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One of Max Weber's most well-known achievements was the formulation of three concepts of legitimate authority: traditional, legal-rational and charismatic. However, there are particular problems with the last of these, which is not historically grounded in the manner of the other two concepts. The charisma concept originated with Weber's sociology of religion, was pressed into service in pre-war writing on the sociology of domination, shifted focus in his wartime political writings and changed meaning again in his post-war writing on basic sociological concepts. To use the concept in historical-political analysis, I argue, one must distinguish between a pre-modern and modern form of charismatic domination. I argue that doing this enables us to understand features of the leadership of colonial nationalist and fascist movements.

This project attempts to define the epistemological structure of nationalism and to suggest a theoretical model through which this can be done. I would argue that this theorization will apply to nationalism per se; however, my own training and experience predicate that my examples will be drawn from a specifically Irish context. I would argue that it is only through an understanding of the epistemological status of nationalism that any real attempt can be made to offer it to critique. Lacan and the construction of the ego: The Mirror StageJacques Lacan's 'mirror stage,' wherein the construction of the ego is seen in terms of reflection in a mirror, would seem to be a valid theoretical model of the nationalist epistemology. Lacan posits an identification between the child and the reflection; the ego is seen as created out of the desire to completely identify with the reflection. To the inchoate child, the reflection is fixed, stable and coherent. Lacan sees the genesis of the ego as fictive, constantly attempting to identify with this image. Nationalism and the Lacanian Imaginary

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