Neoautorytaryzm: źródła psychologiczne
Neoauthoritarism: Psychological Sources

Summary/Abstract: During the last two decades, we are facing in liberal democracies various manifestations of a political crisis. The advanced forms of this crisis has been described by JerzyJ. Wiatr as new authoritarianism. It can be explained as a consequence of the development of antidemocratic political movements that are obtaining the increasingsupport of electorates in Europe and elsewhere. In this paper, two main causes of these processes are discussed: the imbalances in various spheres of the contemporary world – in political, economic, sociocultural spheres, in environment and climate as well as the sociopsychological consequences of these imbalances. Their main sociopsychological consequence in societies is the spreading of the sense of epistemic, existential andcultural (symbolic) threat. Psychological research indicates that the frequent reaction to such threats is the increase of conservatism and Right Wing Authoritarianism. Such reactions may have deep sources in some basic characteristics of a homo sapiens but they are not inevitable effects of the threats. In this paper, an effort is made to explain why in the contemporary world these psychological reactions to threats can be highly maladaptive.

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