IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/263917.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Becoming authoritarian for the greater good? Authoritarian attitudes in context of the societal crises of COVID-19 and climate change

Author

Listed:
  • Hirsch, Magdalena

Abstract

Authoritarianism is widely conceived as destructive phenomenon that threatens liberal societies. However, some scholars suggest that authoritarianism is beneficial both for individuals' sense of control and goal attainment within groups. In line with this reasoning, collective problems, such as the COVID-19 crisis and climate change, may go hand in hand with increased levels of authoritarianism. While individuals may generally reject the abstract ideas of authoritarian rule and intolerance, societal threat may require individuals to weigh liberal values against needs for collective unity and action. Thus, individuals are expected to show less support for abstract authoritarian ideas compared to authoritarian ideas that are directed at dealing with a specific societal crisis (crisis-related authoritarianism). Following the notion that authoritarianism serves as an antiliberal means for achieving collective goals, relative increases in crisis-related authoritarianism hinge on the rejection of the means being outweighed by the perceived importance of the goal. While authoritarian disposition captures general tendencies to accept the means, trust in science serves as a proxy for the perceived importance of COVID-19 and climate change mitigation. The relative increase in crisis-related authoritarianism should be particularly pronounced among individuals who are not predisposed to authoritarianism and who trust in science. Findings from a cross-national survey experiment in Germany ( N = 1,480) and Spain ( N = 1,511) support this reasoning. Participants answered four items covering authoritarian submission and aggression either on an abstract level (control condition), or applied to the COVID-19 crisis or the climate change crisis. Participants were more supportive of authoritarian ideas targeted at a specific collective problem as compared to abstract authoritarian ideas. Furthermore, the differences in authoritarianism between the control condition and the two societal crisis conditions decreased with authoritarian disposition and increased with trust in science. Exploratory analyses suggest that the main differences across experimental conditions are driven by authoritarian submission while the interaction effects are rather driven by authoritarian aggression. The study underlines the role of authoritarian ideas for collective goal attainment that exists above and beyond stable personal dispositions. As such, it sheds light on the conditions under which citizens conceive authoritarianism as justifiable.

Suggested Citation

  • Hirsch, Magdalena, 2022. "Becoming authoritarian for the greater good? Authoritarian attitudes in context of the societal crises of COVID-19 and climate change," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 4, pages 1-1.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:263917
    DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2022.929991
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/263917/1/Full-text-article-Hirsch-Becoming-authoritarian-for.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3389/fpos.2022.929991?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grande, Edgar & Hutter, Swen & Hunger, Sophia & Kanol, Eylem, 2021. "Alles Covidioten? Politische Potenziale des Corona-Protests in Deutschland," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Center for Civil Society Research ZZ 2021-601, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Marc Hetherington & Elizabeth Suhay, 2011. "Authoritarianism, Threat, and Americans’ Support for the War on Terror," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 546-560, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Borisova, Ekaterina & Gründler, Klaus & Hackenberger, Armin & Harter, Anina & Potrafke, Niklas & Schoors, Koen, 2023. "Crisis experience and the deep roots of COVID-19 vaccination preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Alexa Bankert, 2022. "The Personality Origins of Positive and Negative Partisanship," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(4), pages 299-310.
    3. Tiberiu Dragu, 2017. "On repression and its effectiveness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(4), pages 599-622, October.
    4. Klaus Gründler & Armin Hackenberger & Anina Harter & Niklas Potrafke, 2021. "Covid-19 Vaccination: The Role of Crisis Experience," CESifo Working Paper Series 9096, CESifo.
    5. Ballard-Rosa, Cameron & Malik, Mashail & Rickard, Stephanie & Scheve, Kenneth, 2021. "The economic origins of authoritarian values: evidence from local trade shocks in the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108664, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Nicholas Haas & Prabin B. Khadka, 2020. "If They Endorse It, I Can't Trust It: How Outgroup Leader Endorsements Undercut Public Support for Civil War Peace Settlements," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 982-1000, October.
    7. Hellmeier, Sebastian, 2022. "Polarisierung auf der Straße – Die politischen Folgen der Dynamiken von Protest und Gegenprotest," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 336-350.
    8. Steven V. Miller, 2017. "Individual-level expectations of executive authority under territorial threat," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(5), pages 526-545, September.
    9. Lars Erik Berntzen, 2020. "How Elite Politicization of Terror Impacts Sympathies for Partisans: Radical Right versus Social Democrats," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 19-31.
    10. Scott Williamson & Mashail Malik, 2021. "Contesting narratives of repression: Experimental evidence from Sisi’s Egypt," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(5), pages 1018-1033, September.
    11. Xinsheng Liu & Kent E. Portney & Jeryl L. Mumpower & Arnold Vedlitz, 2019. "Terrorism Risk Assessment, Recollection Bias, and Public Support for Counterterrorism Policy and Spending," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(3), pages 553-570, March.
    12. Gustave Adolphe MESSANGA & Sonia NPIANE NGONGUEU, 2021. "Tribalization of politics in authoritarian regimes: Analysis of the link between political tribalism and right-wing authoritarianism in Cameroon," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(1), pages 15-24, January.
    13. Scott Radnitz, 2022. "Perceived threats and the trade-off between security and human rights," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(3), pages 367-381, May.
    14. Julia Elad-Strenger & Brian J Hall & Stevan E Hobfoll & Daphna Canetti, 2021. "Explaining public support for violence against politicians during conflict: Evidence from a panel study in Israel," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 417-432, May.
    15. Barry Watson & Stephen Law & Lars Osberg, 2022. "Are Populists Insecure About Themselves or About Their Country? Political Attitudes and Economic Perceptions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 667-705, January.
    16. Masanori Kikuchi, 2024. "How does war affect cultural tolerance? Evidence from concert programs, 1900–60," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 61(2), pages 163-179, March.
    17. Haritz Garro, 2019. "Terrorism prevention with reelection concerns and valence competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 330-369, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:263917. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.