Interpreting Weber in Sunak

Rishi Sunak's win is managerialism as a quasi-representation for competence - This is not a critique of competence, but a sociological observation on what constitutes legitimacy of a leader elected or selected.

Juggling the complexity of Governance is now seen as a managerial function, and legitimacy while not entirely divorced from its symbolic roots, has possibly peaked into Managerialism with the choice of Sunak. Or rather the symbolism of Rishi Sunak's win is a triumph of the "representational power" of Managerialism as the overarching requirement in the symbolic signaling of competence.

Indian media debates reached "Peak Sunak" (the equivalent of jumping the shark) quickly - debating every nonsensical derivation from the elevation - and quickly dragging it down to a debate where every "political-intellectual" and riff-raff imposed a specific lens to the mandate - multi-racial / multi-ethnic/ immigrant / religion / successful immigrant / competence etc., the typical "identity-grouse-mining" postmodernist oeuvre running its course.

As always the Indian commentary gets it wrong - as a representation of inclusivity - Rishi Sunak is British, and ticks the various boxes on the symbolism that is cultural as well as representational. Being the first of a kind, the climb is always harder to orchestrate without managing the deviation from what may constitute the implicit norm of the British political elite - and that is where Managerial competence - tilted the scale.

However, I think the critical departure, is the separation of competence from symbolism (and this is no either-or situation). ie., arguably now, extrapolating this trend, we can recruit a Country Manager and country is just incidental to Manager, ! And truly he/she can be one - a country Manager - and not just a fancy product hawking designation - but truly a Manager of the country.

This trend has been in evidence, ever since the conflation of Managerialism with Leadership in mba schools. That is, separating market extraction from moral choices, and add to this, politics spiraling into extreme image management.

This has implications, when we make the separation of the "subjectivities" that constitute the political debate on choices - bringing them down to managerial trade-offs versus their being inherent to politics. ie. .. does the Manager of your National team work hard to win not because of his nationality but because of incentives - is now, extended to a "Social Manager" incentivized to running the country. Push this to war - will a leader make the choice, because he/she can offer a "good" trade-off ?

India has had its own "different" experiments with this dichotomy - traditionally in technical spheres. But the last grand experiment, where ostensibly the PM (as a technocrat) was in power and the symbol of power was outside (or was it vice-versa :) - the jury is still out on that experiment! And that sure did get a lot of aspiring Economists excited ...

How a generic discipline (finance) that is narrow and extractive ( managerialism /markets/ funds) suddenly transforms to competence in inclusivity, is the charm here.

And, as a downside, it gives every mediocre middle-manager with an mba in the social sector (already suffused with corporate jargon) - with a few buzzwords, marketing slick (slicker than your average!) and extensive social media image-building - a possibility of a much larger aspiration!

"The Economist" goes to the core, about the choice of the Tories "The relief is also damning. Competence ought to be a given, not an ambition.". The flipside of democracy- that has always been a problem in India - competence is the least rewarded (And, no that's not a convenient excuse to offer when you are voted out !).

We wish Rishi Sunak well, as our cultural roots carry an emotional connect, and the possibility of unique leadership sensibilities that are influenced by cultural moorings. Rishi Sunak's win has been interpreted in many ways, and there will be more, but the legal-rational type of legitimacy - Max Weber's ideal-type of a legitimacy/authority symbol - has possibly met its perfect embodiment.