Enough is Enough: The Psychology Behind Authoritarian Populist Discourse
March 2023. With a stern expression and an authoritative voice, British Home Office Secretary Suella Braverman tells us, “enough is enough. We must stop the boats.” Thus, this message of authority, of harshness, of law and order, is elevated as she introduces the new “IIllegal Immigration Bill.” Stopping illegal immigration is her top priority, she says, and one of the five main promises set up by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Law and order messaging and the instrumentalizing of immigration issues to generate fear are nothing new. That this bill and the video are being heavily promoted while the UK government is also loosening foreign worker rules to fill labor gaps is pure cynicism, but nothing novel either.
The British government’s adopted style reflects many traits of what populism scholar Mudde describes as fourth wave populism. This fourth wave is characterized by the normalization of far-right ideas and values into mainstream politics. According to Mudde, this process of mainstreaming “can happen because of the moderation of far-right parties, the radicalization of mainstream parties, or a combination of the two. Some initial studies found more evidence for the radicalization of the mainstream than the moderation of the far-right.”
Braverman’s speech, rooted in the othering of migrants from primarily Albania, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria, is inspired by the far-right’s playbook: it underscores illegality and unfairness connected to an “outsider,” it plants fears, and then it presents her and the government as the answer to ease people’s emotional distress triggered by these fears. In a way, she is playing a psychological game that has proved quite effective for authoritarian populists.
The British Conservatives are by no means the only party adopting strategies from the far-right. Many mainstream European parties have gone from a cordon sanitaire or brandmauer strategy (i.e. isolating the far right) to adopting the content and style of the messages of authoritarian populists.
This video allows us to illustrate the psychological dynamics and social psychology theories that help make sense of how people build their moral and political judgment. What makes this kind of discourse so potent?
The Psychology Behind Moral and Political Judgment
In recent years, political scientists, psychologists, and commentators have grown increasingly interested in the psychological theories that explain political and social attitudes. Threat perception, the Authoritarian Dynamic, Moral Foundations Theory, and Social Dominance Theory are models that are likely to evolve and improve, but they serve as useful frameworks to understand the current moment and build empathy for those who have a different worldview - wherever you stand.
These theories also illuminate the processes underpinning othering and how those dispositions can be activated by authoritarian populists – or in this case, mainstream politicians adopting their frames. Leaders like Suella Braverman help the public make meaning of realities that they are distanced from, and often do so in a way that taps into different elements of individuals’ psychology.
The interaction between threat perception and the authoritarian predisposition
UC Berkeley scholar Landau-Wells defines threat perception as a basic mental faculty of “the conscious or unconscious estimation that something or someone is dangerous,” which can motivate political behavior and attitudes. Whether we have a high or low level of threat perception is not something we consciously decide, and it is likely a combination of inborn and socialized factors.
An individual’s threat perception does not have a direct relationship with support for authoritarian leaders. For authoritarian attitudes to manifest as racial, political, or moral intolerance, threat perception (often referred as “normative threat”) needs to interact with an authoritarian predisposition, which scholar Stenner defines as “an individual predisposition concerned with the appropriate balance between group authority and uniformity, on the one hand, and individual autonomy and diversity, on the other.” It is a cognitive need for stability and difficulty with change, for oneness and sameness (which should not be confused with conservatism and can be found both on the right and the left).
In this way, the authoritarian dynamic (the interplay between the authoritarian predisposition and a sense of threat) is a mechanism of political psychology. The underlying authoritarian predisposition is a psychological trait, while normative threat is politics—“exogenous inputs,” such as political speeches, can activate those persistent but latent predispositions, increasing racial, political, and moral intolerance.
How threats and ideological positions interact is still being theorized, but recent studies posit that “people think that specific threats may be addressed by particular ideological preferences and, at the same time, political preferences cause them to interpret issues and events as threatening. This bidirectional threat–politics association creates a dynamic spiral of threat perceptions to politics, and of politics to threat.”
Thought leaders can thus play a significant role in fostering that interaction (whether knowingly or not). Both actual or perceived threat ultimately play a role in the development of intergroup attitudes. Demarcating immigrants as a threat can be effective at activating those who have a greater tendency to fear. Discourses such as the one built around the new UK illegal immigration bill provide an external input that taps into fear and connects it, in this case, to migrants, thus further othering this group.
Moral Foundations: the intuitive ethics that help us make sense of the world
Moral foundations theory has gained traction over the past ten years. While it has limitations, I believe it is a useful framework that can help us understand how discourses are built and why they are effective at activating citizens (for theories on values, it’s also worthwhile reviewing Schwarz’s values model; the Joint Research Center of the European Commission put together this excellent guide on values and identities in policy-making).
According to the authors of Moral Foundations Theory,
“Moral Foundations Theory was created [...] to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of ‘intuitive ethics.’ Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The five foundations for which we think the evidence is best are:
1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.
3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”
4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).”
Moral foundations correlate with worldviews. Liberals/progressives tend to endorse care and fairness more, while conservatives tend to endorse all five foundations but their views, relative to progressives, are more mediated by loyalty, authority, and sanctity.
Endorsement of each foundation is not a conscious choice and observing that a person or group has one or another psychological profile should be devoid of moral judgment. But these elements of human psychology also allow for exploitation for political gains, particularly considering that recent research suggests that how moral foundations relate to perceptions of out-groups is mediated by threat perception, that is, threat and moral foundations interact in how a person perceives others.
Braverman’s speech directly speaks to this range of foundations and threat:
She tells us we are “committed to helping those in need,” displaying care
But the “system is overwhelmed,” inciting fear
She underscores the word “illegal” repeatedly and what “the Prime Minister and I” will do, both presenting migrants as defying authority and themselves as the authority that will intervene
“But it’s not fair that people who travel through a string of safe countries and then come to the UK illegally can jump the queue and game the system” – tapping into the fairness foundation as well as loyalty to law-abiding citizens
Social Dominance Theory: the appeal of group hierarchies
As social creatures, we possess an inherent inclination to align ourselves with certain groups (our in-group) and view those outside of it as part of an out-group, a social category with which we do not identify. This tendency to identify and categorize, however, does not determine the relationship that we believe should exist between each of the groups, and whether the out-group is perceived positively or negatively. Social Dominance Theory is a theory of intergroup relations concerned with people’s perception that certain groups deserve more (or less) privileges than others.
According to the research of Sidanius and colleagues, social dominance theory focuses on both individual and structural factors that contribute to various forms of group-based oppression. This theory “views all of the familiar forms of group-based oppression (e.g., group- based discrimination, racism, ethnocentrism, classism, sexism) as special cases of a more general tendency for humans to form and maintain group-based hierarchy.” It is not saying that oppression is natural based on human psychology, but rather that some individuals have a stronger proclivity to perceive a particular ordering of things as needed or natural.
Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) describes an individual’s tendency to embrace hierarchies and captures the desire for group-based dominance, relating beliefs to how power and resources should be distributed among groups. Social Dominance Theory explains how group discrimination tends to be systematic: ideologies get built on the belief that there ought to be a hierarchical relationship between groups “help to coordinate the actions of institutions and individuals. That is, people share knowledge and beliefs that legitimize discrimination.”
In Braverman’s telling, people arriving to the UK on boats are at the bottom of a social hierarchy: one that separates law-abiding citizens and “illegal migrants who are actually not escaping violence.” Braverman is creating a “smaller we,” shrinking categories of worthiness and unworthiness, us and them, etc, and framing the them as fundamentally threatening to the “us.” This hierarchy - separation - justifies detention, removal, and even the violation of violating international human rights law. In fact, Braverman herself said that the bill has a more than 50 percent chance of breaching Britain’s commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and some Conservative MPs are pushing for the UK to abandon the ECHR (the UK government is making a habit out of challenging public international law on human rights when it’s inconvenient, although they will have no qualms to call for it when it relates to Putin).
Real Life Consequences
When faced with policy and political challenges, doing so in a dehumanizing and othering way is a choice. The othering and threat-invoking responses that governments are putting forth are the philosophies that underpin policies that can – quite literally – become lethal.
Anti-migrant discourse has been the bread and butter of Italian authoritarians for years. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came into power with a hardline on migration. Since, she has been relentless in passing legislation that makes rescue at sea difficult and has enshrined her stance in laws, policies, and practice. In late February, at least 79 people died off the coast of Italy. As has been reported, “in the wake of the tragedy, questions have mounted about why Italian authorities failed to intercept the boat and help the migrants safely to shore after Frontex, the European border agency, alerted them to its presence in waters where Italy is responsible for carrying out search-and-rescue operations.”
Despite this tragedy, this strategy continues. On March 26th the Italian government “impounded a migrant rescue ship funded by UK artist Banksy as Giorgia Meloni’s government clamps down on humanitarian operations in an attempt to halt a surge in Mediterranean crossings.”
The demarcation between groups and the signaling of one of them as a threat ultimately lead to dehumanization and violence in its most extreme cases. This was most recently evident in Tunisia, where {resident Kais Saied has been targeting migrants in speeches; he accused sub-Saharan migrants of “violence, crime and unacceptable acts”. His comments led to violence against migrants, as well as detentions.
The Good Side of Human Psychology
Social psychology theories that explain moral and political attitudes have mustered significant attention over the past few years, but most of the commentary focuses on the negatives: the fears, the threats, and the group-ish tendencies.
Yet there is much that is positive about human psychology as well.
While it is true that we have a tendency to identify with groups, we also know that our sense of self is fluid - who we identify with and the contours of the group can change.
Even if we identify strongly with a group, that group can have positive norms which expand our circle of human concern and envision a “bigger we” and belonging, by for example creating expectations of inclusion and equality amongst members of the group (see this excellent resource from Over Zero on norms).
In the words of scholars Van Bavel and Packer in the book the Power of Us, “the groups, organizations, and societies we build are endlessly evolving, allowing us to innovate, build new institutions, adapt to ever-changing environments, and benefit from the tremendous advantages of working together” and “the particular norms that guide people at any given moment can vary dependending on which parts of themselves are the most salient and active.”
Knowledge of the diversity of human psychologies can help us build a more empathetic world, communicate with people who have different ways of unknowingly constructing their reality, and propagate group norms that promote belonging.
Recognizing that we live in a fast-changing and somewhat scary world may allow us to assuage fears instead of exploiting them, which is perhaps what the newly elected Czech president did with success in his country.
There, President (and former army general) Petr Pavel campaigned with a discourse that included messages such as "I can't ignore the fact that people here increasingly feel chaos, disorder and uncertainty. That the state has somehow ceased to function," and "We need to change this” or "We need to play by the rules, which will be valid for everyone alike." In doing so, he has positioned himself as a counterweight to divisive populism, arguing for greater redistribution of wealth and taxation of the rich while supporting progressive policies on issues such as same-sex marriage and euthanasia.
In other news…
Important research came out over the past few weeks:
The Horizons Project has released a fantastic report on narrative practices, available here.
Over Zero and the American Immigration Council have published the Belonging Barometer.
"Did slaveholding accelerate the industrial revolution in Britain? This controversial theory was first argued by Eric Williams almost 80 years ago but has lacked strong supporting evidence – until now. Stephan Heblich and Joachim Voth talk to Tim Phillips." read paper here or a twitter thread detailing findings here.
While the Israeli government is trying to pass reforms to the judiciary that would impair separation of powers, “protests by Israeli reservists raise stakes in battle over judicial changes”. Yesterday, “Protests flared across Israel on Sunday night after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked his defence minister Yoav Gallant for calling for a halt to a contentious judicial overhaul, warning that it was a threat to national security.”
And for the soul…
While it is easy to despair, seeing dedicated kind human beings doing good things for the world gives me hope.
Where does the clothing waste we generate in Europe and North America go? Yvette Tetteh, an agribusiness entrepreneur, athlete, and creative is swimming 450kms (!) as part of the Agbetsi Living Water Expedition and the campaign #stopwastecolonialism. I highly recommend following her swim and engaging with the campaign. Here is an article she wrote for Atmos (also a publication worth checking) - she also happens to be an incredible human being and friend.
On how to be happy.
Connecting the Dots: Musings on Bridging and Belonging is a monthly column by Míriam Juan-Torres. In it, Míriam reflects on current events, connecting the trends and considering the specificities across countries, applying a bridging and belonging lens and translating concepts from academia for a wider audience. In Connecting the Dots, Míriam carefully curates readings and resources to further expand our understanding and shed light on the complexities of our time. Join our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest of the Democracy & Belonging Forum's curated analysis from Miriam and more.
Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the authors.