OutlineThe lower left quadrant (LLQ) covers the moment
thought by followers to be the extraordinary birth. The
primordial charismatic character often has a religious
origin and is recognized according to how he or she
appears to possess supernatural qualities and style befitting
"an envoy of God, a hero - a mighty warrior" (Boudon and Borricaud 1989, 69). The upper left
quadrant (ULQ) depicts charisma in movement, arising
out of crises that so often beset communities. Crisis produces
a quest for a return to the foundations of the community.
And when action and conflict are required, people
become followers, having put their trust in a figure
known for effectiveness, heroism, sacrifice, prophecy, or
prayer.
In the upper right quadrant (URQ), the community
is on a more rational footing, emerging as an institution
whose need for leadership must be more in keeping with
established rules and practices that actually define an
institution and are in the process rationalized by supporting
beliefs - i.e., the function of ideology. It is this
quadrant that best applies to one of Weber's most luminous
discoveries, the "routinization of charisma." The
lower right quadrant (LRQ) is a still more formalized
version of routinization, in which rationalization is
crafted directly in terms of a monocratic authority.
Charisma is here instrumental to the founding of a new
political order, be it the early monarchies of the thaumaturgic
kings healing their followers or the authoritarian
regimes of revolutionary leaders.
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