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Charismatic leadership between ideal type and ideology

2008; Routledge; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13569310701822248

1469-9613

Paolo Pombeni,

Religion, Society, and Development

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. D. Beetham, La teoria politica di Max Weber (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989), p. 315 (orig. Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985)). 2. Recent insistence on the close connection between Weber's life experience and his output can be found in J. Radkau, Max Weber. Die Leidenschaft des Denkens (Munich: Hanser, 2005). 3. It should not be forgotten that in 1909 the fall of chancellor Bülow confirmed the weakness of a system in the hands of Kaiser Wilhelm II's ‘dilettantism’. W. Mommsen, Max Weber e la politica tedesca (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993), pp. 223–228; for the German political situation of that moment, see T. Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, II: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie (Munich: Beck, 1992), pp. 729–757. 4. It is well-known that the war had caused a rift among German intellectuals (especially university professors): cf. C. Tommasi, Ragione, rivoluzione e costituzione L'intellighentsia liberale tedesca fra la guerra e il tramonto dell'impero (1914–18), in Ricerche di Storia Politica, 3 (1988), pp. 63–96; H. Joas, ‘Die Sozialwissenschaften und der Erste Weltkrieg: Eine vergleichende Analyse’ in W.J. Mommsen (Ed.), Kultur und Krieg. Die Rolle der Intellektuellen, Künstler und Schriftseller im Ersten Welkrige, (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1996), pp. 17–29; C. Cornelißen, ‘Politische Historiker und die Deutsche Kultur’, in W. Mommsen, Max Weber e la politica tedesca (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993)., pp. 119–142. 5. Cf. H. Berghoff, “Dem Ziele der Menschheit entgegen”. Die Verreißungen der Technik an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert, in U. Frevert (Ed.), Das Neue Jahrhundert. Europäische Zeitdiagnosen und Zukunftsentwürfe um 1900 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 47–78. 6. For the British case, seen as emblematic for its assumed links with the ‘American model’, see C. Harvie, The Lights of Liberalism. University Liberals and the Challenge of Democracy 1860–86 (London: Penguin, 1976). 7. Lines from Kipling's Jubilee Poem (quoted by E. Halévy, A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. V: Imperialism and the Rise of Labour (London: Benn, 1951), p. 40: “Far-called, our navies melt away;/ On dune and headland sinks the fire:/ Lo, all our pomp of yesterday/ Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!/ Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,/ Lest we forget –lest we forget!” 8. Cf. P. Pombeni, Elie Halévy e l'Ottocento inglese. Il modello inglese e la scienza politica del Novecento, in M. Griffo and G. Quagliariello (Eds), Elie Halévy e l'era delle tirannie (Soveria Mannelli: Rubettino, 2001), pp. 219–262. 9. For Italy see G. Guazzaloca, Fine secolo. Gli intellettuali italiani e inglesi e la crisi tra Otto e Novecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004). 10. For an analysis of these places cf. D. D'Andrea, L'incubo degli ultimi uomini. Etica e politica in Max Weber (Rome: Carocci, 2005), pp. 46–57. His attention was drawn to British constitutionalism as a touchstone via the writings of Jellinek. See for example his letter to Jellinek of August 27th, 1906 (cf. Max Weber Gesamteasusgabe (MWG), Vol. II/5, Briefe 1906–1908 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1990), pp. 149–152 where Weber is discussing the ideas of Sidney Low on British constitutionalism, taken up by Jellineck. 11. Cf. W. Mommsen, Die Vereinigten Staaten von America, in Max Weber. Gesellscahfat Politick und Geschichte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), pp. 72–96; For a more general view of the problems connected with the American model, A. Schmidt-Gernig, Zukunftmodell America? Das Europäische Bürgertum und die amerikanisvhe Herausforderung um 1900, in Frevert, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 79–112; P. Pombeni, Sistema europeo dei partiti e partito americano nella tradizione storico-politologica del liberalismo europeo, in M. Vaudagna (Ed.), Il partito politico americano e l'Europa (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1991), pp. 25–51. Weber's interest in the American (and more generally Anglo-Saxon) model as a paradigm of modern politics is also shown by his interest in a (never-fulfilled) project to open a ‘Hochschule für Politik’ and an ‘Akademie für Internationales Recht und vergleichende Politik’ which Jellinek speaks of in his letters of 15th, and 25th July, 19th August, 5th and 12th September 1909. 12. Weber considered Bryce a key author, as is seen from his correspondence with Michels whom he first urges to read The American Commonwealth in a letter of 26th March 1906; he repeats the recommendation in a letter of 3rd June 1906 and even sends a voucher so that Michels can have it sent from the library at Marburg; he finally repeats the invitation in a letter of 4th August 1908: ‘Haben sie übrigens James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, gelesen? Das sollten Sie thun!’ (cf. MWG, II/5, Briefe 1906–1908, op. cit., p. 57, 99, 618). He returned to the subject in a letter to Michels of 21st December 1910, complaining that his advice was never really followed: ‘I find it presumptuous that you have never used Bryce, American Commonwealth (the complete edition! Not the abridged one you mention). It would definitely have been useful to you’ (MWG, II/&, Briefe 1909–1910 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1994), p. 761). 13. Cf. P. Pombeni, Starting in Reason Ending in Passion. Bryce, Lowell, Ostrogorski and the Problem of Democracy, Historical Journal, XVII (1994), pp. 319–341. 14. For the debate in Europe on American ‘peculiarity’ cf. G. Quagliariello, Politics without Parties. M. Ostrogorski and the Debate on Political Parties on the Eve of the 20th Century (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996). 15. For Weber's journey to America, cf. Marianne Weber, Max Weber. Una biografia, Ital. trans. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995), pp. 359–383; Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 368–380. 16. The letter of 5th February 1906 is published in Briefe, op. cit., Ref. 10, pp. 32–33. In thanking Harnack here for sending his book Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, Weber complained that German Lutheranism lacked any ‘hard asceticism’ that would generate sects, while favouring an institutional approach to the problem of the Church. 17. Cf. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze für Soziologie und Sozialpolitik (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924), pp. 431–449 (especially pp. 442, 443). 18. What is more, since his youth Weber's mother had kept him in touch with American Christian sectarian thought via two authors, Parker and Channing, who were steeped in Messianism (Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 52–53, who even claims that the first seeds of the charisma idea lie there). 19. J. Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, thinks otherwise and stresses (pp. 601–602) that Weber had been a student of Sohm's at Strasburg, recalling him in youthful letters as ‘charismatic’. In the letters of the 1906–1908 period, however, which is central to the birth of the charisma idea, Sohm is never mentioned, except in one marginal case (Briefe, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 306). 20. In this passage, according to Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 539–541, Weber abandoned the key concept of ‘asceticism’ as a pivot of sect formation (note that in a 1906 interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he fulminated against German joviality, or Gemütlichkeit, in favour of the Anglo-American churches' ascetic rigor (cf. J. Radkau, op. cit.,., p. 497). 21. H. Treiber, Riflessioni sul concetto di carisma in Max Weber, in Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica, 35 (2005), pp. 361–380 prefers the view that his ideas on monasticism came from Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bußgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum (Leipzig, 1898). He is here following the line taken by Th. Kroll, Max WeebersIdealttypus der charismatischen Herrschaft und die zeitgenössische Carisma-Debatte, in E. Hanke and W.J.Mommsen (Eds), Max Webers Herrschaftsoziologie. Studien zur Entstehung und Wirkung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), pp. 47–72. 22. Marianne Weber, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 450. 23. Marianne Weber, op. cit., p. 582. ‘On their way they met up with Adolf von Harnack, and in his company saw many things, enjoying his wisdom, harmony and intellectual grace’. For details of this complicated relationship, which Marianne leaves out of her official biography, see Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 495–496. 24. Cf. W. Schluchter, F.W. Graf, Asketischen Protestantismus und der “Geist” des modernen Kapitalismus: Max Weber und Ernst Troeltsch (Tübingen: Mohr, 2005). 25. Cf. MWG, I/12, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989), pp. 119–126. These pages of introduction are all devoted to tidying up the charisma theory (he would return to this in Economy and Society). 26. Cf. MWG, I/12, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989)., p. 112. 27. Cf. MWG, I/12, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Konfuzianismus und Taoismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989)., p. 113. Treiber, op. cit., Ref. 21, follows Mommsen in recalling how in Jewish lore the notion of prophecy seems progressively to detach from the realms of magic and become part of ethics. 28. The debate is wide-ranging. As an example I would quote the interesting essay by J.A. Draper, Weber, Theissen and “Wandering Charismatics” in the Didache', Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 (1998), pp. 541–576. 29. Here, significantly, the Catholic Church is cited as the supreme example of such dynamics, which extend to the issue of papal infallibility (Wirtschaftsethik, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 120). 30. On the use of terms referring to this phenomenon in German, see D. Groh, Cäsarismus, Napoleonismus, Bonapartismus, Führer, Chef, Imperialismus, in W. Conze et al. (Eds), Gechischtilche Grundbegriffe, Vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 1972), pp. 726–771. On the use of the term in Weber, cf. S. Breuer, Corallarien II: Caesarismus, in Id., Bürokratie und Carisma. Zur politischen Soziologie Max Webers (Darmstadt: Wissencshafltliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), p. 202. 31. W. Bagehot, ‘Caesarism as it existed in 1865’, in N. St.John-Stevas (Ed.), Bagehot's Historical Essays (New York: Anchor, 1965), pp. 437–442. 32. W. Bagehot, ‘Caesarism as it existed in 1865’, in N. St.John-Stevas (Ed.), Bagehot's Historical Essays (New York: Anchor, 1965), pp. 437–442. 33. W. Bagehot, ‘Caesarism as it existed in 1865’, in N. St.John-Stevas (Ed.), Bagehot's Historical Essays (New York: Anchor, 1965), pp. 437–442. 34. There is also a reference by Weber to Cavour (and to Garibaldi) in his letter to Michels of 4th August 1908 (Briefe, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 619), which the editor puts down to his reading an article by Treitscke on Cavour. 35. In the already quoted letter to Michels of 4th August 1908 he explained why he could not fall into line behind a credo and a Führer', a decision he traced to the political crisis of 1877/78 (the end of Bismarck's creative phase), ‘wie jeder weiß, der die Sache erlebt hat wie ich’ and his ‘absolute scepticism’, not to mention ‘intellectual contempt for the Führer's natural talent for politics’ (Briefe, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 619). 36. H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone 1875–1898 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); R. Shannon, Gladstone. Heroic Minister 1865–1898 (London: Penguin, 1999). On Gladstone's ‘demagogic’ skill see E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform. Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: CUP; 1992). 37. Pombeni, op. cit., Ref 13. 38. J.W. Burrow, Whigs and Liberals. Continuity and Change in English Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); J.W. Burrow, Il dibattito costituzionale nella Gran Bretagna del diciannovesimo secolo, in P. Pombeni (Ed.), Potere Costituente e Riforme Costituzionali (Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 13–32). 39. As has already been pointed out by researchers, Weber had paid great attention to the doings of Paul of Tarsus. He was clearly still to be numbered among the charismatics (‘The Pauline congregation is a Charismatic Congregation’ notes Wolfgang Schluchter, tracing the seeds of this theory both in Harnack and in Troeltsch (cf. Rationalism, Religion and Domination. A Weberian Perspective (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 218–227; but see too what he says in n. 63 on p. 541). We also know that the Heidelberg professor Adolf Hausrat, husband to one of Weber's aunts, was the author of a study on Paul and of a monumental (4 Vol.) Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, which the Webers read together in Rome, 1901 (cf. Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 37–38). Weber also cast one Pauline decision as midway between charisma and its routinization, when the apostle stood out against Peter on the so-called ‘day of Antioch’ and set up a community of uncircumcised faithful (cf. Th. Schmoller, Das paulinische Christentum und die Sozialstruktur der antiken Stadt. Ueberlegungen zu Webers ‘Tag der Antiochen’, in H. Bruhns and W. Nippel (Eds), Max Weber und die Stadt in Kulturvergleich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 107–118). 40. Elie Halévy, for example, complained of ‘the decline of that individualist form of Christianity in which Protestantism essentially consists—and a revival of Catholicism, or, more generally, the Catholic forms of Christianity’ (E. Halévy, Imperialism and the Rise of Labour (London: Ernest Benn, p. IX). Weber certainly had no sentimental leanings towards Catholicism: as a young man he had supported Kulturkampf (cf. W.J. Mommsen, op. cit., Ref. 3). 41. The dating comes from W. Mommsen, The Age of Bureaucracy. Perspectives on the Political Sociology of Max Weber (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), p. 16. 42. The dating comes from W. Mommsen, The Age of Bureaucracy. Perspectives on the Political Sociology of Max Weber (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974)., p. 72n. 43. M.R. Lepsius, Das Modell der charismatischen Herrschaft und seine Anwendung auf den “Führerstaat” Adolf Hitlers, in Id., Demokratie in Deutschland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1993), pp. 95–118 (Ital. trans. in, M.R. Lepsius, Il significato delle istituzioni (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), pp. 171–202). 44. Mommsen, op. cit., Ref 41, p. 91. Radkau, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 611–613, thinks that although Hitler's version of power might have fitted the Weber ideal type in some respects, it was questionable whether Weber would have accepted the amorality and criminal methods of Hitler's policy, and concludes: ‘the Nazi dictatorship should not be analysed simply as an example of the Weberian ideal type, but also as a reaction to weaknesses perceived in that ideal type of domination; that, after all, provides a paradigm for connecting to Weber's ideal type’. 45. Treiber, op. cit., Ref. 21, thinks, as do others, that ‘plebiscitary democracy’ might form a fourth pure type of legitimate power. Personally, I find this interpretation excessive. 46. Max Weber, ‘Politics as a vocation’, in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 113; cf. MWG I/7, Wissenschaft als Beruf 1917–1919; Politik als Beruf 1919 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), pp. 225–225. 47. I am here following A- D'Attorre's fine essay, ‘Le basi teoriche della sociologia del potere di Max Weber’, Filosofia Politica, 14 (2000), pp. 207–238. 48. I am here following A- D'Attorre's fine essay, ‘Le basi teoriche della sociologia del potere di Max Weber’, Filosofia Politica, 14 (2000)., pp. 225–226. My italics. 49. Max Weber, Economia e Società, IV (Torino: Comunità, 1999), pp. 544–545 (which picks up the postwar essay on the parliament in Germany). 50. Max Weber, Economia e Società, IV (Torino: Comunità, 1999)., pp. 545–546. 51. Schluchter, op.cit., Ref. 39, pp. 31–32. 52. Weber, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 124. 53. Weber, op. cit., p. 126. 54. W.J. Mommsen, ‘Toward the Iron Cage of Future Serfdom? On the Methodological Status of Max Weber's Ideal-Typical Concept of Bureaucratization’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 30 (1980), p. 162. 55. For a concise yet acute approach to the problem, see M. Pugh, Lloyd George (London: Longman, 1988); for the background period, see K.O. Morgan, The Age of Lloyd George (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978). 56. W. Mommsen, The Antinomical Structure of Max Weber's Political Thought, in Id., The Political and Social Theory of Max Weber (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), pp. 24–43. 57. For an acute analysis of how this thought develops, see F. Ferraresi, Il fantasma della comunità. Concetti politici e scienza sociale in Max Weber (Milan: Angeli, 2003), especially pp. 314–428. 58. On that moment of crisis cf. H.A. Winkler, Weimar 1918–1933 (Munich: Beck, 1993), pp. 109–142. 59. M. Weber, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 742. 60. On this see P. Pombeni, Demagogia e tirannide. Uno studio sulla forma-partito del fascismo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1984), pp. 437–490. 61. Cf. Schluchter, op.cit., Ref. 39, p. 232. 62. Cf. Weber, op. cit., Ref. 25, p. 101. 63. See the letter to Rickert of June 4th, 1904 quoted by Mommsen, op. cit., pp. 8–9. 64. Borrowed from the philosopher H. Vaihinger: cf. D'Attorre, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 221. 65. P. Pombeni, ‘Typologie des populismes en Europe’, in J.-P. Rioux (Ed.), Les Populismes (Paris: Perrin, 2007), pp. 85–129, 386–395. 66. Schluchter, op. cit., Ref. 39, Chapter XI: ‘The Transformation of Charisma: A new look at the Sociology of Domination’, pp. 392–408. 67. Weber, ‘Science as a vocation’, in Gerth and Mills, op. cit., Ref. 46, p. 153. 68. Might I say that I find it singular how little has been made of Weber's scepticism as to the possibility that modern times would really throw up a prophet or charismatic leader? Not only is the whole lecture on ‘Science as Vocation’ permeated with warnings against facile enthusiasm for charisma in politics (‘it is part of the destiny of our times, with their peculiar brand of rationalising and intellectualising, and above all their disenchantment with the world, that the very loftiest, sublimest values have withdrawn from the public sphere to seek refuge either in the extra-mundane kingdom of mysticism, or in direct interpersonal relations under the guise of brotherhood’, Weber, ‘Science as a vocation’, in Gerth and Mills, op. cit., p. 110). It should be added that as early as his letters to Michels, December 21st, 1910, Weber showed scepticism about the ‘Führer’ question.