Chapter four examines how followers’ attachments survive after the disappearance of the founder. Specifically, I argue that the symbolic narrative initially crafted by the founder helps turn these ties into a resilient political identity that shapes followers’ worldview, perpetuates the cleavage between followers and their opponents, and reaffirms their faith in the founder’s mission of transcendence. When the founder dies or can no longer physically maintain his personal connection with the followers, this narrative serves as a scripture that, like the New Testament for many Christians, upholds the founder’s identification with the movement. To illustrate this process, I turn to focus group discussions with followers of Peronism and Chavismo, who reveal how their preservation of stories and material possessions connected to the founder perpetuate their affective connections to the movement and provide an opportunity for new politicians who portray themselves as heroic reincarnations of the founder to win the followers’ loyalty.

Chapter two details existing explanations for the surprising resilience of charismatic movements rooted in the logic of routinization and presents my alternative theory of personalistic revival. First, I discuss the logic of routinization and illustrate why this theory fails to account for the persistence of Peronism and Chavismo. Specifically, I argue that routinization overstates the ephemerality of citizens’ emotional ties to the charismatic founder and minimizes the immense difficulty of transforming the founder’s authority into a depersonalized party organization. Next, I present my theory of charismatic movement revival, in which I argue that followers’ charismatic bonds can turn into a resilient, affective identity that outlives the founder. Under sporadically occurring conditions, namely the eruption of a crisis, new leaders who portray themselves as heirs of the founder have the potential to reactivate the followers’ charismatic identity, garner support, and restore the movement to political predominance. Thus, charismatic movements can survive during periods of poor leadership and reemerge in personalistic form under more favorable circumstances. This pattern generates a cycle of political volatility that perpetuates personalistic leadership and undermines party system institutionalization.

Chapter seven integrates the perspectives of followers and leaders to investigate the trajectories of charismatic movements starting from the moment when their founders disappear. To begin, I explain how, while generating tremendous political and economic volatility, the fitful pattern in which these movements develop reinforces, rather than dilutes, the personalistic nature of the movement. Subsequently, I trace the history of the Peronist movement from Perón’s exile in 1955 until 2015, when Peronist candidate Daniel Scioli lost the presidential election to Mauricio Macri, a non-Peronist. The analysis illustrates the endogenous nature of charismatic movement revival and explains how, paradoxically, such movements generate periods of political strength and coherence as well as periods of recession and political fragmentation, the latter of which, in turn, help prepare the ground for the movement’s re-emergence. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the fifth revival of Peronism in 2019 under Cristina Kirchner and her handpicked presidential candidate and running mate, Alberto Fernández.

Chapter eight summarizes key empirical findings of the study, draws theoretical conclusions about the potential for charismatic movements to bypass routinization and live on in personalistic form, and reflects on the challenges these movements pose for democracy. It also extends the analysis to cases beyond Argentina and Venezuela where charismatic movements persisted or reemerged after the disappearance of their founders, including Fujimorismo in Peru, Forza Italia in Italy, the Pheu Thai Party in Thailand, and Maoism in China. The chapter also explores the broader implications that my theory of personalistic revival holds for the potential staying power and consequences of charismatic populist leaders, who are on the rise in countries across the world.

Chapter five investigates how citizens’ charismatic attachments can be politically reactivated to facilitate new politicians’ consolidation of power. In particular, I argue that successors must depict themselves as symbolic reincarnations of the founder to reanimate the political significance of the followers’ attachments and garner support as new standard-bearers of the movement. Specifically, new leaders must implement two strategies: (1) bold, initially impressive policies and (2) symbolic associations with the charismatic founder. Face-to-face survey experiments conducted with movement followers in Argentina and Venezuela indicate that political candidates who implement these two strategies cause citizens to express stronger emotional attachment to the movement and increased support for the new leader. The results further challenge the notion that charismatic attachments are short-lived and underscore the potential of new leaders to resurrect the political intensity of those attachments.

Chapter six investigates the conditions under which new leaders can successfully tap into the charismatic founder’s legacy, reactivate citizens’ attachments, and return the movement to power. I identify three conditions that successors must fulfill to accomplish this task: They must (1) seek power as self-starters, long after the founder’s disappearance, rather than as anointed successors; (2) rise during a crisis to portray themselves as desperately needed saviors; and (3) adopt the founder’s personalistic style to revitalize and take ownership of the followers’ preexisting emotional bonds to the movement. Next, I demonstrate the relevance of these conditions by tracing the process through which several leaders across Peronism, Chavismo, and Peru’s Fujimorismo failed while others succeeded in reviving the movement. The results indicate that leaders who fulfilled all three conditions established formidable new chapters of the movement in their own name; in contrast, leaders who did not fulfill one or more of these conditions suffered a political failure.

Chapter three identifies how citizens’ charismatic attachments form, overwhelm alternative linkage types, and contribute to the development of powerful political movements. First, I describe three conditions that charismatic founders must fulfill to cultivate deep, unmediated, and emotional bonds with their followers: (1) direct recognition of these marginalized people’s suffering; (2) enactment of bold, seemingly miraculous policies; and (3) construction of a narrative that glorifies the leader’s heroic position, demonizes his opponents, and stresses his mission to transform society. Next, focusing on the Venezuelan case, I qualitatively examine how Chávez fulfilled these conditions to establish charismatic attachments with his followers. I also show how these bonds overpowered alternative linkages rooted in substantive programs and Chavista organizations. Finally, I conduct a quantitative analysis using a 2007 survey from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). The results confirm the overwhelming influence of charismatic, rather than programmatic or organizational, factors on citizens’ attachments to Chavismo.

Chapter one introduces the puzzle of charismatic movement survival and proposes the explanation I advance in this book. First, I summarize the conventional wisdom, which suggests that charismatic movements must transform into institutionalized parties. Next, I present my alternative theory – that these movements can survive by sustaining, rather than discarding, their personalistic core – and argue that this new explanation better accounts for the spasmodic, stubbornly personalistic trajectories of Peronism and Chavismo. Subsequently, I introduce the multi-method research design this book uses to analyze the persistence and revival of charismatic movements in Argentina and Venezuela, which incorporates public opinion data, focus groups, and survey experiments with movement followers; interviews with leaders and political analysts; and archival research documenting each movement’s history. I then clarify and discuss the relationship between three concepts central to this book: charisma, populism, and charismatic movement. Finally, I justify my selection of the two cases of Peronism and Chavismo and lay out the organization of the book.