Editorial: Charisma after Weber

Abstract

[MWS 12.2 (2012) 155-158] ISSN 1470-8078 Editorial Charisma after Weber Sam Whimster Thomas Gottschalk, recalling a reception at the White House, de scribed in glowing terms his meeting with President Barack Obama. Gottschalk's son had worked on the Obama election team and Obama sent his best regards 'and thereby gave the impression that at this moment he was only interested in you alone. The man has real charisma' (Bild 9 June 2011). Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP in the UK Parliament, in an opening address to the 'Charisma—After Weber' conference at the University of Birmingham in June 2011 (and orga nized by Dr. Gëzim Alpion) noted that the successful modern politi cian had to be photogenic, have a likeable personality. This worked against Gordon Brown (the last Labour Prime Minister) since he was grumpy, did not smile and was tribal, but it did work for his prede cessor Tony Blair who defined the relationship with his audience at each encounter. Blair had charisma, Brown did not and that disad vantaged Brown with the electorate. Stuart went on to point out that political ground rules still applied. The electorate could not be pa tronized or lied to. A close reading of Weber7 s writings on charisma shows that he rarely applied the concept to modern political personalities. Charisma belonged to pre-modern, less rationalized societies, and it could apply to both religious and political personalities. The scope for irrational abandonment of a following to a charismatic leader is circumscribed in the modern world by rational based legitimacy (law, democracy, constitutionalism) and the deadening affects of routinization of all aspects of life. Clearly, after Weber, there has been a decisive and irreversible semantic shift in the sense of the term. From the viewpoint of politics this has restricted our vocabulary, for where do we place the effec tive leader, the great leader or the demagogic leader? Weber used all these expressions and also the plebiscitary leader or 'caesarist'© Max Weber Studies 2012, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 156 Max Weber Studies leader without resorting to the charisma label, though as J.G. Green has pointed out plebiscitary leadership democracy (Führerdemokra tie) does provide a training ground for the acquisition of charismatic qualities by politicians seeking popular support (Max Weber Studies 8.1:190). But today any leader is liable to be portrayed 'charismatic'. Celebrity culture and its supporting media of Facebook, Twitter, tabloids, 'celeb' magazines, rolling news programmes and talk radio have transformed the field in which personalities are represented. Or perhaps we should say that these media have flattened the field, allowing minor celebrities and barely adequate political leaders to be served up as radiating 'charisma'. There is a Weberian analysis of this flattening of the field. Modern civilization has created saturation levels of material and ideal 'goods' (Heilsgüter). There is a market place not only of material goods but also of ideal goods—religions, political parties, social movements. Weber only half glimpsed this re-enchantment of the world, seeing the industrialized and routinized world contemporary to him as disenchanted—no need for religious salvation in a materially secure existence and no unknown depths to be overcome by magical powers. There is no longer any profound psychic depth that binds charismatic leader and following together, and heroes become dangerous eccen tricities in the modern world. Hence, applying charisma to politicians under conditions of moder nity is somewhat contrary to Weber's ideal type. Politics is meant to be normalized and as Karl Mannheim argued in Ideology and Utopia (1929) politics had become pragmatic, and Utopias and world-views had been superseded. Mannheim's timing might have been better if he had published in 1959 (though his book did acquire a post-war rel evance) for 1929 was the year of the international crisis of capitalism, the Great Crash, and the rise of fascism. The analysis of fascism by political scientists and sociologists has given rise to a serious engage ment with charisma as a valid modern political concept. In the hands of Stefan Breuer and Ronald Glassman and others, major amend ments have been introduced so that some features of...