263, 399, 411, 418, 458 – 462 charisma and the World Wide Web 194, 222 – 223, 395 – 396, 441, 447, 457 – 466 charisma as extraordinary 8, 11, 12 – 13, 47, 54, 66, 91, 101, 105 – 106, 163, 175, 217, 227 – 228, 243, 262, 268, 289, 309, 324, 366, 375, 445, 468 charisma as innate 44, 175, 187, 257, 268, 338, 345, 363 – 367, 371 – 372, 477 charisma as learned/trained 244, 337 – 348, 364 – 365, 419 – 420, 476 – 477

Index

charisma as performance 13, 24 – 25, 47, 101, 103, 119, 129, 179, 262, 363 – 364, 368 – 369, 373, 446, 460; see also charisma signals charisma as revolutionary force 7, 13, 15, 40, 54, 66, 90, 122 – 123, 176 – 177, 216 – 217, 227, 238, 262 – 265, 291, 363, 383, 393, 398, 401, 459, 463, 465 charisma as social process/construction 124, 134, 181, 186 – 187, 306, 325 – 329, 419, 468; see also followership; social identity approach/theory charisma as unstable/impermanent 14, 19, 72, 90, 103, 177, 179, 181, 188, 190 – 191, 311, 353, 363 – 364, 366, 372; see also charisma, routinization of charisma signals 313 – 322, 339 – 342, 470 charismatic bond 2, 78, 82 – 83, 87, 111, 124, 129, 134 – 135, 146, 148, 187 – 190, 195, 289, 363, 446, 455 Chávez, Hugo 23, 46, 115 – 117, 119 – 121, 226, 234 Christianity: Catholic 47, 79, 82, 135, 151, 153, 154 – 155, 160n2, 165, 271, 360; contemplative 151 – 160; evangelical 109, 111, 151 – 160 Cicero 66, 69, 75n7 contagion 29, 321, 326, 330, 332 – 333, 463 coterie charisma/charisma of the cadre/ charismatic aristocracy 54, 77, 83, 86, 179, 183, 188, 266 – 268, 277 – 279, 285, 378 – 379 crowd psychology 31, 33, 35, 44, 46, 212, 377 Csordas, Thomas 47, 129, 154 De Gaulle, Charles 2, 35, 46, 217, 219, 445 demagogues/demagoguery 14, 19, 53, 55 – 59, 203, 216 – 217, 360, 363, 370, 377 drama/dramatization 30, 42, 48n3, 122, 129, 148, 188, 229, 270, 357 Durkheim, Émile 1, 18 – 26, 44, 54, 154, 175, 180, 186 – 187, 192, 366 ecstasy/ecstatic 1, 44 – 45, 130 – 131, 151 – 157, 159, 264 – 265, 355, 381, 463; see also emotions; ritual/ritualism Eliade, Mircea 130 – 131 eloquence 105 – 106, 109, 203, 242; see also oratory embodiment 24, 35, 107 – 111, 119 – 121, 154, 175, 180, 182, 291, 358, 409; see also performance; ritual/ritualism emotions 36, 57, 90, 124, 212, 238, 247, 270, 313, 315 – 318, 330, 332, 345, 445; see also contagion ethnicity 115, 344, 427, 433, 437, 449, 451, 452 – 455, 469 Evolutionary leadership theory (ELT) 4, 245 – 246, 313 – 314, 321 – 322, 433 – 442 exemplarity 8 – 9, 34, 39 – 40, 46, 91, 108, 116, 157 – 159, 164, 169, 171, 271, 289, 308 – 309, 351 experimental studies 320 – 322, 331 – 333, 470 – 475

Feuchtwang, Stephan 187, 190 follower-centric perspective 277, 321, 324 – 326, 468; see also followership followership: role of 171, 271, 315, 319 – 320, 324 – 336, 468 – 479; see also coterie charisma/ charisma of the cadre/charismatic aristocracy; leadership, romance of Freud, Sigmund 1, 28 – 37, 42 – 43, 54 Gandhi, Mahatma 35, 46, 267, 318, 341, 433 Geertz, Clifford 40 – 41, 166 – 168 Great Man Theory of history 41, 62, 66, 77, 108, 164, 204, 269, 356; see also Carlyle, Thomas Hawke, Bob 364, 367 Herrschaft 8 – 9, 53, 418 Herzl, Theodor 140, 146 – 148, 149n33, 150n59 Hinduism 2, 153, 175 – 184 Hollywood 262, 370 – 371, 377, 397 – 406 Homer 62, 352, 356, 360 Horvath, Agnes 39, 45 – 46 institutional charisma 40 – 41, 72, 92, 103 – 104, 122, 154, 167, 183, 188, 191, 217, 227 – 228, 270, 311, 372, 379, 458; see also charisma, routinization of; Weber, Max, primary and secondary charisma in intersectionality 449 Islam: jihadism and charismatic leadership 288 – 297; role of followership in charisma 171 – 172; Sufism 41, 164 – 165, 167 – 168, 171, 177; temporality and charisma 169 – 171; see also Muhammad It is written . . . but I say to you 13, 220; see also authority, charismatic Jesus 9, 14, 25, 39, 117, 137, 140 – 142, 152, 170 – 171, 193, 271, 278 – 279, 352, 357, 445 – 446 Judaism: distrust of charisma in 139 – 148; see also Herzl, Theodor; Moses King, Martin Luther 23, 46, 218 – 219, 267, 338, 340, 369, 371, 433 Kohut, Heinz 28, 30, 32 La Barre, Weston 42 – 43 Latin America 23 – 24, 115 – 124, 236n1, 261 leader-centric perspective 324 – 325, 333 leadership, romance of 277, 325 – 326, 330 liberal democracy 3, 108, 122 – 123, 202, 215 – 224, 226 – 232; elitist charisma vs. populist charisma in 220 – 224 Lindholm, Charles 41, 45, 47, 129, 134, 152, 408, 410 love 29, 37, 42, 45, 47, 119, 134, 190, 204, 264, 355 481

Index

magic 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16n10, 21, 28 – 32, 40, 42, 155, 243, 263, 351, 353, 367, 395, 399, 409, 419 – 420, 445, 459, 461 – 463 magnetism 31, 47, 102, 105, 109, 152, 190, 205 – 209, 243, 265, 289, 328, 352, 367, 370 – 371, 379, 384, 399, 419, 422 – 423 Malatesta, Errico 269 – 270 mana 137, 155, 180 Mandela, Nelson 110 – 111, 240 – 241, 318, 337, 367 manipulation 33, 91, 203, 449; charisma and 239 Mao Zedong/Maoism 2, 89 – 99, 104, 141, 261, 269 – 270, 452 marketing 84, 209, 359, 372, 426, 438 mesmerism/mind control 28, 32, 187, 205 – 206, 360 messianism/messianic 23 – 24, 26, 28, 33 – 34, 103, 105 – 106, 141 – 146, 148n10, 150n55, 209, 352, 464 miracles 13, 29, 54, 78, 86 – 87, 101, 172n5, 176 – 179, 262, 365, 378, 445 mission 2, 12, 46, 54, 78 – 79, 83 – 87, 116 – 117, 169, 177, 189, 234, 262, 278, 305, 327 – 328, 354, 404, 457 – 459 missionary politics 23, 116 – 117, 229 Moses 137, 141 – 146, 148n5 Muhammad 163 – 172, 292, 295 music 118 – 120, 156 – 157, 321, 371, 375, 379 – 380, 387 – 396 myth/mythical 2, 22, 25, 35, 46, 62, 79, 82, 90, 92, 117 – 118, 188, 267, 353, 356, 461 new religious movements (NRMs) 186 – 195 Nietzsche, Friedrich 130, 216, 270, 381; influence on Weber 268 – 269 Nkrumah, Kwame 103 – 108, 261 noncharisma 34, 54 – 55, 71, 143, 221 – 222, 224n2, 227, 236n2, 306 – 307, 364 Obama, Barack 24, 218, 221, 246, 368 – 373 oratory 31, 80, 101, 105 – 106, 118 – 119, 270, 278, 306, 364, 368 – 370, 438; see also eloquence Parsons, Talcott 7, 20, 265 Pericles 14, 54, 55, 58 – 59; see also demagogues/ demagoguery Plato 202, 356, 434 political religions 2, 45, 47 – 48, 89, 103, 110, 267 politics: civility and 221 – 222; ethic of conviction and ethic of responsibility 266, 268; see also liberal democracy postmortem charisma: death-effect 40, 72 – 73, 79, 103, 118, 179, 183, 235, 292, 295 – 296, 392, 470 – 475; leader’s death and succession 14, 40, 59 – 60, 71, 104, 118, 188, 235 – 236, 311 pre-charismatic terminology 1, 61 – 62, 66 – 67, 202 – 205, 370

482

profane 22, 46, 54; see also sacred/sacredness pseudocharisma/manufactured charisma 19, 261, 314, 371, 400 – 405, 436, 441, 460 redemption 79, 103, 106, 123, 141, 147, 278, 352, 354 – 357, 359; see also mission religion: leaders 2, 15, 47 – 48, 106, 142, 153 – 154, 169 – 171, 176 – 178, 188 – 190, 281 – 285, 364 – 365, 378 – 379, 398; as the original source for charisma 7 – 9, 15, 39 – 42, 54, 102, 201, 364 – 365; see also Buddhism; Christianity; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism ritual/ritualism 2, 18, 20 – 21, 41, 44, 72, 89 – 90, 92, 96 – 97, 118, 151 – 156, 159, 178, 180 – 183, 190, 279, 281, 311, 371, 383 sacred/sacredness 2, 18, 20 – 24, 26, 40 – 41, 46, 53 – 54, 66, 129, 175, 180 – 181, 192, 383 – 384 self-esteem 51, 53, 55, 205, 329, 334, 346, 494 shamanism 47, 129 – 137, 437 Shils, Edward 20 – 21, 25, 166, 168, 177, 191, 193, 290, 376 – 377, 383, 460 social identity approach/theory 324, 330, 468 – 479 Sohm, Rudolph 1, 8, 39, 129, 213n3, 262, 264, 268, 271, 364 – 365, 458 sport 4, 45, 121, 337, 405, 418 – 428, 476 St Paul/Pauline 8, 53, 129 – 130, 136, 152, 159, 262, 268 – 269, 364 – 365, 368 Tarde, Gabriel 44 – 46, 419 trauma 32, 146, 147 Trump, Donald 220 – 223, 226, 406; as charismatic 24 – 26, 221, 233 – 234; as noncharismatic 46, 371 – 372, 384; as toxic leader 447 Turner, Bryan S. 164 – 166, 167, 169, 460 Turner, Victor 44 – 46, 154 vision/visionary 21, 23, 43, 78, 90, 94, 96, 101, 103, 105 – 106, 109, 122, 239, 242, 249, 285, 305 – 311, 315 – 316, 318 – 320, 326, 330, 332, 337 – 338, 341, 379 – 381, 410, 422, 451 Wagner, Richard 375, 379 – 383 Wallace, A.F.C. 43 Weber, Max: authoritarian leanings of 216, 262, 268 – 269; primary and secondary charisma in 14, 40, 48n3, 129, 132, 136 – 137, 154; rationalization-disenchantment and 10 – 11, 130, 263, 365, 378, 391, 457 – 461; as the sociological ‘father’ of charisma 1, 7 – 8, 53, 187, 201, 215, 227, 261, 365 Willner, Anne Ruth 41 – 42, 47, 327 Xenophon 61 – 62 Zaleznik, Abraham 28, 30, 35 – 37, 304 – 305