Suchergebnisse

Religion's place in American public life has never been fixed. As new communities have arrived, as old traditions have fractured and reformed, as cultural norms have been shaped by shifting economic structures and the advance of science, and as new faith traditions have expanded the range of religious confessions within America's religious landscape, the claims posited by religious faiths—and the respect such claims may demand—have been subjects of near-constant change. In The Limits of Religious Tolerance, Alan Jay Levinovitz pushes against the widely held (and often unexamined) notion that unbounded tolerance must and should be accorded to claims forwarded on the basis of religious belief in a society increasingly characterized by religious pluralism. Pressing at the distinction between tolerance and respect, Levinovitz seeks to offer a set of guideposts by which a democratic society could identify and observe a set of limits beyond which religiously grounded claims may legitimately be denied the expectation of unqualified non-interference.

Since its democratic revolution was set in motion, Poland has enjoyed tremendous progress in its degree of democratic consolidation. For example, significant institutional changes have taken place in the status of Poland's ethnic, national, and religious minorities. Yet, institutional protections alone do not fully capture the extent of openness to diversity. More comprehensive depictions of the quality of democracy need to encompass investigations of the democratic citizens' 'hearts and minds.' In this article, using data from a recent nationally representative survey, the author examines the extent and sources of Poles' tolerance of ethnic and religious difference. She focuses on social tolerance of difference, using questions about acceptance of interethnic and interreligious marriage as the dependent variables. As part of the inquiry, the author compares and contrasts the levels and sources of tolerance of interreligious marriage over time and discusses the political implications of the findings and future research directions. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright the American Council of Learned Societies.]

Tolerance has the potential to affect both economic growth and wellbeing. It is therefore important to discern its determinants. We add to the literature by investigating whether the degree to which economic institutions and policies are market-oriented is related to different measures of tolerance. Regression analysis of up to 65 countries reveals that economic freedom is positively related to tolerance towards homosexuals, especially in the longer run, while tolerance towards people of a different race and a willingness to teach kids tolerance are not strongly affected by how free markets are. Stable monetary policy and outcomes is the area of economic freedom most consistently associated with greater tolerance, but the quality of the legal system seems to matter as well. We furthermore find indications of a causal relationship and of social trust playing a role as a mechanism in the relationship between economic freedom and tolerance and as an important catalyst: the more trust in society, the more positive the effect of economic freedom on tolerance.

The philosophical tradition of liberal political thought has come to see tolerance as a crucial element of a liberal political order. However, while much has been made of the value of toleration, little work has been done on individual-level motivations for tolerant behavior. In this article, we seek to develop an account of the rational motivations for toleration and of where the limits of toleration lie. We first present a very simple model of rational motivations for toleration. Key to this model is an application of David Ricardo's model of trade to thinking about toleration. This model supports the claim that we always have reasons to be as tolerant as possible. We then explore why we do not always see tolerant attitudes in the actual world, and point to some potential preconditions for toleration that the initial model does not capture. Subsequently, we examine a more detailed model that allows us to investigate more carefully the conditions under which tolerant behavior can be rewarded. We conclude by arguing that a consideration of self-interested motivations for toleration is essential to the success of a robust theory of toleration for a diverse society, but that even this approach has its limitations.

Political tolerance (the willingness to extend civil liberties to disliked groups) has been disturbingly low among the American public since measurement of tolerance began in the 1950's. The few voters who do exhibit tolerant attitudes tend to be people who know a great deal about politics (i.e. people high in "political expertise"). Researchers have theorized many explanations for why political experts are more tolerant on average; for example, experts may place more value on the legal and normative `rules' of democracy (i.e. "democratic norms"), which guarantee free speech, or they may consider democratic norms to be more important than non-experts do, or some other related mechanism may drive the effect. While many explanations for this link between expertise and tolerance have been suggested, none have been directly tested in empirical research. The present dissertation represents the first set of studies examining how political expertise promotes political tolerance. Three studies will examine possible mechanisms: study one will examine the role of explicit support for democratic norms and perceived importance of such norms; study two will examine the accessibility of democratic values; and study three will examine implicit support for democratic values. Interactions between these predictors will also be tested a priori (for example, not only will explicit support and importance of democratic norms be examined individually, the interaction of the two will also be analyzed as a mechanism). These studies will inform future theory and experimental research on the causes of (and contributors to) tolerance, and will inform policy recommendations on how to increase tolerance in a generally intolerant public.

In spite of all efforts to paint a black portrait of Islam and to introduce it as a hostile and intolerant creed, Islamic civilization played a major role in shaping global civilization. Prominent Muslim scholars and intellectuals established the basis of art, philosophy, science and technology which directly and indirectly influenced societies around the world.1 Among all these bright and positive aspects of Islamic civilization, this paper will focus on the Islamic view of other religions and the status of nonMuslims in Islamic regions through the ages. In-depth study of the Quran and understanding the soul of its message, alongside Prophet Muhammad's (SAW) word and his behavior with non-Muslims, and tracing this subject in history, will show both theoretically and practically the high potentiality of Islam for peace and harmony. By this view, Jews in the Fatimid Caliphate and Christian Bakhtishu's clan were respected in Abbasid Caliphate, and even held government posts. Tolerance and engaging in dialogue with other religions-notwithstanding dogma, brought Muslims progress in all areas and even led some scholars to regard tolerance and altruism as ―the mother‖ of Islamic civilization.