Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-09T00:43:17.235Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Theory and Political Charisma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Arthur Schweitzer
Affiliation:
Indiana University

Extract

Of the many contributions of Max Weber to the social sciences, his theory of charisma has received the greatest attention. It has been applied to Hitler and the Nazi Party, to Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, to presidents in democracy, and to rulers of dictatorial parties in newly formed nations. In addition, the scope of the term charisma has been widened considerably. Charisma should not be limited to supernatural powers but include any kind of human genius and creative activity. Nor need personal and institutional charisma always follow each other but can run concurrently during the reign of the charismatic leader.

Type
Charisma
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gerth, Hans, ‘The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XLV, 01 1940, pp. 517–41.Google Scholar

2 Tucker, Robert C., ‘The Theory of Charismatic Leadership’, Dadalus, Summer, 1968, pp. 731–56.Google Scholar

3 Mommsen, Wolfgang, Max Weber und die deutsche Politik, Tubingen: Mohr, 1959.Google Scholar

4 Horowitz, Irving L., ‘Party Charisma’, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. I, 1965, pp. 8397CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966Google Scholar. Butler, David J., ‘Charisma, Migration, and Elite Coalescence’, Comparative Politics, 04 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Shils, Edward, ‘Charisma, Order and Status’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 30, 1965, pp. 199213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Bendix, Reinhard, ‘Reflections on Charismatic Leadership’, State and Society, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 616–29.Google Scholar

7 Ake, Claude, ‘Charismatic Legitimation and Political Integration’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 14, pp. 113.Google Scholar

8 Ratnam, K. J., ‘Charisma and Political Leadership’, Political Studies, Vol. 12, 1964, pp. 141–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Friedrich, Carl J., ‘Political Leadership and the Problem of Charismatic Power,’ Journal of Politics, Vol. 23, 1961, pp. 324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Talcott Parsons‘ introduction to Weber, Max, The Sociology of Religion, Boston: Beacon Press, 1963, pp. lxii–lxv.Google Scholar

11 Weber, Max, Economy and Society, tr. by Roth, Gunther and Wittich, Claus, 3 vol. New York: Bedminister Press, 1968, p. 241. Page references to this set will be placed in the text right after the quotations.Google Scholar

12 Sohms, Rudolf, Kirchenrecht, Leipzig: Duncker & Humbolt, 1892, Vol. I, p. 26.Google Scholar

13 Friedrich, , op. cit., pp. 1617.Google Scholar

14 Gerth, Hans H. and Mills, C. Wright, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958, p 79.Google Scholar

15 Friedrich, , op. cit., p. 15.Google Scholar

16 Essays in Sociology, p. 125.Google Scholar

17 Froman, Lewis A., People and Politics: An Analysis of the American Political System, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1963, p. 75.Google Scholar

18 Parsons, , op. cit., p. xxxii.Google Scholar

19 Mcintosh, Donald, ‘Weber and Freud: On the Nature and Sources of Authority’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 35, 10 1970, p. 903.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

20 Essays in Sociology, pp. 125, 127.Google Scholar

21 Ratnam, , op. cit., p. 345.Google Scholar

22 Weber describes these as Sonder-Charismata, a term which was omitted in the translations of Parsons and Gerth. See Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tubingen: Mohr, 1956, p. 684.Google Scholar

23 Friedrich, , op. cit., p. 13.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 15. After rejecting any relationship between charisma and totalitarian leadership, Friedrich found it necessary in 1965 to call Hitler a ‘pseudo-charismatic’ leader. See Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965, 2nd ed. p. 44.Google Scholar

25 Methodologically, this inadequate treatment of time and of the phasing of the different subtypes of charisma is an illustration of what Ephrain Fischoff has called the ‘telescoping of data’ associated with Weber's ideal type. See The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism: the History of a Controversy’, Social Research, Vol. xi, 1944, p. 75.Google Scholar

26 This form of connection charisma is not identical with Edward Shils' ‘contact’ charisma, in the article mentioned above, because he extends charisma to any ‘vital forces’.

27 For a discussion of legendary charisma in developing countries see the previously cited article by Reinhard Bendix.

28 Neumann, Franz, Behemoth, New York: Oxford University Press. 1942, p. 85.Google Scholar

29 Emmet, Dorothy, Function, Purpose, and Power, London: MacMillan, 1958, p. 233.Google Scholar

30 Mommsen, , op. cit., p. 140.Google Scholar

31 See the comments by Bendix, Reinhard, Honigsheim, Paul and Lowenstein, Karl in Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Vol. 13, 1961, 258 ff.Google Scholar

32 Der Hilterprozess, Munich: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924, p. 269.Google Scholar

33 Sontheimer, Kurt, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik, Munich: Nyphenburger, 1962, p. 170.Google Scholar

34 Roth, Guenther, ‘Political Critiques of Max Weber: Some Implications for Political Sociology’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 30, 1965, p. 213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Essays in Sociology, p. 107.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 116.

37 Ibid., p. 120.

38 Ibid., p. 127.

39 Ibid., p. 106.

40 Eruptive charismatic emotions take occasionally very strange forms. Witness the great enthusiasm of the politically active people in West Berlin for John F. Kennedy during his speech in 1963 as well as for General de Gaulle during his triumphal speaking tour in the major cities of West Germany in 1963.

41 Weber, Max, Gesammelte Politische Schriften, Tubingen: Mohr, 1958, pp. 520 ff.Google Scholar

42 New York Times Magazine, November 22, 1970, p. 128.Google Scholar

43 Essays in Sociology, p. 120.Google Scholar

44 Cf. Gesammelte Politische Schriften, p. 21.Google Scholar

45 ibid., pp. 280–1.

46 Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber—An Intellectual Portrait, New York: Doubleday, 1960, p. 457.Google Scholar

47 In Weber's treatment we find no systematic distinction between faith and providential charisma. It was Hitler who was compelled to regard them as different subtypes. See Schweitzer, Arthur, ‘Hitler's Charisma’, Historische Zeitschrift, forthcoming.Google Scholar

48 For the role of the heuristic model in Weber's methodology see Schweitzer, Arthur, ‘The Typological Method in Economics: Max Weber's Contribution’, History of Political Economy, Spring, 1970, pp. 6696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Cf. Schweitzer, Arthur, ‘Vom Idealtypus zirm Prototyp,’ Zeitschrift fur die geramte Staatswissenschaft, 01 1964, pp. 1355.Google Scholar

50 Essays in Sociology, p. 127.Google Scholar