Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Given the costs of political violence, scholars have long sought to identify its causes. We examined individual differences related to participation in political violence, emphasizing the central role of political orientations. We hypothesized, specifically, that individuals with dominance-driven autocratic political orientations are prone to political violence. Multilevel analysis of survey data from 34 African countries (N = 51,587) indicated that autocracy-oriented individuals, compared to democracy-oriented individuals, are consid-erably more likely to participate in political violence. As a predictor of violence (indexed with attitudinal, action intent, and behavioral measures), autocratic orientation outper-formed other variables highlighted in existing research, including socioeconomic status and group-based injustice. Additional analyses of original data from South Africa (N = 2,170), Denmark (N = 1,012), and the United States (N = 1,539) indicated that the autocratic orientation-political violence link reflects individual differences in dominance orientations, and that the findings generalize to societies extensively socialized to demo-cratic values.