LEI_F_07 Legitimation Crisis in Liberal Democracy and Authoritarian Dynamics

Objectives/ Research Questions

This project contributes to the conceptual-theoretical and empirical-analytical investigation of socioeconomic factors and social relations as conditions of democratic cohesion. Thus, identification processes, their emotional dimension, and intergenerational transmission processes as well as political myths are the focus of interest. An empirical approach is planned that will be established through representative surveys and group discussions. For the analysis of the group discussions, depth hermeneutics will be applied. The questionnaire-based data will be analysed with statistical methods both for testing and generating hypothesis. In both cases, the epistemological goal of critical social research is pursued. In concrete terms, this means to record the extent of anti-democratic attitudes with a mixed methods design and to understand their current conditions of origin in relation to historical milieus, subject form, and existing social conflicts. Beside a focus on anti-democratic dynamics, we also examine how democratic forms of action and the agency of politically engaged groups are enhanced and impeded.

a) Right-wing extremism and authoritarian dynamics appear as a crisis of legitimacy in a democratic society. This is due to the development of democratic society over the past decades, on the one hand, and to the ideological continued existence of authoritarian movements, on the other hand. Over the last 40 to 50 years, the understanding of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany has been increasingly oriented towards the ideal of a participatory negotiation of different interests and objectives in social discourse, thus corresponding to the reality of a pluralistic society. Authoritarian movements, however, are driven by a different understanding of society. They are particularly directed against this deliberative democracy, both in the present-day and in their ideological self-understanding, as it is not based on the representation of a volonté générale of a fictitious, ethnically homogeneous state people.

It is true that the loss of legitimacy of modern societies was established early on and attributed to their immanent crisis-ridden nature as a result of the antagonism that exists within them. However, specifically that last point of an inherent contradiction makes it immediately clear that this contradiction exists independently of concrete crisis phenomena. If one takes into account that a social crisis can only be spoken of when a relevant number of members of a society experience a development as such, it becomes clear that the respective cause for a loss of legitimacy must be understood from the concrete historical situation. This observation implies not only that crises do not exist objectively and independently of their perception, but also that they indicate the loss of the integrating power of ideologies and myths of society – and thus make these accessible for empirically investigation. It cannot be denied that there are fundamental contradictions and cleavages that pervade a social formation beyond a historical moment. Although empirical social research begins with the concrete question of which contradictions emerge as a loss of legitimacy, it is still necessary to place the findings within the framework of a social theory and thus within enduring historically trends.

Hypothesis 1: The perception of crises depends on changing, historically determined, but varying conditional factors. Information on social contradictions can be obtained by reconstructing these conditional factors.

b) Authoritarian dynamics occur as group or mass phenomena. Authoritarian groups or masses are constituted through the identification of their members with an ideal/authority and are therefore, as group phenomena, still the result of individual actions. In their intensity and content (i.e. the choice of the object), the identification follows a shared need of the group members; the group is constituted by the choice of their object/ideal. The results of various sociopsychological studies show that content and intensity depend on social factors. Characteristics of a group formation with an authoritarian dynamic can be described ideally along the following lines:

• Desire for identification with and submission to an authority that promises strength and security; the relationship to the authority remains ambivalent despite this desire for identification;
• this ambivalence is expressed through:
• authoritarian aggression directed against groups of people who are perceived as weaker, deviant, or “foreign”. “Weak authorities” can also be targets of this aggression (as in populism, “elites vs. people”);
  • the emphasis on in-group norms and conventions,
  •  conspiracy mentality
  • frequently through anti-Semitism,
  • but also through superstition and
  • esoterics and
  • an idea of society as being shaped by the competition of groups (social dominance orientation).

It is important for the dynamic understanding that such authoritarian reactions are understood as an expression of social conditions. This means that relations of authority are socially determined not only in the sense that they refer to a current social conflict but also in a broader sense: because they are an expression of the needs of individuals, they also refer to the social genesis of these needs. Members of society are a kind of paradoxical inner environment of the society as a whole: their subjectivity has its origins in society, yet they face society with obstinacy. This means that in understanding needs for authority, both current and previous processes of socialization must be taken into account. We understand subjectivity as the result of a lifelong socialization. It is the freedom of individual autonomy and at the same time the result of a fundamental dominance of society. By researching the perception of crises (see A), one therefore understands more than the subjective conditions. Instead, objectively existing conflicts in society can be revealed: every diagnosis of a “crisis” within society is also an outcome of this specific society, of the authoritarian conditions, and of the conditions of recognition that prevail in it. Since the members of a society are also historically determined in their subjectivity, we assume the following:

Hypothesis 2a: Anti-democratic movements are a possible reaction to the loss of democratic legitimacy; this reaction is significantly influenced by authoritarian dynamics of the persons carrying the movement.

Hypothesis 2b: Authoritarian syndromes are an outcome of the contradictions existing in society itself, which are manifested in the authoritarian dynamics.

c) Both contradictions and authoritarian conditions have been highlighted as characteristics of societies so far. Authoritarian dynamics cannot be described through contrasting social rationality with individual irrationality. Instead, the contradictions of society can be understood by analysing the irrationality of the individual reactions to the underlying social processes. The social struggles for normative recognition do not take place within the framework of assumed social rationality either; rather, the power relationships are always being  reproduced through the social framework itself. Insofar, the political action of groups and individuals is caught in an area of tension between reasonable-deliberate action and the reproduction of social conditions of authority and power. This tension is characterized by the fact that political participation – democratic or authoritarian – cannot be dichotomized in a juxtaposition of rational action and irrational reaction. Alternatively, the concept of political participation can be thought of along the lines of a chiasm in which two pairs of opposites intersect: acting/agency and coercion/freedom. Along this chiasm, forms of participation can be reconstructed as combinations of both poles and the conditions of democratic-deliberative participation can be contrasted with those of authoritarian reactions. The concept of the chiasma implies that the contrast can be observed not only between polarities but also in social proceedings. Surveys show that the indicators of authoritarian dynamics formulated under b) can be found throughout society, for instance as authoritarian aggression on the individual level. In addition, it is known from various studies that both the need for (political) agency and the perception of threats to in-group norms as well as social transformation processes strengthen the authoritarian orientation within groups. Whether and how social dynamics and group dynamics lead to an increased need for identity and authoritarian orientation also in groups with democratic goals have not yet been the subject of research.

d) Whether a social development is experienced as a crisis or not and whether it leads to the striving for agency varies between individuals and between societies. Only when the loss of agency is shared with other people can situations are understood as a political or sociopsychological problem. As a result, three questions emerge for our research process: (1) when is the need for agency or its absence experienced; (2) for which spheres of life must the ability to influence and control be present or for which is it experienced as less significant or irrelevant; and (3) which socially acquired and currently available (individual but also shared) abilities and motives for participation can be identified.

While the first question can be answered partially at the manifest level, the second and third questions can only be answered by an interpretative process. But even the answer to the first question cannot be conclusively answered with the manifestly expressed desire for agency, at least not if the research takes place within a psychology of the unconscious. Thus, an interpretative procedure (or montage) is necessary for this first question as well. It also follows from what has been discussed beforehand: relevant findings are to be expected above all in the field of social psychology (i.e. psychoanalytically speaking in the field of mass psychology and socially cognitively speaking in the field of inter- and intragroup relations).

Therefore, authoritarian dynamics and deliberative participation will be investigated along different manifestations. The subject at which the conflict appears is as non-trivial as the explanation for the underlying conflict itself. As starting point of the empirical research, two areas of phenomena will be observed. One approach to the analysis of the social conflict can be the discrimination against people, which has manifested itself increasingly in hostility towards Muslims over the past 20–30 years. Processes of exclusion and discrimination against relevant parts of the population are based on an ascribed membership to a religious group. It is interesting to consider religion as a conflict factor not only because of this presence of resentment in mainstream society but also because of the existing proximity to anti-Semitism and its place in the authoritarian reaction. Possible continuities of anti-Semitism or its manifestation in hostility towards Muslims as a form of indirect communication (Umwegkommunikation) cannot be discussed here, but they show historically overlapping motives of religion as a conflict factor.

The second area of phenomena that will be the subject of this research project are contradictions that are perceived by groups or persons who are committed to democratic cohesion. Dynamics, which can be described as authoritarian reaction, can be observed in these groups, too, which indicates that the question of a reflexive perspective on solidarity-based action must also be posed anew.

Thematic relation to social cohesion

The strong emphasis on homogeneity as well as on in-group/out-group differences is one reason for the decreasing cohesion in a society. It is true that identity or social belonging is a basic human need. However, the strength of this need and thus of group identification varies depending on context factors. Cohesion is based on a deliberative understanding of democracy. Declining cohesion comes along with a decline of equal participation in the social processes of negotiation. If memberships to groups are not only salient but also significant as a characteristic for prejudices and the exclusion of others, this is an indication of a growing need for identity and reinsurance among members of society. Thus, the research focuses on the social conditions of the need for identity as well.