Interview as Podcast (german)
Dr. Ohnesorge, when does someone wield power?
If you take Max Weber’s famous definition as your model, power means the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance. We’re particularly interested in the second part of that sentence, because there are various possibilities for changing someone’s behavior.
And what might those be?
On the one hand, of course, there’s force. In international politics, that might take the form of military force. And then there are economic or financial incentives. In our research, we group these two things, force and incentives, together as “hard power.” On the other hand, you have persuasion and appeal. You can attempt to persuade or appeal to someone, i.e. win them over with your ideas. That would essentially be soft power.
Why is it important to consider the personality of decision-makers in this context?
The debate about the interplay between actors and structures is an old one: What role can individual decision-makers play? How much is predetermined by external factors? And a look at some actual cases from history and their sources reveals quite clearly that individuals exert an influence in certain situations: take John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He went through his various options for responding to the discovery of Soviet missiles one by one, drawing on his own personal experience and his nature, and came to the following conclusion: we need to retain control of events; we can’t order an immediate invasion of Cuba or consider it in isolation from potential Soviet countermeasures. Essentially, based on his personality and his experience, he decided against both an immediate invasion and ramping up the rhetoric, instead opting for his “quarantine” blockade.
Wouldn’t anyone else have done exactly the same?
Now we’re in the realm of the famous “What if?” questions. As far as the Cuban Missile Crisis goes, it’s clear that there were some fervent supporters of other options. And consider, for example, Kennedy’s phone call during the crisis in October 1962 with his predecessor Eisenhower, who advised him in words to this effect: “The only thing the Soviets understand is military might. Don’t be that worried about a possible backlash, against Berlin for example. What we need to do now is show strength.”
With Kennedy, you had an extremely charismatic person in charge of the US. When does someone have charisma?
At the risk of splitting hairs, you don’t “have” charisma—it’s conferred on you by other people. The word comes from the Greek for “gift of grace,” so technically it’s something that’s given to you.
Max Weber identified three types of charisma. The first is the pure, genuine charisma that someone is afforded as an individual, without holding a particular office. The second is family or hereditary charisma, the kind that we are familiar with from royal dynasties or the nobility, for instance. How charisma is passed on through rituals also plays a role here. And then the third kind is office charisma. Holding a specific role, an office, makes you more charismatic. You can think of the US Presidency or the Papacy. When you take up your office, therefore, a certain degree of “bonus” charisma is bestowed upon you. And the three types aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. They can coexist and even magnify one another, as the example of Kennedy clearly shows. However, not every US president instantly became charismatic after taking office.
Can you acquire charisma through practice?
No. As I’ve said, it’s a gift. Not everyone has it; not everyone is entitled to it. It’s also in the eye of the beholder. “You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never rises from the soul,” says Faust to his famulus Wagner. Although “charisma coaches” make a lot of money out of the claim that anyone can be charismatic. Charisma also has to be accompanied by a healthy dose of reality. Otherwise, for instance, it soon becomes ridiculous if you don’t fulfill your promises but merely put yourself on a pedestal or allow other people to do that for you. Although a certain amount of learning through practice may well be possible, it has to be backed up with substance.
Is charisma a good thing?
Essentially, charisma lacks any intrinsic value. Of course, there are some examples of charismatic figures appearing as “good leaders.” But charismatic leadership can produce the most terrible things. Here too, the pedestal plays an important role, as we saw with Adolf Hitler, for instance. We have to be objective and make it clear that, in the history of the world, charismatic people have left disaster and unimaginable suffering in their wake. So I’d advise against seeing charisma fundamentally as a positive thing. You could even argue that democratic systems involving the separation of powers were invented to rein in charismatic individuals who, after all, are not always only good. Sticking with etymology for a moment, charisma can go from being a “gift of grace” to a poisoned chalice.
Can you lose charisma?
Of course. Charisma is something extraordinary, and it can be affected by wear and tear, especially in the long run. Take Napoleon, who’s widely regarded as the archetypal charismatic leader. When he comes back from his first period of exile, he’s able to use his charisma to convince his veterans to follow him into the fray once more. But after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, if not before, he loses a great deal of this charisma.
So this gift of grace also needs to be nurtured. By both sides. Because charisma is a social relationship, like power—and especially soft power—in general, where you always need a leader on one side and followers, disciples or whatever you want to call them on the other.
What about Greta Thunberg, for instance? Objectively speaking, she has no hard power. Is she powerful nonetheless?
I think she’s an excellent example of how individuals can exert an influence on politics and history without having to hold a particular office. Thunberg is currently showing us how people can wield power from within themselves, using the means and possibilities at their disposal. She doesn’t hold any political office. But she has soft power, has reach, on social media, for instance. She addresses the United Nations and, when she speaks, it has an impact across the world.
Do we need to start focusing more on the personalities of those in power?
Personality isn’t the only factor. We need to keep an open mind and ask: Who plays a role in political decision-making processes, in contemporary history, in historical processes? And here I’m finding myself increasingly thinking that we need a kind of synthesis between structures and actors. On the one hand, you have structures and an environment that shape people and to an extent actually make them what they are. On the other hand, however, you have individuals, who play a major role in my view. In today’s political arena, we can also identify numerous figures without whom the world would probably not be like it is. Without a Putin, for instance, to give you an extremely topical example. If we want to understand international politics in its entirety, therefore, we have to include factors like personality and charisma in our analysis.
The interview was conducted by Sebastian Eckert.
