Christopher M. Federico et al., "The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate" (Oxford UP, 2026)
About this episode
Political scientists discuss their book on authoritarianism and its impact on the American electorate.
Political Scientists Christopher Federico, Stanley Feldman, and Christopher Weber have an important and fascinating new book from Oxford University Press focusing on understanding authoritarianism, especially in the American context. As experts in political psychology, the authors are keen to consider authoritarianism as a psychological concept, which is more about submitting to authority, as a kind of conformity, and less about a particular political regime structure. The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate (Oxford UP, 2026) is about trying to understand voters and how some of them are attracted to this idea or concept, and how this attraction then works itself out within the electorate and within our contemporary political moment. In order to understand this theory of psychological authoritarianism, the authors trace the idea from origins in critical theory and pre-World War I European thinkers (Freud, Benjamin, etc.) who were examining the concepts of conformity vs. autonomy, and how these ideas functioned in political life. The authors also examined differing approaches to child-rearing, since this…
People in this episode
Guests: Christopher M. Federico, Stanley Feldman, Christopher Weber
Topics covered
- authoritarianism
- political psychology
- American electorate
- voting behavior
- partisan identity
Keywords
- authoritarianism
- political psychology
- voting
- American electorate
- partisan identity
- conformity
- autonomy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Oxford University Press
Books & works: The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate
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