Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

Back to the Roots:Are Antisemites Still Authoritarians?Péter Krekó*This study found a significant, yet not very strong, impact of authoritarianismon discriminatory antisemitism in a joint sample of four CentralEastern European countries (N = 6353). Submissive devotion to nondemocraticpolitical leadership is found to be the strongest predictor ofantisemitism. According to our data, contemporary antisemitism, embeddedin an attitude set that expresses rejection of the status quo with itssocial hierarchy and norms, therefore does not reflect uncritical acceptanceof the power structures as the original theory of the authoritarianpersonality suggests.Key Words: Authoritarianism, Conformity, Discriminatory AntisemitismINTRODUCTIONEver since the publication of one of the most famous social sciencevolumes in the 20th century, The Authoritarian Personality (TAP) (Adorno,Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950), it appears that research onantisemitism and authoritarianism has run on totally separate tracks. In thebeginning, however, the successors of the Frankfurt School and their Americancolleagues who participated in the Authoritarianism research projectwere strongly interested in the research into antisemitism for historical, academic,and personal reasons.The different members of the research group had started to investigateantisemitism decades before the publication of TAP.Brown (2004, p. 46) offers a concise summary of the motives of one ofthe prominent members of the working group:The work was subsidized by the Department of Scientific Research of theAmerican Jewish Committee. One of the authors of the book, a socialpsychologist with very great talent, was Else Frenkel-Brunswik. Mrs.Brunswik and her husband, the eminent psychologist Egon Brunswik,had been students and teachers at the University of Vienna during theperiod in which Hitler rose to power. They were Jews and wellacquainted with antisemitism.495