Харизма і трансформаційне лідерство в нових незалежних державах

The article is devoted to the problem of charismatic legitimation of power in post-communist countries. The emergence of newly independent states, the formation of power institutions, and the introduction of democratic norms and principles into the political process became the conditions for implementing the type of political leadership called charismatic. The definition of charismatic leadership and its main characteristics were proposed by Max Weber, whose concepts gave rise to the theory of political charisma. The article analyzes the provisions put forward within the framework of the so-called functional approach to studying the phenomenon of charisma. According to this approach, charismatic leadership performs an important function of establishing a new form of social order, which is especially important in creating new states and forming national identity. The article analyzes the actualization of the demand for charismatic leadership in the conditions of the communist system's legitimacy crisis in the USSR, as well as the evolution of charismatic leadership among the last leader of the union state and the first leaders of the new independent states. The difficulties of forming a new state form a demand for sole power and an authoritarian way of making socially important decisions. Under these conditions, the instability and underdevelopment of democratic institutions in post-Soviet countries have created favorable conditions for establishing an authoritarian model of government, as evidenced by the spread of the phenomenon of presidentialism in the post-Soviet space. A comparative analysis of the leadership style and means of maintaining the legitimacy of the presidents of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, and Ukraine has revealed the peculiarities of the political culture that was formed in these countries under the influence of several factors of a historical, political and cultural nature. The article concludes that the process of the routinization of charisma is of decisive importance for the evolution of charismatic leadership, which allows converting a high degree of trust in the leader and the mobilization of his supporters at the initial stage of social transformations into stable institutions, values​, and practices that become the basis of national statehood in its inherent political forms.