Enigmas of Intolerance: Fifty Years after Stouffer's Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties

Abstract

Scholars seeking to understand the causes and consequences of political intolerance are now celebrating the fifty-year anniversary of Stouffer's pathbreaking research on intolerance and repression. Yet despite substantial advances in our understanding of intolerance, several major unanswered questions remain. The purpose of this article is to identify and discuss these tolerance enigmas, while proffering some ideas about how future research on intolerance might proceed. The article begins by documenting the significance of understanding intolerance and concludes with speculation about how resolving these enigmas might contribute to a more peaceful and democratic world.James L. Gibson is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis and a Fellow at the Centre for Comparative and International Politics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa (jgibson@wustl.edu). This is a revised version of the Alexander George Award Lecture, delivered at the International Society for Political Psychology Annual Conference, Eden Hall, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, July 15–18, 2004. The author is indebted to many for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper, including Dennis Chong, Jamie Druckman, Leonie Huddy, Jim Kuklinski, Marc Peffley, Brian Silver, and John Transue, and especially Stanley Feldman and Donald Green. He also appreciates the research assistance of Marc Hendershot. Support for the research on which this paper is based has been provided by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis, and Steven S. Smith in particular. This paper makes use of data collected from Russia with the support of the National Science Foundation (SBR-9423614 and SBR-9710137). The South African data were collected with support from NSF's Law and Social Sciences Program (SES 9906576). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Political Tolerance and Prejudice: Differential Reactions Toward Muslims in the Netherlands

“…The empirical distinction between prejudice and political tolerance has also been found in other studies (e.g., Gibson & Gouws, 2003;Sullivan et al, 1982). However, the current association is stronger compared to these studies that, for example, report correlations below 0.10 (see Gibson, 2006). One reason for this difference is that we have focused on prejudice and tolerance toward the same target group, whereas other studies typically measure prejudice toward a particular target group presented to the participants and political tolerance toward the group the participant personally likes the least (Sullivan et al, 1982).…”

“…In this research literature it is noted, however, that a distinction between types of threat needs to be made, such as between sociotropic and egocentric perceived threat (see Gibson, 2006). This distinction is similar to the social psychological distinction between the intergroup and the interpersonal level.…”

“…Thus, differences in norms, beliefs, and values that threaten the in-group's worldview as well as the belief that the presence of Muslims leads to increased violence and vandalism seem to fuel negative reactions toward Muslims (see also Sniderman & Hagendoorn, 2007). In his review, Gibson (2006) pointed out that perceived threat is the most important predictor of intolerance but that threat itself is an unexplained variable in nearly all studies on political tolerance. Integrated threat theory has suggested that threats mediate the impact of distal variables on attitudes toward out-groups (e.g., Corenblum & Stephan, 2001;Stephan et al, 2002).…”

“…Theoretically, the focus on political tolerance allows for an examination of the empirical difference between tolerance and prejudice (Sullivan, Piereson, & Marcus, 1982;Gibson & Gouws, 2003). According to Gibson (2006) this is ''one of the most important tasks of future research' ' (p. 26). Most often, the expectation is that both are closely connected because they are grounded, for example, in personality attributes such as authoritarianism.…”

“…However, relatively little attention is given to intergroup factors such as perceived threats, intergroup contact, and in-group identification. In his review, Gibson (2006) argued that research on tolerance needs to examine different types of threat and that the antecedents of threat perception are poorly understood.…”