The Politics of Individualism demonstrates how individualist attitudes drastically reduce the possibility that people will defer to the decisions and practices of civic and political institutions, therefore threatening the stability of democratic society. Modern American justifications for individual decisions are often rooted in skepticism toward authority and the influence of social institutions. Examining this "moral" dimension of individualism, political scientists Christopher F. Karpowitz and Kelly D. Patterson argue that attachment to this form of the individualist attitude poses significant risks to the maintenance of democratic practices and institutions.