John Dean's new book, Conservatives without Conscience, looks at the growing authoritarian tendencies among both Republican elected officials and their followers. I have yet to pick up the book (though I plan to), but it reminded me of a study I saw a few years ago, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." It's a survey of the past 50 years of psychological research into the nature of conservatism and authoritarianism, and it draws some striking (if not surprising for some) conclusions.

Here's the full study [PDF]. For the uninitiated, the first several pages may seem tough to wade through, but things get really interesting after that.

But if we're to link social/institutional structure with ideology, then we need to start talking about turning student activism into student power.