You say in the article that “Altemeyer’s book starts off by defining ‘right wing authoritarian’ (RWA) in a way which purports to be politically neutral”. Unfortunately, you do not then quote the definition. However, you do quote this, “In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives”. But if that contains the implied definition of being an “authoritarian”, then it is highly dubious. The problem is the apparent equivocation involving “authorities” and “authoritarian”. The “authorities” themselves could be very libertarian or very authoritarian. So, to “submit to the established authorities” would only seem to be authoritarian if those authorities are authoritarian. Hence, Altemeyer appears to be confused, rather than “neutral”, about what it means to be “authoritarian”.
That's a reasonable way of using the term but not the way Altemeyer is using it.
You say in the article that “Altemeyer’s book starts off by defining ‘right wing authoritarian’ (RWA) in a way which purports to be politically neutral”. Unfortunately, you do not then quote the definition. However, you do quote this, “In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives”. But if that contains the implied definition of being an “authoritarian”, then it is highly dubious. The problem is the apparent equivocation involving “authorities” and “authoritarian”. The “authorities” themselves could be very libertarian or very authoritarian. So, to “submit to the established authorities” would only seem to be authoritarian if those authorities are authoritarian. Hence, Altemeyer appears to be confused, rather than “neutral”, about what it means to be “authoritarian”.