Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery

<p>This book considers the current striking rise of ‘outsider’ political leaders, catapulted, apparently, from nowhere, to take charge of a nation. Arguing that such leaders can be better understood with the help of the anthropologically based concept of ‘the trickster’, it offers studies of contemporary political figures from the world stage – including Presidents Macron, Tsipras, Orbán and Bolsonaro, among others – to examine the ways in which charismatic and trickster modalities can become intertwined, especially under the impact of theatrical public media. Looking beyond the commonly invoked notion of ‘charisma’ to revisit the question of political leadership in light of the recent rise of new type of ‘outsider’ leaders, <i>Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery</i> offers an account of leadership informed by social and anthropological theory. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in political thought and the problem of political leadership.</p> <p>Introduction; <strong>Part I: On Charis and Charisma</strong>;<strong> </strong>1. Beyond Charisma: Catacombing Sensual Governance by a Painful Breaking of Human Ties; 2. Charisma: From Divine Gift to the Democratic Leader-shop; <strong>Part II: Plato’s Statesman</strong>;<strong> </strong>3. The Virtues of Leadership: Beyond the Pleasure Principle; 4. Constituting Power: Plato’s Weaving of Human Emotions; 5. Plato’s Statesman: Defending <em>Phronesis</em> from Coding; <strong>Part III: Contemporary Case Studies</strong>; <strong> </strong>6. A Study in Charisma and Trickery: The Case of Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA; 7. The Trickster Logic in Latin-America: Leadership in Argentina and Brazil; 8. Political Leadership in Contemporary France: The Case of Emmanuel Macron; 9. The Failure of Democracy in Italy: From Berlusconi to Salvini; 10. Viktor Orbán’s Leadership: The Prince, the Political Father, and the Doomed Trickster; 11. Duplicity, Corruption and Exceptionalism in the Romanian Experience of Modernity; Concluding Comments</p>