The Romanticization of Charismatic Leadership in the Arts

ABSTRACT

This inter-disciplinary article focuses on the role, significance, and impact of charisma in cultural leadership. It brings together fresh empirical data with a critical review of the literature to investigate the role of charisma in the operation, reputation, and strategic success of arts organizations. For the first time, this article synthesizes a diverse range of literature from sociology, psychology, political science, management, and leadership studies and applies it critically to the context of the arts. This comprehensive review is compared against interviews with key stakeholders in the arts, which challenge the neo-charismatic literature on leadership and support a return to aspects of the original formulation of charisma, as envisaged by Max Weber. The article finds that charismatic leaders are seen as extraordinary individuals and are excessively romanticized by arts managers, policymakers, and audiences. It questions this normative bias and concludes that charismatic leaders should be treated with a degree of skepticism, even caution, to temper any negative impacts on "followers" and organizations.     

Planting families: Intent and outcome in the development of colonial Georgia

This article examines the evolution of a plantation society in the British American colony of Georgia. It explores the original intentions of founders and settlers, and how those intentions were discarded or adapted in the face of a volatile demographic environment. It uses information from land grant applications to describe the make-up of late colonial families, and locates the experiences of the Georgia population within the broader context of Atlantic population history. In particular, it argues that familial instability initially catalysed the emergence of a plantation system. The “family” was later accorded real significance in plantation Georgia only when it became serviceable to provincial elites, though it remained important as an organising unit beyond the plantation world, and as a source of shared aspirations.     

Harvest of sustainability: Recent books on environmental management

Sustainable Environmental Management. Edited by Kerry Turner. London: Pinter, 1988. Pp.ix + 292. £27.50. ISBN 1 85293 003 9.

The Theory of Environmental Policy. 2nd ed. By William Baumol and Wallace Oates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.x+ 299. £35. ISBN 0 521 32224 3.

Deforestation: Social Dynamics in Watersheds and Mountain Ecosystems. Edited by J. Ives and D. Pitt. London: Routledge, 1988. Pp.xiii + 247. £35. ISBN 0 415 00456 X

Elevage et developpement au Niger. By Brigitte Thébaud. Geneva: ILO, 1988. Pp.xiv + 147. SFr 15. ISBN 92 2 205605 1.

Primary Resources and Energy in the Third World. By John Soussan. London: Routledge, 1988. Pp.vi + 114. £5.95. ISBN 0 415 00672 4.

Ecology and Development in the Third World. By Avijit Gupta. London: Routledge, 1988. Pp.vii + 80. £5.95. ISBN 0 415 00673 2.

International Environmental Diplomacy. Edited by John E. Carroll. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.299. £35. ISBN 0 521 33437 3.     

The Kerala model of development a debate (Part 2)

Abstract

Every year hundreds are killed and millions made homeless by floods in the Ganges and Brahmaputra Basins. Every year millions go hungry because of the low productivity of agriculture in the region and the unequal distribution of its benefits. Some thirty percent of the world's poorest 800 million people live in the Basins of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Their future prosperity depends both on changed agrarian relations and on the development of the resources of the two rivers. While coordinated development of the rivers could increase agricultural productivity and provide enormous quantities of hydroelectricity for the three main countries of the region—India, Nepal and Bangladesh—for the last thirty years such development has been precluded by intergovernmental dispute over the sharing of the Ganges. The conduct of the dispute is frequently determined by the immediate political needs of the factions in power in India and Bangladesh. As long as that remains the case, proposals for the regulation and development of the Ganges and Brahmaputra are likely to stagnate.     

New light on the origins of the Vietnam-Kampuchea conflict

Abstract

“Don't make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.”

—Security regulation no. 8 for inmates at the Pol Pot regime's Tuol Sleng prison, Phnom Penh, 1977–8.     

Vietnam and the governments and people of Kampuchea

Abstract

In December 1978, the Far Eastern Economic Review discussed the prospects of the newly-fanned United Front for National Salvation (UFNS) in Kampuchea led by Heng Samrin. It quoted Western intelligence sources as saying that in villages where it was established, one of the first moves the UFNS made was to demolish the communal dining halls built by the Pol Pot forces. The sources commented: “surprisingly, the Front seems to be getting popular support.”