Authoritarianism, Redistribution, and Ethnic Diversity

• In Event: How People React to Societal Threats

Abstract

Authoritarians often support social welfare programs, despite identifying with right-wing symbols and cultural policy. Existing research has found that authoritarians may prefer government intervention in the economy because it satisfies their psychological needs for certainty and security. We propose another, complementary explaination. We argue that authoritarians possess a genuine pro-social orientation, but only toward those who conform to prevailing cultural norms. Therefore, we predict that authoritarians will support egalitarian policies (e.g., income equality) in times and places where the salience of cultural diversity is low but will withdraw their support for these policies when the salience of cultural diversity is high. We also predict that this effect will be limited to members of majority ethnic groups, since only they should feel threatened by increasing diversity. To test this prediction, we combine two longitudinal measures of ethnic diversity with data from two cross-national surveys.

Authors

• Adam Panish, Stony Brook University

• Stanley Feldman, Stony Brook University