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Abstract.The concept of authoritarianism has generally been considered a personality construct, although the approach of Adorno et al. was inspired by previous approaches with an ideological 'fascist' angle. These two approaches were, to an appreciable extent, mixed in later conceptualizations. Here, I propose their disentanglement. The classical Adorno et al. F‐scale is considered a personality variable. Apart from that, an ideological libertarianism‐authoritarianism dimension is constructed, partly validated by its relationship to a shortened unidimensional version of the F‐scale. The personality variable of authoritarianism is shown to have no substantial empirical relationship to voting intentions in the Netherlands. However, theideologicalmeasure of authoritarianism is relatively strongly and stably associated with intended voting behaviour. The study also clarifies the ongoing debate over the relationship between authoritarianism and left‐right ideology. The weak relationships between measures of authoritarianism and left‐right ideology signify the existence of 'left‐wing authoritarianism' in the Dutch population.

THE CONCEPT OF AUTHORITARIANISM HAS GENERALLY BEEN CONSIDERED A PERSONALITY CONSTRUCT, ALTHOUGH ADORNO'S APPROACH WAS INSPIRED BY PREVIOUS WORK WITH AN IDEOLOGICAL FASCIST ANGLE. THESE TWO APPROACHES HAVE BEEN, TO AN APPRECIABLE EXTENT, MIXED IN LATER THINKING. THIS PAPER ENDEAVORS TO DISENTANGLE THEM BY CONSIDERING THE CLASSICAL ADORNO F-SCALE AS A PERSONALITY VARIABLE AND CONSTRUCTING AN IDEOLOGICAL LIBERTARIANISM-AUTHORITARIANISM DIMENSION, PARTLY VALIDATED BY ITS RELATIONSHIP TO A SHORTENED UNIDIMENSIONAL VERSION OF THE F-SCALE. THE PERSONALITY VARIABLE OF AUTHORITARIANISM IS SHOWN TO HAVE NO SUBSTANTIAL EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP TO VOTING INTENTIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS. HOWEVER, THE IDEOLOGICAL MEASURE OF AUTHORITARIANISM IS RELATIVELY STRONGLY AND CONSISTENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH INTENDED VOTING BEHAVIOR. THIS STUDY ALSO CLARIFIES THE ONGOING DEBATE OVER THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND LEFT-RIGHT IDEOLOGY. THE WEAK RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEASURES OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND LEFT-RIGHT IDEOLOGY SIGNIFY THE EXISTENCE OF LEFT-WING AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE DUTCH POPULATION.

There are two "fundamental dimensions of ideological contro versy" in The Netherlands which are stable through the period 1970-85: socio-economic left-right, with egalitarian implications, and libertarianism-authoritarianism with the underlying value of freedom. Both dimensions are "belief systems" based on highly interrelated attitude scales, and both are "sustained" by stable philosophical dimensions: socialism and liberalism for the left-right dimension, conservatism and authoritarianism for the libertarian-authoritarian dimension. The ordering of political parties by means of average scores of their supporters is different on each dimension. Then, obviously, two sets of causal models can be developed, with party preference along each dimension as the dependent variable. The models developed in this study contain social characteristics (age, education, income, class and religion), philosophical dimensions, ideologi cal dimensions and, in addition, left-right and progressive-conservative self-identifications. The left-right vote is best predicted by left-right self- identification followed by a mixture of other determinants of about equal strength: left-right ideological position, socialism, liberalism, conservatism, religion, social class and income. The authoritarian vote is predominantly determined by religion, followed at some distance by left-right self- identification, libertarian-authoritarian ideology, conservatism, socialism, left-right ideological position and social class. Income and liberalism do not play an important role here. Age and educational level have negligible effects as predictors of either vote. The role of ideology as a determinant of the vote in a European context is contrasted with American evidence and the content validity of ideological self-identification in terms of left-right is questioned.

Arms races have been the subject of many and various explanations, but of few formal theories which manage to combine the virtues of plausibility and parsimony. Perhaps the best known is Richardson's, to which interesting modifications have been proposed by Smoker, Saaty and most recently Hamblin et al.2 Common to all these models is the assumption that arms races can be explained by an action-reaction process between the two nations involved.

Although we appreciate the attention the critic has given to our paper, we are somewhat disappointed about the kind of criticism. It is said that the 'empirical analysis is fundamentally flawed'. But if the analysis is flawed it must be very easy to show it by a reanalysis of the data. However, if one takes the time to look at the data used in this study one can see immediately that when the USSR's level of armaments is very low the USA is producing large amounts of missiles. On the other hand, when the USSR has a large number of missiles the USA's production is nil or very little. Consequently one must conclude that the USA cannot possibly be reacting to the activities of the USSR in the simple ways suggested by Richardson or Hamblin et al. This result was confirmed by our statistical analysis of the data. One can of course try other statistical procedures, as we did, but they all produce the same result: there is no reaction effect in the USA's behaviour.