Psychologiczne i społeczne aspekty poparcia dla autorytarnej polityki
Psychological and social aspects of the support of authoritarian politics

Summary/Abstract: he main question of the article concerns the explanation of the phenomenon of supportfor authoritarian politics in Polish society. Authoritarian politics is understood as a system ofgovernment in which formal democratic institutions (elections, Parliament, political parties, nongovernmentorganisations) exist but their role is diminished. The ruling party tries to maximiseits power in every sphere of social life. Co-opting, repressing, propagandising, intimidation, andcensoring – there are the rules of authoritarian government [Levitsky, Way 2010; Inglehart, Norris2016; Przeworski 2017]. Two studies conducted on a representative sample of adults Poles in2016 (study 1, n = 1019; study 2, n = 1063) where three measurements of support of authoritarianpolitics were used: the Repression Potential Scale [Marsh, Kaase 1979], What Can a GovernmentAllow Itself To Do – Scale 2 [Skarżyńska, Radkiewicz 2018], and the Agreement to a One-partySystem (Scale 3). The results of regression analyses (study 1) showed that the following psychologicalvariables are significant predictors of the level of support of authoritarian politics: 1) a conservativeworldview, 2) right-wing authoritarianism (results on the RWA Scale, Altemeyer 1981),3) collective narcissism, 4) unlimited personal freedom. The results of study 2 showed additionalpsychological characteristics as significant predictors of support for authoritarian politics: authority,in-group loyalty, and purity as moral rules [see: Graham, Nosek, Haidt 2011] are positivelyrelated to a greater acceptance of authoritarian politics; harm/care and justice as moral rules arenegatively related to support of those politics.

• Details
• Contents