Charismatic performance: A study of Bacon’s rebellion

Abstract

This article develops the ideal type of charismatic performance. In a charismatic performance, a series of interactions between a leader and his followers takes on a specific pattern and tone: the leader’s startling successes in the world and, in particular, his or her public acts and displays, build upon each other to create, in followers, a perception of the inevitability of his or her rise, a deeply affective connection to the leader, and a tendency for the interpretive frameworks of these followers to center upon the leader’s individual person. Simultaneously, the leader draws emotional energy and political possibility from his (growing) community of followers. Charismatic performances, I argue, provide one route to sovereignty, and thus to political domination and the legitimation of the use of physical violence. I illustrate these arguments and sketch a model of charismatic performance via a historical case study of Bacon’s rebellion (1676) in the English Colony of Virginia. The shift to a performative perspective on charismatic domination and, in particular, the model of a charismatic performance as a recursive, self-legitimating ‘spiral of success’ provides additional analytical leverage for the examination of charismatic domination and the ‘extraordinary’ times that make it more likely to emerge.