What authoritarian populists really want

Levis, Adela (2023): What authoritarian populists really want: examining grievances, disinformation, and civic engagement in countering elite authoritarian populists. Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty of Social Sciences

Abstract

Qualitative interview data collected in Germany and analyzed alongside and in support of populism and violent extremism research, shows that while elite authoritarian populists (EAPs) claim to represent “average voters” and the “disenfranchised,” they are very much elites who benefit from the establishment, who look down upon those groups, and are leveraging those groups’ grievances and democratic institutions, including civil society, for self-aggrandizement and anti-democratic aims. In comparing the role of cultural versus economic grievance narratives in political communications and extremism, the data indicate that cultural narratives are more ubiquitous and potent; EAPs weaponize grievances by turning them into “us versus them” disinformation which is then used as a bridge between elite political and cultural aspirations and working- and middle-class economic grievances. EAPs use fear and outrage-inducing culture- and victimhood-related disinformation, particularly pertaining to gender roles and non-white immigrants, in a mix of civic engagement, in-person, online, and hard-copy communications (in which social media is secondary to traditional media and in-person communications) and which undermine democratic values and institutions and creates a permissive environment for intolerance, extremism, and violent extremism. The data did not support the hypothesis that civic and community engagement are in and of themselves effective tools for reducing the pull factors of political extremism and radicalization for those already radicalized but did provide some evidence of them as effective tools for countering extremism’s effects on society and for inoculating non-extremists when used in intentionally pro-democratic context.

• Item Type: Theses (Dissertation, LMU Munich)
• Keywords: Populism, Counter Violent Extremism (CVE), Disinformation, Democracy, Civic Engagement
• Faculties: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Language: English
• Date of oral examination: 20. March 2023
• 1. Referee: Fischer, Karsten
• Signature of the printed copy: 0001/UMC 29910