Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Lecture at the conference on "Charisma", June 26, 2026
Politics is a site of performance, and contemporary politicians increasingly perform ordinariness: the fantasy of being someone we might like to have a beer with. They succeed not through the elevated rhetoric traditionally associated with charisma (“ask not what your country can do for you”), but through something more intimate, affective, and relatable. I call this mediated enchantment “charm”. Circulating across mass and social media platforms, charm creates the appearance of authenticity and proximity while binding leaders to political tribes. I argue that charm is becoming a defining feature of contemporary political life, as political values are increasingly embodied in mediated personalities rather than institutions or ideologies. These magnetic figures may rise and fade with extraordinary speed, but without understanding the political force of charm, we cannot fully grasp the fragility of the present moment.
Julia Sonnevend is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at The New School and the author of Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event (2016) and Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics (2024).
Lecture at the conference on "Charisma", June 26, 2026
Politics is a site of performance, and contemporary politicians increasingly perform ordinariness: the fantasy of being someone we might like to have a beer with. They succeed not through the elevated rhetoric traditionally associated with charisma (“ask not what your country can do for you”), but through something more intimate, affective, and relatable. I call this mediated enchantment “charm”. Circulating across mass and social media platforms, charm creates the appearance of authenticity and proximity while binding leaders to political tribes. I argue that charm is becoming a defining feature of contemporary political life, as political values are increasingly embodied in mediated personalities rather than institutions or ideologies. These magnetic figures may rise and fade with extraordinary speed, but without understanding the political force of charm, we cannot fully grasp the fragility of the present moment.
Julia Sonnevend is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at The New School and the author of Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event (2016) and Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics (2024).
