Week 4
Authoritarianism
SOCI 229
Lecture I: September 23rd
A Quick Reminder
Response Memo Deadline
Your second response memo—which has to be between 250-400 words and posted on our Moodle Discussion Board—is due by 8:00 PM today.
A Quick Reminder
Electronics Policy
In my experience, students generally use laptops and tablets to shop online or browse Twitter and TikTok, not to take notes or streamline learning. However, I have—rather begrudgingly—lifted the ban on laptops and tablets in class. If I see anyone contravening our social contract (i.e., browsing the web in lieu of paying attention), the ban may very well be reinstated.
Authoritarianism on the Supply Side
Authoritarian Governance
A Question
What does authoritarianism on the supply side refer to?
Authoritarian Governance
[A] style of governance that attempts to circumvent the rule of law and democratic norms in favour of centralized authority and limited political freedom. Authoritarianism is inherently opposed to pluralism in that it views a strong leader as the natural embodiment of a singular will of the people … Because the leader is infallible and intuitively knows what the people want, any opposition, whether from civil society or the media, is dismissed (and often persecuted) as fundamentally illegitimate.
(Bonikowski 2017, 189–90, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Authoritarian Governance
The result is the ruling cadre’s stranglehold on state institutions, which become tools for suppressing dissent, self-enrichment and the consolidation of power.
(Bonikowski 2017, 190, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Authoritarian Governance
[A]uthoritarianism … refers to the targeted use of state power against alleged domestic enemies—from “Communist infiltrators” and “violent rioters” to criminals, terrorists, and undocumented immigrants—in a manner that undermines liberal rights regimes and democratic norms and institutions … [A]uthoritarianism is often signaled in electoral campaigns as well, in order to demonstrate the lengths to which candidates or parties are willing to go in the pursuit of their constituents’ interests.
(Bonikowski, Luo, and Stuhler 2022, 1728, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Authoritarian Governance
Key Indicators
Adapted from Table 1 in Levitsky and Ziblatt (2019)
Authoritarian Governance
In Political Rhetoric
We are opposing (Communism) at home where its agents and converts seek to undermine our society and corrupt our government. As I have repeatedly said, the federal government must use all its resources to expose and identify Communistic activity, to keep Communists out of places of responsibility in our society, and to protect our institutions from Communist espionage, sabotage and subversion.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Institutional Control
Common Authoritarian Techniques
Colonize or Occupy the State
Engage in Mass Clientelism
Promote Discriminatory Legalism
Common Authoritarian Techniques
Colonizing the State
Article can be accessed here
Common Authoritarian Techniques
Mass Clientelism
Image can be retrieved here
Common Authoritarian Techniques
Discriminatory Legalism
Article can be accessed here
The Legal Dimension
Legalistic Autocrats
Buried within the general phenomenon of democratic decline is a set of cases in which charismatic new leaders are elected by democratic publics and then use their electoral mandates to dismantle by law the constitutional systems they inherited. These leaders aim to consolidate power and to remain in office indefinitely, eventually eliminating the ability of democratic publics to exercise their basic democratic rights, to hold leaders accountable, and to change their leaders peacefully. Because these “legalistic autocrats” deploy the law to achieve their aims, impending autocracy may not be evident at the start.
(Scheppele 2018, 545, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Legalistic Autocrats
Around the world, liberal constitutionalism is taking a hit from charismatic leaders like these whose signature promise is to not play by the old rules. But such hits have been long foretold. In one constitutional democracy after another, publics have grown increasingly discontent with their political institutions … [D]emocracies are not just failing for cultural or economic or political reasons. Some constitutional democracies are being deliberately hijacked by a set of legally clever autocrats, who use constitutionalism and democracy to destroy both.
(Scheppele 2018, 546–47, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Legalistic Autocrats
Buried in the story of decline, then, is a story of constitutional malice. New autocrats are not just benefiting from the crisis of confidence in public institutions; they are attacking the basic principles of liberal and democratic constitutionalism because they want to consolidate power and entrench themselves in office for the long haul.
(Scheppele 2018, 547, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Legalistic Autocrats
How is this happening, exactly?
Legalistic Autocrats
[T]he autocrats who hijack constitutions seek to benefit from the superficial appearance of both democracy and legality within their states. They use their democratic mandates to launch legal reforms that remove the checks on executive power, limit the challenges to their rule, and undermine the crucial accountability institutions of a democratic state. Because these autocrats push their illiberal measures with electoral backing and use constitutional or legal methods to accomplish their aims, they can hide their autocratic designs in the pluralism of legitimate legal forms.
(Scheppele 2018, 547–48, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Legalistic Autocrats
While democracy, constitutionalism, and liberalism once marched arm in arm through history, we now see liberalism being pushed out of the parade by a new generation of autocrats who know how to game the system. Intolerant majoritarianism and plebiscitary acclimation of charismatic leaders are now masquerading as democracy, led by new autocrats who first came to power through elections and then translated their victories into illiberal constitutionalism.
(Scheppele 2018, 548, EMPHASIS ADDED)
A Brief Case Study
A Look at Fidesz
Karim and Lukk’s The Radicalization of Mainstream Parties in the 21st Century
An Authoritarian Turn
Because the constitution permitted amendment with a single two-thirds vote of the unicameral parliament, Fidesz’s constitutional majority allowed it to rewrite the 1989– 1990 constitution and thousands of pages of new laws in Orbán’s first term. Before benefiting from the election laws that his government drew up to guarantee that he would win another term in 2014, Orbán’s early legal initiatives attacked the independence of crucial institutions, such as the judiciary, the media, the prosecutor’s office, the tax authority, and the election commission.
(Scheppele 2018, 549–50, EMPHASIS ADDED)
An Authoritarian Turn
One of (Orbán’s) first targets was the constitutional court, which nonetheless took three years to capture. Soon all other independent institutions were filled with party loyalists, including the ordinary judiciary, so that they were no longer independent of the governing party. Orbán removed opposition figures and neutral experts from public institutions, expanded the length of their successors’ terms of office so that they would carry his influence beyond the usual term of a democratic government, and wrongfooted the opposition by changing parliamentary procedure so that opposition MPs could not even speak on the floor, let alone offer any amendments to government bills.
(Scheppele 2018, 550, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Group Discussion I
Authoritarianism in America?
In groups of 2-3, discuss whether the United States is in the
midst of an authoritarian turn.
The Implications of Authoritarian Governance
Distinct Democratic Trajectories
Note: Data comes from the Varieties of Democracy Project — specifically, V-Dem 14.
Distinct Lived Experiences?
The mental image that most Americans harbor of what actual authoritarianism looks like is fantastical and cartoonish. This vision has jackbooted thugs, all-powerful elites acting with impunity, poverty and desperate hardship for everyone else, strict controls on political expression and mobilization, and a dictator who spends his time ordering the murder or disappearance of his opponents using an effective and wholly compliant security apparatus.
(Pepinsky 2017, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Distinct Lived Experiences?
The reality is that everyday life under the kinds of authoritarianism that exist today is very familiar to most Americans. You go to work, you eat your lunch, you go home to your family … Most people worry about making sure their kids get into good schools. The military is in the barracks, and the police mostly investigate crimes and solve cases. There is political dissent, if rarely open protest, but in general people are free to complain to one another. There are even elections. This is Malaysia, and many countries like it.
(Pepinsky 2017, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Distinct Lived Experiences?
Most Americans conceptualize a hypothetical end of American democracy in apocalyptic terms. But actually, you usually learn that you are no longer living in a democracy not because The Government Is Taking Away Your Rights, or passing laws that you oppose, or because there is a coup or a quisling. You know that you are no longer living in a democracy because the elections in which you are participating no longer can yield political change.
(Pepinsky 2017, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Distinct Lived Experiences?
The fantasy of authoritarianism distracts Americans from the mundane ways in which the mechanisms of political competition and checks and balances can erode. Democracy has not survived because the alternatives are acutely horrible, and if it ends, it will not end in a bang … It is more likely that democracy ends with a whimper, when the case for supporting it — the case, that is, for everyday democracy — is no longer compelling.
(Pepinsky 2017, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Distinct Lived Experiences?
In Formal Models of Authoritarian Regimes: A Critique,
Przeworski (2023) advances the same basic idea.
Distinct Lived Experiences?
Autocracies do collect garbage, regulate traffic, issue dog licenses, and fill street holes: they govern. In turn, the individuals who populate these models are assumed to have postures toward the regimes at every moment of their lives. But ordinary people are not politically hyperactive in any regime. People in autocracies do not incessantly live under the shadow of dramatic historical events; they lead everyday routine lives.
(Przeworski 2023, 980, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Distinct Lived Experiences?
Przeworski (2023) points to other enduring challenges and puzzles that the study of autocratic regimes brings to the fore. For instance:
Do autocracies enjoy popular support?
Do people sometimes willingly support repression?
Is there a value-neutral way to think about propaganda?
Group Discussion II
The Affordances of Democracy
In developing your argument(s), be sure to weave in ideas about
populism and nationalism, too.
Homework?
A Brief Survey
Please fill out this survey by tomorrow evening!
Lecture II: September 25th
Some Review
A Question
What does authoritarianism on the supply side refer to?
Authoritarianism on the Demand Side
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
Some conceptualize authoritarianism as the combined tendency to obey authorities (authoritarian submission), punish rule breakers (authoritarian aggression) and conform to tradition (conventionalism). Others view the desire for conformity over personal autonomy as the core feature of authoritarianism. Despite these differences in focus, most agree that authoritarianism involves obeying high-status leaders from advantaged groups with the power to punish marginalized groups who threaten the unanimity of in-group values.
(Osborne et al. 2023, 221, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
Consequently, research typically consigns authoritarianism to the political right … Here, we take an integrative approach and argue that, at its core, authoritarianism entails the desire for group conformity at the expense of personal autonomy, accompanied by a deference to in-group authority figures and a desire to punish those who violate cherished in-group norms — regardless of whether these in-group norms reflect traditional or progressive values.
(Osborne et al. 2023, 221, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Note
This is somehwat controversial!
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
Thus, authoritarianism among individuals is rooted in a fundamental dilemma or tension.
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
“[T]he tension between group cohesion and individual autonomy.”
(Feldman 2020, 36, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
It is easy to understand why people would want to maximize their freedom and autonomy and limit societal restrictions on their behavior. The opposite end of the authoritarian dimension may be more puzzling. What would motivate people to accept, or even to desire, limitations on their freedom in order to achieve group cohesion? Why should ordinary people worry about group cohesion?
(Feldman 2020, 37, EMPHASIS ADDED)
A Question
So … what’s your take? In your view, why do ordinary people care about social cohesion?
Individual-Level Authoritarianism
The desire for a stable social order.
But why do some people yearn for stability?
Worldviews, Motivational Goals and Threats
Dual Process Motivational Model
Figure 1 from Osborne and colleagues (2023)
Dual Process Motivational Model
According to the dual process motivational model, right-wing authoritarianism originates from the belief that the social world is an inherently dangerous, unstable, unpredictable and threatening place. This dangerous worldview activates the motivational goal of ensuring collective security and stability through the coercive maintenance of the traditional social order. A dangerous worldview is acquired through early experience and socialization, and is influenced by personality traits that predispose an individual to social conformity.
(Osborne et al. 2023, 221, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Threats
It would be easy to conclude … that there should be a simple, unconditional relationship between authoritarianism and intolerance. However, the relationship is more complex: [t]he willingness of people to limit political freedom should depend on how they respond to threats to their values.
(Feldman 2020, 40, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Threats
While those who value autonomy will be most concerned with threats to personal freedom, those at the other end of the continuum will direct their intolerance toward those who challenge traditional norms and values … As a social or political group deviates from social conventionality, they will be seen as a danger and will motivate support to suppress the threat.
(Feldman 2020, 40–41, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Threats
Since the goal of those who value social conformity is to protect common norms, we should find that the desire to repress all sorts of non-conformity will increase as the perception of threats to social conformity increases. Perceived threats may be more diffuse than those presented by any specific group. For example, increasing diversity in society, be it social, demographic, or political, should be seen as a threat and therefore increase intolerance among those high in authoritarianism.
(Feldman 2020, 41, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Threats
A Question
What are some threats to the traditional social order in America right now?
Consequences of Individual-Level Authoritarianism
Prejudice
Figure 2 from Osborne and colleagues (2023)
Attitudes and Political Behaviour
Right-wing authoritarianism predicts opposition to same-sex marriage, support for repealing abortion access for rape victims, and support for anti-democratic policies that privilege the in-group at the expense of out-groups’ rights … Authoritarianism, and in particular authoritarian aggression, also predicted support for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election.
(Osborne et al. 2023, 225, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Left-Wing Authoritarianism
A Contested Construct
Figure 3 from Osborne and colleagues (2023)
A Contested Construct
Although most research has examined right-wing authoritarianism, three subdimensions of left-wing authoritarianism have been identified: anti-hierarchical aggression, support for top-down censorship and anti-conventionalism. However, lingering questions about left-wing authoritarianism remain.
(Osborne et al. 2023, 228, EMPHASIS ADDED)
A Contested Construct
The LWA scale includes items such as: ‘Progressive ways and liberal values show the best way of life’ … Given that the items refer explicitly to liberal causes … it is hardly surprising that their endorsement is strongly correlated with political orientation in the expected manner … Other research programs have instead focused on developing (and validating) more psychometrically sound and ideologically neutral measures of authoritarianism … Studies employing these scales confirm the existence of an authoritarian-conservatism nexus in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.
(Nilsson and Jost 2020, 150, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Caveat
Unsurprisingly, other scholars disagree with this assessment—and adduce evidence in favour of the LWA scale’s utility and validity (e.g., Conway III et al. 2022).
Group Discussion III
Is Left-Wing Authoritarianism “A Thing”
In groups of 2-3, discuss whether you believe left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) is a valid construct.
Have you spotted LWA out in the wild? Does the “LWA” construct—or “RWA,” for that matter—help you understand political conflict in the United States?
Populism, Nationalism, Authoritarianism
Class Survey Results
Class Survey Results
Class Survey Results
Are you surprised by these results?
See You Monday
References
Note: Scroll to access entire bibliography.
Bonikowski, Bart. 2017. “Ethno-Nationalist Populism and the Mobilization of Collective Resentment.” The British Journal of Sociology 68 (S1): S181–213. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12325.
Bonikowski, Bart, Yuchen Luo, and Oscar Stuhler. 2022. “Politics as Usual? Measuring Populism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism in U.S. Presidential Campaigns (1952–2020) with Neural Language Models.” Sociological Methods & Research 51 (4): 1721–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241221122317.
Conway III, Lucian Gideon, Alivia Zubrod, Linus Chan, James D. McFarland, and Evert Van de Vliert. 2022. “Is the Myth of Left-Wing Authoritarianism Itself a Myth?” Frontiers in Psychology 13: 1041391. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1041391.
Feldman, Stanley. 2020. “Authoritarianism, Threat, and Intolerance.” In At the Forefront of Political Psychology, edited by Eugene Borgida, Christopher M. Federico, and Joanne M. Miller. New York: Routledge.
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2019. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing Group.
Müller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Nilsson, Artur, and John T Jost. 2020. “The Authoritarian-Conservatism Nexus.” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Political Ideologies, 34 (August): 148–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.03.003.
Osborne, Danny, Thomas H. Costello, John Duckitt, and Chris G. Sibley. 2023. “The Psychological Causes and Societal Consequences of Authoritarianism.” Nature Reviews Psychology 2 (4): 220–32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00161-4.
Pepinsky, Thomas. 2017. “Life in Authoritarian States Is Mostly Boring and Tolerable.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/9/14207302/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump.
Przeworski, Adam. 2023. “Formal Models of Authoritarian Regimes: A Critique.” Perspectives on Politics 21 (3): 979–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592722002067.
Scheppele, Kim Lane. 2018. “Autocratic Legalism.” The University of Chicago Law Review 85 (2): 545–84. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol85/iss2/2/.