This project examines whether worsening economic conditions or general turmoil in society better explain attitudes in support of authoritarian governance. We assume both matter. They're readily available explanations for the recent popularity and electoral success of a leader like Vladimir Putin. We even attribute these as causes of Nazism in 1930s Germany. However, notice the inferential problem. We observe the success of Hitler or Putin and work backward to identify the conditions that led to their rise to power. In these prominent cases, both worsening economic conditions and societal conflict coincide.
I cast a wider net by looking at individual-level attitudes in favor of multiple forms of authoritarian government using three waves of World Values Survey data. I find it's mostly the economy. Worsening economic conditions better account for these attitudes in favor of non-democratic politcal systems. Income inequality, in particular, shows robust effects. Societal turmoil only explains support for army rule, though no particular indicator within my societal threat index shows a discernible effect on attitudes in favor of autocracy.
This paper is forthcoming at Political Behavior. This repository contains the manuscript, appendix, a presentation version, and code for replication. Do note I conducted the main analyses and present in R Markdown. The .Rmd files for the manuscript and the appendix contain code to replicate the analyses. The analysis directory contains the code I used to load, impute, and clean the data.
Why do some individuals prefer to be governed in an authoritarian political system? One intuitive answer is that citizens prefer authoritarian rule when the economy and society are in turmoil. These are common explanations for democratic backsliding, and the emergence and success of authoritarian leaders in the twentieth century. Which of these explanations better explains preferences for authoritarian rule? Both types of threat coincide in small samples and high-profile cases, creating inferential problems. I address this by using three waves of World Values Survey data to look at individual-level preferences for different forms of authoritarian government. Using multiple macroeconomic and societal indicators, I find that economic threats, especially increasing income inequality, better explain preferences for authoritarian government. I conclude with implications for understanding the emergence of support for authoritarianism in fledgling democracies.