Authoritarianism and Threat: A Systematic Inquiry into Inconsistent Evidence

• In Event: Threats to Democracy and Democratic Norms

Abstract

Threat has always been a key component to understanding authoritarianism and intolerance (Adorno et al. 1950). Despite this, there is still disagreement concerning what types of threat induce intolerance and how and for whom across the authoritarianism spectrum threat is most impactful. Much of these inconsistencies arise from differing research designs, definitions, and measurements of threat. Specifically, it is unsettled whether and how normative or personal threats activates increased intolerance. Also unsettled is whether threat increases intolerance uniquely among low authoritarians (Hetherington and Weiler 2009) or whether threat increases high authoritarian intolerance while simultaneously decreasing low authoritarian intolerance (Stenner 2005). I consider these interrelated inconsistencies using a unified research design in several experiments. I find no evidence that personal threat affects intolerance across levels of authoritarianism. I do find, however, that normative threat increases intolerance among less authoritarian individuals. The attitudes of the more authoritarian remain relatively high and unchanged. This timely, systematic inquiry of the nature and effects of threat on authoritarianism and intolerance lends support to recent findings suggesting that threat decreases intolerance polarization across the authoritarianism spectrum and suggests that authoritarianism is most responsive to threats to values and culture (Hetherington and Weiler 2009).

Author

• Matthew Ward, University of Louisiana at Lafayette