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18 - Religiosity and Openness to Authoritarian Governance

from Part II - The Politics of Intergroup Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

By
Ariel Malka
Edited by
Danny Osborne  and
Chris G. Sibley
Danny Osborne
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Chris G. Sibley
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Summary

Are religious citizens more open to authoritarian governance than secular citizens within countries around the world? This chapter reviews survey evidence relevant to this question.While findings do suggest that religious commitment and belief strength are often associated with greater openness to authoritarian governance, a number of common methodological choices complicate interpretation of these results. Several recommendations are offered for future research, such as distinguishing professed democracy support and support of authoritarian actions as outcome variables and providing greater scrutiny of potential suppressor situations arising from simultaneous inclusion of intercorrelated religiosity predictors. Finally, while the link between religiosity and anti-democratic sentiment is open to debate, it is clear that a broad-based sociocultural conservatism – of which religious commitment is a part – is a robust individual-level predictor of openness to authoritarian governance.

Keywords

ReligionDemocracy attitudesAuthoritarianismSocial conservatismPublic opinion
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology , pp. 284 - 297
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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