section_path: Ideological variants/Authoritarian conservatism
section_name: Authoritarian conservatism
paragraph_text: Authoritarian conservatism
  
  Authoritarian conservatism refers to autocratic regimes that portray authority as absolute and unquestionable. Authoritarian conservative movements show strong devotion towards religion, tradition, and culture while also expressing fervent nationalism akin to other far-right nationalist movements. Examples of authoritarian conservative dictators include Marshal Philippe Pétain in France, Regent Miklós Horthy in Hungary, General Ioannis Metaxas in Greece, King Alexander I in Yugoslavia, Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria, Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain, King Carol II in Romania, and Tsar Boris III in Bulgaria.
  
  Authoritarian conservative movements were prominent in the same era as fascism, with which it sometimes clashed. Although both ideologies shared core values such as nationalism and had common enemies such as communism, there was nonetheless a contrast between the traditionalist and elitist nature of authoritarian conservatism and the revolutionary and populist nature of fascism—thus it was common for authoritarian conservative regimes to suppress rising fascist and Nazi movements. The hostility between the two ideologies is highlighted by the struggle for power in Austria, which was marked by the assassination of the ultra-Catholic dictator Engelbert Dollfuss by Austrian Nazis. Likewise, Croatian fascists assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. In Romania, as the fascist Iron Guard was gaining popularity and Nazi Germany was making advances on the European political stage, King Carol II ordered the execution of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and other top-ranking Romanian fascists. The exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II was an enemy of Adolf Hitler and stated that Nazism made him ashamed to be a German for the first time in his life. The Catholic seminarian António de Oliveira Salazar, who was Portugal’s dictator for 40 years, denounced fascism and Nazism as a "pagan Caesarism " that did not recognise legal, religious, or moral limits.
  
  Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset has examined the class basis of right-wing extremist politics in the 1920–1960 era. He reports:
  
  Conservative or rightist extremist movements have arisen at different periods in modern history, ranging from the Horthyites in Hungary, the Christian Social Party of Dollfuss in Austria, Der Stahlhelm and other nationalists in pre-Hitler Germany, and Salazar in Portugal, to the pre-1966 Gaullist movements and the monarchists in contemporary France and Italy. The right extremists are conservative, not revolutionary. They seek to change political institutions in order to preserve or restore cultural and economic ones, while extremists of the centre and left seek to use political means for cultural and social revolution. The ideal of the right extremist is not a totalitarian ruler, but a monarch, or a traditionalist who acts like one. Many such movements in Spain, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy have been explicitly monarchist The supporters of these movements differ from those of the centrists, tending to be wealthier, and more religious, which is more important in terms of a potential for mass support.
  
  Edmund Fawcett states that fascism is totalitarian, populist, and anti- pluralist, whereas authoritarian conservatism is somewhat pluralist but most of all elitist and anti-populist. He concludes: "The fascist is a nonconservative who takes anti-liberalism to extremes. The right-wing authoritarian is a conservative who takes fear of democracy to extremes."
  
  During the Cold War, right-wing military dictatorships were prominent in Latin America, with most nations being under military rule by the middle of the 1970s. One example of this was General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled over Chile from 1973 to 1990. According to Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, military dictatorships arise in democratic systems in order to stop leftist parties from becoming totalitarian. The most recent instance occurred in Bolivia in 2024, when General Juan José Zúñiga staged a coup in order to overthrow the far-left president Luis Arce.
  
  In the 21st century, the authoritarian style of government experienced a worldwide renaissance with conservative statesmen such as President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, and President Donald Trump in the United States.