Changes In Authoritarianism Research Articles

Brexit and labour governance: Authoritarian innovations in the United Kingdom

The concept of authoritarian innovations encourages a focus on authoritarian change at the meso-level of governance. At the same time, this article argues that such meso-level change can be best understood by taking into account macro-level (authoritarian) developments. In the UK, Brexit has generated a broader macro-level authoritarian innovation, creating cumulative effects at the level of politics, governance and jurisdiction. This macro-level development is reflected in authoritarian innovation at the meso-level of labour governance. The article first explains how Brexit relates to three key drivers for authoritarian innovations in labour governance, namely, general authoritarian inclination, neoliberal policy and electoral populist motivations. It then analyses the main authoritarian innovations in labour governance adopted since Brexit, namely, the approach to the legacy of EU protective standards and new policy measures limiting the right to strike. Using a discourse on democracy, acting against the ‘undemocratic EU’ and relying on ‘the referendum mandate’, UK governance post-Brexit is characterised by reducing pluralist processes and even parliamentary debate, enabling these authoritarian innovations. At the same time, due to the inherent contradictory forces inspiring Brexit, the long-term impact of Brexit on labour governance will likely remain modest.

RUSSIAN ATTACK ON UKRAINE AS A CLAIM FOR AUTHORITARIAN CHANGE OF WORLD ORDER

The article considers the causes and consequences of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine to form a new world order. It is noted that Putin as a political phenomenon did not emerge from nowhere, but was a product of the then system of power, which was formed in Russia in the late 90's of the twentieth century. With roughly equal starting opportunities, Russia and Ukraine have demonstrated different trajectories of post-communist transit. If with each new term of Putin Putin, Russia slipped more and more into chauvinistic militaristic authoritarianism, Ukraine with each new election moved towards the regime of electoral democracy. The current war is a war between different civilizations: the authoritarian Asian (Russia) and the democratic European (Ukraine). It is concluded that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in geopolitical terms should be considered as the first attempt at an authoritarian change in the world order. Therefore, only the victory of Ukraine and the restoration of its territorial integrity within the generally recognized borders of 1991 will allow to preserve the existing democratic world order.

Changes in authoritarianism before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Comparisons of latent means across East and West Germany, gender, age, and education.

Modern theories of authoritarianism have stressed the importance of threat to the expression of authoritarian attitudes and intolerance. Arguably, authoritarian tendencies may have increased during COVID-19 pandemic, a major threat to life and security. One issue arising when comparing mean scores is that of measurement invariance. Meaningful comparisons are only possible, if latent constructs are similar between groups and/or across time. This prerequisite is rarely ever tested in research on authoritarianism. In this study, we aim to analyze the short scale for authoritarianism KSA-3 by investigating its measurement invariance on two levels (three first-order and one second-order factors) and latent mean changes using two German representative samples (N = 4,905). Specifically, we look at differences before and during the pandemic (2017 vs. 2020). While measurement invariance holds across both levels in all conditions, we find a decrease in latent means in 2020, contrary to expectations and established theories. Moreover, latent means differ with regard to gender, education, and east–west Germany. We conclude that analyses of latent means and measurement invariance instead of mean comparisons with composites should become the standard. Future studies should focus on threat as a moderator between authoritarianism and intolerance, and on possible interactions with context variables.

Effectiveness of an intervention for reducing social stigma towards mental illness in adolescents.

To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention for reducing social stigma towards mental illness in adolescents. The effect of gender and knowledge of someone with mental illness was measured. Two hundred and eighty secondary school students were evaluated using the Community Attitudes towards Mental Illness (CAMI) questionnaire. The schools were randomized and some received the intervention and others acted as the control group. The programme consisted of providing information via a documentary film and of contact with healthcare staff in order to reduce the social stigma within the school environment. The intervention was effective in reducing the CAMI authoritarianism and social restrictiveness subscales. The intervention showed significant changes in girls in terms of authoritarianism and social restrictiveness, while boys only showed significant changes in authoritarianism. Following the intervention, a significant reduction was found in authoritarianism and social restrictiveness in those who knew someone with mental illness, and only in authoritarianism in those who did not know anyone with mental illness. The intervention was effective to reduce social stigma towards people with mental illness, especially in the area of authoritarianism. Some differences were found depending on gender and whether or not the subjects knew someone with mental illness.

Emotional Responses to the Charlie Hebdo Attacks: Between Ideology and Political Judgment

The finding that threat increases levels of authoritarianism has been well established in political research. The questions of individual differences and the psychological mechanism behind this switch, however still remain open as current literature offers two contrasting views. One line of research argues that threat increases authoritarianism among those with an authoritarian disposition. Another argues that it is the non-authoritarians who switch in the light of threat. By using a two wave panel study before and after the January 2015 twin attacks in Paris we argue that both trends occur simultaneously. Indeed our results show that both sides of the controversy are partly right and that the factor that drives the impact of authoritarian dispositions on support for authoritarian policies is emotional reactions. Anxiety lead respondents with a non-authoritarian ideological disposition to switch to authoritarianism following the attacks, yet produced no authoritarian change among right wing respondents. On the other hand, anger, did not turn left wing voters more authoritarian, but strengthened authoritarian tendencies among right wing respondents.

Authoritarianism as a personality trait: Evidence from a longitudinal behavior genetic study

Authoritarianism has long been conceived of as a highly stable personality trait (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1981), though recent accounts have argued that authoritarianism is too malleable to justify this conception. We provided a test of the trait conception of authoritarianism by measuring its stability in a community sample of twins over a 15year period, and by identifying the source of any stability with biometric modeling. Our results showed that authoritarianism exhibited a high degree of rank-order stability (r=.74). Biometric analyses indicated that this stability derived primarily from genetic influences, with changes in authoritarianism due to the unique experiences of the individual. In both of these respects, our results were highly comparable to those reported for other personality traits in previous work, indicating support for the trait conception of authoritarianism. Other results of note included a higher degree of stability among the more educated portion of the sample, supporting a hypothesis by Krosnick and Alwin (1989).

Intervention for reducing stigma: Assessing the influence of gender and knowledge.

To evaluate the effectiveness in reducing social stigma of an intervention and to assess the influence of gender and knowledge. The program consisted in providing information and contact with users of mental health in order to reduce social stigma in the school environment. A total of 62 secondary school students (age 14-16 years) were evaluated with the Opinions on Mental Illness (OMI) questionnaire before and after the intervention. The subscales of the OMI were: authoritarianism, interpersonal etiology, benevolence, restrictiveness and negativism. The analysis was performed over the total sample, separating by gender and knowledge of someone with a mental disorder. t-test for repeated measures was used in the statistical analysis. All the OMI subscales showed a significant change after the intervention (P < 0.001), except for benevolence. Women presented significant changes in the subscales of authoritarianism and restrictiveness, while men presented changes in negativism and interpersonal etiology rather than restrictiveness (P < 0.001-0.003). Students that knew someone with a mental disorder presented significant changes in authoritarianism, interpersonal etiology, and negativism (P < 0.001-0.003) and students that do not know anyone with a mental disorder improved in restrictiveness and authoritarianism (P < 0.001-0.001). In all the subscales of the instrument the students improved their perception of mental disorders, reducing their levels of stigma. The intervention designed to reduce social stigma was effective, especially in the area of authoritarianism. The whole sample showed improved attitudes towards mental illness, although the areas were different depending on gender and knowledge.

Changes in authoritarianism and coping in college students immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

One hundred ninety-four (132 females, 62 males) college students at Arizona State University filled out questionnaires on their mood state, depression, coping strategies, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation in the period from September 6 to September 13, 2001. The present study compared the responses of students on these measures for those 91 students who completed questionnaires up to the day of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11 vs. those 86 who completed questionnaires in the two days following the attacks. At this university far from the site of the attacks, transient mood states nor depression did not differ for students before and after the day of the attacks, while a significant interaction of gender by time of testing was found for maladaptive coping, with males decreasing in reported use of such coping after the attacks. A strong main effect of day of testing was found for right-wing authoritarianism, but not social dominance, with students scoring significantly higher on this variable after as compared to before the attacks. Intercorrelations of these measures before and after the attacks were also compared.

The failure of authoritarian change: reform, opposition and geopolitics in Poland in the 1980s

The failure of authoritarian change: reform, opposition and geopolitics in Poland in the 1980s

Changes in authoritarianism associated with university residence in the Arab Middle East.

Summary The F scale was administered to a sample of 73 undergraduate Arab students at the American University of Beirut, both at the beginning of their freshman year and toward the end of their senior year to assess changes in authoritarianism. In line with previous studies, there was a significant decrease in degree of authoritarianism from freshman to senior. However, two interrelated factors were found to be associated with a greater decrease in authoritarianism: namely, initially moderately high F scores and initially responding in Arabic. The shift from responding in Arabic as a freshman to responding in English as a senior, associated with decrease in authoritarianism, suggested the possibility of either underlying shifts in thinking and ideology in the person as a whole or superficial nonintegrated shifts restricted to the specific “language” through which the subject happens to be responding. The latter possibility raises doubts about the practice sometimes followed in cross-cultural research whereby the requirement of stimulus-equivalence is considered as met through translation-equivalence.

Success and failure as determinants of level of authoritarianism.

Various authors have argued that the more threatening an individual's environment is, the more authoritarian he is likely to be. This hypothesis was investigated in two separate experiments. In both, Ss were pretested for authoritarianism and then were exposed to one of two conditions. In the first condition, Ss were threatened by failure at two experimental tasks; in the second, they were presumably encouraged by success at these tasks. In both studies, failure increased and success decreased the Ss' levels of authoritarianism. In both studies, these changes in authoritarianism were greater for individuals who attributed their performance to internal causes. In addition, data from the second investigation indicated that these manipulations affected Ss' tendencies to conform to the judgments of an authority figure. The findings appear to support the contention that personality is an open system.

Changes in Authoritarianism as a Measure of Effectiveness of Inservice Social Work Training

Changes in Authoritarianism as a Measure of Effectiveness of Inservice Social Work Training