ABSTRACT
A conclusion in research on right-wing populism is that individuals with higher authoritarian tendencies are more likely to support populist leaders. In this paper we explore whether individuals with authoritarian predispositions tend to support left-wing populist candidates. We developed a survey experiment featuring a left-wing populist candidate who ran for president of Chile 2013, Roxana Miranda. Results reveal no evidence that authoritarianism conditions the effects of populist messages on individuals’ intentions to vote for Miranda, but it does affect individuals’ evaluation of the candidate. Under the populist condition authoritarians tend to give Miranda worse leadership ratings. The findings resonate with the notion that authoritarians tend to reject radical changes of the orderly status quo. Conclusions from this study provide a warrant for further research on ideological asymmetry, scope conditions, and domain-specificity of the authoritarianism-populism linkage. This study contributes to a rapidly expanding knowledge base about the psychological underpinnings of populism.
