Authoritarian conservatism is a political ideology that seeks to uphold order, tradition and hierarchy, often with forcible suppression of radical and revolutionary enemies such as communists, Nazis, and anarchists.[1] Authoritarian conservative movements and regimes have included Chiangism in China,[2]Metaxism in Greece,[3] and Francoism in Spain.[4]
Authoritarian conservative movements were prominent in the same era as fascism, with which it sometimes clashed.[21] Although both ideologies shared core values such as nationalism and had common enemies such as communism and materialism, there was nonetheless a contrast between the traditionalist nature of authoritarian conservatism and the revolutionary, palingenetic and populist nature of fascism—thus it was common for authoritarian conservative regimes to suppress rising fascist and Nazi movements.[22][23] The hostility between the two ideologies is highlighted by the struggle for power in Austria, which was marked by the assassination of ultra-Catholic statesman Engelbert Dollfuss by Austrian Nazis. Likewise, Croatian fascists assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.[24]
Edmund Fawcett explains the difference between fascism and authoritarian conservatism as follows:
Fascism, to schematize, is a form of totalitarianism. It imposes control on every aspect of the state, society, economy, and cultural life. It works through a single party with an all-embracing ideology commonly under a charismatic leader claiming to speak for the people. Its enemies are pluralism and diversity. Fascism stifles opposition by violence and fear and stabilizes itself by mobilizing popular engagement. Authoritarianism, by contrast, allows independent economic and social bodies, forms of limited representation, and a degree of freedom of religion. Its enemy is democratic participation. It also stifles opposition by violence and fear but stabilizes itself by relying on passive acquiescence in a trade-off of social quiet for loss of political role. The fascist is a nonconservative who takes anti-liberalism to extremes. The right-wing authoritarian is a conservative who takes fear of democracy to extremes.[25]
The authoritarian conservative right is distinguished from fascism in that such conservatives tended to use traditional religion as the basis for their philosophical views, while fascists based their views on vitalism, irrationalism, or secular neo-idealism.[26] Fascists often drew upon religious imagery, but used it as a symbol for the nation and replaced spirituality with ultranationalism and statolatry. Even in the most religious of the fascist movements, the Romanian Iron Guard, "Christ was stripped of genuine otherworldly mystery and was reduced to a metaphor for national redemption."[27]
The Social Republican Party was a political party in Cambodia, founded by the then-head of stateLon Nol in 10 June 1972. Its platform was populist, nationalist and anti-communist, Lon Nol being determined to oppose North Vietnamese and Chinese influence in the region in the context of the Second Indochina War. The party's main function, however, was to support and legitimise Lon Nol's leadership of the country; he was later to develop a rather ramshackle chauvinist and semi-mystical ideology called "Neo-Khmerism" to back his political agenda.[32]
Park Chung Hee was a South Korean politician and army general, who seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961 and then was elected as the third President of South Korea in 1963. He introduced the highly authoritarian Yushin Constitution, ushering in the Fourth Republic. Now ruling as a dictator, he constantly repressed political opposition and dissent and completely controlled the military. He ruled the country until his assassination in 1979.[35]
Europe
Belgium
The Rexist Party was a far-right Catholic, corporatist, and royalist political party active in Belgium from 1935 until 1945.[36] In its early period — until around 1937 — it tried to win power by democratic means and did not want totally to abolish democratic institutions. During the German occupation of Belgium it became a fascist movement.[37]
The Conservative Revolution was an influential ideological movement during the Weimar Republic. Although usually characterized with terms such as radical, revolutionary, ultra, and romantic, the movement also had elements of authoritarianism.[41] For example, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck published the influential book Das Dritte Reich (1923) in which he advocated a "Third Reich" that would unite all German classes under an authoritarian rule.[42]
The National Renaissance Front was a Romanian political party created by KingCarol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania. Largely reflecting Carol's own political choices, the FRN was the last of several attempts to counter the popularity of the fascist and antisemitic Iron Guard.[44] As Carol witnessed the failure of European countries to defend themselves from Nazi German advances, consecrated by the Anschluss and the Munich Agreement, he ordered the Iron Guard, whom he perceived as a fifth column for Nazi Germany, to be decapitated: during the following days, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and the majority of top-ranking Guardists were assassinated.[45][46]
Ukraine
Authoritarian Ukrainian State headed by Cossack aristocrat Pavlo Skoropadskyi represented the conservative movement. The 1918 Hetman government, which appealed to the tradition of the 17th–18th century Cossack Hetman state, represented the conservative strand in Ukraine's struggle for independence. It had the support of the proprietary classes and of conservative and moderate political groups.
Mainstream conservatism in the United States was always strongly influenced by libertarian ideals. Indeed, historian Leo P. Ribuffo notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism".[50] The topic of authoritarianism is therefore controversial within the American conservative movement. John Dean, a critic of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, writes in Conservatives without Conscience (2006):
Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy.[51]
Psychology
The right-wing authoritarian personality (RWA) is a personality type that describes somebody who is highly submissive to their authority figures, acts aggressively in the name of said authorities, and is conformist in thought and behaviour.[52] According to psychologist Bob Altemeyer, individuals who are politically conservative often rank high in RWA.[53] This finding was echoed by Theodor W. Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality (1950) based on the F-scale personality test. A study done on Israeli and Palestinian students in Israel found that RWA scores of right-wing party supporters were significantly higher than those of left-wing party supporters.[54]
^Freeden, Michael; Sargent, Lyman; Stears, Marc (August 15, 2013). The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. OUP Oxford. pp. 294–297. ISBN978-0-19-958597-7.
^Benedetto Croce, Guide to Aesthetics, Translated by Patrick Romanell, "Translator's Introduction," The Library of Liberal Arts, The Bobbs–Merrill Co., Inc., 1965
^Kiernan, B. How Pol Pot came to power, Yale UP, 2004, p.348
^Masoud Kazemzadeh (2008), "Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran", Middle Eastern Studies, 44 (2): 189–214, doi:10.1080/00263200701874867, S2CID144111986
^Mohseni, Payam (2016). "Factionalism, Privatization, and the Political economy of regime transformation". In Brumberg, Daniel; Farhi, Farideh (eds.). Power and Change in Iran: Politics of Contention and Conciliation. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Indiana University Press. p. 47. ISBN978-0253020680.
^Byung-Kook Kim., & Vogel, E. F (2013). The Park Chung Hee Era: the transformation of South Korea. Harvard University Press. pp. 200–205. ISBN978-0-674-06106-4.
^Cook, Bernard A. (2005). Belgium: A History (3rd ed.). Peter Lang. p. 118.
^Griffin, Roger (1991). The Nature of Fascism. Pinter. pp. 132–133.
^Rubinstein, G. (1996). "Two Peoples in One Land: A Validation Study of Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale in the Palestinian and Jewish Societies in Israel". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 27 (2): 216–230. doi:10.1177/0022022196272005. S2CID146603681.