The authoritarian specter /

Altmeyer (psychology, Univ. of Manitoba) caps a project that spans three books and most of his career. The Authoritarian Specter is necessary for all students of authoritarian politics, personality psychology, and political extremism and radicalism. Altmeyer demonstrates that certain behavioral characteristics are identified with authoritarian personalities. No other study can give equivalent empirical results over time, with recurring analyses and retesting since the 1970s that show that the author's model works and is consistent. He shows that right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) can be identified in the covariation of three attitudinal clusters: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. He addresses left-wing extremism, but the RWA scale tests for the behavior and worldview that show antidemocratic and fascist tendencies, and goes well beyond the pioneering "Berkeley theory" found in The Authoritarian Personality, by T.W. Adorno et al. (1950). Altmeyer's work has the virtues of establishing indicators of authoritarian personality and its temptations and of writing about a scholarly topic in readable and engaging style. Political scientists, particularly in the field of political psychology, must read this intelligent, scholarly, witty account of the authoritarian personality. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. A. R. Brunello; Eckerd College