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Introduction
Why do people follow commands? In the work of Max Weber, this became a question about legitimate domination. If domination is 'the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons', Weber (1978, p. 212) held that 'every genuine form of domination implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that is, an interest (based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience'. As this quotation indicates, Weber was quite attentive to the possibility that people follow commands for entirely strategic reasons, but noted that, particularly for the case of a power-holder and his staff, an entirely strategic basis for domination could be quite unreliable. Instead, he wrote, 'there is normally a further element, the belief in legitimacy ' (Weber, 1978, p. 213). This comment opens onto a fundamental sociological problem: what are the sources of this legitimacy and how do they work? This article argues that one source of legitimacy that leads to command-following is charismatic performance .
This compound theoretical term, which draws from Weber's famous typology of legitimate domination and from performance theory, is intended as an ideal type that conceptualizes a situation wherein a series of social interactions between a leader and his followers takes on a specific pattern and tone: the leader's startling successes in the world build upon each other to create, in his followers, a perception of the inevitability of his rise, a deeply affective connection to the leader him or herself, 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 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. By showing how the concept of charismatic performance can illuminate the trajectory of this rebellion, I also propose to show how the concept can move sociological analysis toward an interactional and process-based study of charismatic authority and charismatic leadership. For, I will ultimately suggest that we index and theorize