Do authoritarians vote for authoritarians? Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

During the 2016 presidential election campaign in the United States, scholars argued that authoritarian visions of the family are associated with support for Donald Trump, a candidate also noted to exhibit authoritarian or illiberal tendencies. Though it is plausible that “authoritarian” citizens (defined by parenting attitudes) vote for “authoritarian” candidates (defined by disrespect for democratic institutions), past research provides relatively little guide regarding this relationship. One reason is that few US candidates announce overtly authoritarian views. Latin America, by contrast, has had many such candidates. We take advantage of this variation using the 2012 AmericasBarometer, which applied a battery of authoritarian parenting attitudes. We first describe mass authoritarianism across Latin America, showing it is associated with many social attitudes. We then examine authoritarians’ voting behavior, distinguishing between support for “ mano dura” (“strong arm”) candidates, who are usually rightists, and for candidates threatening violations of general civil liberties, who are often leftists in Latin America. We find that authoritarians tend to vote for right-wing authoritarian candidates, while authoritarianism boosts support for candidates threatening civil liberty violations only among citizens identifying on the ideological right. Education is the most consistent determinant reducing support for both leftist and rightist authoritarian candidates.

Winners’ Consent? Citizen Commitment to Democracy When Illiberal Candidates Win Elections

“…Whereas some voters might be unaware of the likely consequences of their choices, citizens are not always naïve victims. Democracy's skeptics and voters with authoritarian values elected Venezuela's Hugo Chávez (Canache 2002; Kutiyski and Krouwel 2014) and populist authoritarians from Russia to Europe to Latin America (Cohen and Smith 2016; Norris and Inglehart 2019; Reinl and Schäffer 2021; Seligson and Tucker 2005). Authoritarian candidates often openly signal plans to centralize power and repress dissent; their victory suggests a critical mass of amenable voters.…”

Reevaluating the Role of Ideology in Chile

“…9 Subsequent questions evaluated whether respondents understood the difference between ideological labels; specifically, whether voters were able to connect social welfare and "iron fist" crime reduction policies with particular ideological markers. As previous research has shown, the former can be typically associated with left-wing politicians (Pribble 2013) and the latter with right-wing politicians (Cohen and Smith 2016). Figure 1 reveals that 52 percent of respondents were able to connect social welfare policies with left-wing politicians and 54 percent were able to connect iron fist policies with right-wing politicians (see questions in appendix M).…”

Voting for Law and Order: Evidence From a Survey Experiment in Mexico

“…In addition, we provide important insights to the literature on partisanship and support for mano dura policies in Latin America. A common argument in these works is that conservative parties have a comparative advantage when campaigning on security policies in an environment where violence is on the rise (Beckett, 1999;Beckett & Western, 2001;Cohen & Smith, 2016;Holland, 2013;Kaplan et al, 2006;Petrocik, 1996). For example, the seminal piece by Holland (2013) argues that "conservative parties have a comparative advantage in touting their security credentials.…”