Authoritarianism in West European Electorates

This chapter engages in a descriptive analysis of authoritarianism in Western Europe and its relationship to economic, social, and political attitudes. It considers the definition of authoritarianism and how it is distinct from related concepts such as conservatism. The descriptive analysis addresses several important questions. First, it examines the distribution of authoritarianism in West European societies, along with its relationship to education, age, and gender. Then, it examines the relationship between authoritarianism and socio-cultural, political, and economic attitudes. The analysis finds that authoritarianism is closely related to socio-cultural attitudes on matters such as acceptance of same-sex marriage, endorsement of traditional gender roles, immigration, and ethnocentrism. Authoritarianism also correlates with attitudes towards democracy and political trust. However, high authoritarians are not meaningfully different from low authoritarians on economic questions. These findings point to an important conclusion for this book’s argument. Because high authoritarians vary from low authoritarians most on socio-cultural attitudes, it is likely that the factors driving the worldview issue are socio-cultural rather than economic in nature.