Why No Left-Authoritarian Parties?

• In Event: Why Are There No Left-Authoritarian Parties in Rich Democracies?

Abstract

The puzzle posed by the vacuum of electorally successful political parties in the left-authoritarian quadrant of a two-dimensional space of voter preferences and party policy programs likely has supply- as well as demand-side explanations. On the demand side, to understand the lack of political representation of left-authoritarian positions, both policy dimensions need to be disaggregated. This mor fine-grained perspective reveals that only subgroups of “left” and “authoritarian” voters have a very high propensity to support radical right political parties and others rarely do, but tend to remain affiliated with traditional center-left or center-right parties. On the supply-side, the strategies pursued by radical right political parties contribute to an incongruence between their voters and politicians: The preference distribution of radical right activists and voters is different. Those left-authoritarian voters who are most predisposed to support radical right political parties have a very low propensity to participate in politics.

Authors

• Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University

• Philipp Rehm, Johns Hopkins University