Abstract

This article is a comparative theoretical study of authority in the Arab Spring which draws upon the work of Max Weber and Khalil Ahmad Khalil, and examines the theoretical importance of a shift away from authority understood along the lines of single, charismatic individuals. I argue that the central implication of the lack of dominant leaders in the Arab Spring is the potential for the growth of a popular form of charismatic authority. This popular understanding of charisma would have several important consequences for building a more broadly inclusive arrangement of democratic rule. First, it would allow for the self-realization of ordinary citizens in a way that was not possible in an authoritarian setting, where popular aspirations and demands were realized only abstractly, if not simply denied, by being invested in the figure of an ‘inspirational leader.’ This self-realization relies upon an important reversal of an image of Arab publics as incapable of self-governance. Second, it would signal a shi...