Cult of personality

==Characteristics==
[[File:Napoleon III, CDV by Disderi, 1859-retouch.jpg|thumb|left|1859 ''carte de visite'' of [[Napoleon III]] by [[André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri|Disdéri]], which popularized the carte-de-visite format]]
There are various views about what constitutes a cult of personality in a leader. Historian [[Jan Plamper]] wrote that modern-day personality cults display five characteristics that set them apart from "their predecessors": The cults are secular and "anchored in popular sovereignty"; their objects are all males; they target the entire population, not only the well-to-do or just the ruling class; they use mass media; they exist where the mass media can be controlled enough to inhibit the introduction of "rival cults".{{sfn|Plamper|2012|p=222}}

In his 2013 paper, "''What is character and why it really does matter''", Thomas A. Wright stated, "The cult of personality phenomenon refers to the idealized, even god-like, public image of an individual consciously shaped and molded through constant propaganda and media exposure. As a result, one is able to manipulate others based entirely on the influence of public personality&nbsp;... the cult of personality perspective focuses on the often shallow, external images that many public figures cultivate to create an idealized and heroic image."<ref name="autogenerated29">{{Cite journal |last1=Wright |first1=Thomas A. |last2=Lauer |first2=Tyler L. |date=2013 |title=What is character and why it really does matter |url=https://fordham.bepress.com/gsb_facultypubs/2/ |journal=Fordham University: Business Faculty Publications. |publisher=[[Fordham University]] |volume=2 |page=29 |access-date=June 13, 2019}}</ref>

Adrian Teodor Popan defined a cult of personality as a "quantitatively exaggerated and qualitatively extravagant public demonstration of praise of the leader." He also identified three causal "necessary, but not sufficient, structural conditions, and a path-dependent chain of events which, together, lead to the cult formation: a particular combination of [[patrimonialism]] and [[clientelism]], lack of dissidence, and systematic falsification pervading the society's culture."<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Popan |first=Adrian Teodor |date=August 2015 |title=The ABC of Sycophancy: Structural Conditions for the Emergence of Dictators' Cults of Personality |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/46763/POPAN-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |doi=10.15781/T2J960G15 |hdl=2152/46763}}</ref>

One underlying characteristic, as explained by John Pittman, is the nature of the cult of personalities to be a patriarch. The idea of the cult of personalities that coincides with the Marxist movements gains popular footing among the men in power with the idea that they would be the "fathers of the people".{{According to whom|date=February 2022}} By the end of the 1920s, the male features of the cults became more extreme. Pittman identifies that these features became roles including the "formal role for a [male] 'great leader' as a cultural focus of the apparatus of the regime: reliance on top-down 'administrative measures': and a pyramidal structure of authority" which was created by a single ideal.<ref name="Pittman" />