Religious Groups and Democratic Norms

* Funded by TCD Provost’s PhD Project Awards

Religious groups support democratic norms in some instances but not in others. This project investigates the role of institutional factors, organizational and group level dynamics, and religious resources available to religious communities, and especially immigrant groups to explain why religious groups and religious identities are sometimes associated with democratic orientations and why they are associated with anti-democratic attitudes in other instances.

Authoritarianism, Perceived Threats, and Intolerance

* Funded by TCD Arts and Benefactions Fund

Recent approaches to authoritarianism agree that authoritarianism increases prejudice and intolerance when activated by threat perceptions. However, different approaches also make different predictions about how threats and authoritarian predispositions interact. The main argument of thisproject is that individuals with differing levels of authoritarianism are triggered by different types of threat and become more intolerant and punitive when threats to their value systems are made salient.