The Influence of Authoritarianism: Democratic Support among First and Second-Generation Immigrants in Australia

Abstract

As liberal democracies tighten membership criteria for citizenship and place greater expectations on new immigrants to adopt liberal values of democracy, this paper examines whether this is necessary if democracy support is determined by other factors other than one’s political background. The paper’s main focus is on the children of immigrants born in authoritarian regimes. While previous research has shown that pre-migration socialization in authoritarian regimes influence immigrants’ democratic transition, less is known whether authoritarian values are passed onto children born and educated in established democracies. Given that findings show that immigrants from authoritarian regimes lag behind the rest of the population in terms of support for democracy, this paper seeks to find out whether the influence of education in an established democracy and perceptions of government performance may take precedence over the political values learnt at home as determinants of democratic support. Using the Australian Election Study, these findings highlight the extent of adult migration experiences and evaluations of government performance on democratic support.

Keywords: authoritarianism, democracy support, second-generation immigrants