Part 2 of John Dean's Findlaw series on authoritarianism is up!

[backscatter712]

Why Authoritarians Now Control the Republican Party

Why Authoritarians Now Control the Republican Party: The Rise of Authoritarian Conservatism

Part Two in a Three-Part Series
By JOHN W. DEAN

Today, the Grand Old Republican Party is controlled by authoritarian conservatives. (As I mentioned in my prior column, the first in this three-part series, to my knowledge no person in the GOP has ever denied that fact - and they are well-aware of my book.) More specifically, as I broadly outlined in my last column, the research of social scientists such as Bob Altemeyer has revealed the personality traits of both those authoritarians who are followers, and those who are their leaders.

The Followers: Right-Wing Authoritarians

Princeton political scientist Fred I. Greenstein has cautioned about the uses of personality in analyzing political activity; in fact, he directly addressed "the tangled history of studies of authoritarianism." He noted, however, that while the study of authoritarian personalities once seemed to be at a "dead end," that has proven not to be the case. Rather, "in the 1980s an ingenious and rigorous program of inquiry by Altemeyer (1981, 1988) furnished persuasive empirical evidence that the original authoritarian construct was an approximation of an important political-psychological regularity--the existence in some individuals of an inner makeup that disposes them to defer to authority figures."

These, of course, are followers. Altemeyer labeled these people "right-wing authoritarians" not because he was looking to target political conservatives, but rather because he was drawing broadly on the historical terms that identify those who openly submit to established authorities, and whether those authorities are political, economic or religious, those who submit to them are traditionally described as being on the right wing. As Altemeyer developed and refined his testing, however, it became apparent that those who tested as highly submissive to economic or religious authorities also proved to be hard-right political conservatives.

In addition to being especially submissive to established authority, Altemeyer's research revealed that those he calls right-wing authoritarians also show "general aggressiveness" towards others, when such behavior is "perceived to be sanctioned" by established authorities. Finally, these people are always highly compliant with the social conventions endorsed by society and established authorities. These basic traits, submissiveness to authority and conventionality, are the essence of those Altemeyer describes as right-wing authoritarians. If these traits are not present in some significant (albeit varying) degree, he does not consider the subject to be a right-wing authoritarian. However, these people can, and often do, consistently reveal they have many other interesting traits as well.

Just thought you might want to read. Excuse me while I read the rest...

[RogueBandit]

1. Link

Is there a link? I learned a good bit from just the opening paragraphs but how do I find the whole article?

[backscatter712]

2. Whoops, fixed that for you.

The OP now has a link.

[bananas]

3. Thanks - k&r nt

[struggle4progress]

4. The Republicans have been authoritarians for decades:

In the Nixon era, they pushed for "preventative detention" and "no-knock" warrants, and Rehnquist, whom Nixon later sent to the Supreme Court, diligently wrote legal opinions as an assistant attorney general to justify Nixon's illegal (secret and undeclared) war against Cambodia. The mantra of Republicans in those years was "He is our President and we should support him." And the unrepentant crooks of the Nixon White House, like J Gordon Liddy, became Republican cult figures.

A few years later, Jeane Kirkpatrick was arguing for US support of slaughterhouse governments in Guatemala and El Salvador because they were authoritarian. Oliver North, the order-following law-breaking "soldier" from the White House basement, and the most famous of the many Reagan administration criminals, became (like Liddy) another Republican cult figure who nearly won a Senate seat in Virginia not so long ago.

Nixon era wackos, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, as well as much of Reagan's Iran-contra gang, resurfaced in the reign of Bush II, pushing the same authoritarian agenda they always pushed.

[Jade Fox]

5. Thanks for the heads up! n/t