‘Left-wing authoritarianism’ as situated rhetoric: Delegitimizing the political left in statements of greek right-wing politicians on ‘X’ [Author Accepted Manuscript]

Soon after the publication of The Authoritarian Personality, scholars advanced the argument that authoritarianism may also be encountered in the political left, fueling a scientific debate that is far from resolved. Adopting a critical discursive social psychology perspective, we analyzed 3,500 X posts shared by Nea Dimokratia (ND) MPs (Greek political right) between 2018-2024, documenting how conservative politicians mobilize a Left-Wing Authoritarianism (LWA) interpretive repertoire. This repertoire is built around the representational modalities of ‘localized political exceptionalism’, ‘extended ideological contamination’, and ‘state authoritarianism in practice’ and informs three argumentative lines. In the first, the Greek political left is constructed as a local exception to the universal left-wing ideology by, allegedly, adopting practices that deviate from democratic values. The second draws upon a broader representation of LWA, associating the Greek political left with international political figures and practices constructed as prototypical left-wing authoritarian examples. The third equates the 2015-2019 left-wing-led SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government with authoritarian deep-state practices, constructing SYRIZA as a persistent threat to democratic norms, while positioning ND as the defender of institutional integrity. The flexible construction of the Greek political left as both aligning with and deviating from generic left-wing ideology works in the direction of delegitimating the political left locally and globally. Through such constructions the SYRIZA-ANEL government is portrayed as emblematic of authoritarianism, while ND is positioned as a sound anti-extremist democratic force. The paper discusses how LWA repertoire functions rhetorically and ideologically to police democratic boundaries, delegitimize political adversaries, and justify socio-exclusionary politics as depoliticized. This project is carried out within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan Greece 2.0, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU (Implementation body: HFRI). Project acronym: ALPIS (Proposal No. 14953). reviewed acceptedVersion