Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a concept central to understanding modern politics, as well as contemporary social life. The term authoritarian is not only used to describe political beliefs and the structure of political systems, but also individual psychological dispositions and interpersonal relationships.

The discussion of an “authoritarian character” can be traced back to Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom. Authoritarianism was then elucidated by critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. In The Authoritarian Personality, T. W. Adorno and his colleagues attempted to explain anti-Semitism and the rise of Fascism throughout Europe in the 1940s, by combining Freudian psychoanalytic conceptions with Marxist theory. They developed the notion of the “authoritarian personality” in which one's fear and aggressiveness deriving from a specific familial socialization is a byproduct of the social structure of capitalistic society. This personality is forced to obey social authorities, accept societal norms, and release individual hatred toward members of weaker societal groups. Thus, authoritarians tend to have an anxious veneration of authority while expressing vindictiveness toward subordinates and so-called “deviants.”

This Freudian approach was rejected by Bob Altemeyer whose Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale was rooted in Albert Bandura's social learning theory. Altemeyer assumed that like other [Page 46]attitudes, people would acquire RWA from interactions with others or through various direct or indirect experiences with attitudinal objects. Parents could be the most important source of right-wing authoritarian attitudes. Several empirical studies show that religion apparently enhances authoritarian attitudes.

According to Altemeyer, RWA is a unidimensional measure of three attitudinal clusters in a person—authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. First, authoritarian submission is one's willingness to comply with established authorities placing very narrow limits on people's rights to criticize authorities. Second, authoritarians advocate sanction against those whom they deem detrimental to established authorities. Authoritarian aggression is enhanced by the belief that established authority at least tacitly approves it or that it will help preserve established authority. Thus, the theory of authoritarianism is closely related to the theory of social dominance. Finally, authoritarians tend to commit to the traditional social norms that are endorsed by society and its established authorities. Targets of authoritarian aggressiveness are often directed toward unconventional people or those defined as social deviants, such as homosexuals.

Since Altemeyer's conceptualization and development of the RWA Scale, authoritarianism has been used as a robust predictor of various political phenomena. It is especially noteworthy that the RWA Scale has correlated positively with a variety of conservative attitudes, such as those attacking environmentalism and abortion and in support of the death penalty. Thus, the question has arisen as to whether authoritarianism is any different from conservatism, which could be defined as the disposition to maintain existing orders and to resist change. Researchers who examined this issue have found that there has been a strong correlation between the RWA Scale and political conservatism. Indeed, authoritarianism and conservatism share two core dimensions—resistance to change and acceptance of inequality. However, the two are not isomorphic because among the traditions and established system that the conservatives wish to preserve are freedom of speech, freedom of opportunity, law-abiding principle, and so on. Those who embrace these values are not expected to score high on the RWA Scale.

...