Agnes Horvath, Arpad Szakolczai and Manussos Marangudakis

2020

July

Modern Leaders: In between charisma and trickery

Routledge

London and New York

Unpublished

1

liminality, charisma, trickster, leadership, schismogenesis, Max Weber, Foucault

This book will address the current dilemmas concerning political leadership. We live in a world shaped by figures who literally catapulted, out of nowhere, into the centre of political power and attention, like Trump, Macron, Tsipras, Bolsonaro, or Salvini – to mention only a few, from left, right and centre. While in political science and sociology it is assumed that such leaders are ‘charismatic’, their mode of action and effects are far from the Weberian idea of ‘charismatic power’. The book will argue that these leaders can be better understood with the help of the anthropologically based figure of the ‘trickster’. The aim of the book, rather than setting up a dichotomy between ‘charisma’ and ‘trickster’, will examine they ways in which charismatic and trickster modalities can become intertwined, especially under the impact of theatrical public media. Table of contents: Preface Introduction Part I. On Charis and Charisma Ch1 Beyond Charisma: Catacombing sensual governance by a painful breaking of human ties, by Agnes Horvath Ch2 Charisma: from divine gift to the democratic leader-shop, by Camil F. Roman Part II. Plato’s Statesman Ch3 The Virtues of Leadership: Beyond the Pleasure Principle, by Arpad Szakolczai Ch4 Constituting Power: Plato’s Weaving of Human Emotions, by Harald Wydra Ch5 Plato’s Statesman: Defending phronesis from coding, by John O’Brien Part III. Contemporary Case Studies Ch6 A Study in Charisma and Trickery: The case of Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA, by Manussos Marangudakis Ch7 The trickster logic in Latin-America: Leadership in Argentina and Brazil, by Osvaldo Javier López Ruiz, Fabiana Augusta Alves Jardim & Ana Lúcia Teixeira Ch8 Political leadership in contemporary France: the case of Emmanuel Macron, by Helen Drake Ch9 The Failure of Democracy in Italy: From Berlusconi to Salvini, by Daniel Gati Ch10 Viktor Orbán’s Leadership: The Prince, the Political Father, and the Doomed Trickster, by Zoltán Balázs Ch11 Duplicity, corruption and exceptionalism in the Romanian experience of modernity, by Marius Ion Bența Concluding comments

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