Where You Least Expect It: Authoritarianism and the Democratic Party

• In Event: The Causes & Consequences of Authoritarianism

Abstract

Most work on authoritarianism in the U.S. context has focused on interparty differences, showing a consistent gap in authoritarianism between Republicans and Democrats. More recent work, however, has shifted attention to intraparty differences, especially among Democrats, revealing a large difference in authoritarianism between Clinton and Sanders supporters whereby authoritarianism strongly predicts voting for Clinton over Sanders. Nevertheless, the source of Clinton’s appeal among authoritarian Democrats remains uncertain. Possible explanations include her more conservative ideology and policy proposals but also her long-st anding status within the Democratic Party’s leadership. In this paper, I test these different explanations using a conjoint experiment in which I randomly vary ideological and status-related features of a hypothetical Democratic candidate. I subsequently examine the impact of these features on respondents’ candidate evaluation and vote choice. Results from a nationally representative sample suggest that authoritarian Democrats are particularly attracted to authoritative party leaders with high status within their party regardless of their ideological stances. These results provide evidence for the apolitical nature of authoritarian appeals and raise questions regarding the future direction of the Democratic Party’s leadership.

Authors

• Alexa Bankert, University of Georgia

• David Stack, Cleveland State University