He's the psychologist whose studies were highlighted in John Dean's book,
Conservatives Without Conscience. At Dean's encouragement, he's written his own book and has put it online for free.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/From the Intro:
What is Authoritarianism?
Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian
leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too
much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do
whatever they want--which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and
brutal. In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships
posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars
both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared, and I=m going
to present the case in this book that the greatest threat to American democracy
today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the
nation.
We know an awful lot about authoritarian followers. In one way or
another, hundreds of social scientists have studied them since World War II. We
have a pretty good idea of who they are, where they come from, and what makes
them tick. By comparison, we know little about authoritarian leaders because we
only recently started studying them. That may seem strange, but how hard is it to
figure out why someone would like to have massive amounts of power? The
psychological mystery has always been, why would someone prefer a
dictatorship to freedom? So social scientists have focused on the followers, who
are seen as the main, underlying problem.
I am going to tell you about my research on authoritarianism, but I am not
going to give the kind of technical scientific report I lay on other scientists.
Whatever ends up getting crunched in this book, it=s not going to be a pile of
numbers. Instead, I=ll very briefly describe how the studies were done and what
then happened. In many cases I=ll invite you to pretend you are a subject in an
experiment, and ask what you would say or do. I hope you=ll generally find the
presentation relaxed, conversational, even playful, because that=s the way I like
to write--even on serious topics--to the annoyance of many a science editor. (A
sense of humor helps a lot when you spend your life studying authoritarians.)
But I have not Adumbed down@ anything. This is not AAuthoritarianism for
Dummies.@ (ASix months ago I couldn=t even spell >authoritarian,= and now I are
one.@) It=s an account of some social science research for people who have not
sat through a lot of classes on research methods and statistics--a good many of
which, it so happens, I also never attended, especially on nice days. I=ll put some
of the technical mumbo-jumbo in the optional notes for pitiful people such as I
who just can=t live without it. If you want to bore through even denser
presentations of my research, with methodological details and statistical tests
jamming things up, the way poor John Dean had to, click here for note 2.
But why should you even bother reading this book? I would offer three
reasons. First, if you are concerned about what has happened in America since a
radical right-wing segment of the population began taking control of the
government about a dozen years ago, I think you'll find a lot in this book that
says your fears are well founded. As many have pointed out, the Republic is
once again passing through perilous times. The concept of a constitutional
democracy has been under attack--and by the American government no less!
~snip~
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter1.pdf