Individual Authoritarian Attitudes and Support for Redistribution in India : The Moderating Roles of Political Interest and Economic Threat

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study investigates how authoritarian attitudes—rooted in individuals’ Needs for Security and Certainty (NSC)—shape support for redistributive policies in contemporary India. Bridging political psychology with India’s evolving welfare landscape, the analysis examines how psychological dispositions interact with economic and political contexts, particularly under the rise of authoritarian-populist governance. Using nationally representative data from the 2019 Asian Barometer Survey, the results show that authoritarian attitudes are positively associated with support for redistribution, reflecting a stability-oriented logic in which welfare is valued as a mechanism for maintaining order and predictability. The moderating analyses highlight the context-dependence of this relationship. Political interest does not significantly alter the association, a pattern consistent with India’s depoliticized redistribution environment where welfare is broadly understood as a routine state function rather than an ideological or partisan issue. In contrast, perceived economic threat weakens—rather than strengthens—the positive link between authoritarian attitudes and redistributive support, diverging from findings in other regions. Under heightened economic pessimism, authoritarian motivations shift toward deference to authority and system-justifying tendencies, reducing the demand for redistributive expansion. These dynamics intersect with India’s broader political trajectory, wherein rights-based welfare regimes of the early 2000s have increasingly been centralized and personalized under the Modi administration. The findings extend research on authoritarian attitudes and redistribution beyond Western contexts and offer a novel psychological account of how authoritarian-populist governance leverages redistributive policies as a tool of legitimacy and stability. From a policy perspective, strengthening legal literacy programs such as the Designing Innovative Solutions for Holistic Access to Justice (DISHA) initiative may help reinforce citizens’ understanding of welfare as a right, thereby countering the leader-centric framing of redistributive delivery.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. Introduction 1
• Ⅱ. The Trajectory of Redistributive Policy in India 8
• 1. Evolution of Core Redistributive Policies (Pre-2014) 8
• 2. Rebranding and Expansion under Modi (Post-2014) 14
• Ⅲ. Literature Review 21
• 1. Factors Influencing Support for Redistribution 21
• 2. Attitudes and Support for Redistribution 23
• Ⅳ. Theoretical Framework 33
• 1. Support for Redistribution 33
• 1) Meltzer & Richard Model at the Macro Level 33
• 2) Psychological and Micro-level Mechanisms 35
• 2. Authoritarian Attitudes 37
• 1) Adorno’s F-scale and Altemeyer’s RWA 37
• 2) Asian Authoritarian Attitudes 40
• 3. Political Interest 44
• 4. Economic Threat 46
• 5. Inter-linkages of Four Concepts and Hypotheses 48
• 1) Authoritarian Attitudes and Support for Redistribution 48
• 2) Moderating Role of Political Interest 51
• 3) Moderating Role of Economic Threat 52
• Ⅴ. Data and Methodology 55
• 1. Operationalization of Variables 56
• 2. Multiple Regression with Interaction Terms 68
• Ⅵ. Empirical Results 70
• 1. Descriptive Statistics 70
• 2. Correlation Analysis 72
• 3. Multivariate Regression with Interaction Terms 73
• Ⅶ. Discussion and Conclusion 87
• 1. Discussion 87
• 2. Conclusion 92
• Bibliography 97