Leaderless Organization, World Historical Events and Their Contradictions: The ‘Burning Man City’ Case

Abstract

‘Leaderless organizations’ are a seductive category in the field of Cultural Studies and critical organization studies. In the 1960s, arguably, Situationism made a fetish of the idea. Various authors made the case for direct, spontaneous action without the hierarchies and directive lead of conventional management structures. The Occupy protest movement revived this thinking. Following the Arab Spring (2011), it gained high media publicity for a series of occupations of prominent sites adjacent to international centres of finance capital. Global events provide a relevant parallel to this. Ever since Live Aid (1985) they have presented themselves as stateless solutions to international issues and emergencies. But are leaderless events possible in cultural management? This paper examines a neglected area in the sociology of culture: global event management and the type of social consciousness that it exploits and perpetuates. The Burning Man City annual event in Nevada is explored as a case of flat horizon strategy in cultural management.