Introduction

These followers' inability to engage in introspection and tendency to employ double standards in their thinking makes them susceptible to hand over power to an enterprising politician who will manipulate a situation to gain governmental power at the expense of people rights. Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) has emerged as a popular social psychological theory to explain conservative political and religious movements. Proponents of RWA argue that a significant number of other dysfunctional characteristics—inability to critically think, intolerance, self-righteousness—are connected to this basic characteristic. Dean used this theory in his attempt to explain why conservative extremists were taking over the Republican Party. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigate the effectiveness of RWA to explain the social phenomenon it claims to explain by constructing an alternate theory and testing it against RWA.