Right-wing Populism and Political Authoritarianism in Established Democracies

• In Event: Populism and Extremism on the Rise: Why, How, Who?

Abstract

This paper examines the role of authoritarian political attitudes in party systems of established democracies. Opinion polls regularly document that a small proportion of respondents in these countries are receptive to strong leaders unchecked by legislatures and elections, find democracy a bad form of government, and approve of having the army govern. Although there has been consideration and debate about how such attitudes might reflect ‘democratic deconsolidation’ (Foa and Mounk 2017; Norris 2017) such attitudes are not typically considered in terms of how they may be reflected in political parties.

This paper proposes that authoritarian attitudes are not randomly distributed across electorates, but that they are associated with RWP parties that mobilize supporters who have weaker attachments to liberal democratic norms, compared to supporters of center-left and center-right parties.

Right wing populist (RWP) parties have largely been understood in terms of appeal based on their nativist, ‘law and order,’ anti-immigrant social-cultural authoritarian appeals (Mudde 2010; Rydgren 2005; Hooghe, Marks & Wilson (2002). Despite some RWP party leaders being known for illiberal rhetoric, too little attention has been given to how these parties are associated with supporters who may have authoritarian political attitudes.

There are two components of data analysis in the paper. One compares elements of RWP party manifestos to centre-left and center-right party manifestos to assess if there are distinct illiberal themes in either, with the expectation that if any such themes are expressed they would be more likely in RWP party manifestos. The second component uses newly available opinion data from countries in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 5 that had elections in 2016 and 2017, and the Wave 7 release of the World Values Survey (Dec. 2018), to model the relationship between politically authoritarian attitudes, and support for RWP, center-right, and center-left parties in established democracies.

Work on the party manifesto component is in progress, while preliminary analysis of the opinion data is largely complete for all cases with recent elections where CSES or WVS data are available, including Austria, Germany, France, and the US (CSES 5); and Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands (WVS 7). Results are substantively significant. Models of WVS and CSES data that account for attitudes about immigration, evaluations of the economy, left/right self-placement, and several other factors find supporters of parties such as FPÖ, AfD, FN, PVV, and US Republicans desire strong leaders not to bothered by elections, and in some cases (FPÖ, PVV) are more sympathetic to army rule. These authoritarian attitudes have add substantially to models explaining support for RWP parties, but are not associated (or are inversely associated) with support for center-left and center right parties (outside the US).

The United States is a peculiar case, in that is the only one where ‘strong leader’ attiudes are associated with support for a candidate from a traditional party (Donald Trump in 2016). Support for Trump was associated with illiberal and politically authoritarian attitudes identical to those associated with parties such as FPÖ, AfD, FN, and PVV. The paper expands on research by Donovan (nd.), and Donovan and Redlawks (2017) that builds theory to explain why authoritarian attitudes are largely isolated to supporters of smaller RWP parties in multi-party systems, but associated with support for a major party in the US two-party system. It also expands on the ‘democratic deconsolidation’ discussion by considering the implications for party systems of having one party with supporters who may be less attached to liberal democratic norms.

References

Donovan, T. (nd.). Democratic indifference, authoritarian attitudes, and party systems. Under review.

Donovan, T. and Redlawsk, D. (2018). Donald Trump and right-wing populists in comparative perspective. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, 28 (2), 190-207.

Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2017). The signs of deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy, 28(1), 5-15.

Hooghe, L., Marks, G., & Wilson, C. (2002). Does left/right structure party positions on European integration? Comparative Political Studies, 35(8), 965-989.

Mudde, C. (2010). The populist radical right: A pathological normalcy. West European Politics, 33(6), 1167-1186.

Norris, P. (2017). Is Western Democracy Backsliding? Diagnosing the Risks. Journal of Democracy Web Exchange.

Rydgren, J. (2005). Is extreme right‐wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a new party family. European journal of political research, 44(3), 413-437.

Author

• Todd Donovan, Western Washington University