Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Weber on charisma vs. patrimonialism

The first shift pertains to the transformation of Qāsimī structures of rule from their initial charismatic style into dynastic and patrimonial modes of domination.
footnote 3: The concepts of charisma and patrimonialism are drawn from a Weberian typology of forms of authority (cf. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), vol. I, pp. 101f., 1111f.). Weber defines charisma as 'a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as leader'.  
Weber also saw the charismatic leader as disrupting tradition. The Zaydī imam fits certain aspects of this definition, and it is apt to use the concept to define those among the imams who fulfilled the institution's rigorous qualifications.  
Patrimonialism, by contrast, was defined by Weber as a form of political domination in which authority rests on the personal and bureaucratic power exercised by a royal household. This power is formally arbitrary and under the direct control of the ruler. Domination in patrimonial states is secured by means of a political apparatus staffed by mercenaries, conscripts, slaves, administrators and, as is our case, jurists and scholars. These groups do not have an independent power-base and are therefore at the mercy of the ruler's whim.
Bernard Haykel, Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkānī (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2-3.

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