Charismatic leadership, leader democracy, and populism in Asia

Building on both Weber's classical account of charismatic authority and more recent work, this chapter proposes a relational conception of charisma as an interaction between leaders and followers. This leader-follower relationship is a key characteristic of contemporary populist politics. In order to investigate the ways in which populist leaders appeal to followers, we apply this relational understanding of charisma to two national cases: in India under Narendra Modi and in Myanmar under Aung San Suu Kyi during the—now arrested—period of transition from military rule. The chapter is primarily concerned with one specific form of charisma—plebiscitary leadership—and with so-called 'leader parties' and 'leader democracy'.