Authoritarian Traits Research Articles

Tribal Politics: Political Orientation Predicts Authoritarian Traits, Cross-Cultural Interactions, and Adherence to Common Identity Factors

Abstract Cultural interactions have been at the forefront of political strife in recent years as authoritarian regimes have come to power across the globe. This warrants investigation by social science researchers in the fields of social psychology, political psychology, and cognitive psychology. This study drew upon those three fields to explore the relationships between political orientation and (1) authoritarian traits, (2) attitudes towards intergroup relations and cross-cultural interactions (CCI), and (3) identity factors, largely through the lens of Social Identity Theory. Participants comprised 2,582 undergraduates at a public university in the U.S. The Diverse Learning Environments survey assessed views on social identity, intergroup relations, political and religious ideology, and social and political issues. Correlational analysis and ANOVA were conducted to determine relationships between variables and differences between groups. Results indicated that the more strongly respondents rated their political orientation as conservative, the more authoritarian traits they tended to report, the less likely they were to engage in CCI, and the more likely they were to hold negative views of those from different backgrounds than themselves. The more respondents rated their political orientation as liberal, the more open they were to diversity and more likely they were to engage in CCI. Identity factors appeared to be more important to conservatives than to liberals in that strength of political ideology was related to common identity characteristics for conservatives but not for liberals.

The roots of Euroscepticism: Affective, behavioural and cognitive anti‐EU attitudes in Hungary

AbstractThis paper has put forward a new indicator based on the “ABC‐model” of attitudes designed to capture individual‐level Euroscepticism. We constructed a composite anti‐EU score based on affective, behavioural and cognitive sub‐indices. The study analyses data from a representative, countrywide Hungarian public opinion research. Looking for the drivers of anti‐EU attitudes, we took an integrative approach linking various theories of voting behaviour, Euroscepticism and populism studies. Our research showed that subjective well‐being significantly reduces anti‐EU attitudes. We found some empirical support for the “left behind thesis” in the Hungarian context, as severe economic grievances and fear of losing social status explained anti‐EU attitudes. Authoritarian traits turned out to be a major driver of Euroscepticism in Hungary. We proved that cosmopolitan values reduce affective and cognitive anti‐EU attitudes, but foreign experience and some international ties significantly correlated with anti‐EU stance. We confirmed that being a supporter of the governing Fidesz party and sharing culturally right‐wing political views significantly increase anti‐EU attitudes. We also revealed that partisanship's effect is strengthened by affective polarization and political interest.

About Сlassical Conservatism and Soviet Conservatism: Similarities and Differences. (Essays on the Conservative Thought in the USSR)

In the paper, an attempt is made to defi ne the conservatism as is. The integral conservatism involves monarchy, class stratifi cation of the society, domination of religion, idealistic platonic philosophy, mostly agrarian economy, and focus on ancient patterns, classics and classicism in art. Conservatism emerged on the cusp of the 18th and 19th centuries as a reaction to the bourgeois revolutions (fi rst of all, the French Revolution), which destroyed the traditional Western societies and paved the way to a modernist civilization. Conservatives diff er from traditionalists and “conservative revolutionaries” in that they do not call for a “revolution against the modern world”. Instead, they seek to preserve the existing traditional structures. At fi rst glance, the Soviet society, with its cult of progress and anti-traditional worldview, left no room for the conservatism. Yet, fi rstly, authoritarian traits were present in Bolshevism itself. Secondly, Russian peasants and national Bolshevik specialists brought the elements of traditional Russian culture to the Soviet project. Thanks to this, not only latent integral conservatism (A. F. Losev) became possible in the USSR, but also the partial one (M. A. Lifshitz and L. N. Gumilev).

Connections between populism and nationalism: Evidence from Jair Bolsonaro's speeches

AbstractRecent studies have warned about the close relationship between populism and nationalism. This article offers an empirical contribution to the examination of this relationship by analysing the presence of populist and nationalist elements in the official speeches of the outgoing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. We make two contributions to this expanding literature. First, we show that the supposed ambiguity between populism and nationalism can be resolved by an approach that clearly separates the two concepts. Second, we find that Bolsonaro is more populist than nationalist. His populism has elements in common with other European populist leaders (attacking political parties and the political class), but he distances himself from them by presenting authoritarian traits. Nativism is completely absent (unlike in Europe), but ‘sovereignism’ (‘us’ vs. ‘other nations or institutions’) and ‘civilisationism’ (‘us’ vs. ‘minorities’) sometimes overlap with populism. We conclude that a tension exists between populism and nationalism that can endanger the ‘good’ relationship between the populist leader and their supporters. This is something that future research on populism should consider.

At The Boundaries of Authority and Authoritarianism in the Welfare State: News Coverage of Alt. Health Influencers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Battles over who holds authority to speak on health issues have been recurrent since the outbreak of Covid-19. This article investigates how the voices of alt. health influencers have been handled within the news-mediated public sphere during the pandemic. Alt. health influencers illustrate how new forms of authority are claimed and negotiated on social media, and how their ideas circulate quickly in the broader public discourse with potential risks to health, security, and stability. We focus on the Nordic welfare context, which is characterised by citizens putting great trust in societal institutions such as politics, healthcare, and professional news media. In the news coverage, the arguments of alt. health influencers have been consistently disputed by the experts and authorities of the welfare state, including the news media themselves. This has created a polarised debate. Alt. health influencers have criticised the news media, health authorities, big tech, etc. for having authoritarian traits. Meanwhile, they themselves have promoted authoritarian lines of thinking by contesting democratic forms of governance, professional news media, and scientific knowledge. This study ultimately shows that even in a high-trust, consensual welfare state, the boundaries between authority and authoritarianism are up for debate.

Comtismo, Castilhismo, and Varguismo

The author argues that polity and policies of Getúlio Vargas’s Estado Novo cannot be fully understood without exploring the legacy of Rio Grande do Sul. The southern state’s first republican governor, Júlio de Castilhos, had taken inspiration in Auguste Comte’s multifaceted political philosophy and inculcated its authoritarian traits into political institutions. Yet, he and his followers substantially adapted Comte’s positivism to the specific economic and political circumstances in their republiqueta sui generis. In contrast to Comte, the State merged temporal and spiritual powers to pursue evolutionary political changes, a balanced socioeconomic modernisation, and the incorporation of the populus qua paternalistic public policies, and all this with a strong focus on education. Changing contexts resulted in further adjustments, when Vargas became governor in 1928: an ‘orderly’ inclusion of the opposition into the polity, a stronger state interventionism in the economy and labor market, and an experimentation with state corporatism. These experiences paved the way for this comtismo-turned-castilhismo-turning-varguismo to enter the national stage two years later. Despite all the compromises with other contenders for power that Vargas had to make thereafter, he and his gaúcho and other co-opted protégés remained united in the strong belief in technical solutions to social problems and a quest for rational institutions to carry out transformative policies. For them, the State was to be agent of development, tutor of corporate interest groups, and now also guarantor of national security. While highlighting the significant, and still underestimated, impact of French positivism on Vargas’s first 15 years in government, the article places emphasis on the pragmatic dimensions of its appropriation, propagation, and reinterpretation by two generations of state-builders.

Three varieties of Authoritarian Neoliberalism: Rule by the experts, the people, the leader

Neoliberalism and authoritarianism are intimately connected, as is demonstrated by the existence of a growing body of literature on ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. This article provides a taxonomy of authoritarian neoliberalism and claims that it appears in three varieties – technocracy, populist nationalism, and traditional authoritarianism. Also, it proposes both an overview of the varieties and an analysis of three states as case studies. States are investigated as actors which strongly contribute to the neoliberal project amidst a more complex process of multilocalized and variegated neoliberalizations, which have to be incorporated into the comparative research. First, Italy is studied as a consolidated Western democracy which has been often governed by technocrats, independent, non-party professionals who have recurrently been in power since the 1990s, and within the frame of an increasingly technocratic European Union. Second, the paper concentrates on Hungary, a semi-peripheral Central European country which has become an epitome of a populist nationalism with increasingly authoritarian traits. Third, the paper focuses on Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Union republic with no significant experience of liberal democracy before independence, and a key example of the ‘traditional authoritarian’ variety. The three varieties, however, are sometimes combined and coexisting, and their evolution will be decisive for the future of capitalism and liberal democracy.

We are history: historical affect, memory and militancy among revolutionary youth in postwar Iran

ABSTRACT ‘We are history’ is a declaration that traverses identity labels, generational memories and nation building through history. I demonstrate that announcing we are history is a political-mystical practice, and living with evocative historical affect permeated from the reminiscent of past violence. It allows social actors to indulge in a type of transcendence, which expands them into a cosmological scale that exceeds social imaginaries and banalities of everyday life. I borrow from Iranian revolutionary youth’s experiences and my ethnographic journeys among Iranian volunteer combatants who fought in Iraq and Syria to illustrate how history is localized in settings which socialization occurs in postwar societies. By way of anthropology of history or doing history in anthropology, I explain how the claim we are history is an attempt to become a community of individuals via history and how social actors turn history into a world-making practice that informs political participation and justifies for them to support authoritarian traits of a state.

Associations of political orientation, xenophobia, right-wing authoritarianism, and concern of COVID-19: Cognitive responses to an actual pathogen threat

Previous research has related the existence of pathogenic threat to an individual's social cognition, with people avoiding physical interactions with those who have potential contagion risks. These pathogenic induced behavioral responses have broader social consequences, such as avoidance of outgroup members or negative reactions to individuals foreign to one's own group. Specially, higher pathogen threat is associated with xenophobic attitudes and ideological tendencies, such as authoritarianism and political conservatism. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the effect of pathogenic threat on the above-mentioned variables in a real-world situation. Collecting data during a low (N = 598) and heightened (N = 309) perceived threat of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, our results reveal that Right-Wing Authoritarian traits, but not xenophobia, increase with a rise in the number of national pathogenic cases. Moreover, our results replicate previous findings regarding the associations between pathogen threat, political orientation, xenophobia, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism, in an actual pathogen threat scenario.

Authoritarianism and Attitudes Toward Welfare Recipients Under Covid-19 Shock

This paper has looked at the evolution of attitudes toward welfare recipients and the impact of authoritarian dispositions on these attitudes in the context of the Covid-19 health crisis. We used two representative surveys, the first (n= 2,054) conducted in the summer of 2019 and the second (n= 2,060) in Quebec in June 2020, near the end of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the province. One thousand one hundred and seventy eight participants in the second survey had also participated in the first, allowing to analyze potential movement among many of the same individuals. Overall, while our results clearly indicated that authoritarian dispositions were associated with more negative views of welfare recipients, the pandemic does not appear to have affected the relationship between these attitudes and authoritarian traits. Additionally, we found no evidence that a direct measure of perceived threat moderated the relation between authoritarianism and attitude toward welfare recipients. Yet, we did find that, in the context of the pandemic, authoritarianism was associated with the attribution of lower deservingness scores to welfare recipients who were fit for work, suggesting that authoritarianism interacts with an important deservingness heuristic when evaluating who deserves to be helped.

A core/periphery perspective on mega-event sustainability: Dystopic and utopic scenarios

Mega-events can captivate global audiences, stimulate economies, increase employment and endow host cities with significant tangible and intangible legacies. However, increasing problems of organisational corruption, escalating costs, exaggerated benefit claims and community disruption indicate need for mega-event reform. This conceptual paper supports a reformist agenda by using a core/periphery perspective to describe and analyse mega-event dynamics. The basic mega-event model consists of an inner and outer core which respectively contain the international and host mega-event elite, and a periphery containing the remaining host community. Unsustainable (dystopic) outcomes result when conflict-based interactions occur between a core employing its authoritarian traits and a periphery employing its anarchic traits. Conversely, sustainable (utopic) outcomes result when resolution-based interactions occur between a core employing its efficiency traits and a periphery mobilising its responsive traits. The paper concludes by discussing strategies for achieving the aspirational utopic scenario within a broader framework of enlightened mass tourism. • Applies a reformist core/periphery perspective to advance mega-event sustainability. • Identifies inner and outer dimensions of the mega event core and periphery. • Uses a dialectical approach to identify dystopic and utopic mega event scenarios. • Leverages enlightened mass tourism as a theoretical basis for achieving the aspirational utopic mega-events scenario.

Gender equality without democracy? Higher education expansion and authoritarian values

AbstractHow does social policy affect authoritarian values? Leveraging exogenous variation, I evaluate how higher education expansion as a social policy program in China has influenced authoritarian support and traditional gender attitudes. I use an instrumental variable approach and regression analyses with marginal effects to assess multiple waves of Chinese national representative surveys coupled with regional statistics. The study differentiates between two types of authoritarian support: specific support (authoritarian support based on evaluation of recent policies) and diffuse support (long‐term authoritarian traits independent of recent policies). I find that education expansion has significantly decreased specific authoritarian support; however, it has not influenced diffuse authoritarian support. Moreover, a decrease in traditional gender attitudes is driven by a cohort effect rather than an education expansion effect. The findings have broader implications for understanding the effects of social policy on attitudinal change in an authoritarian context.

‘Open for Business’ but Bankrupt: Currencies, the ‘New Dispensation’ and the Zimbabwean Economy

The paper examines the Mnangagwa government’s economic policies in Zimbabwe. It looks at its ‘new’ dispensation economic policies, passed off as creating a middle-income economy by 2030. The study suggests that these policies, encapsulated in the ‘open for business’ rhetoric, were designed to create an image of political and economic reform. However, efforts to mask the ZANU-PF government’s unmistakable authoritarian traits failed. It is increasingly apparent that there is no significant departure in economic policies from the previous Mugabe regime. Zimbabwe’s crisis endures as the technocrats fail to resolve the monetary crisis and the economy continues to collapse.

Migración y fronteras en el gobierno brasileño

While the world experiences a rapid increase in migrations, in many countries nationalist governments with conservative and authoritarian traits are rising to power. Indeed, border enforcement -and even complete frontier closures- have increased around the globe. Brazil is a paramount example of this relentless globalization (Appadurai, 2004). Based on the concept of “border” from Valenzuela (2014b) and García Canclini (2014), this article attempts to provide evidence on some of the Brazilian borders that are capable of generating material and symbolic barriers to the access and integration of immigrants. In Brazil, these barriers have been a state policy at least since Michel Temer took office in 2016, but have been dramatically strengthened during the current administration of Jair Bolsonaro 2019). Within this context, the goal of this article is to develop a reflection that articulates the concept of border with the exacerbated nationalism, particularly present in the political discourse about national security.

The Face of Dictatorship in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch, and Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat

This essay is an investigation of dictatorship in three novels: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch and Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat. I initially review the intellectual relation among these authors, their more or less adherence to, or renunciation of, socialist ideology, and their depiction of the horrors of life under dictatorial regimes. To analyse dictatorship, I draw upon Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of faciality as the processes that engender the machine of face. Faciality, as a theory, explains how specific faces emerge as mixed semiotic regimes with despotic and authoritarian traits. I demonstrate that despite their cultural differences, these novels are analogous in their emphasis on the thematic significance of face and the numerous techniques and apparatuses that are deployed within each authoritarian regime for the proliferation of the leader’s face. The novels delineate, in more or less comparable ways, how the State tends to suppress the Church or appropriate its functions, how people succumb to a sanctioned version of reality, and how they typically learn to revere a despotic authority that imposes on them the most atrocious rules and practices. The novelists portray not only the suppression of individual freedoms, but also the precariousness of existence under despotic regimes..

The Swedish model and the pandemic: trust, trade union rights and collective self-regulation

10 | International Union Rights | 27/3 FOCUS | IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON WORK AND THE CHALLENGE FOR UNION RIGHTS The Swedish model and the pandemic: trust, trade union rights and collective self-regulation ‘Normality’ in a society takes place on a narrow mountain plateau supported by democracy and trade union rights. On one side of the peak, the slope downwards into the dark valley of technocracy is steep. The other side falls away into the crevasse of populism. Both form the pit of authoritarianism, where democracy and trade union rights are but lofty dreams. Life on the mountain plateau can seem safe. But the security of ‘normality’ is deceptive. When Covid19 rocks the foundations, life on the plateau sways. The democratic state suddenly does not feel so secure. Some argue that a pandemic was expected; that our western capitalist economies were bound to enter a crisis. So it might be, but Covid-19 has also proven to be an unpredictable threat not only to human lives and our post WW2 political and economic system, but also to democracy and trade union rights. How can Covid-19 be fought back? Each country has had its different strategies. Some countries have experimented with curfews, lock downs and closed borders. The consequences for the wellbeing of citizens and the economy have been severe. Other countries have trusted their citizens to take on more personal responsibility. Everyday life and economic activities, albeit somewhat slower, have been able to continue. The latter approach, the Swedish way, has caught international attention. This article argues that much of the foundations that underpin the Swedish collective self-regulatory labour market model have also been conducive to the Swedish Covid-19 strategy. Conditions vary between countries. One must do the best with the conditions where one finds oneself. Social capital, trust and responsibility are some of the key ingredients. The collective self-regulatory labour market can be used as tool to understand why a different path was possible in Sweden, but also to illustrate the importance of appropriate national solutions. Trust and self-regulation as a legislative strategy Trade unions and employers in Sweden are well organised and enjoy a large autonomy to regulate matters between them. There is no legislative minimum wage or system to declare generally binding collective agreements. The Swedish collective self-regulatory system, as professor Otto Kahn-Freund, the father of collective labour law, would have put it, is a laissez-faire system. The Swedish legislator trusts employers and trade unions. But the social partners generally also trust the legislator. Autonomous collective agreements cover all economic activity on the labour market in practice – and also establish norms for nonorganised employers and workers. Collective self-regulation also makes matters easier for the legislator. Most conflicts and problems generated by technological, organisational development and changed conditions in general on the labour market can be solved by the social partners. The legislator’s attention can then be elsewhere. Trust often grows out of actions. Trade unions and employers in Sweden have largely been acting responsibly since the 1930s. Many national crises have been solved, partly or fully, through the adaptability that collective agreements provide. Some recent examples are the economic crisis in the 1990s, when the wage-formation system was transformed, but also in 2008 when special collective agreements provided solutions to the liquidity problems caused by the financial crisis. The strong self-regulatory Swedish labour market model has many advantages. It gives the buyers and sellers of work power to regulate the price and conditions of labour. Agreements can win legitimacy, but they can also balance and change local power relations. Self-regulatory models often make a difference for people. They engage people in conditions at their workplace and often make real change. An authoritarian dynamic is never far away in society In country after country, authoritarian traits are becoming more prominent. The framework of populism falsely posits the ‘proper people’ against the ‘corrupt establishment’. It is an authoritarian tradition that tends to restrict democratic freedoms and rights, especially the right of expression and association – the same fundamental rights that form the basis for trade unionism. Populist politicians tend to ignore the experts and pretend to be...

The Limits of Authoritarian International Law

Tom Ginsburg's concept of “authoritarian international law” (AIL) is as important as the one it references, Thomas Franck's “right to democratic governance.” It underlines how the promise carried by Franck was betrayed in the bitter turn of history that ended the emerging hope for democracy ruling all nations in the world after 1989. This hope had developed by fits and starts as the slow fulfilment of the Kantian project for “perpetual peace” amongst a world federation of democratic republics on which the League of Nations and the United Nations were built. To the now-universal acknowledgment of the grave domestic setbacks to human rights and democracy, Ginsburg's article adds an account of the international setbacks which followed. Its chief importance is in raising the question of the emergent authoritarian traits of international law in the wake of these setbacks. With my appreciation of Ginsburg's formidable treatment, including a title that will mark, like Franck's, an important moment in the field, I will challenge some of his conclusions and offer counterpoints in the present essay. In particular, I will (1) suggest the irrelevance of the three “evils of AIL”; (2) highlight the significance of 2006 as the date when AIL started rising; (3) emphasize the importance of U.S. isolationism in the rise of AIL; and (4) argue that the better investment to counter that rise is in nonviolence.

Clinging to power, clinging to life: Rightwing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and attitudes toward life extension

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between political ideology and attitudes toward life extension among college students (N = 484). Older age and male gender were associated with more positive attitudes toward life extension, while religious commitment was not. Authoritarian aggression/submission and social dominance orientation were associated with more positive attitudes toward life extension. The results suggest older people, men, and individuals higher in authoritarian traits and social dominance orientation may be more likely to use life-extending biomedical technology.

Conflicting Objectives in Democracy Promotion: Avoiding Blueprint Traps and Incomplete Democratic Transitions

Western donors attempting to promote democracy across the globe face a dilemma. Democracy is a highly valued policy goal, but they are fearful that the path to democ¬racy will undermine another highly valued goal – political stability – and potentially cause widespread violence in the recipient countries or beyond. We ask whether these fears have empirical support and how donors can balance the potentially conflicting objectives of democratisation and stability when intervening in governance matters. Recent research at the German Development Institute shows that fears about the destabilising effects of democratisation do indeed have some empirical support (Leininger et al 2012; Ziaja 2013). But these fears deflect attention from the bigger problem of “getting stuck in the middle”. Hybrid regimes that exhibit authoritarian traits under a facade of formal democratic institutions constitute, in the long run, a larger security risk than attempts to make these countries more democratic. Hybrid regimes also hamper economic development, thus constituting an additional, indirect, risk of violent conflict. The promotion of democracy is hence a laudable effort, but it may itself carry risks. A recent DIE study of 47 African countries suggests that support for democracy increases popular mobilisation in the short run, leading to increased demonstrations and riots. However, the same study produced no evidence that democracy support is likely to spark civil wars. Increased mobilisation is thus rather a sign of aid effectiveness than a reason to worry. Yet, to be effective in the long run and to help steer popular demands into peaceful channels, democracy support must assist domestic actors in building institutions that fit the needs of their society. In the past, the potentially de¬stabilising consequences of popular participation have seduced would-be engineers of social change into re¬stricting competition in young democracies. This is a bad idea, as our recent research shows: narrow, elite pacts have, on average, led to worse political outcomes than open competition. The best contribution that donors can make from the out¬side is to enable marginalised groups to participate in crea¬ting the institutional setup. This is best achieved when many donors promote democracy simultaneously. Only then can they avoid the “blueprint trap”, which snaps shut when donors try to impose – advertently or inadvertently – an institutional setup on the partner country that does not fit its society’s needs. Diversity on the donor side increases the chances of finding a context-adequate institutional design. These findings suggest that an overly cautious sequencing approach to democracy promotion – stability first, only then democracy – has little empirical support. Most countries in the world embarked on a (formally) democratic path more than two decades ago. A gradualist approach that builds institutions while at the same time encouraging mobilisation is thus the more viable approach. Recommendations in brief: Promote democracy now Keep democracy aid diverse Encourage endogenous, inclusive polity design Enforce conditionality on conflict resolution mechanisms in institutional design Balance trade-offs of democratic transitions.

The limits of authoritarian rule: policy making and deliberation in urban village regeneration in China

AbstractThe subject of this paper is the role of democratic deliberation as a policy instrument for district and local administrations in the urban village regeneration process. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between democratic deliberation and public policy making, and the theory of deliberative systems. Deliberation in the context of urban village regeneration is part of a complex, scalar, political-administrative system, with many actors whose activities are often not aligned. Although this configuration has authoritarian traits and operates largely without the protection of a strong and well-functioning rule of law, it is not all-sovereign. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of urban village deliberation is the way that reveals the limits of authoritarian rule in a modern national and international context. As we show, the Party encounters the same problems of technical, social, and institutional complexity, with the ensuing limits on vertical steering, as administrations in democratic countries. Using the case of Q village, we describe how hierarchical project management sits uneasily with village deliberation throughout the process. When officials attempt to curtail the legally mandated village deliberation process, they encounter stiff resistance and even a participation strike.