The Charismatic Bond: Political Behavior in Time of Crisis - Hardcover

This book takes up where Max Weber left off in his study of charisma, and extends and rounds off the theory with insights from other disciplines and new empirical data. Tying Weber's argument about the consequences of societal breakdown to contemporary psychological theorizing on self-efficacy, Douglas Madsen and Peter Snow demonstrate that magnetic personalities must have willing followers. Self-efficacy theory is used to explain the formation of the charismatic bond. The authors point out that at a societal level, the failure of an economic or political system can bring on the collapse of popular self-efficacy. Personal worlds are dashed; fundamental assumptions are undermined; understanding is lost. But with the appearance of a leader and the establishment of the charismatic bond, the mass following regains a sense of hope and efficacy. Madsen and Snow find empirical support for their argument in the rise of Juan Peron and the Peronistas in Argentina. They define the broad political, economic and mass-psychological contexts in which Peron went from political functionary to heroic leader and shows a clear shift in his followers over the course of 20 years from those loyal to the person to those loyal to the organization.