Authoritarian social movements and governments have brought about some of the greatest horrors in human history. Naturally, research in the social sciences has aimed at developing an understanding of authoritarianism. Certain kinds of authoritarian things, like personalities or governments, are better understood as a consequence, but a general concept of authoritarianism remains absent. I develop a general account of the concept of political authoritarianism which I call justificatory authoritarianism. According to this view, authoritarianism is a justification of the imposition of political power over others by appeal to a prospect for considerable collective benefit, and that justification serves to suspend or suppress constraints on the exercise of political power.
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