ajcs20129a

Original Article

Pomp and power, performers andpoliticians: The California theatre state

Elizabeth Helen Essarya,* and Christian Ferneyb

aSocial Science Division, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway,Malibu, California 92063, USA.

bDuke University, Kenan Institute of Ethics, 103 West Duke Building, Durham,North Carolina 27708, USA.

*Corresponding author.

Abstract The year 2013 marks the 10th year anniversary of the Californiagubernatorial recall election that replaced Grey Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger andreinvigorated debates about celebrity politics in the United States. While critics arguethat politics has become about entertainment, rather than statecraft, this articlechallenges the notion that performance can be separated from politics. Instead,symbolic action is a central feature of political processes. Specifically, the cosmologyof the state dictates the animating centers of society, within which politicians mustperform for the sake of reanimating the myths and reconstituting the people. Usingcase studies of the initial gubernatorial campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson andArnold Schwarzenegger, this article highlights the elements of California’s sustainingmythology and the various ways in which it defines political behavior. The resultshighlight two constants across the campaigns: the invocation of crisis and therendering of candidates as heroes. These components enable the successful – ifdramatic – transfer of power.American Journal of Cultural Sociology (2013) 1, 96–124.doi:10.1057/ajcs.2012.9

Keywords: politics; California; symbolic politics; performance; myth

Introduction

On 6 August 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a performance that tested

his skills as an actor: he announced his candidacy for the California

governorship to Jay Leno and the broad viewership of The Tonight Show.

Two months later, Schwarzenegger was voted into office in the special

election that also ousted incumbent governor Gray Davis. The election was

r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2049-7113 American Journal of Cultural Sociology Vol. 1, 1, 96–124www.palgrave-journals.com/ajcs/

‘special’ on a number of counts, occurring ahead of schedule on the election

calendar, being the only successful statewide recall effort in California history

and sanctioning the gubernatorial aspirations of more than one hundred

individuals. Modern American politics are frequently associated with the

‘media circus’ (for example, Ryan, 1998), but the 2003 California recall

election seemed to many to be exceptional even by that standard (West, 2005).

Political activists of diverse causes and affiliations declared that the American

political system had become corrupted, possibly beyond saving (for example,

Schultz, 2001). California, with its widely touted cult of celebrity seemed to

be the most glaring case, a place where style – not substance – curried the

support of voters.

It is precisely style, though, that remains an enduring feature of politics. In

fact, the familiar rituals of candidates, voters and analysts are what constitute

each election, with remarkable similarity in scripts and underlying logics across

time. In any given election cycle, the populace collectively identifies those

problems that threaten their way of life, such as the economy, government

corruption or the violation of individual rights. In response, each candidate is

called upon to echo these concerns and identify how he would be able to rescue

‘the people’ from such looming crises. In this way, elections are defined by the

performances of candidates and the audience of voters, which are always made

meaningful by the local myths that sustain the polity. Without theatrics, there

would be no politics.

In this article, we use California gubernatorial elections as a case study of the

relationship between myth and performance within politics. The routine and

mundane process of selecting new leaders is invigorated by the enactment of the

people’s shared stories. In the Golden State, such performances center on crises

and heroes, a narrative of not only what threatens the state but also what

qualifies a candidate to rescue the people from those perils. What constitutes a

crisis and a hero is structured by state cosmology and communicated by media,

and these are then echoed back to the people through the sundry of per-

formances politicians undertake during their journeys for power. Our work

draws particular inspiration from Clifford Geertz (1980, 1983), while also

building on the strong program in cultural sociology, as presented in the work of

Jeffrey Alexander (2004, 2010). We claim that all politics are theatre, that pomp

and power are mutually constituted, and that at the higher echelons of govern-

ment, all politicians enact the rituals of office for the purpose of sustaining the

myth of the polity. They are not merely performing the role of politicians; they

are being politicians. As Geertz (1980, p. 136) so eloquently put it: ‘The real is

as imagined as the imaginary’.

In what follows, we first review the interdisciplinary literatures on celebrity

politicians and symbolic politics. We then elaborate on our theory of the

relationship between myth and performance with a narrative of the California

theatre state. In the latter half of the article, our analysis centers on three

California theatre state

97r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2049-7113 American Journal of Cultural Sociology Vol. 1, 1, 96–124

gubernatorial campaigns: those of the preeminent ‘actor-turned-politician’

Ronald Reagan (1967–1975), the categorical ‘career politician’ Pete Wilson

(1991–1999) and the most recent celebrity governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

(2003–2010). For each, we use a sample of media reports and campaign

speeches to illustrate the ways in which they enact the California myth, thereby

exposing the underlying pattern of rituals and beliefs that constitute the

electoral process.

The Relevant Literature

The context for much of the academic discussion about performance and

politics takes place in media studies and political science and focuses on

celebrity politicians and the conflation of entertainment and politics. Such work

is relevant, not because of theoretical alignment, but because it is the dominant

narrative about figures such as Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Within this literature, as well as the popular press, the ‘celebrity politician’ is a

source of much consternation. And while examples litter the broader American

political landscape, California is rightly associated with this phenomenon even

beyond Reagan and Schwarzenegger. A short list is illustrative here: Sonny

Bono, Clint Eastwood, George Murphy, Upton Sinclair, George Takei and

Ralph Waite have all run for elected office in the Golden State (Canon, 1990;

Cillizza, 2006). A similar trend has traditional politicians trying their hands at

entertaining with guest spots on late night talk and sketch comedy shows

(Meyer, 2002; West and Orman, 2003; Street, 2004; Baum, 2005; Stanley,

2008). There is evident concern that both types of behavior signal that we are

spiraling away from our ideals of informed and participatory democracy,

blurring the boundary between performer and politician, audience and elec-

torate. The rules of the game seem to have been shifted by those who most

successfully straddle the boundary between politics and fame, leading to

something of a democratic existential crisis, with numerous critics calling for an

end to civic complicity in politics-as-entertainment (Postman, 1985; De Groot,

1997; Fallows, 1997; Beschloss, 1999; Street, 2004). The concern is not so

much that having been an astronaut or a singer should disqualify one from

seeking public office but rather that any additional qualifications have been

rendered irrelevant. Thus, the problem is not celebrity per se, but rather the

system that places a premium on performance to the detriment of political

dialogue (Ansolabehere et al, 1993; Meyer, 2002; Simon, 2002).

This critical perspective is characteristic of ‘realist’ approaches to politics,

which view the performative aspects of politics as ephemeral distractions from

the important work of participatory democracy. Realist theories of politics trace

their lineage to diverse traditions, but they share a conception of politics that

emphasizes rational action, where any impediment to informed and logical

Essary and Ferney

98 r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2049-7113 American Journal of Cultural Sociology Vol. 1, 1, 96–124

voting behavior can only be a threat.1 This approach largely accounts for the

presence and relative success of celebrities (and other nonpoliticos) in the

political arena through the mobilization of amassed resources or elite status.

Celebrities’ pre-existing access to media gives them greater public exposure,

boosting their chances of winning irrespective of their ideas. A corollary of this

position is that wealth is paramount to winning modern elections, and

celebrities generally have a great deal of this as well (West and Orman,

2003). Realist writings also emphasize media dominance in political discourse,

which has further corrupted politics with entertainment. As a result of changing

campaign presentations, media have created a public that demands to be

entertained, not informed, by its political debates (Gamson, 1994; Barney,

2001). Voters are then led away from their actual interests in favor of flawed

candidates, preserving the status quo for those in power (Debord, 1983;

Postman, 1985; Marks and Fischer, 2002; Kellner, 2003; Weiskel, 2005).2

If we follow a strict realist perspective, then the election of Ronald Reagan

and Arnold Schwarzenegger had much to do with their prior acting roles, name

recognition and money, but little to do with California. Meanwhile, more

traditional politicians such as Pete Wilson merit no explanation; their political

success is assumed. While this account certainly resonates, the central problem

is that it creates a false dichotomy between ‘real politics’ and ‘celebrity politics’,

such that celebrity politicians are cast as outliers, aberrations, or even outright

evils and voters are merely dupes. In contrast, interdisciplinary work under the

heading of symbolic politics treats style and performance as key political

elements.3 Scholars in this tradition recognize that affective and normative

representations do have an extra-individual, institutional home, and argue that

the work of making political discourse meaningful occurs through collective

interpretation (Gusfield and Michalowicz, 1984). Indeed, ‘there is no “real”

political system’ that can be objectively singled out (Edelman, 1964, p. 21). This

1 Because of their nearly complete dismissal of the cultural sphere as relevant to political dialogue,

‘realist’ approaches to politics contrast most starkly with the insights of Geertz and cultural

sociology. Of course, some influential accounts (for example, Anderson, 1991; Sewell, 2005) theorize

politics in ways that assume a dynamic relationship between material and cultural concerns.2 McKernan’s (2011) review of the literature on political celebrity finds mixed responses to the

presence of celebrities in politics. Some scholars, including those cited above, treat the

‘tabloidization’ (Turner, 2004) of politics as a clear and normatively problematic change in politicaldiscourse. Others (for example, van Zoonen, 2005; Marsh et al, 2010) suggest that this trend creates

a more open political sphere, raising the possibility of a more truly democratic political process.

McKernan argues, as we do, that cultural sociology holds the greatest promise for properly

contextualizing celebrity and performance in politics.3 The term ‘symbolic politics’ is most often associated with Edelman (1964, 1971, 1988), though

Brysk (1995) also uses it. In her influential review, Berezin (1997b) distinguishes between ‘politicsand culture’ and ‘political culture’ when parsing similar literature. Because these latter terms take us

into broader territory, we use the term symbolic politics.



approach allows us to highlight the symbolic themes of election cycles and the

performative work of all politicians, celebrity and traditional alike.

Symbolic approaches to politics and political campaigns challenge more

traditional assumptions about the nature of statecraft and voter preferences.

Instead of talking about interests and needs as objective facts, symbolic politics

suggests we look closely at how a polity understands what its interests and needs

are. More specifically, ‘interests are not fixed needs but rather deeply subsumed

stories about needs, and that symbolically mobilized actors can create new

political opportunities by revealing, challenging, and changing narratives about

interests and identities’ (Brysk, 1995, p. 561, emphasis added). The discourse on

interests and needs is contextualized and constrained by a polity’s stories about

itself; the political sphere is unintelligible without taking into account its

intersections with the cultural sphere.

Scholars who adopt a symbolic approach to politics incorporate culture to

varying degrees, which Alexander (2004) captures in his distinction between

‘weak’ and ‘strong’ programmatic camps. For ‘weak’ symbolic politics scholars,

politicians and celebrities alike strategically deploy fame or notoriety to create

affective change, for example to raise awareness of AIDS in Africa or to bolster

a run for office. Thus, the apprehension with performance lingers. The people

largely remain dupes, still captivated by oversimplified and often glaringly

incorrect rhetoric and gestures employed by politicians. Symbols are employed

as an opiate here, not necessarily for nefarious ends so much as to salve the

polity’s collective psyche in the face of a difficult and complicated world.

Because the framing remains decorative, the assumption is that there is ‘real’

work and ‘symbolic’ work; there is the business of power and the ritual of

power. On the other side of the dichotomy, the ‘strong’ program in cultural

sociology assigns culture an autonomous role in the social world, viewing

performance and ritual as constitutive of politics, and for this reason is most

relevant for our work here. We turn now to an overview of both the earlier

contributions of Clifford Geertz and the more recent work by Jeffrey Alexander

on symbolic politics.

Myth, performance and charisma

Fittingly, Geertz is a ‘ritualistic citation’ in work asserting a symbolic or cultural

dimension to politics. His work on politics-as-theatre centers on the notion that

power is symbolic (Geertz, 1980, 1983). His seminal study of nineteenth

century Bali provides a framework that promotes symbols from ‘helpful’ to

‘fundamental’ in understanding political systems and processes. Geertz (1980)

detailed how the various ceremonies enacted by the pre-colonial negara (the

Balinese state) were not merely the principal occupation of the kingship, but

that these ritualized performances comprised the power of the state itself. More

specifically, power rests in society’s constructed cultural myths, such that

Essary and Ferney


politics is the business of rearticulating and reaffirming cosmology, a sort of

master narrative that informs and situates political identity (Geertz, 1980, p. 15;

1983, p.143). As such, politics is a symbolic medium, which cannot be sep-

arated or parsed from ‘real’ political action.

This emphasis on symbols as an integral component of politics has been

reinvigorated by work within cultural sociology broadly and the strong

program specifically, with key updates to account for the changes wrought by

modernity. Most notably, multiple scholars have offered cogent accounts of how

contemporary politics differ from previous eras. For example, civil traumas such

as the Watergate scandal, the aftermath of the Rodney King trial and the

impeachment proceedings of President Clinton indicate positively theatrical

qualities that cannot be separated from the meaning of these events (Alexander,

1984, 2003; Jacobs, 2000; Wagner-Pacifici and Sarfatti-Larson, 2001; Mast,

2006, 2012). This work also argues that these events are distinctly modern,

driven by the increasingly complex and fragmented nature of society as a whole,

and this then manifests in the public sphere in the form of de-fused social

performances and ambivalent public objects (Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz,

1991; Alexander, 2004). The media, through which Americans watch events

unfold, has similarly experienced changes that further distinguish the modern

period, thereby obstructing successful performances by public actors and

facilitating further fragmentation (Jacobs, 2000). Therefore, if Americans are

increasingly ‘clustered’, ‘segmented’ or otherwise ideationally estranged from

one another, it follows that the nature of politics must have shifted as well.

Our work here builds on the broad foundation that the writings of Geertz

provide, while also incorporating the more nuanced updates of the strong

program. Central to this task are the concepts of myth and performance, which

account for the structure and content, the stability and dynamism of political

action. Collective myths form the core of political life. While not meant to be

objective truth claims in the scientific sense, myths articulate what a society

believes to be true in a way that solidifies its identity, binding its members

together. A society’s ‘cosmology’ narrates its origins, chronicles the significant

events in its past and highlights what makes the people great (Geertz, 1980).

The myth has significance for how a society operates and which symbols define

power in that context. Thus, while myths are narratives, they are not only

narratives (Bottici, 2007).

Myths are prominent in our work in two particular ways. First, as alluded

to above, myths determine the structure of politics, that is, how power is

enacted and transferred. For participatory democracies, the rituals of campaigns

and elections are essential (Alexander, 2010). Moral legitimacy is only available

to leaders after they have engaged the people, with speeches, debates and

rallies, and won their support. Where power is attained, bestowed or won in

a different fashion, it is because the myth has determined it to be so. Dig

a little deeper, though, and myths add still more nuance, determining the



thematic pillars upon which the contest and its outcome depend. These

narratives articulate what is important to ‘the people’ – what Geertz (1983,

p. 124) referred to as the ‘animating centers of society’ – and thereby spells

out the values, priorities and objectives successful leaders and observant media

must embody and communicate (Schwartz, 2000). There is no center of society,

no important constituency or initiative, apart from what has been culturally

erected.

Second, the collective myths are reiterated and enacted within performances.

They pervade the scripts used by politicians, set the stage of conventions and

inaugurations, and dress the performers in costumes of collective identity and

significance (Berezin, 1997a). To be in power, one must appear to be in touch

with the animating centers, which leaders demonstrate through sundry

performances. The elaborate Balinese cremation rituals emphasized the

importance of status; the ornate progresses of Queen Elizabeth exalted piety

and wisdom, but both typify performative power in different cultural contexts

(Geertz, 1983). The political leader’s primary occupation is always the task of

connecting a society’s ‘remembered’ mythical past to its immediate future. Since

politics at the upper echelons of power are especially removed from the

everyday workings of society, the practical value of leadership at the highest

levels is secondary to the cosmological security it offers. To reiterate:

performance is power, myth made tangible.

Both Geertz (1980) and Alexander (2010) use compelling case studies to

demonstrate a dramaturgical conception of politics, the strength of which rests

in their refusal to reduce political action to manipulation. Performance does

not simply serve to (re)direct public opinion, nor does it simply stand in for

the social order. Instead, for Geertz, political performance retells the story of the

state, imbuing meaning in the political process and elevating it above the

mundane workings of the state. For Alexander, such performances are struggles

by the candidates to become collective representations, with the hope of re-

fusing the polity that has been fractured by the tides of modernity. For both,

political performances are participatory, not simply unilateral broadcast

communications. This is especially true in the American democratic setting

where the audience is an active part of the proceedings. Performances are for the

audience, because the populace renews the state through the ritual of elections.

This inverts the assumed relationship between performance and power: ‘Power

serve[s] pomp, not pomp power’ (Geertz, 1980, p. 13).

Still, nineteenth-century Bali and twenty-first century America are hardly

comparable, and a central tension between the work of Geertz and Alexander

revolves around the challenges posed by modernity.4 Geertz could assume a

more static political life and the direct involvement of a relatively homogenous

4 See Alexander (2004) for a more detailed treatment of the historical transformations that have

produced changes in the role of ritual and performance.

Essary and Ferney


citizenry.5 Meanwhile, Alexander addresses how contemporary political

performances are more contingent and must now be facilitated by media,

which means they are more likely to be unsuccessful, particularly with a more

diverse and engaged populace. The norms of political communication have

indeed changed in response to such fragmentation and technological develop-

ment; in particular, the mass media is more responsible for delivering the

symbolic representation of candidates to the electorate. As news media continue

to proliferate across print, television and online platforms, dominant political

narratives are either echoed and reinforced or even occasionally challenged and

revised, while some segments of the population can develop their own accounts

altogether (Schudson, 1995, 2008, 2009; Alexander, 2004). Yet, while these

changes constrain and free candidates in different ways vis-a-vis both direct

participation and traditional media, the principal messages remain intact across

these technological developments. The centrality of myths for how societies

are organized also makes them remarkably durable. So, while modernity has

changed how politics is done, the fundamental structure of politics has not changed

so dramatically. Consequently, as the myth has emerged relatively unscathed by the

changes in news media and political behavior, the scripts and symbols that lend

politicians power cannot have changed substantially either. ‘The extraordinary has

not gone out of modern politics, however much the banal may have entered; power

not only intoxicates, it still exalts’ (Geertz, 1983, p. 143).

In the remainder of this article, we turn our attention to California and a

sample of its most famed politicians: Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson and Arnold

Schwarzenegger. Through an analysis of their gubernatorial campaigns, we

illustrate the elements of California’s sustaining mythology, the various ways in

which it structures political behavior and how the candidates perform within

those structures. In doing so, we demonstrate the veracity of Geertz’s conception

of charisma, which refutes assertions that fame or individual-level attributes are

able to explain political success, and in particular, that of Reagan and

Schwarzenegger. On the contrary, all three gubernatorial campaigns demonstrate

how constant the cosmology – and therefore its permutations – is across time.

Methodological Approach

Geertz’s famed ethnographic method suggests that copious note-taking and

measured impressions are the preferred path to connecting performance and

power. However, cultural sociology, as a field, has demonstrated well that this is

not the exclusive path, and that ‘thick description’ is inherently about research

5 In some ways, Geertz limited the applicability of his approach by choosing to focus on scenes of

public life that were pre-scripted or self-contained, which leave little room for performance and areso markedly different from the fragmented public life of modernity (Alexander and Mast, 2006, pp.

12–16).



that is ‘analytically informed and culturally contextualized’ (Alexander, 2008,

p. 159). Thus, our work also untethers Geertz’s theoretical and methodological

contributions by achieving a similar thickness with a simple content analysis of

political behavior. To illustrate our claims about the California theatre state, we

collected materials from three successful gubernatorial campaigns in recent

history. We studied, first, the 1966 candidacy of the most celebrated ‘actor-

turned-politician’, Ronald Reagan. Our second subject is the 1990 campaign

of Pete Wilson, a categorical ‘career politician’. Finally, we look at Arnold

Schwarzenegger, the most recent former governor and another ‘celebrity

politician’, and his bid for the governorship during the 2003 special election

noted in the introduction. All three governors ran as Republicans and were

subsequently re-elected to the position.

For each candidate, we collected three types of materials: speeches, magazine

articles and newspaper articles. A sample of Reagan’s campaign speeches were

taken from the collection at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, while

speeches for Wilson and Schwarzenegger were located online.6 For magazine

and newspaper articles, we set the date range of interest from 1 January of the

election year to 15 January of the following year, that is, after the governor-elect

was inaugurated. We drew our magazine sample from both Newsweek and

Time, selecting all articles indexed according to the candidate’s name. We use

these materials qualitatively, to illustrate patterns in language, logic and

performance.

Our narrative of the theatre state emerged inductively through a content

analysis of articles from the Los Angeles Times. In the first step, we used a small

sample of newspaper articles to create a list of common themes for the three

campaigns. Secondly, we identified two categories that encompassed the various

patterns: crisis and hero. We elaborate on these terms in the next section. The

third step was to re-sample and code newspaper articles according to our

schema. To do so, we searched for all articles that contained the candidate’s

name, and then randomly selected two hundred of those articles for each

candidate (600 total). For each article, we recorded whether it contained

reference to a ‘crisis’ or ‘heroic trait’, and a descriptor of each; any given article

could include more than one occurrence of each.7 We provide quantitative

counts of this data alongside a more qualitative use of speeches and magazine

articles. In the remainder of the article, we draw from our data to narrate the

general similarities among the three gubernatorial campaigns in terms of our

dimensions of crisis and hero.

6 Neither Pete Wilson nor Arnold Schwarzenegger have officially retired from the political arena, andtherefore have not released their campaign collections for public use.

7 The presence of crisis or hero was recorded as a dummy variable and as a count. We also recordedeach article’s date and page number, how much of the article was specifically about the candidate of

interest, and whether the article mentioned the candidate’s prior occupation.

Essary and Ferney


The Myth of California

California is not a nation-state unto itself, but the American Dream comes

alive in specific ways in this state. The obvious challenge of doing an analysis

of symbolic politics in gubernatorial campaigns is that state-level races – even

in very populous and economically significant states such as California – are

naturally subordinate to national politics. We might expect, then, that

national themes and rhetoric would dominate state-level politics. Certainly,

this is true in the abstract, but states speak to what it means to be an

American with particular accents and nods to unique histories. In these ways,

they embellish the story of the American Dream that all politicians must

acknowledge in this country. This process of accenting the national story – of

invoking the state story to tell the national one – roots politics and

performance in one place and gives it shape. Without a grounded sense of

what makes California special, the American story sounds hollow to

California voters.

The history of California is rich and varied. Like many western states, its

colonial ancestry is mixed, reflecting successive waves of conquest. Its

admission to the Union in 1850 established a literal beachhead for the

expanding United States on the Pacific Ocean. California reified the promise of

Manifest Destiny, dramatically solidifying the western edge of American

territory before much of the center of the country had been settled and

upsetting the hitherto gradual expansion of the nation via contiguous states

(Gutierrez, 1997).

The Gold Rush provided the impetus for this hasty jump westward, and such

economic promise is the hallmark of the still-living myth of California as a land

of opportunity. While most prospectors failed to find the riches they sought, the

Gold Rush provided rich material from which to construct a narrative for a

diverse, innovative society (Starr, 2000). Several decades later California would

once again be painted as a land of promise for refugees from the Dust Bowl.

Steinbeck’s writings on the state of migrants living in camps in California have

etched images of economic ruin into the American psyche, but what has stuck

most consistently is the notion that California is a haven for dreamers and for

those who work hard. As a Frontier state – in many ways the Frontier state –

California represented a blank canvas onto which generations of Americans

projected their hopes and dreams. With so much space and so few established

infrastructures (social, economic or cultural), people were ostensibly free to

make something new. The ideational openness of California, coupled with

favorable climactic conditions and expansive landscapes, facilitated the

migration of the industries most associated with California today (agriculture,

entertainment and technology) into the area. Thus, the state’s mythical status as

an easy-living and prosperous place reflects well over one hundred years of

idealization in the Californian (and more generally American) consciousness



(for example, Nunis, 1965). This is the basic cosmological myth that anchors

politics of the Golden State in the cultural sphere, shaping the narrative of

challenges and opportunities presented by politicians in the recurring ritual of

campaigns and elections.

Collective Crises

The gubernatorial electoral cycle is institutionalized and rule-bound, occurring

every four years, regardless of whether Californians deem a change in gov-

ernance necessary, the very definition of mundane. Yet, if the prosperity of the

people was secure and government was ‘doing its job’, then elections would

come and go without much ado. Instead, the regularity of scheduled elections is

buttressed by a ritualized discourse over problems facing the state. Leading up

to elections, pollsters and pundits identify ‘the issues’, and the murmur of

discontent becomes a cacophony of anxiety over the state’s once-prosperous

(but now seemingly doomed) future. The first structural component of

California politics, then, is that of crisis, which transforms perennial problems

into constructed turning points for the polity.

At any historical moment, there is an indefinite number of prob-

lems plaguing the state, ‘real’ or perceived, current or potential. We

identified a set of 10 recurring categories of crisis in the sample of news-

paper articles across the three gubernatorial campaigns (Table 1). It is no

surprise that there is predominant concern over the state of the economy,

closely followed by worries related to partisanship and the proper

functioning of the government. Attention to rights and trends of social

disorder were also common, slightly more so than for government programs,

education and the environment. Finally, labor unions and wages, war and

‘other’ problems occupy the bottom of the list. The relatively generic nature

of this list betrays the fact that there are issues common to a variety of

polities, many of which consume our evening news programs on a routine

basis.

The election season, however, is when candidates attempt to elevate these

problems to crises, posing serious and imminent threats to a way of life. In

short, this collective identification of problems infuses elections with meaning.

The process simultaneously unites the polity by reminding them of their shared

destiny, and substantiates the election, thereby legitimating the transfer of

power from one governor to the next. Crises properly invoked invest the entire

polity in the outcome of the election, spurring interest and action where

otherwise there might be indifference and indolence. Much like the ‘deep play’

Geertz (1973, pp. 412–453) describes in his seminal article on Balinese

cockfighting, the more the stakes are raised, the more completely involving

and filled with cosmological import an election becomes (cf. Reed, 2006,

Essary and Ferney


pp. 160–165).8 Without state crises, there can be no savior, no renewal of the

myth, no new political opportunity. Sounding the alarm is part of the ritual, an

integral component of plot development that builds tension and enriches the

otherwise pedestrian nature of elections.

The shift from problem to crisis is accomplished in the context of performances.

During an election year, the candidates demonstrate that they are in touch with the

‘animating centers of society’ through the resonance they provide of what the

election issues are and how each threatens the state by invoking the myth (Geertz,

1983). In this way, candidates are not necessarily creating a discourse of fear or

hoping to distract the citizenry from ‘the real issues’ (cf. Edelman, 1964; Furedi,

2007). Rather, they are performing the role of being in charge of what matters to

the people, struggling to become collective representations for the people; they are

becoming politicians (Alexander, 2004, 2010).

Because the rough narrative and structural elements of elections are stable

from cycle to cycle, the invocation of crises is a predictable and essential part of

the electoral ritual. Thus, paradoxically, crises do not necessarily indicate a

Table 1: Distribution of collective crises, by candidate (column per cent in parentheses)

Reagan Wilson Schwarzenegger Total

Economy 29 23 40 92(17.1) (11.9) (33.1) (19.0)

Partisanship 19 20 30 69(11.2) (10.3) (24.8) (14.3)

Government 23 34 8 65(13.5) (17.5) (6.6) (13.4)

Social disorder 21 23 3 48(12.4) (11.9) (2.5) (9.9)

Civil rights 14 28 5 47(8.2) (14.4) (4.1) (9.7)

Govt. programs 14 18 5 37(8.2) (9.3) (4.1) (7.6)

Education 20 10 6 36(11.8) (5.2) (5.0) (7.4)

Environment 1 25 10 36(0.6) (12.9) (8.3) (7.4)

Work and labor 13 6 7 26(7.6) (3.1) (5.8) (5.4)

War 12 1 1 14(7.1) (0.5) (0.8) (2.9)

Other 4 5 6 15(2.4) (2.6) (5.0) (3.1)

Total 170 193 121 484

8 We thank Anonymous Reviewer 1 for pointing out this connection.



cultural breach, though candidates may present them as such.9 This

performance is accomplished with the help of mass media that allow election

coverage to dominate news stories, particularly as Election Day draws near;

for the most part, the populace consumes this information as a matter of

course. Within each cycle, there is certainly room for dissent from and

alternatives to the candidates’ claims, as either media or members of the

citizenry make different demands about which problems should be treated as

crises. Those that saturate news reports and campaign speeches across cycles,

which bring the different actors into the same performance, are tied to the

more deep-seated and durable state myths. Two types of crisis – the economy

and partisanship – dominate California gubernatorial elections, accounting for

one-third of all crises in our sample. We now examine these two crises in

greater detail, demonstrating how the candidates make each dramatically

meaningful through performance, interpreting them through the lens of

California’s mythology.

Economic cracks and woes

Economic problems in California regularly took the form of lost jobs or

industries, unbalanced budgets, or out-of-control government spending. Reagan

began one speech paying homage to California, exalting the state before delving

into the troubles that threatened it. ‘Cracks have appeared in our economy’, he

began. Then with a bit of theatrical flourish, he elaborated: ‘I’m holding a

catsup bottle – a pretty commonplace item. But, when the Secretary of Labor

and our own state government had finished their experiments in reform y there

were 28 million fewer of these manufactured in one plant in Oakland, and that

meant lay-offs for 200 employees’ (Reagan, 1966c). He presents a narrative of

crisis in a classical way, highlighting the first signs of problems – ‘cracks’ – in the

economy, then juxtaposing that statement with concrete examples of how the

current administration had caused job losses in California. Reagan regularly

tied employment to the overall well-being of the state, a particularly

conservative variant of the American myth: when Californians didn’t work,

California didn’t work.

9 Mast’s (2006, 2012) work on political performance and scandal examines the contextualized,

dynamic nature of political performance as it unfolds. From this model, crises are highly

unpredictable moments of perceived cultural rupture. A candidate’s response is limited by his

ability to command the narrative that the populace will find acceptable in light of both attacks fromopponents and his own past actions. Crisis understood thusly alters the political narrative in

idiosyncratic ways very much embedded in the context of each individual election. We use the term

‘crisis’ to describe a structural component of the electoral process, which is more predictable andpresent over time. Within the framework we employ, the processes Mast describes may well be

occurring.

Essary and Ferney


Schwarzenegger (2003a) sounded the same notes when he argued that state

officials had not met their obligations to the people in a statement on Labor Day:

Because of the higher taxes, over-regulation and the crushing burden of

workers’ compensation costs that our elected officials have put on the

books, more and more of our businesses are being forced to cut back, lay

off, shut down or move out of the state altogether. That’s a direct threat to

the ability of Californians to have a job, raise a family and build a better

life for their children.

The accusation not only helps citizens reach the conclusion that they need new

elected officials, but also binds them together as Californians who work and

have dreams for their families.

A related perennial issue is that of the budget. In all three campaigns,

candidates assailed the budget setting process and constructed it as a failure of

leadership, once again justifying the election. In 1990, a deadlock between out-

going governor Deukmejian and the state legislature had left the state without

an approved budget. In calling for a solution to the crisis, Wilson proclaimed,

‘There (should be) no talk of new taxes until there has been achieved what

should in fact first occur – basic budget reform, fundamental restructuring of

the state budget’ (Decker and Stall, 1990). Reagan articulated these same

themes in a televised speech in February of 1966, railing against the over-

spending of the current administration: ‘The budget is more than twice as costly

as it was eight years ago, and it’s characterized by sloppiness, incompetency and

a tendency to sell out the future – our future’ (Reagan, 1966a). Likewise, the

dismal state of the economy in 2003 was one of the oft-stated reasons for the

recall vote on Gray Davis; Schwarzenegger’s larger share of economy-related

articles show his efforts to mirror the people’s concern back to them.

Although economic problems were pervasive themes for the three candidates,

the actual threats (should all the jobs leave California or the budget go

unbalanced) remained vague. Instead, references were made to ‘building better

lives’ and a ‘shared future’, important components of the broader California

myth that looks towards progress. This vagueness is effective in bonding the

citizenry precisely because the crises are still tied (however tenuously) to what

the society holds dear. For residents of the ‘Golden State’ economic stability

provides freedom and fosters innovation, pre-requisites for making ‘dreams

come true’. These prized virtues can be traced to the state’s cosmology as a

Frontier, evoking the autonomy of gold miners and the creativity of Hollywood.

Performing on both sides of the aisle

If economic stability is a pre-requisite for progress, then cooperation within the

state’s diverse population is how that progress is achieved. For this reason,



California politics operates as though it resides at the center of the political

spectrum. Although California proudly imagines itself as a ‘blue state’ within

the milieu of national elections, voters have not been shy about electing a

Republican governor. Indeed, what seems to be most threatening is partisanship

and ‘dangerous’ ideological extremes on either side. What we discover is that

the candidates acknowledged these crises by running as moderates, and they

ritualistically reviled the partisan politics that had put California’s bright future

in doubt (for example, Schnur, 2003). ‘In short, [they sought] victory not for

political expediencies or for pride of party but to restore morality and dignity to

government’ (Reagan, 1966b).

A common enemy in the campaigns for ‘morality and dignity’ was cronyism,

taking the ‘spoils system’ of administration change to its dangerous extreme and

reeking of partisanship. The implication is that partisan governance shows a

disdain for ‘ordinary’ Californians, mythical creatures which seem to represent

almost everyone in the state, but who are never clearly defined. For example, in

his address to the California State Republican Convention, Reagan argued that

the Democratic administration made nonpartisan career public servants

‘virtually useless in many instances by political hacks and cronies’ serving

above them with ‘no experience, or no knowledge of the departments they were

supposed to administer’ (Reagan, 1966b). Wilson employed the strategy of

pinpointing cronyism more selectively throughout his campaign, noting the

foibles of Democrats such as John Van de Kamp, an early contender for the

Democratic gubernatorial nomination, while also avoiding direct criticism of

the sitting Republican governor’s leadership. Similarly, Schwarzenegger assailed

the government for not providing a way out of a budget deadlock similar to the

one Wilson encountered in 1990. According to each candidate, these problems

were too big to be solved by one party. Both sides would need to work together

to move the state forward, and the candidates pledged to do so.

Political platforms and affiliations seem to be important props in the

production of non-partisanship. Media commonly emphasized when Wilson

and Schwarzenegger took positions that were contrary to the Republican base.

For example, both candidates campaigned as supportive of reproductive rights,

and this was taken as evidence that neither was ‘too Republican’ to represent the

people (for example, Spivak, 1990).10 In contrast, Reagan’s earlier affiliations

with conservative ‘extremist’ groups such as the John Birch Society and his

support for 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater became red

flags for the media (Bergholz, 1966; Los Angeles Times, 1966a, b). Reagan’s

campaign, therefore, made it a priority to create space between him and these

affiliations by emphasizing both the redeeming quality of those affiliations as

well as how Reagan’s political stances had become more moderate. In these

10 Reagan’s first gubernatorial campaign was years before Roe v. Wade overturned state laws banning

abortion. The civil rights issue of Reagan’s day was free speech on college campuses.

Essary and Ferney


examples, each candidate clearly showed deference for the problems with

partisanship. Geertz (1983, p. 123) reminds us that ‘It is a sign, not of popular

appeal or inventive craziness but of being near the heart of things’.

The repertoire of crisis for California gubernatorial candidates is familiar. The

economy and corruption, the environment and crime, radicals and civil rights

violations, all pose threats to the citizenry’s way of life. In a specific electoral

cycle, some issues may receive more attention from the candidates and media

than others. However, two things remain unchanged across elections: first,

whether an issue can plausibly become a ‘crisis’ is determined by its symbolic

value within the polity’s myth; second, crises work as pillars to uphold the

importance of democratic elections and support a collective consciousness.

Candidates in the Golden State talk about earthquakes and fires, not hurricanes

or ice storms; they claim partisanship is stealing the vote from ordinary

Californians; and they denounce fiscal irresponsibility as a threat to progress

and the future of the state. With each election, California and its people are re-

created.

‘I Can Save You’: Candidates as Heroes

Our second structural component of California politics seems to follow

naturally after the identification of crises: a candidate must become a hero,

convincing voters that he is the only person able to avert the danger and secure

the road to glory. The hero is the solution, the means by which California will

be able to move forward. Moreover, the hero figure conveys the fact that

Californians are looking for a particular type of representative – not just

anybody can govern, according to the myth. The role asks that candidates

embody a certain ideal, being characterized by nobility and popular appeal in

addition to having the skill set necessary to solve problems. Each must resonate

with the people, and also highlight the ways in which he is uniquely qualified for

the job.

In the necessarily dramatic rhetoric of campaigns, the notion that successful

candidates must be heroic is appropriate. Moreover, as with crises, what

constitutes heroism is initially broad and nonspecific before it is customized for

the time and place of the drama, tailored by the shared cosmology. Table 2

presents counts for seven categories of heroism identified in our sample of Los

Angeles Times articles. A total of 272 instances of candidate-evaluation

occurred across 191 of the articles. This count does not necessarily reflect which

qualities each candidate is thought to embody, but rather which qualities were

relevant to the discussion. It signals the dimensions on which the candidates

were being judged, and candidates used speeches to communicate how they

measured up, able to save.



The most frequently referenced type of heroism was the candidates’ proposed

strategies for addressing the problems facing the state, accounting for just over a

quarter of the total. This reflects a reciprocal relationship whereby the

dramatization of crises necessitates heroic ideas for solving them, drawing the

candidates closer still to the animating centers. Second among the heroic traits

were candidates’ character and their affiliations, together comprising a third

(33.1 per cent) of the total, reflecting the people’s hope that elected officials will

lead exemplary lives and surround themselves with intelligent and respectable

counsel. Third, another quarter of the total focused on both how much of a

political outsider a candidate was and his popularity. Finally, a hero is a strong

leader and able to unite warring political factions, two traits that make up the

final portion of the total. In sum, these attributes paint a picture of the

governor’s role in the state; without these traits, a candidate would be

unqualified for the position and, more importantly, incapable of saving the state

from its imminent demise.

The data show that each candidate’s source of heroism varies, much in the

same way that certain crises were more or less dramatized across time. The oft-

told story of Schwarzenegger following the mold cast by Reagan is primarily

true in terms of popularity and being outsiders, suggesting that their existing

fame influenced the media narrative. As we can see though, this did not obviate

the importance of policy and solutions, and as we demonstrate below, both

candidates painted themselves as ordinary Californians, not celebrities. Wilson,

as the career politician, is predictably evaluated more according to whether he

had the ‘right ideas’ about how to run the state and address its problems. The

Table 2: Distribution of heroic qualities, by candidate (column per cent in parentheses)

Reagan Wilson Schwarzenegger Total

Right ideas 20 32 17 69(16.4) (45.7) (21.3) (25.4)

Character 23 12 14 49(18.9) (17.1) (17.5) (18.0)

Affiliations 19 12 10 41(15.6) (17.1) (12.5) (15.1)

Outsider 19 3 15 37(15.6) (4.3) (18.8) (13.6)

Popular 18 1 13 32(14.7) (1.4) (16.3) (11.8)

Leader 11 7 9 27(9.0) (10.0) (11.3) (9.9)

Unifier 12 3 2 17(9.8) (4.3) (2.5) (6.3)

Total 122 70 80 272

Essary and Ferney


myth allows both paths to be construed as heroic, especially when enacted in

performance. In the remainder of this section, we look at two persistent – and

dominant – dimensions of California heroism in greater detail. The first is the

notion that the best politicians are not politicians at all, and that salvation can

only be achieved by ‘outsiders’ who are bold enough to change how government

is run. The second heroic trait we examine is that of character, which paints a

picture of candidates who are trustworthy, ethical and exemplars to the people.

‘We, the people’: Against politicians in politics

In a country, state and election where democracy is not only practiced but

enshrined, the allure of change and outsiders can be particularly strong. In the

Californian cultural landscape, any party or individual too long in office comes

under suspicion of having violated the ideal of rule by the people, in principle if

not in deed. Thus, a promise of change (within certain parameters) can become

enough to make a hero, even sometimes trumping the ‘logic’ of experience. In a

state so proudly anti-establishment, the specter of having become part of the

status quo can be damning.

Across the three candidacies, ‘politics’ and ‘politicians’ were pejorative terms.

Politicians were routinely blamed for the state of affairs for bending to the will

of (undefined) ‘special interests’, while ignoring the needs of ‘the people’. In a

similar fashion, candidates regularly portrayed the existing officials as unwilling

to compromise with the other party, reminding the electorate again of the perils

of partisan bickering. The proffered solution was to elect a non-politician into

office. Schwarzenegger dramatized this theme most vigorously. In addressing

why he chose to run for governor, he explained ‘I came to the conclusion that

even though there are great sacrifices to make, I felt in the end it is my duty to

jump in the racey I’m the most unique candidate because I’m an outsider’

(CNN, 2003). Schwarzenegger frequently tried to strike a populist tone: ‘I know

the people of California want better leadership, they want great leadership’. On

the eve of the 2003 special election, he said, ‘Tomorrow, it is all about the

people versus the governmentyIt is the people versus the politicians. So make

sure you go out and vote’ (Nicholas, 2003). In a more direct but equally

dramatic way, Reagan employed his line, ‘I am no politician’, to make common

sense and the sovereignty of the people cornerstones of his campaign. Although

it is easy to accept the two actors as outsiders, we should not forget that Reagan

had already given his landmark televised speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater

two years earlier, and Schwarzenegger married into the quintessential political

family in the mid-1980s. ‘Outsiders’ they were not, but they enacted the myth

nonetheless.

Even Pete Wilson, who was rarely cast as a political outsider, separated

himself from his opponent by raising the antidemocratic specter of ‘special

interests’. Indeed, Wilson made much of his immunity to the lure of special



interests, criticizing Diane Feinstein for accepting contributions that might cause

a conflict of interest while defending his own record on the same subject. By

posing as non-politicians, all three candidates asserted that they were

impervious to the enticements that corrupt the system, making them uniquely

qualified heroes.

The stuff heroes are made of

Based on the content of newspaper coverage, the character of politicians was

equally important as the issues in their platforms. Much was made of the

personal qualities of each, particularly the degree to which they were likable,

sensible, fair or hardworking, as well as whether they ran ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’

campaigns. What constitutes character is difficult to pin down, however, and

media portrayed each candidate in somewhat different lights.

Even while Schwarzenegger was dogged by allegations of womanizing and

sexual harassment during the 2003 campaign, his status as a devoted husband

and (to a lesser extent) father also garnered sizable media attention (Brownfield,

2003; Eller and Cieply, 2003). Further, he was generally considered easy to get

along with and pleasant (Lopez, 2003). Somewhat similarly, Reagan was

portrayed as affable and quick-witted, with a good sense of humor (Newsweek,

1966). In addition to these positive personality traits, he was reported to have

been a committed delegator, interested in finding the ‘best talent’ to fill positions

(Beck, 1966). Wilson was not considered particularly charismatic during the

1990 campaign, particularly when compared with Democratic opponent Diane

Feinstein. Instead, Wilson’s more conventional leadership qualities were

emphasized as media coverage focused on his displays of prudence and caution

when making decisions, as well as his ability to listen before deciding on a

course of action (Stall, 1990a, b, c). In the period between the election and his

inauguration, Wilson was described as hardworking and, when compared with

outgoing governor Deukmejian, ‘warm’ (Carroll and Whiting, 1991). At the

same time, Wilson made his toughness, especially with reference to crime, a key

element of his platform, and his status as a former Marine received attention as

well (Carroll and Whiting, 1991).

The common theme of relatively humble beginnings ties all three candidates

together. Reagan and Wilson were both born in the Midwest into middle class

families; Schwarzenegger famously came to the United States with ‘absolutely

nothing’, as he put it, to pursue an acting career (Nicholas et al, 2003). These

life histories are used to symbolize the hard work, motivation and perseverance

of the candidates, further buttressing the general discourse over character. More

importantly, the individual stories are used to reiterate the generalized myth of

California itself, born as a Frontier, developing its rich natural resources to

become a leader. Indeed, the performances allow voters to imagine all three

candidates, heeding the call to ‘Go West, young man’.

Essary and Ferney


The politician-as-hero is not the ubiquitous form of power across time and

space. Geertz (1983) demonstrated, for example, that Victorian England

conferred power through elaborate progresses that exalted the new leader

as chosen, a born ruler, and Moroccan power insisted that rulers appear omni-

present and able to defend their control of the territory. But for Californians,

power is about a brand of bravery, in the Hollywood tradition of Indiana Jones

saving the ancient relic and the beautiful girl, that involves a willingness to risk

everything for the pursuit of noble principles. The powerful, then, are

recognized as flawed but not disqualified; indeed, they are mythically justified

‘diamonds in the rough’.

The Myth Made Real: Inauguration Day

If speeches are the vehicles of political ideas and stages the venues, then

the inauguration ceremony is the pinnacle of political theatre. The rich

ornamentation and complex rituals of inaugurations betray just how

theatrical the political process is. ‘The very thing that the elaborate mystique

of court ceremonial is supposed to conceal – that majesty is made, not born –

is demonstrated by it’ (Geertz, 1983, p. 124). In the grandeur of the State

Capitol rotunda, with a mixed audience of politicians, celebrities and

ordinary citizens, each governor-elect takes the oath of office and is officially

seated in power.

The centerpiece of each ceremony is the inaugural address, and through their

oratory, the new governors make clear what the recently finished election has

been about and how to move forward towards the bright future. The new

governors praise the people for choosing the correct hero, which is evidence that

the voters understood and chose to avert the looming dangers ahead. Inaugural

speeches are also conciliatory gestures, invitations to those who voted against

the governor to join in making California’s future for the betterment of ‘all’. To

accomplish these feats, the speeches traverse the familiar myths performed

during the course of the campaigns.

First, all three governors used their speeches to remind the people of the

challenges ahead and the work that must be done to insure California’s

continued progress. However, for the most part, they did so obliquely. Reagan

(1967) noted, ‘The path we will chart is not an easy one. It demands much of

those chosen to govern, but also from those who did the choosing’.

Schwarzenegger (2003b) sounded a similar tone, noting the crises that had

led to the recall effort and promising broad changes under his direction: ‘In

recent years, Californians have lost confidence. They’ve felt that the actions of

their government did not represent the will of the people. This election was not

about replacing one man or one party. It was about changing the entire political

climate of our state’. Wilson (1991) was more optimistic in his inaugural



address, employing the state capitol building as a metaphor for the changes

ahead:

For more than a century it sheltered the people’s representatives, until the

1970’s, when it nearly collapsed from age and neglect. We didn’t replace

our Capitol; we restored it to new luster. y [E]ven more than the house of

government, the process of government needs structural renovation if we

are to keep faith with those who sent us to Sacramento.

Second, without fail, the governors positioned themselves as heroes, called to

duty by the citizens of California. They accomplished this primarily by signaling

an implied break with the past and eschewing partisan rhetoric. Schwarzenegger

(2003b) approached this early in his speech and very directly, ‘I enter this office

beholden to no one except you, my fellow citizens. I pledge my governorship to

your interests, not to special interests. y I want people to know that my

administration is not about politics. It is about saving California’. Wilson

(1991) argued that the ideological differences that had divided the state were

insubstantial compared with the features shared by all Californians: ‘We are

Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives, Moderates and Liberals. Yet for all

that might appear to divide us on the surface, core values of far greater

importance unite us. We care about one another and about California. We share

a passionate belief in the Democratic process and in the future of California’.

Reagan (1967) was the most abstract, discussing the foundational principles of

democratic government, thereby contextualizing California’s greatness with

that of the United States: ‘Government is the people’s business, and every man,

woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid. With

all the profound wording of the Constitution, probably the most meaningful

words are the first three, “We, the People”’.

Third, and most importantly, each candidate spoke of California as a place of

dreams and dreams coming true. Reagan (1967) did so even while maintaining

the somber tone of his speech:

California, with its climate, its resources and its wealth of young,

aggressive, talented people, must never take second place. We can provide

jobs for all our people who will work and we can have honest government

at a price we can afford. Indeed, unless we accomplish this, our problems

will go unsolved, our dreams unfulfilled and we will know the taste of

ashes.

Both Schwarzenegger and Wilson were sunnier in tone. Wilson (1991)

culminated a discussion of the importance of education by saying, ‘Let the

growth of this greatest state be measured, not just in gray demographics, but in

the bright colors of our children’s dreams. Let California’s rich valleys produce a

Essary and Ferney


bumper crop of leadership to ennoble and energize America in the great

adventure of the 21st century’. Finally, Schwarzenegger (2003b) closed his

speech by speaking effusively about California as a place of optimism,

highlighting his own immigrant status:

I see California as the Golden Dream by the sea. Perhaps some think this is

fanciful or poetic, but to an immigrant like me – who, as a boy, saw Soviet

tanks rolling through the streets of Austria. To someone like me who came

here with absolutely nothing and gained absolutely everything, it is not

fanciful to see this state as a Golden Dream.

The purpose of the inauguration and its attendant speeches is, very simply, to

finalize the transfer of power to the new governor. This is not merely ritual. The

symbolic value of the rotunda, the homage paid to bi-partisanship and the

pronounced deference to the voters situate the governor within California’s

broader cultural landscape, and in so doing, affirms the sustaining myths of the

people. The lavish speeches and ceremonies transform men into governors

(Alexander, 2010). The most important element, subtly referenced throughout,

is how that transformation occurs: through democratic election, reflecting the

will of the voters, ordained by the people. Therefore, although the inauguration

is the most obvious instance of political theatre, it bestows power only after the

longer and more subtle rituals of the campaigns and election. Once in power,

governors are never far from a potential fall from grace – after all, new elections

occur every four years – and so even as they go about attending to the backstage

and often unromantic elements of politics, they must also remain ‘near the

heart of things’.

Eureka!: Lessons from California

The marquee icons of the Golden State are too familiar: the Gold Rush,

Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wine Country, Yosemite, the Golden Gate Bridge

and, of course, the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. These classic symbols of the

state belong to Californians; they ground their collective identity in a particular

place. The gubernatorial electoral cycle is no less mythical, and it is rife with

deeply symbolic action that situates Californians in a similar way. Election

politics are a collection of elaborate pageants through which candidates embody

and reflect the state’s cosmology in order to demonstrate the will of the people.

In so doing, they make it real. The genesis for this research can be found in both

the spectacle of California elections and the work of cultural sociologists on

myth and performance. It is prudent, then, to return to these points and consider

how our work here might contribute to the current literatures.



The first lesson, particularly for the alarmists, is that there are no issues in

California politics apart from those that exist at the animating centers of society.

These are remarkably stable over time, precisely because the myths are not

remade every election; they are only reconsecrated. And because it is myth and

performance that constitute politics, there can be no large material differences

between successful candidates. In our work, wealth, status, communication

savvy or prestige may offer explanatory leverage, but the account is incomplete

without the cultural structures. Politicians, then, may be more or less successful

in their struggles to become collective representations, but they are not free to

rewrite the conventions of the story. If we follow this line of reasoning, it

becomes tempting to say that political victors are those who do a ‘better job’ at

capturing the myth. Our data, however, do not provide that sort of explanatory

leverage; only a comparative study of election winners and losers would allow

us to address that empirical question. Nevertheless, we would suggest that the

front runners of a given election are not discernibly different in their

performances, and it is fairly obvious that neither Gary Coleman (of Diff’rent

Strokes) nor Mary Carey (an adult film star) could perform heroism in a

compelling way during the 2003 special election.

In many ways, California election politics are merely American election

politics zoomed in. For both, the central cosmological truth that dictates

political symbols and rhetoric is that power is attained democratically. This

democratic ideal insists that the most important rituals occur before the

politician is even sworn in. A second lesson, then, is that we can understand

all of the trappings of elections through a lens that interprets how practice

accommodates power. Collective understandings about how leaders rise to

power account for both the form and the substance of the political perfor-

mances. We would expect that the actors and settings involved in the

performance will vary based on the system of government in place, and that

the specific costumes, props and lines will be tailored even more specifically to

the national and local myths. For example, the directorial system of Switzerland

would structure politics differently than the presidential system of the United

States, and national politics would be colored by broader Swiss and American

identities, which would be embellished by the more particular stories about

Zurich and California for the canton and state political rituals.

The link between pomp and power is similarly informative when considering

the role of the media broadly and technological changes specifically. Given the

inexorably complex relationship between media and elections, Alexander

(2010) rightly conceptualizes media as an essential component of modern

politics. While the polity could directly observe the elaborate rituals in

nineteenth-century Bali, the vastly different context today has turned journal-

ists, newscasters, correspondents and pundits into mediators, occupying a

unique position between the actors (politicians) and the audience (voters). Yet,

while the technologies carrying the narrative of the polity have multiplied over

Essary and Ferney


time, the narrative endures. Californians define their cosmological location in

terms of opportunity, progress and democracy, and both speeches and news

articles serve to narrate those myths.

Finally, the case of California also presents a paradox: the state and its people

are sustained by the unifying power of a particular myth, but the myth is powerful

in its simplicity, in its lack of detail. Political campaigns are performances in the

style of commedia dell’arte, with well-known stock figures made real in the person

of the politician. We observe this in the perennially vague references to the

consequences of the failing economy, in the formless nature of ‘the ordinary citizen’

that campaigns target, and in the elusive – though still bright – future of California.

Meanwhile, the actual machinations of the campaign have grown impossibly

minute and complicated, mirroring in some ways the obsessively detailed rituals

Geertz (1980) highlighted as essential to the maintenance of power in Bali. Indeed,

outside of the intricately interdependent social history of the small kingdoms of

Bali, the increasingly fragmented cultural strata requires the political cosmology to

become more abstract. In a thoroughly modern social landscape in which

awareness of multiple identities is the norm, there is not enough cosmological

connective tissue to build anything other than a political straw man, leaving much

of the interpretive work to individuals. If simpler societies can adopt realism as

their artistic mode, paying attention to minute details, leadership in fragmented

societies is more prone to cubist or abstract styles and paints with a broader brush.

The electorate is able to recognize itself and its stories in their respective styles, and

so the performance succeeds.

In November 2010, California survived yet another gubernatorial election

cycle, in which Republican Meg Whitman battled the Democrat, former

governor Jerry Brown. When the campaigns were in full-swing, the problems

that faced the state were obvious to all Californians: the economy was once

again on the precipice of failure; there was fiery debate over whether

undocumented immigrants were destroying their way of life; and civil rights

lingered in the collective consciousness as court battles addressed gay marriage.

Indeed, it seemed as though the election could not come soon enough to save the

state from ruin. Both Whitman and Brown were carefully probed by media for

any radical policies or symptoms of weakness, while they recited lines that could

have also been uttered by Reagan, Wilson or Schwarzenegger. Once the election

was over, Jerry Brown’s (2011) inaugural comments reminded Californians of

what all the spectacle was about:

[The inauguration] is a sacred and special ritual that affirms that the

people are in charge and that elected officials are given only a limited time

in which to perform their appointed tasks. y Every Californian is heir to

some form of powerful tradition, some history of overcoming challenges

much more daunting than those we face today y stories of courage

abound. And it is not over.



California emerged intact, even as the trials still loomed ahead, and the state

basks in the brightness of its future and its citizens, though the details are

obscured. The myth of California was made real, once again.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Suzanne Shanahan and Jeffrey C. Alexander for

helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. The anonymous reviewers at

American Journal of Cultural Sociology also provided valuable suggestions for

improving the argument and organization of our work. We express our

gratitude to Jennifer Staton and Abigail Meyer for their work collecting and

processing data.

About the Authors

Elizabeth Helen Essary is an assistant professor of sociology at Pepperdine

University. She earned her PhD from Duke University in 2008. Her research

looks at nationalism and the state, with an emphasis on culture and mobi-

lization. She is currently working on a project that considers the legacy of the

Civil War for contemporary secession movements in America.

Christian Ferney is Student Programs Manager at the Kenan Institute for Ethics

at Duke University. His work focuses on nationalism and global cultural

translation. He earned is PhD from Duke University in 2009. His dissertation is

titled, ‘Particular Universality: Science, Culture, and Nationalism in Australia,

Canada, and the United States, 1915–1960’.

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