The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate

This book identifies the factors that have shaped and conditioned the sorting of Americans into different belief patterns and partisan camps as a function of authoritarianism over the past thirty years. It shows, through the use of nationally representative samples, panel data, and experiments, how authoritarianism has increasingly structured a wide range of attitudes, how it has become a growing influence on vote choice, and how the parties have sorted on authoritarianism. However, it makes the case that the impact of authoritarianism on the evolution of partisanship and mass opinion in America has been more complex and contingent than previous treatments have suggested. First, it appears to be limited primarily to White Americans. Second, it has not unfolded over time even among White Americans in a simple, linear fashion. Rather, authoritarian sorting intensifies only when the parties offer choices that are differentially appealing to those low and high in authoritarianism. Third, authoritarian sorting has proceeded in different ways for White Americans with different levels of education. The volume also shows that authoritarianism increasingly constrains White Americans’ sociocultural belief systems, their perceptions of ideological polarization between the parties, and the extent to which they rely on judgments of ideological closeness to the two parties when voting. Finally, though antidemocratic attitudes are more pronounced among White Republicans, the volume shows that authoritarianism predicts antidemocratic attitudes among White Americans within both parties. These findings, in turn, have important consequences for how to understand partisan conflict in the United States and the health of American democracy.