Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Spanking or Time Out: A Clash of Worldviews?
- 2 Putting Polarization in Perspective
- 3 Authoritarianism and Nonauthoritarianism: Concepts and Measures
- 4 A Historical Account of the Roots of Worldview Evolution
- 5 Authoritarianism's Structuring of Contemporary Issues
- 6 Threat and Authoritarianism: Polarization or Convergence
- 7 Evidence of Worldview Evolution
- 8 Immigration: A Reinforcing Cleavage that Now Constrains the Republican Party (GOP)
- 9 What the 2008 Democratic Nomination Struggle Reveals about Party Polarization
- 10 A New View of Polarization
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Authoritarianism's Structuring of Contemporary Issues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Spanking or Time Out: A Clash of Worldviews?
- 2 Putting Polarization in Perspective
- 3 Authoritarianism and Nonauthoritarianism: Concepts and Measures
- 4 A Historical Account of the Roots of Worldview Evolution
- 5 Authoritarianism's Structuring of Contemporary Issues
- 6 Threat and Authoritarianism: Polarization or Convergence
- 7 Evidence of Worldview Evolution
- 8 Immigration: A Reinforcing Cleavage that Now Constrains the Republican Party (GOP)
- 9 What the 2008 Democratic Nomination Struggle Reveals about Party Polarization
- 10 A New View of Polarization
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For authoritarianism to become relevant to helping us understand political conflict, people's preferences on a wide range of salient issues must be, in some significant part, structured by it. This was not the case for the last seventy years of the twentieth century. New Deal–style conflicts mostly dominated American politics, although, as we detailed in the last chapter, the groundwork for the development of an authoritarian cleavage was being laid during this time. But the fundamental disagreements between Republicans and Democrats concerned the size of government, the amount of taxes, and government's role in assuring a minimum standard of living. As overtly racist appeals fell out of favor, even racial issues were discussed using a New Deal frame (see, e.g., Hurwitz and Peffley 1997; Peffley, Hurwitz, and Sniderman 1997; Gilens 1999; Peffley and Hurwitz 2002). Since these issues have comprised the dominant party cleavage since the 1930s, we would not have expected authoritarianism to be central in understanding New Deal–style political conflict.
Especially since the dawning of the twenty-first century, the issue agenda has changed a great deal, with authoritarianism stitching together some existing patches with new ones to create the political tapestry we have described. We focus here on several issues, which on the surface do not seem to be interrelated. They include gay rights, the role of Christian fundamentalism in American politics, the use of force, and trade-offs between security and liberties.
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- Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics , pp. 85 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009