University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Voting for nostalgia?: Authoritarian nostalgia, social identity, and political behavior in post-authoritarian democracies

Kim, Sanghoon

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115450

Description

Title
Voting for nostalgia?: Authoritarian nostalgia, social identity, and political behavior in post-authoritarian democracies
Author(s)
Kim, Sanghoon
Issue Date
2022-04-15
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Winters, Matthew S
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Winters, Matthew S
Committee Member(s)
  • Mondak, Jeffery J
  • Canache, Damarys J
  • Ksiazkiewicz, Aleks
Department of Study
Political Science
Discipline
Political Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • authoritarian nostalgia
  • authoritarian legacies
  • political behavior
  • political psychology
  • personality traits
  • survey experiment
  • post-authoritarian democracies
Abstract
Why do voters feel nostalgia for former dictatorships? And how does such sentiment shape voter attitudes and related behaviors? This dissertation provides an extensive investigation of authoritarian nostalgia, systemically reporting and analyzing the foundations and impacts of the sentimental longing for an authoritarian past. I introduce a dispositional framework in studying determinants of authoritarian nostalgia and identify key predispositions that exert both direct and indirect effects on this nostalgia. I further argue for a theoretical mechanism of social identity in connecting authoritarian nostalgia and political behavior. I test my arguments with a new, reliable measure for authoritarian nostalgia, drawing on original survey data from South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Empirical results corroborate the political importance of authoritarian nostalgia, which is greater than programmatic or ideological proximity. In post-authoritarian democracies, how citizens perceive the past can promote strong group sentiment and heightened attachment to political elites and parties connected to the past.
Graduation Semester
2022-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2022 Sanghoon Kim

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