Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 9 Connections between formal rationality and charismatic domination over and through free
men: the continuing role of magic in the construction of impersonal patriarchal fraternities; from
Ständestaat to revolution
158
The connection between charisma and formal rationalization can be reinforced by linking it to
Weber's concept of 'illegitimate' forms of domination, which had been developed - as he wrote
in his conceptual exposition of 'anti-authoritarian charisma' or 'plebiscitary democracy' - by the
members of the bourgeois estates on the basis of the formal freedom and equality of their
members: in his view charismatic rulers, in a coalition with business interests, created a
formal-rational administration. This 'illegitimate' domination was established first in the
autonomous cities; later, during the French and other revolutions, formal-rational domination
was extended to all - now formally free and equal - male citizens.
In my view, therefore, the Estates of nobles and citizens did not only influence the quantitative
expansion of the patrimonial administration; they also changed the character of the relation
between the ruler and his staff which determined the domination structure: they laid the
foundation for the claim to freedom, equality and fraternization of all men. Because forms of
domination which deny formal freedom and equality could not be legitimated anymore, formal
rational domination developed in Europe - it was the only possible form of domination of
formally free officials and subjects.
Paradoxical connections between charisma and formal rationalization can also be found in
some of Weber's other texts. He formulates the paradoxes which constitute his argument on
the influence of the transformations of charisma on formal rationalization only when he wants
to give examples of 'the irrationality of the world', that is to say: in those cases in which events
at one 'level' of social action have 'unintended consequences' in social action at another 'level'.
The most important of them concern mutual influences of religion and economy, for instance
the connection between magic and economic practice in the beginning of his chapter of
religion, or the influence of Calvinist religion on the capitalist ethos, which was the subject of
his first major work.
Weber's sociology of religion also contains other instances of paradoxical connections
between religion and formal rationality; they occur particularly in those places where, in his
Hegelian struggle against the commonplace, he could not resist the temptation to demystify
religion. My choice is arbitrary; I have selected only those connections which clarify Weber's
argument as a whole.
First I want to discuss the connection Weber constructs between magic and formalism, since
this will give some insight in one of the terms of 'formal rationality'; formal rationality then will
appear to be an contradiction in terminis, since it has been constructed from mutually
exclusive parts. These parts are only unified by the empirical-rational base of the magic which
was retained in the formal character of Roman law; Roman law in its turn survived in
conceptual juridical thinking and provided important elements of the continental rationalization
process.
Secondly I want to discuss the rationalization of charismatic education in the university and
other forms of training for 'expertise'. The "patent of education" acquired through such
specialized examinations increasingly formed a base for entrance into the kind of routinized
charismatic fraternities which now rule society.
The third important connection between 'charisma' and 'rationalization' I will discuss is that
between the routinization of charisma and the building of religious and rational institutions: the
transformation of charisma transformation into 'office charisma', which, like other
depersonalizing routinizations of charisma, is in fact a reversal of the basis of charismatic
superiority.
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