2 - Charismatic Politics

Summary

Weber's critique of liberalism and Marxism is informed by an ambition to salvage the political from the tight grip of economic reductionism, instrumental rationality, and the normal politics of interest and utilitarian calculations. Although he never systematically spelled out this alternative wider concept of the political, he did claim that substantive values and symbolic meanings are more constitutive to the formation of political identities and to the shaping of collective action than interests are. He also argued that these values and meanings are themselves the outcome of prior symbolic struggles among charismatic movements and institutionalized organizations for the control of culture and the creation of beliefs and convictions that will directly influence the legitimate foundations of political authority – that is, the very sources of the exercise of political power. In what follows, I focus on these prior charismatic struggles over the control of symbolic power. This emphasis on charismatic politics might help revisit and further explore Weber's famous claim that although, during normal times, “material and ideal interests directly govern men's conduct,” in extraordinary moments “the world images that have been created by ‘ideas’ have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest.” My aim is to uncover and reconstruct the political, conflictual processes whereby a worldview becomes institutionalized after emerging victorious from a struggle with its rivals.