Status threat: The core of reactionary politics

Abstract

In recent years, reactionary movements have overtaken the politics of western democracies and developing countries alike. Using the United States is a case in point, we offer a theory of what motivates reactionary movements. While controlling for conventional individual‐level accounts of reactionary psychological dispositions, we offer a fresh explanation: status threat. We argue that status threat, a reaction to rapid sociocultural change on the part of dominant groups, pushes some members of these groups into joining and supporting reactionary movements and parties, respectively. We first outline the social psychology of the group (White, Christian, patriarchal, native born, heteronormative) that animates a movement (MAGA) that, in turn, has taken over a party (the GOP). We then test a wide range of hypotheses using two original data sets, finding robust evidence to support our claim: status threat is a major source of the increasing fractionalization of American society and politics, one that threatens American democracy.