Charisma and Contemporary Political Authority

Abstract

Charisma has re-emerged as a central analytic lens for understanding contemporary political authority. Its renewed prominence is visible not only in academic debates but also in popular culture: the 2023 Oxford Word of the Year, “rizz,” illustrates how charisma circulates as a social signifier in everyday language. Recent scholarship argues that vernacular and academic uses of the term are intertwined, offering opportunities to rethink classical theories of authority (Joosse & Lu, 2025). Across the social sciences, charisma is increasingly conceptualized as a dynamic, relational, and emotionally charged phenomenon. This panel focuses especially on political sociology, political psychology, political theory, and political representation—fields that have been at the forefront of explaining how charisma shapes symbolic leadership, collective identification, and political behaviour in the 21st century. Key questions we invite authors to engage with include: • How is charismatic leadership constructed, performed, and perceived in contemporary democratic or authoritarian settings, and how do sociological and psychological mechanisms jointly shape these processes? • In what ways do digital media transform charisma and political representation, and how do mediated environments reconfigure symbolic authority and leader–follower relations? • How does charismatic signaling shape follower mobilization, political identification, or electoral outcomes, especially in contexts where psychological needs, social identities, and institutional structures interact? • What is the relationship between charismatic authority and populist leadership, and how can political theory help clarify their conceptual boundaries and normative implications? • How can charisma be measured empirically, and what are its cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, or relational components across different groups and political cultures? • What are the risks of charismatic leadership? Under what conditions does charisma contribute to authoritarianism, cultic dynamics, moral disengagement, or the erosion of democratic representation? • How does the attribution of charisma vary across cultures, gender, or political systems, and what sociological or psychological mechanisms explain these differences? • What role do crises (e.g., pandemics, war, climate anxiety) play in triggering or amplifying charismatic leadership, and how do they reshape theoretical understandings of authority and representation? • Can charisma be tamed, institutionalized, or democratized, or is charismatic authority inherently hierarchical, exceptionalist, and resistant to normative constraints? We welcome papers that: • Develop political-theoretical frameworks for understanding charisma in the 21st century • Apply empirical methods (qualitative, quantitative, experimental, or mixed) to study charisma in politics • Explore under-researched regional or historical cases of charismatic leadership • Investigate the role of followers in sustaining, co-constructing, or resisting charismatic authority • Examine charisma at the intersection of populism, performativity, aesthetics, gender, ideology, and representation dynamics

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