Charisma and celebrity in Indonesian politics

Abstract

Weberian sociology has been used by many theorists in reference to Southeast Asia, though not without controversy. This article explores the anthropology of power and modernization by considering the relationship between Weber's concept of charisma and the modern notion of celebrity. It examines different framings of Weber's thought by political and media theorists. Using ethnographic data on Indonesian leadership, the article revisits Ben Anderson's critical revision and subsequent rejection of Weber, by examining discourses of legitimacy and relevance following the death of the ninth sultan of Yogyakarta in 1988 and the accession of his son the following year. The ethnographic data draws mainly on fieldwork from 1989 to 1999, and includes commentaries from Indonesian newspapers and academics. The article uses this ethnographic example to ask if charisma has been reinvented as celebrity, and proposes a way forward for the anthropology of celebrity.