Enemies of Democracy?: An exploration of the relationship between the authoritarian predisposition and attitudes toward democracy

Abstract

Historically, authoritarianism has been synonymous with a fascistic or anti-democratic personality or outlook. The idea that the more authoritarian are hostile to democratic governance has continued from the first incarnation of the concept through to the more recent conceptualization of authoritarianism as a values orientation concerned with the trade-off between social conformity and individual autonomy. The research reported here explores how authoritarianism, as a values orientation, relates to attitudes toward democracy. Given the ‘dynamic’ relationship theorized between authoritarianism and social and political attitudes, this research also looks into whether and how perceived threat and societal views of democracy moderate the relationship between authoritarianism and attitudes toward democracy. Findings from analyses of data from Wave 6 or the World Values Survey indicate that 1.) authoritarianism is positively related to more favorable views of democracy; 2.) greater perceived threat is related to a more favorable view of democracy among the more authoritarian, while the more libertarian exhibit little variation across perceived threat; and 3.) aggregate support for democracy does not significantly change the relationship between authoritarianism and attitudes toward democracy. The importance of these findings on the literature and the current political events are discussed.