IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11490.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Support for Authoritarian Rule Contagious? Evidence from Field and Survey Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Sirianne Dahlum
  • Torbjørn Hanson
  • Åshild Johnsen
  • Andreas Kotsadam
  • Alexander Wuttke
  • Åshild A. Johnsen

Abstract

The increasing popularity of strongman rule in democratic societies underscores the need to explore how authoritarian regime preferences might spread socially. We assess the role of social influence on support for leaders with authoritarian inclinations through pre-registered field and survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces. The field experiment randomly assigned soldiers to different rooms during boot camp, so soldiers lived among peers with varying levels of openness to authoritarian rule. We found that many individuals adjusted their privately reported support for authoritarian rule to align more closely with their peers. Further survey-experimental evidence among soldiers and the general Norwegian population confirms that learning about others’ level of support for authoritarian rule changes both perceptions about the preferences of others’ and own attitudes. Our results suggest that support for authoritarian rule can have a social basis and could potentially spread through social contagion in established democracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sirianne Dahlum & Torbjørn Hanson & Åshild Johnsen & Andreas Kotsadam & Alexander Wuttke & Åshild A. Johnsen, 2024. "Is Support for Authoritarian Rule Contagious? Evidence from Field and Survey Experiments," CESifo Working Paper Series 11490, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11490
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11490.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederiksen, Kristian Vrede Skaaning, 2022. "Does Competence Make Citizens Tolerate Undemocratic Behavior?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 116(3), pages 1147-1153, August.
    2. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    3. Clifford, Scott & Sheagley, Geoffrey & Piston, Spencer, 2021. "Increasing Precision without Altering Treatment Effects: Repeated Measures Designs in Survey Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 115(3), pages 1048-1065, August.
    4. Jan Feld & Ulf Zölitz, 2017. "Understanding Peer Effects: On the Nature, Estimation, and Channels of Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 387-428.
    5. Jonathan Guryan & Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 34-68, October.
    6. Jan Feld & Ulf Zölitz, 2017. "Understanding Peer Effects: On the Nature, Estimation, and Channels of Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 387-428.
    7. Ben-Nun Bloom, Pazit & Arikan, Gizem, 2013. "Religion and Support for Democracy: A Cross-National Test of the Mediating Mechanisms," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 375-397, April.
    8. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2014. "Inference on Treatment Effects after Selection among High-Dimensional Controlsâ€," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 608-650.
    9. Grossman, Guy & Kronick, Dorothy & Levendusky, Matthew & Meredith, Marc, 2022. "The Majoritarian Threat to Liberal Democracy," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 36-45, March.
    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. Anne Ardila Brenøe & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "Exposure to More Female Peers Widens the Gender Gap in STEM Participation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(4), pages 1009-1054.
    2. Feld, Jan & Zölitz, Ulf, 2022. "The effect of higher-achieving peers on major choices and labor market outcomes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 200-219.
    3. Frijters, Paul & Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan, 2019. "Heterogeneity in peer effects in random dormitory assignment in a developing country," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-134.
    4. Essbaumer, Elisabeth, 2024. "Peer Effects and Social Mobility," Economics Working Paper Series 2401, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    5. Chevalier, Arnaud & Isphording, Ingo E. & Lisauskaite, Elena, 2020. "Peer diversity, college performance and educational choices," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Luca Paolo Merlino & Max Friedrich Steinhardt & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2019. "More than Just Friends? School Peers and Adult Interracial Relationships," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 663-713.
    7. Bin Huang & Rong Zhu, 2020. "Peer effects of low-ability students in the classroom: evidence from China’s middle schools," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1343-1380, October.
    8. Fischer, Thomas & Rode, Johannes, 2020. "Classroom or pub - Where are persistent peer relationships between university students formed?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 474-493.
    9. Camila F. S. Campos & Shaun Hargreaves Heap & Fernanda Leite Lopez de Leon, 2017. "The political influence of peer groups: experimental evidence in the classroom," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 963-985.
    10. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Cools, Angela & Fernández, Raquel & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2022. "The asymmetric gender effects of high flyers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Garcia-Brazales, Javier, 2022. "Unlearning Traditionalism: The Long-Run Effects of Schools on Gender Attitudes," EconStor Preprints 232502, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2022.
    13. Daniel Borbely & Jonathan Norris & Agnese Romiti, 2023. "Peer Gender and Schooling: Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 207-249.
    14. Fairlie, Robert W. & Oliver, Daniel & Millhauser, Glenn & Roland, Randa, 2024. "Estimating Peer Effects among College Students: Evidence from a Field Experiment of One-to-One Pairings in STEM," IZA Discussion Papers 17358, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ulf Zölitz & Jan Feld, 2021. "The Effect of Peer Gender on Major Choice in Business School," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6963-6979, November.
    16. de Gendre, Alexandra & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13938, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Paul Frijters & Asadul Islam & Debayan Pakrashi, 2016. "Can we select the right peers in Indian Education? Evidence from Kolkata," Monash Economics Working Papers 39-16, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    18. Getik, Demid & Meier, Armando N., 2022. "Peer gender and mental health⁎," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 643-659.
    19. Getik, Demid & Meier, Armando N., 2020. "Peer Gender and Mental Health," Working papers 2020/15, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    20. Weina Zhou & Andrew J. Hill, 2023. "The spillover effects of parental verbal conflict on classmates' cognitive and noncognitive outcomes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(2), pages 342-363, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ces:ceswps:_11490. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.