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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico: Marcos, Celebrity, and Charismatic Authority . By Daniela di Piramo . Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner , 2010. 271p. $68.00.
Book Reviews: Comparative Politics
There is no shortage of published work about Subcomandante Marcos, leader of Mexico's Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). He is probably the most famous Latin American revolutionary since Che Guevara. Although the EZLN's military and substantive accomplishments were minor and fleeting, Marcos's skillful writing, dramatic flair, and charismatic genius propelled him onto an international stage.
Daniela di Piramo's book begins with a puzzle, but not the one you might expect, that is, how the leader of a movement with so little to show for itself became so famous. Rather, the author wants us to discard the idea that Marcos and the EZLN should be judged by conventional standards of success. Zapatista politics, she argues, "define 'success' in terms of quality of the political process rather than outcome" (p. 178)--a process that is egalitarian, nonhierarchical, participatory, and nondeterminative (that is, it proposes no predetermined destination). The puzzle, therefore, is whether charismatic authority can facilitate such a process. Ultimately, di Piramo concludes that it cannot. The personalistic element of charisma inevitably strangles the egalitarian vision.
The author is at her best in analyzing Marcos's discourse and dramatic strategies from the perspective of political theory. She brings to bear not only an impressive knowledge of the voluminous Marcos output but also the work of a wide range of conventional political theorists to analyze many of the concepts deployed, including identity, democracy, and dignity. These are useful contributions.
The efforts of di Piramo to examine the effectiveness of charismatic authority are somewhat less successful. It is fair, in principle, to ask us to judge Marcos by his own standards for success; it...