Trends in Political Tolerance

In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Band 52, Heft 1, S. 1-25

Abstract

Some researchers have claimed that there has been a substantial increase in political tolerance among the US public since the 1950s, while others assert that this increase is illusory -- though more tolerant of leftists, the public has simply found other targets on which to vent its intolerance. Data from Samuel A. Stouffer's 1954 survey on civil liberties (Communism, Conformity, & Civil Liberties, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955) are reanalyzed after recalculating some of its measures to simulate the least-liked group question used in a study conducted twenty years later that arrived at different conclusions (Sullivan, John L., Piereson, James, & Marcus, George E., "An Alternative Conceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases, 1950's-1970's," American Political Science Review, 1982, 73, 781-794). In addition, extensive trend data from polls conducted between 1940 & 1985 are analyzed. It is concluded that this shift does primarily reflect greater tolerance of leftists, although tolerance has fluctuated greatly over this period, largely due to changes in perceptions regarding threats from putatively subversive groups, especially domestic communists. However, the public's grasp of & concern about civil liberties seems so minimal that it can be argued that it really has no tangibly measurable attitude on the subject one way or the other. In A Note on "Trends in Political Tolerance", John L. Sullivan & George E. Marcus explain why they used the content-controlled measurement strategy in their initial study, defend their conceptualizations of tolerance & threat, & show why it is difficult to adequately compare their results with those of other researchers. It is concluded that Mueller is persuasive in arguing that attitudes toward communists have changed over time, but less so regarding changes in the level & structure of overall political tolerance. 6 Tables, 56 References. K. Hyatt