Charismatic Authority

Its administration is improvised. The staff are disciples chosen for devotion and personal calling, not for qualification or for birth. There is no career, no fixed salary, no jurisdiction and no promotion; there is a mission.

It is economically unstable. Weber points out that charismatic movements are hostile to routine economic life and live on gifts, booty or endowments, which cannot be sustained.

The problem of succession, and routinisation

The characteristic crisis of charismatic authority is that the leader dies. There is no rule of succession, because rules are exactly what this type does without, and the followers face a choice between dispersing and finding some way of transferring the authority.

Weber calls the process by which they solve it Veralltäglichung, usually translated as the routinisation of charisma: literally, its becoming everyday. The devices are worth knowing by name, because a question on charisma very often ends here.

Search for a new leader with the same qualities, by signs or by revelation.

Designation by the leader, or by the leader's staff, of a successor.

Hereditary charisma, in which the quality is believed to run in the blood, and the leader's family inherits. This turns charismatic authority into traditional authority.

Charisma of office, in which the quality is believed to attach to a position and to be transferred by ritual, such as ordination or coronation. This turns it into traditional or legal authority depending on how the office is then governed.

The conclusion is the point. Charismatic authority is inherently temporary. It either dies with the leader or turns into one of the other two types. Weber's own word for it is that it must become everyday in order to survive, and in becoming everyday it stops being charismatic.

Examples

Religious founders and prophets, which is where the term came from.

Revolutionary leaders, who claim a mandate that no existing law confers.

Military figures who acquire a following personally rather than by rank.

Founders of movements and of states. In India the obvious instance is Gandhi, whose authority rested on no office of any kind: he held no post in government, and for long stretches no post in the Congress either, and was obeyed nonetheless by millions. He is also a good illustration of the limits of the type, because his authority did not transfer, and the movement he led continued after him as an organisation with rules, offices and elections, which is routinisation exactly.

A caution about modern politics. Contemporary leaders with large personal followings are often described as charismatic, and there is something in it. But almost all of them also hold constitutional office, which means their authority is a compound: the office supplies legal rational authority and the following supplies charisma. Weber's ideal types are for analysing such compounds, not for labelling people.

A worked example

A cyclone destroys a coastal town. The administration is overwhelmed for four days.

A young volunteer organises the first relief camp, walks into flooded lanes nobody else will enter, and by the third day is being obeyed by several hundred people, including some officials, none of whom appointed her.

This is charismatic authority in its pure form. No office, no rule, no custom. She is obeyed because of what she is believed to be, and the belief was formed by what she did.

Its instability. On the fifth day a rumour spreads that supplies were misdirected. The rumour is false, but the number of people obeying her drops sharply within hours. Nothing about her changed; the belief did, and that is all this type ever consisted of.

Routinisation. Three weeks later the relief work has become a registered trust with a bank account, a committee and a set of rules, and she is its secretary. Her authority is now partly legal rational, and it will survive her departure.

Distinctions that carry marks

What charismatic authority is NOT

It is not popularity. A leader may be widely liked and hold no authority whatever, and a charismatic leader may be feared and disliked by everybody outside the following.

It is not necessarily good. Weber's category is value neutral: it covers saints and demagogues equally, and he says so.

It is not a quality of the leader alone. It exists in the relationship, and specifically in the followers' belief.

It cannot be inherited without changing type. The moment the quality is said to run in a family, the authority has become traditional, whatever it is still called.

It is not the same as authoritarian rule. Many authoritarian rulers hold no charisma at all and rest on coercion, which is not authority in Weber's sense at all.

Quick revision

1. Charisma is Greek for a gift of grace; Weber notes it is an early Christian term.
2. Ground: devotion to the sanctity, heroism or exemplary quality of a person and of the order that person reveals or creates.
3. What is obeyed: the leader as such, out of personal trust, and only while the belief holds.
4. It is proved by results: if the mission fails, the charisma is regarded as departed.
5. It is revolutionary, its staff are disciples, and it is economically unstable.
6. Its crisis is succession, solved by routinisation: search, designation, hereditary charisma, or charisma of office.
7. Therefore it is inherently temporary: it either fails or turns into traditional or legal authority.

Test yourself

1. Define charismatic authority. The type of legitimate domination resting on extraordinary devotion to the sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual and of the order that individual reveals or creates. Obedience is owed to the leader personally rather than to any office or custom, is given out of personal trust in revelation, heroism or example, and lasts only within the sphere in which belief in the leader's charisma holds.

2. "Charisma is in the followers, not in the leader." Explain. Weber's test is not whether the leader actually possesses extraordinary powers but whether the followers believe it and act on the belief. It follows that the same person may hold charismatic authority over one group and none at all over another, that the authority can be destroyed by a rumour without anything about the leader changing, and that the relationship, not the individual, is the unit of analysis.

3. Why is charismatic authority unstable? Because it must be constantly proved. Weber notes that if the mission fails or the promised benefit does not come, the charisma is regarded as having departed and the authority collapses, which is true of neither of the other types. Its administration is improvised and its finances rest on gifts or booty rather than on regular revenue. And it has no rule of succession, because rules are exactly what it does without, so the leader's death is a crisis by construction.

4. What is routinisation, and what forms does it take? The process, which Weber calls Veralltäglichung or becoming everyday, by which a charismatic movement converts itself into a durable structure after the leader is gone. Its forms are the search for a new leader displaying the same qualities; designation of a successor by the leader or the staff; hereditary charisma, in which the quality is believed to run in the family, which converts the authority into traditional authority; and charisma of office, in which the quality is believed to attach to a position and to be transmitted by ritual.

5. Why do modern political leaders rarely exemplify the pure type? Because almost all of them also hold constitutional office, so their authority is a compound: the office supplies legal rational authority that survives any loss of popularity, and the personal following supplies charisma that a mere office holder would not have. Weber's ideal types are constructed precisely to analyse such compounds by comparison, and treating them as labels to be pinned on individuals misuses the method.