Minority Rights and Majority Rule: Ethnic Tolerance in Romania and Bulgaria

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

“…The effect of intergroup contact on political tolerance has, to our knowledge, not been studied in a direct way. McIntosh, Mac Iver, Abele, and Nolle (1995) found higher levels of tolerance among people living in a more ethnic heterogeneous community. However, living in such a community does not have to imply intergroup contact and various context factors might explain the difference found.…”

What determines attitudes to immigration in European countries? An analysis at the regional level

“…This supports the idea that family cohesion promotes interactions with culturally similar persons, and that people from different cultural backgrounds can be seen as threatening the cultural identity of one's own group (Huijnk et al 2010). In addition, opinions towards ethnic diversity have been found to be highly correlated with intergroup relations (McIntosh et al 1995;Thomsen et al 2008;Cohrs and Stelzl 2010;Duckitt and Sibley 2010;Morrison et al 2010). …”

Explaining ethnic polarization over attitudes towards minority rights in Eastern Europe: A multilevel analysis

“…Survey work in the region has examined the majority's attitudes towards minority groups and minority rights, but has not usually investigated the minority groups' attitudes towards their own situations or the extent of division between majority and minority attitudes on minority rights. McIntosh et al (1995), for example, analyze only majority ethnic group responses and find that, 'a majority of ethnic Bulgarians and Romanians were willing to grant some of these [minority] rights but hesitant to bestow others ' (1995, p. 943). However, if we want to understand the sources of ethnic polarization and by extension its political implications, it is not sufficient simply to examine whether majority groups hold positive or negative attitudes towards minority rights, we also need to examine the views of minority groups.…”

“…In this region, ethnic heterogeneity is the norm rather than the exception, and majority and minority ethnic groups can be expected to differ with respect to their acceptance of the value of inclusive principles of citizenship and their tolerance of political and social differences (on this see, among others, Bahry et al, 1997;Bremmer, 1994;Diamond and Plattner, 1994;Evans, 1998;Evans and Lipsmeyer, 2001;Gibson, 1998;McIntosh et al, 1995;Miller et al, 1998;Stepan, 1994). Most of all, they can be expected to differ in their willingness to accord rights to other ethnic groups; what a minority demands, the majority may wish to prevent.…”