TY - JOUR
T1 - Collective Charisma
T2 - Elite-Mass Relations in China and Vietnam
AU - Gueorguiev, Dimitar D.
AU - Schuler, Paul J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - All regimes, even authoritarian ones, rely on charismatic politicians for legitimacy and mobilization, but popular leaders can also leverage mass followings to advance personal interests. We argue that party-building norms and institutions help ameliorate this dilemma by fostering cultures of collective charisma among prospective leaders. Comparing across single-party regimes in China and Vietnam, we show how recruitment and vetting institutions foster collectivist cultures among rising politicians. Counterintuitively, our analysis also suggests that China’s more controlled approach to political cultivation is more prone to instability as it encourages strategic misrepresentation by elite contenders while raising a latent public demand for populists.
AB - All regimes, even authoritarian ones, rely on charismatic politicians for legitimacy and mobilization, but popular leaders can also leverage mass followings to advance personal interests. We argue that party-building norms and institutions help ameliorate this dilemma by fostering cultures of collective charisma among prospective leaders. Comparing across single-party regimes in China and Vietnam, we show how recruitment and vetting institutions foster collectivist cultures among rising politicians. Counterintuitively, our analysis also suggests that China’s more controlled approach to political cultivation is more prone to instability as it encourages strategic misrepresentation by elite contenders while raising a latent public demand for populists.
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U2 - 10.1080/10758216.2020.1738945
DO - 10.1080/10758216.2020.1738945
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85082945233
SN - 1075-8216
VL - 68
SP - 190
EP - 201
JO - Problems of Post-Communism
JF - Problems of Post-Communism
IS - 3
ER -