Critical Theory and the Authoritarian Personality
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€31.99
A01=Geoff M. Boucher
Author_Geoff M. Boucher
authoritarianism
Category=JP
Category=JPA
Category=JPF
Category=JPHL
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
psychoanalysis
Slavoj Zizek
subversion of democracy
terrorism
Theodor Adorno
Product details
- ISBN 9781399519465
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The worldwide resurgence of authoritarianism has sparked renewed interest in the Frankfurt School theory of the authoritarian personality, not as a topic of academic debate but as an urgent political factor. Critical Theory and the Authoritarian Personality brings Theodor Adorno’s critique up-to-date in light of new forms of authoritarian politics, recent kinds of authoritarian propaganda and current findings about authoritarian personalities.
Drawing on the work of Slavoj Zizek and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, this is the first sustained application of psychoanalytic theory to the problem of the authoritarian personality since the classical work of the Frankfurt School. It explores a pressing problem—the resurgence of the radical Right—and proposes new solutions, grounded in the idea of an affective approach to authoritarian politics as something based on transgressive fantasies and political anxieties. Throughout, the book illustrates its theoretical claims with reference to new kinds of authoritarian literature, which today forms an important part of right-wing propaganda.
Geoff M Boucher is an Associate Professor in Literature and Writing at Deakin University.
