Charismatic Domination Research Articles

Max Weber and Carl Schmitt on Legitimate Domination: Belief in Legitimacy or Acknowledgement of Legitimacy?

This article discusses Weber’s and Schmitt’s diverging interpretations of the legitimate bases of domination. While Weber regards the belief in legitimacy as the source of legitimate domination, Schmitt employs an existentialist interpretation by deriving legitimacy from the acknowledgement of the people. These two distinct sources are preponderant in their understandings of plebiscitary leadership. Weber derives the legitimacy of the plebiscitary leader from charismatic grounds. In contrast, Schmitt maintains that the acknowledgement of the people of the already existing order constitutes the democratic legitimacy of the plebiscitary leader. Weber’s ideal-type of charismatic domination seems to be more appositely applicable to left-wing populism, while Schmitt provides a more adequate framework to analyse right-wing populism in contemporary societies. As a result, this article argues that comparative-historical and political sociologists should take into account these distinct conceptions of legitimate domination in order to comprehend the peculiar features of legitimate government in contemporary societies.

Max Weber’s Athens: The entanglement between charismatic domination and non-legitimate domination

Contemporary reconstructions of Max Weber’s theory of democracy have failed to recognise Weber’s comparative-historical approach vis-à-vis the question of democracy. This article addresses this gap with respect to his understanding of Athenian democracy. It demonstrates that Weber’s interpretation of Athenian democracy provides a dual understanding of domination. On the one hand, Weber describes the demagogues in Athens as exercising charismatic domination through their oratory skills over ordinary citizens. On the other hand, Weber characterises the institutional structure of Athenian democracy with the atypical case of non-legitimate domination [ nichtlegitime Herrschaft]. Weber maintains that the holders of office in Athens were ultimately accountable and responsible to the ordinary people who exercised their political power in popular assemblies and popular courts. Weber interprets Athenian democracy as characterised by the entanglement between charismatic domination and non-legitimate domination. Thus, this article argues that Weber’s concept of Herrschaft is an open concept which results in his amalgamation of charismatic domination and non-legitimate domination in explaining the institutionalisation of Athenian democracy. In the end, how to maintain political leadership within democratic institutional structures was the question of democracy for Weber.

A sociologia política de Max Weber na interpretação do nazismo

O objetivo deste texto é analisar alguns elementos da sociologia política de Weber, sob uma perspectiva conceitual e empírica, por intermédio de uma sociologia histórica da ascensão do Nazismo na Alemanha. Iniciando com escritos políticos de Weber sobre a unificação alemã, nosso destaque maior está voltado para os conceitos de dominação carismática e liderança carismática, recompondo-os em aproximação com elementos históricos da ascensão de Hitler e do Terceiro Reich. Guiando-nos por historiadores especialistas no Nazismo, nossa hipótese é a de que a sociologia da dominação e liderança carismática de Weber nos parece inteiramente adequada para compreender o papel específico de Hitler, particularmente aquele da natureza de seu poder diante da sociedade alemã. A pesquisa é orientada por uma questão metodológica, que pretende ir além do mero contexto histórico e operar uma autêntica passagem da ação social sob certas circunstâncias (generalização de conceitos pela sociologia do carisma) para o transcurso efetivamente dado pela ação, sob circunstâncias parecidas ou singulares (a ascensão do Nazismo), num exercício de adequação

A double-headed hydra: Marine Le Pen’s charisma, between political masculinity and political femininity

ABSTRACTAlthough charisma is more commonly associated with masculine leadership, Marine Le Pen (MLP) is a woman politician whom supporters view as charismatic. Combining theories of hegemonic masculinity, and hegemonic femininity, with Max Weber’s typology of legitimate domination, this paper elaborates a framework for identifying how political masculinity and femininity are relationally structured within types of legitimate domination, including charismatic domination. I apply this framework to empirical analysis of the French radical rightwing leader and her supporters. Charisma, I suggest, is a form of political masculinity a woman can enact, but which allows for expression of political femininity. Drawing from participant observation data gathered on the French National Front between 2013 and 2017, and from interviews with party members, I show how activists viewed MLP as an admirably virile figure. Simultaneously, she was venerated for her feminine corporality, and her expression of feminine care, or caritas. Like a double-headed hydra, MLP was viewed as extraordinary due to her combined political masculinity and political femininity. Contra theories of hegemonic masculinity, MLP shows that a charismatic woman can perform hegemonic masculinity without being punished by supporters for doing so. Rational-bureaucratic domination, by contrast, is predominantly masculine, and allows for little expression of political femininity.

Trajetória social, habitus e engajamento no trabalho escolar

Resumo Apresenta-se neste artigo resultado de pesquisa sobre a organização do trabalho pedagógico na escola com foco na figura do gestor, com o objetivo de analisar as formas como um diretor e uma coordenadora pedagógica, em duas escolas, compreendem e executam seu trabalho, estabelecendo relações com os demais membros da equipe gestora, com a Secretaria da Educação, funcionários da escola, professores, pais e alunos, a partir de disposições constituidoras de habitus para a ação. Interroga-se sobre as causas das diferenças existentes na atuação dos gestores. São mobilizados os conceitos de habitus e dominação legítima. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas em duas escolas municipais da educação básica, escolhidas por serem reconhecidas como boas pela comunidade. Nas entrevistas, foram levantados dados sobre valores e crenças dos sujeitos, forjados em suas trajetórias sociais e no campo educacional. Após análise, evidenciaram-se duas formas de condução da gestão: uma pautada por racionalidade mais técnica, e outra por certo enfrentamento a essa forma de trabalho. A dominação burocrática se manifestou ora com traços de dominação tradicional, ora de dominação carismática, na relação com diferentes formas de capital. Investigar o trabalho pedagógico relacionando-o às crenças e valores dos sujeitos, e que encontram canal de expressão no campo da educação, ajuda a compreender os processos sociais que constituem a sua realidade cotidiana.

Max Weber y la Democracia Plebiscitaria

En este trabajo se desarrollan las ideas de Weber en relación a la llamada “democracia plebiscitaria”. En primer lugar, se describen sus ideas sobre la democracia parlamentaria y la democracia plebiscitaria señalando sus particularidades y diferencias. Luego se aborda específicamente la democracia plebiscitaria como un tipo de dominación carismática. En el estudio se trata tanto el análisis científico que realiza Weber sobre la democracia plebiscitaria como también su propuesta política para un momento específico de la historia de Alemania, la primera posguerra. En el trabajo se señalan los límites teóricos de la propuesta de democracia plebiscitaria desde la propia teoría de Weber. El estudio revaloriza el análisis de Weber sobre una democracia que parece tener cada vez más vigencia.

Threat inflation as political melodrama: ISIS and the politics of late modern fear

ABSTRACTFearful talk surrounding ISIS discloses two ‘public secrets’ that collectively define the dilemma of late modern politics. The first is a transition from politics that is experienced and narrated chiefly as tragedy to one that is experienced chiefly as melodrama. The second is a motivated wish to shed the moral burden which tragedy places on the contemporary political subject. ISIS, then, is terrifying not because it represents a throwback to premodern forms of charismatic domination or political atavism, but because its embrace authorises a politics informed by what Tamsin Shaw calls ‘the freedom and exhilaration of moral insensibility.’ Assessing the effects of, and developing responses to, the wish for such freedom should be a priority for students of democratic and normative international theory.

Bureaucratic Dominance in European Higher Agricultural Education

The present research work is a project of doctoral thesis of correlational type. The main objective was to demonstrate the relationship between the university bureaucracy of European Agricultural Education as a sociological phenomenon of the domain of domination according to Weber, particulary the Escuela Superior de Agricultura de Barcelona (ESAB) of the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) in Spain and its impact on organizational performance, as a reference and example for mexican agricultural education, particularly the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACh). The results of the research validate the hypothesis: a better bureaucratic management in the context of the Spanish Higher Agricultural Education (SHAE), particularly the ESAB of the UPC, better organizational performance. Some research findings are that: students appreciate more characteristics of a leader related to legal domination, compared to traditional and charismatic; show a clear rejection towards the charismatic domination, when of politics and government is treated; validate more the practices of legal domination, compared to traditional or charismatic, when of choice of positions in the university is concerned; they reject more the bad practices related to the charismatic domination, than those related to the legal or traditional domination; and value respect, as a representative value of legal domination, in comparison with other values, such as loyalty and humility, related to traditional and charismatic domination respectively.

Bureaucratic Dominance in European Higher Agricultural Education

The present research work is a project of doctoral thesis of correlational type. The main objective was to demonstrate the relationship between the university bureaucracy of European Agricultural Education as a sociological phenomenon of the domain of domination according to Weber, particulary the Escuela Superior de Agricultura de Barcelona (ESAB) of the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) in Spain and its impact on organizational performance, as a reference and example for mexican agricultural education, particularly the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACh). The results of the research validate the hypothesis: a better bureaucratic management in the context of the Spanish Higher Agricultural Education (SHAE), particularly the ESAB of the UPC, better organizational performance. Some research findings are that: students appreciate more characteristics of a leader related to legal domination, compared to traditional and charismatic; show a clear rejection towards the charismatic domination, when of politics and government is treated; validate more the practices of legal domination, compared to traditional or charismatic, when of choice of positions in the university is concerned; they reject more the bad practices related to the charismatic domination, than those related to the legal or traditional domination; and value respect, as a representative value of legal domination, in comparison with other values, such as loyalty and humility, related to traditional and charismatic domination respectively.

El Mandato del Cielo 天命 y el emperador Han Gaozu汉高祖. Una lectura desde Max Weber y Hok-lam Chan

The doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven 天命 was the basis of political legitimacy throughout the dynastic China. In order to study its conformation and the basis of the legitimacy of the emperors, I will begin this essay with an account of the origins of the doctrine. Then I will consider the problem of legitimacy during the dynastic China based on the legitimacy concept of sociologist Max Weber and of Hok-lam Chan, a recognized authority of this historical period. While Weber claimed that dynastic China was based on a charismatic domination and legitimacy, adapted one way or another to daily life, the fact is that the case of Han Gaozu汉高祖, founder of the Han Dynasty 汉朝, demonstrates that the basis of the legitimacy of dynastic China had other elements of legitimacy, sorted by Weber as rational and traditional. Also, Hok-lam Chan speaks of five forms of legitimacy: procedural, coercive, semantic, scholastic and popular. If these five categories are classified in the thought of Max Weber, one could observe how they share certain elements. By doing this, an integral legitimacy is formed, which the various rulers of the Chinese dynastic period needed to truly be of the mandate of Heaven. Finally, I will discuss the case of Han Gaozu, as it is exceptional way to understand the usefulness of the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven. Therefore, I will discuss why Han Gaozu mythologized his origins under the hypothesis that, although the legitimacy obtained by his personal talent –rational legitimacy- and the support of his followers –charismatic legitimacy-, with which he was able to become a ruler, was not enough for him to be considered a man worthy to receive the mandate of Heaven. Rather, he had to mystify his origins to obtain a comprehensive legitimacy and establish himself as a new legitimate emperor despite his peasant origin.

En busca del poder local. Surgimiento del liderazgo comunal en relación con la instalación de un proyecto energético: el caso de la comunidad campesina de Andaymarca, Huancavelica

The aim of the present study is to show in an ethnographic way the reconfiguration process of communal political leadership in two simultaneous situations: the insertion of a megaproject of energetic nature and the crisis of politic representation of traditional authorities. Nowadays in Peru, the presence of megaprojects promoted through private inversions have caused changes in the internal political dynamics of the localities where they are inscribed. In our case, the effect that has provoked the entry of energetic project “Cerro del Aguila’s Hydroelectric Central” in the rural community of Andaymarca, Huancavelica, will be treated. This enterprise seems to be the second with more energetic production in a national level. The main result has been in the political area, through the incursion of a leadership kind that mobilizes its own resources (social capital, cultural and symbolic) and specifies it through a charismatic domination, with the objective of creating local bonds and using it in an strategic way in two directions: towards the negotiations with the energetic project and towards the collective mobilization to capture State, as the district local government. In this way, the objective resides in showing how the communal leadership is activated and redefined and its importance in the actual role of the local leaderships.

Ellen G. White e a Igreja Adventista do Sétimo Dia: Carisma e Dominação Carismática

The organization and institutional development of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) are inseparably integrated into the undisputed driving force of Ellen G. White. By his influence arising prophetic guidance, the small remaining group of Millerite Movement (1839-1844) became a church of global expansion, whose missionary work relies on a weaving organized by various institutions. Mindful of the importance of Ellen G. White SDA is essential to introduce this character, so that makes it possible for our understanding of structural strength to influence the emergence and subsequent development of the SDA church, but also to their institutionalization. Indicated in advance that the results presented here come from a literature whose literature is mostly denominational, and that the approach of the influence of the prophetess Ellen G. White has these pages buoyed by an understanding of concepts prophet , charisma and charismatic domination .

Charismatic performance: A study of Bacon’s rebellion

This article develops the ideal type of charismatic performance. In a charismatic performance, a series of interactions between a leader and his followers takes on a specific pattern and tone: the leader’s startling successes in the world and, in particular, his or her public acts and displays, build upon each other to create, in followers, a perception of the inevitability of his or her rise, a deeply affective connection to the leader, and a tendency for the interpretive frameworks of these followers to center upon the leader’s individual person. Simultaneously, the leader draws emotional energy and political possibility from his (growing) community of followers. Charismatic performances, I argue, provide one route to sovereignty, and thus to political domination and the legitimation of the use of physical violence. I illustrate these arguments and sketch a model of charismatic performance via a historical case study of Bacon’s rebellion (1676) in the English Colony of Virginia. The shift to a performative perspective on charismatic domination and, in particular, the model of a charismatic performance as a recursive, self-legitimating ‘spiral of success’ provides additional analytical leverage for the examination of charismatic domination and the ‘extraordinary’ times that make it more likely to emerge.

Tradition in the Work of Shils and Polanyi

Tradition in the Work of Shils and Polanyi

Max Weber, charisma and nationalist leadership1

One of Max Weber's most well-known achievements was the formulation of three concepts of legitimate authority: traditional, legal-rational and charismatic. However, there are particular problems with the last of these, which is not historically grounded in the manner of the other two concepts. The charisma concept originated with Weber's sociology of religion, was pressed into service in pre-war writing on the sociology of domination, shifted focus in his wartime political writings and changed meaning again in his post-war writing on basic sociological concepts. To use the concept in historical-political analysis, I argue, one must distinguish between a pre-modern and modern form of charismatic domination. I argue that doing this enables us to understand features of the leadership of colonial nationalist and fascist movements. © ASEN/Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2011.

Fascism, ‘Charisma’ and ‘Charismatisation’: Weber's Model of ‘Charismatic Domination’ and Interwar European Fascism

The special position that many fascist leaders eventually occupied in the political and psychological structures of their movements alludes to an exceptional degree of charismatisation by the community of their followers. Less clear, however, is the relation between the fascist leader's ‘cult’ and society as a ‘charismatic community’ (Gemeinde). This article examines the relation between fascist ideology and ‘charisma’, drawing a distinction between the Weberian notion of ‘charismatic domination’ and the fascist ‘leadership cult’. It also challenges the mono‐causal explanation of fascist rule as irrational‐charismatic, arguing instead in favour of a composite model of both genuine and manufactured, that is rationally pursued, processes of charismatisation that were quantitatively and qualitatively different across the spectrum of fascist leaders and regimes in the interwar period. The concerted charismatisation of the fascist leader, through propaganda and state‐imposed rituals, did not automatically generate a genuine model of charismatic domination, even if instances and routines of adulation did become established and widespread. Here, the conceptual confusion behind the often‐interchangeable use of the terms ‘charismatic leadership’ and ‘cult of the leader’ is evident. What will become clear is that, in the context of interwar fascism, the existence of a genuine charismatic personality neither guaranteed the establishment of a regime nor produced automatically a model of ‘charismatic domination’. Similarly, the relative absence of specific charismatic qualities in the personality of a leader did not prevent a regime from either promoting a systematic ‘leadership cult’ or producing a modicum of ‘charismatisation’. Only in National Socialist Germany did the leader's charisma and the ‘leadership cult’ come close to transforming society into a genuine ‘charismatic community’; but even during the Nazi regime patterns of ‘charismatic domination’ coalesced with both ‘traditional’ and ‘bureaucratic’ forms of legitimacy.

Nationalism, Charisma, and Plebiscitary Leadership: The Problem of Democratization in Max Weber’s Political Sociology

Max Weber has typically been regarded as a central thinker in the liberal tradition of social analysis. At the same time, critics have long noted how his democratic commitments were compromised by his nationalism. Drawing on existing criticism, I discuss the importance of charismatic leadership in Weber’s thought and its implications for his understanding of the process of democratization. Reconstructing core concepts in Weber’s political thought, I analyze how Weber’s concept of plebiscitarian leadership unites charismatic domination with nationalism and skepticism concerning effective democratic politics. I show how Weber’s concept of plebiscitarian rule grew from deeply held political values and his engagement with German politics. I then generate propositions regarding the problem of democratization in regime transitions and apply them to contemporary charismatic leaders and ethno‐nationalist mobilization in post‐Communist transitions. I argue that as much as it anticipates the central dilemma of charismatic solutions to political crisis, Weber’s thought favors nationalist and plebiscitarian responses to democratization that have been largely discredited by historical experience.

Theories of Totalitarianism and Modern Dictatorships: A Tentative Approach

This essay discusses totalitarian theories with regard to their capacity to interpret in a normatively plausible way such different dictatorships as Nazism, Stalinism and post-Stalinism. In contrast to theoretical approaches which subsume all these regimes under a single concept (totalitarianism as total control), it argues in favor of discerning terror and ideology as main characteristics (totalitarianism as extermination). The focus on National Socialism and Stalinism needs further differentiation. Theories of bureaucratic structures and charismatic domination may help in distinguishing both regimes' very particularities; at the same time, however, they seem to fail relevant aspects of historical reality.

The Death of a Lawmaker

Maximilien Robesplerre, who had held an immense political power as a Jacobin leader of the French Revolution and declined suddenly and easily by the Coup d'Etat of Thermidor in the summer of 1794, seems to have identified himself with the figure of the legislators in antiquity whose history fascinated this revolutionary as a young student through the reading of Plutarch or of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and continued to be related by him on many occasions since the beginning of the Revolution. He may have also known that a lawmaker, as was the case of Lycurgus of Sparta or Romulus of Roma, is subjected almost necessarily to the collective violence or persecution at the moment when (or more precisely because, it may be said) he brings the law or the norm to his community. Thus locating Robespierre among the “extraordinary” (so Rousseau-called) lawmakers will afford not only an interpretation of the historical affair but several sociological implications : verification of Rene Girard's thesis on violence and social order, comprehension of Weberian type of charismatic domination not as deriving from leader's own mysterious quality but as based on the situation of a community which expects the realization of any order or stability beyond the crisis of dismemberment, and reconfirmation of Durkheim's concept of the“effervescence collective”as a violent process of producing of the sacred and finally reconstituting of the social. In spite of reticence by the founder of the modern French sociology, who was also obliged to respect the principles of 1789 as one of the eminent spokesmen of the Third Republic, about the bloody aspect of the Revolution as well as the death of Robespierre, the French Revolution, especially the Coup d'Etat of Thermidor will present us a precious clue in constructing a religious sociology of the politics or a political sociology of the religion.

Rationality and Modern Society

In his discussion of the forms of legitimate domination Weber notes that rational, legal domination is frequently combined with an important element of plebiscitarian democracy. He also suggests that the fact that the chief may be represented as the servant or agent of the people naturally does nothing whatever to disprove the quality of dominance (Weber 1978, p. 215). The element of democracy, then, does not mean here that the people rule. Rather it serves in the legitimation of a distinctively modern form of rule that combines a bureaucratic state and significant elements of charismatic domination. Ideas of popular sovereignty and the considerably weaker idea of the mandate are certainly invoked in these societies, and not only when elections are in the air. They play a significant part in political life, but they do not describe it properly. Weber's argument on this point exemplifies an important cautionary thesis concerning the role of ideas in social life. There is a clear sense in which ideas about the workings of particular social institutions may be embedded in the social institutions themselves and may function as essential lubricants in their day-to-day activities, but it does not follow that those ideas properly describe the institutions in which they operate. The ideas of democracy and popular sovereignty are well-known examples. Another example is the idea of politics as class struggle, which has played an important part in socialist and labor movement politics for much of the modern period. This paper makes a similar point about the idea of the person as rational actor. It is a ubiquitous component of Western social thought, figuring prominently both in the life of modern societies and in our attempts to make sense of it. The first part of this paper identifies what is involved in that idea. Next I go on to use a more general model of the actor, considered simply as a locus of decision and action, to undermine the idea of the person as rational actor. It is necessary to distinguish 1) a capacity to employ conceptual tools and devices to construct a connected chain of reasoning or argumentation, and 2) the rationality (or otherwise) of the tools employed. What matters is to investigate what those tools and other devices are, rather than to make any prior assumptions about their rationality. The final section considers the implications of this argument for our understanding of what Weber calls the specific and peculiar rationalism of modern culture (1978, p. 26).