In response to the recent rise of neo-fascist movements around the world, the intensification of racist violence against black and brown people, the reactionary backlash against feminism, and the crisis of neoliberal capitalism, contributors to this special issue of SAQ offer a reappraisal of The Authoritarian Personality (1950) that yields fresh insights and new resources for contemporary critique. While arguably the first major contribution to the field of political psychology, the book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford has been relegated to the margins of Frankfurt School critical theory, even as an industry of scholarship has formed around Adorno's philosophical and cultural criticism. By focusing on The Authoritarian Personality and its relevance for contemporary politics, the contributors aim to correct this imbalance and assess the empirical project in early critical theory, including its integration of political sociology and social psychology. 

Contributors: Fadi Bardawil, Benjamin Y. Fong, Samantha Hill, Robert Hullot-Kentor, Robyn Marasco, Andrew Poe, Michael Stein, Christian Thorne, Barbara Umrath

Robyn Marasco is Associate Professor of Political Science at Hunter College, City University of New York, and author of The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory after Hegel.