Social and Psychological Factors of Mass Support for Authoritarianism

Support for authoritarianism is a global concern shaped by intertwined social, political, and economic dynamics. While there is no simple solution to this challenge, it is by no means beyond reach. Autocratic resilience rests on a complex interplay of institutional design, elite strategies, and mass legitimation. Scholars highlight how regimes combine coercion and co-optation to maintain stability (Svolik 2012; Gerschewski 2023), often reinforcing loyalty through patronal networks rather than ideology (Hale 2014). Beyond repression, legitimacy is cultivated through welfare promises, controlled elections, and nationalist or religious identities (Desai et al. 2009; Guriev & Treisman 2019; Esen & Gümüşçü 2016). Political psychology shows that partisanship, fear, and even personality traits can predispose citizens toward authoritarian rule (Greene & Robertson 2017; Sharafutdinova 2020). Yet autocratic durability is never absolute: protest movements, elite defections, and sudden cascades of dissent reveal its constant fragility (Chenoweth & Stephan 2011; Kuran 1991). This Workshop meets a pressing need: to synthesise cross-disciplinary research on the psychosocial drivers of authoritarian legitimation. It provides a forum to examine how grievances, ressentiment, fear, and belonging translate into mass orientations toward authoritarian politics. By situating these dynamics in comparative and transnational perspective, the Workshop will move the field beyond pathologising publics in autocracies or treating democratic citizens as categorically different. It will help generate an integrated framework and foster collaboration among scholars addressing one of the discipline’s most consequential challenges.

Chenoweth, Erica and Maria J. Stephan. (2011). Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Columbia University Press. Desai, Raj M., Anders Olofsgård and Tarik M. Yousef. (2009). “The Logic of Authoritarian Bargains.” Economics & Politics 21(1): 93-125. Esen, Berk and Sebnem Gümüşçü. (2016) “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey.” Third World Quarterly 37(9): 1581-1606 Gerschewski, Johannes. (2023). The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule. Cambridge University Press. Greene, Samuel A. and Graeme B. Robertson. (2017). “Agreeable Authoritarians: Personality and Politics in Contemporary Russia.” Comparative Political Studies 50(13): 1802-1834 Guriev, Sergei and Daniel Treisman. (2019). “Informational Autocrats” Journal of Economic Perspectives 33(4): 100-127. Hale, Henry E. (2014). Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. Kuran, Timur. (1991). “Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in The East European Revolution of 1989” World Politics 44(1): 7-48. Sharafutdinova, Gulnaz. (2020). The Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity. Oxford University Press. Svolik, Milan W. (2012). The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge University Press.

1: How do citizens in affluent democracies come to embrace political projects that efface their franchise?
2: Why do autocrats with immense coercive capacity put effort into bolstering their public legitimacy?
3: Why do some abandon inclusive institutions while others defend them?
4: What similarities exist between support for authoritarian policies in established democracies and in autocracies?
5: What psychological and social mechanisms underlie tolerance for repression?

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