(iPoster) The Three Logics of Illiberalism in the American Public

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Polarization, Identity, and Democratic Vulnerability & Political Communication I
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Polarization, Identity, and Democratic Vulnerability

Abstract

One of the major contemporary problems that scholars of American politics have identified is the expansion of and agreement with illiberalism and illiberal tactics in the United States. In a growing number of countries, citizens appear willing to sacrifice elements of democracy if it means scoring points against ‘the other side.’ In the United States, the aggressive start to Donald Trump’s second administration has reignited concerns over democratic erosion and raised questions about public tolerance for illiberal governance. Existing literature portrays the adoption of illiberal attitudes as either strategic or as a means to restore order. We believe this fails to capture another dispositional logic behind illiberalism: some citizens with dark personality traits embrace illiberalism because they are attracted to its transgressive nature. We propose a typology of three distinct logics behind the formation of illiberal attitudes that differ in motivation and stability: instrumental illiberalism, driven by partisan interests; order-seeking illiberalism, reflecting authoritarian predispositions, and transgressive illiberalism, rooted in antisocial personality traits. Using original survey data, we test these on two illiberal propositions: tolerance for presidential lawbreaking and support for granting Donald Trump permanent emergency powers. Our results support the three logics and strongly corroborate the role of antisocial dispositions. In fact, in the case of lawbreaking, transgressive illiberalism accounts for more of the variance than the other two logics combined. We also find that populist attitudes, which are often treated as siblings to illiberal attitudes, predict less support for illiberal propositions, not more. Taken together, our results expand our understanding of democratic erosion and identify a structural vulnerability of US democracy, and possibly all others: a non-trivial reservoir of morally pragmatic and irreverent citizens who will endorse illiberal governance because its intrinsically transgressive nature appeals to them.

Authors

• Julien Labarre, University of Zurich

• Pierce Christoffersen, University of California, Santa Barbara