Slobodan Milo evi was the central actor in the recent Yugoslav drama that began with the rise of nationalism and ended with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. How did he emerge as a charismatic leader, and why did the Serbian people follow him to national disaster. It is argued that Milo evi owed his charismatic authority to the sense of widespread social discontent he helped be forged by strategically manipulating key cultural symbols of the Serbian nation. The claim that charismatic leadership,

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... r from being an effect of existing real crises, may also become a major cause of prospective ones suggests new ways of theorizing about political charisma. as Serbia's paramount charismatic "national leader" (narodna vodja)' (L. J. Cohen 2001: 76; Stevanovi[ c a c u t e ] 2000). As Dragovi[ c a c u t e ] -Soso describes the situation: