Research Article
Crisis of succession: On the institutionalization of charismatic rule in German theatre
Abstract
Currently leading German theatres have come under intense criticism over questions of artistic leadership. In this paper I shall explore the deeper underlying institutional questions that underpin such debates and ask if they represent a structural crisis besetting our understanding of the modern performing arts. I will revisit Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority and explore how it became the guiding principle of Nazi cultural policy and examine its institutional continuity after 1945. The first two parts of the article revisit Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority; the third part sketches the historical background of the German office of Intendant with its roots in both feudal and bureaucratic structures; the final section returns to the current crises at the Munich Kammerspiele and the Berlin Volksbühne.
Keywords
2019 (2)
Theatre – Politics – Management

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Keywords
- Aesthetics
- Higher Education
- Cultural Diplomacy and Foreign Cultural Policy
- Occupation
- Career and Professional Role
- Audience Development
- Audience Studies and Visitor Studies
- Visitor Motivations
- Business
- Covid Pandemic
- Democracy
- Digitalization
- Diversity
- Third Sector
- Empirical Aesthetics
- Development
- Ethics
- Evaluation
- Field Theory
- Festival
- Film
- Federalism
- Community Arts
- Societal Change
- Ideology
- Staging
- Career
- Communication
- Concert
- Creative Industries
- Creativity
- Crisis
- Culture
- arts organizations, cultural organizations
- Cultural Participation
- Cultural Change
- Fincancing The Arts
- Cultural Promotion Law
- Cultural History
- Cultural Management
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- Cultural Organizations
- Art Education
- Cultural Policy
- Cultural Production
- Cultural Sociology
- Art Education
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- Artists
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- Arts Management
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- Orchestra
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- Law
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- Social Cohesion
- Social Change
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- Non-visitor Socio-demographics
- Socioculture
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- Dance
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- Theatre
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- Entrepreneurship
- Urbanism
- Civil Society