Hubris syndrome and technologies of delegitimation of power

Hubris syndrome and technologies of delegitimation of power


Moskalenko O.A.,

Institute of Social Sciences and Foreign Relations, Sevastopol State University, Russia, kerulen@bk.ru


elibrary_id: 245715 | ORCID: 0000-0002-4162-3162 | RESEARCHER_ID: F-2699-2016

Irkhin A.A.,

Institute of Social Sciences and Foreign Relations, Sevastopol State University, Russia, alex.irhin@mail.ru


elibrary_id: 866175 | ORCID: 0000-0001-7895-550X | RESEARCHER_ID: A-4781-2019

Article received: 2022.05.26. Accepted: 2023.04.05


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.01.04
EDN: RPWOKU


For citation:

Moskalenko O.A., Irkhin A.A. Hubris syndrome and technologies of delegitimation of power. – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 1. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.01.04. EDN: RPWOKU (In Russ.)



Abstract

 The authors refer to the concept of hubris syndrome, introduced into political lexicon in the 2010s by D. Owen, and understood as a specific disease of “people of power.” The hypothesis of the study is that the attribution of hubris syndrome to a leader by the media and within expert discourse is not based on objective criteria, but is manipulative in nature and is determined by the degree of “perverseness of the political course” in terms of its compliance or non-compliance with universal democratic values. The article reveals the mechanisms of delegitimization of power through the assignment of a number of characteristics to it within the framework of hubris syndrome. As the analysis shows, hubris syndrome is an exclusively political construction, which is broadcast to the general public as a medical concept. Arguments about hubris syndrome are always built on the basis of the oppositional pair “democracy – authoritarianism / tyranny”, as it is understood that democratic regimes themselves, due to their immanent properties (multi-stage institutions of control, change of power, openness, etc.), usually prevent the development of hubris. Reversely, authoritarian and tyrannical regimes automatically turn out to be hubristic ones, which allows democratic regimes, by the right of moral superiority, to correct them in different ways that may even lead to intervention and interference. This scheme finds a historical analogy to the application of the concept of civilizational peoples and states in the civilization/barbarism dichotomy in the 18th-19th centuries, which played a similar function for the West, as described by S. Huntington. The discrepancy between the formal definition of hubris syndrome and the use of the concept in politics is obvious. A highly manipulative construct embodies the tactics of de-legitimization of a political leader if he/ she ceases to comply with the norms of a certain cultural and historical chronotope. The authors draw attention to the specific linguistic markers of hubris syndrome in political communication and the ways in which any politician whose speech contains these units can be declared suffering from hubris syndrome.

Keywords
hubris syndrome, pathocracy, manipulation, media, universal values, delegitimation, power.


References

Akstinaite, V. (2018). Use of linguistic markers in the identification and analysis of chief executives’ hubris (doctoral dissertation). Surrey Business School.

Beinart, P. (2010). The Icarus syndrome. A history of American hubris. HarperCollins.

Bollaert, H., & Petit, V. (2010). Beyond the dark side of executive psychology: current research and new directions. European Management Journal, 28(5), 362-376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2010.01.001

Button, M. (2011). “Hubris breeds the tyrant”: the anti-politics of hubris from Thebes to Abu Ghraib. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 8, 305-332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872110383106

Fettweis, C.J. (2013). The pathologies of power: fear, honor, glory, and hubris in U.S. foreign policy. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139644549

Gartner, J., Langford, A., & O’Brien, A. (2018). It is ethical to diagnose a public figure one has not personally examined. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 213(5), 633-637. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2018.132

Horne, A. (2015). Hubris: the tragedy of war in the twentieth century. Harper Collins.

Kroll, J., & Pouncey, C. (2016). The ethics of APA’s Goldwater rule. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 44(2), 226-235.

Kroll, M.J., Toombs, L.A., & Wright, P. (2000). Napoleon’s tragic March home from Moscow: lessons in hubris. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 14(1), 117-128. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2000.2909844

Owen, D. (2003). Diseased, demented, depressed: serious illness in heads of state. QJM – Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, 96(5), 325-336. https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcg061

Owen, D. (2006). Hubris and Nemesis in heads of government. J R Soc Med, 99, 548-551. https://doi.org/10.1177/014107680609901110

Owen, D. (2018). Hubris. The road to Donald Trump. Methuen Publishing Ltd.

Owen, D., & Davidson, J. (2009). Hubris syndrome: an acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK prime ministers over the last 100 years. Brain, 132(5), 1396-1406. https://doi.org/10.1093/ brain/awp008

Picone, P.M., Dagnino G.B., & Mina, A. (2014). The origin of failure: a multidisciplinary appraisal of the hubris hypothesis and proposed research agenda. Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(4), 447-468. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0177

Roll, R. (1986). The hubris hypothesis of corporate takeovers. The Journal of Business, 59(2), 197-216. https://doi.org/10.1086/296325

Ronfeldt, D. (1994). Beware the hubris-nemesis complex. A concept for leadership analysis. URL: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR461.pdf(accessed 04.05.2022).

Hazin, M., & Shcheglov, S. (2016). Lestnica v nebo [Stairway to heaven]. Moscow: RIPOL Klassik. (In Russ.)

Koreckaja, M.A. (2014). Death in the terms of the prestige spending: the mutual conversion of hubris and charisma. Vestnik Samarskoj Gumanitarnoj Akademii. Serija “Filosofija. Filologija”, 2, 39-63. (In Russ.)

Koreckaya, M.A. (2019). Ambivalentnost’ vlasti: mifologicheskij, ontologicheskij i prakticheskij aspekty [Ambivalence of power: mythological, ontological and practical aspects]. Abstract of dissertation for the degree of candidate of political sciences. Kazan’: KFU. (In Russ.)

Koreckaya, M.A. (2021). Ambivalentnost’ vlasti: mifologiya, ontologiya, praksis [The ambivalence of power: mythology, ontology, praxis]. Saint Petersburg: Aleteya. (In Russ.)

Novikov, D.V. (2019). Elections in Russia: from Hubris to Nemesis. Scholarly Notes of KNASTU, 1-2, 60-63. (In Russ.)

Owen, D. (2011). In sickness and in power. Illness in heads of government during the last 100 years. (Russ. ed.: Owen, D. Istoriya bolezni: Nedugi mirovykh liderov poslednego stoletiya. Saint Petersburg: Amfora).

Shestopal, E.B. (Ed.). (2019). Vlast’ i lidery v vospriyatii rossijskih grazhdan. Chetvert’ veka nablyudenij (1993–2018) [Power and leaders in perception of citizens of Russia. 25 years of observation (1993-2018)]. Moscow: Ves Mir. (In Russ.)

Shevcov, S.P. (2014). On the question of the meaning of the term hybris in the archaic period. ΣΧΟΛΗ, 8(2), 399-417. (In Russ.)

Vyalyh, V.V., & Beljaeva, A.I. (2016). Issledovanie aksiologicheskih aspektov fenomena gibris-sindroma [Research of Axiological Aspects of the Hubris-Syndrome Phenomenon]. In Aktual’nye voprosy obshhestvennyh nauk: sociologija, politologija, filosofija, istorija: sb. st. po mater. LXI mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf. [Relevant issues of social sciences: sociology, political science, philosophy, history. Collected articles based on the materials of the LXI international scientific and practical conference. No. 5] (pp. 114-120). Novosibirsk: SibAK. (In Russ.)

Vyalyh, V., & Nevolina, V. (2017). Hubris syndrome in formation of values and management of the modern authoritarian regime. Filosofiya i Kul’tura, 2, 116-122. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.7256/2454-0757.2017.2.21108

Zubec, O.P. (2006). On Pride [O gordosti]. Eticheskaya mysl’, 7, 171-195. (In Russ.)

Content No. 1, 2024

See also:


Pastukhov V.B.,
The Balkan Syndrome: Case History. – Polis. Political Studies. 1999. No2

Sosnovsky A. A.,
The Developing Societies Syndrome. – Polis. Political Studies. 1991. No5

Bernays E.L.,
Engineering of consent. – Polis. Political Studies. 2013. No4

Mironyuk M.G., Timofeev I.N., Vaslavsky Ya.I.,
Universal Comparisons, with Quantitative Methods of Analysis Applied (A Review of Precedents). – Polis. Political Studies. 2006. No5

Round Table of the «Polis» Journal, Guseynov A.A., Pantin I.K., Tretyakov V.T., Glinchikova A.G., Kara-Murza A.A., Fyodorova M.M., Alekseyeva T.A., Shubin A.V., , , , Kudyukin P.M., Klyamkin I.M., Tzymbursky V.L., Sytin A.G., Pantin V.I., Vodolazov G.G.,
Democracy: Universal Values and Diversity of the Historical Experience (Materials of the Round Table of the Philosophy Institute of RAS, «Polis» and “Political Class” Journals). – Polis. Political Studies. 2008. No5

 

   

Introducing an article



Polis. Political Studies
1 2005


Information
Political Science Chronicle

 The article text
 

Archive

   2024      2023      2022      2021   
   2020      2019      2018      2017      2016   
   2015      2014      2013      2012      2011   
   2010      2009      2008      2007      2006   
   2005      2004      2003      2002      2001   
   2000      1999      1998      1997      1996   
   1995      1994      1993      1992      1991