Suchergebnisse

AFTER A BRIEF REVIEW OF DOUGLASS ADAIR'S DISCUSSION OF THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF FEDERALIST NO.10, THE AUTHOR EXAMINES SOME OF THE WAYS ENLIGHTENMENT IDEAS REACHED JAMES MADISON AND HOW AMERICAN EXPERIENCES SHAPED THEIR USE. HE CONCLUDES MADISON'S NEW THEORY DEPENDED ON A SYNTHESIS OF REPUBLICAN THEORY, ELEMENTS OF MONARCHICAL THOUGHT, RELIGIOUS TOLERATION, AND NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL THEORIES.

The Israel Instit for Applied Social Research surveyed a random sample of 530 adults in Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, & Beersheva to determine public support for civil liberties in Israel, concentrating on freedom of expression, the right to privacy, due process, & political tolerance. Those with the most schooling & income & those under thirty tended to be more supportive of civil liberties than those with less education & income, & those over thirty. Men favored civil rights only slightly more than women. There was no consistent correlation between Rs' country of birth & opinions on civil liberties. The data show that the Israeli public has: (1) a high tolerance for social criticism, (2) respect for differing political points of view, (3) a great concern for the protection of private rights, & (4) a high degree of support for due process. This concern for civil rights is not mirrored in the existing legislation, however, & the question is raised whether Israelis consider this an important issue. 4 Tables. A. Rubins.

It is generally asserted that members of the working class are less tolerant than are members of the middle class toward 'outgroups.' Data from the 1976 National Opinion Research Center on 1,499 individuals are used to assess this claim. Workers are somewhat more likely to be intolerant toward various outgroups, regardless of the deviant group in question. However, when education, income, & degree of cynicism are taken into account simultaneously, the direct effect of occupational class on tolerance is not significant. While this finding is generally consistent with the findings of S. M. Lipset (see SA 8:1/7105), it suggests a need for further investigation. 1 Figure, 2 Tables. Modified HA.

The long-standing proposition that higher education produces stronger commitment to the democratic norm of tolerance is challenged. When national survey data measuring both abstract & applied commitment to racial integration are replicated & used to examine that perspective, results indicate that while well-educated whites appear more tolerant on the abstract index, they do not on the applied index. Also, the well educated show no tighter belief-system constraint than the poorly educated in translating their abstract position into an applied position on racial integration. Finally, while higher education produced more rapid adoption of abstract support for racial integration from 1964 to 1972, there was no clear tendency for education to be associated with more support for integration in an applied context. A reevaluation of the efficacy of formal education in producing democratic citizens is presented. 5 Tables. HA.

In only about 33.3% of the new states are opposition parties regarded as constitutionally legitimate, but none of these states is immune from oppositional activity, often appearing after it has been legally abolished & its existence implicitly denied. What is interesting is that in so many states in which the rulers strive for modernity & for progressive & diff'iated societies, they should be so intolerant of opposition, & esp of open opposition in the form of constitutional parties, contending & criticizing in public. It is possible to isolate certain factors which when present in whole or part indicate toleration or opposition. The attitude of dominant parties towards opposition, the mode of action of opposition parties, the effectiveness of opposition parties, `closed opposition' (opposition outside opposition parties & the instit's of public liberty), & the functions of opposition & their performance in new states with regimes of closed opposition, are examined in turn. IPSA.

THE THEORETICAL FOUNDERS OF MODERN REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT, MEN LIKE MACHIAVELLI AND LOCKE, CONSIDERED THE SEPARATION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS TO BE CRUCIAL TO THE SUCCESS OF THEIR NEW PROPOSALS. A SIMILAR FEAR OF MIXING RELIGION AND POLITICS ANIMATED MANY OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE GREATEST MODERN REPUBLIC, THE UNITED STATES, AS WELL. WHILE THE PRECISE RELATIONSHIP OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE THOUGHTS OF THESE MEN VARIED, MOST AGREED IN THE BELIEF THAT A TOO POWERFUL CHURCH AND AN EXCESSIVE CONCERN FOR AN OTHERWORDLY EXISTENCE STOOD IN THE WAY OF THE SECURING OF MAN'S EARTHLY GOALS--CIVIL PEACE, MATERIAL PROSPERITY AND, MOST GENERALLY, MAN'S NATURAL RIGHTS. THE SOLUTION USUALLY FAVORED WAS THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION, TOGETHER WITH THE SUBORDINATION OF RELIGIOUS TO POLITICAL CONCERNS. SUCH A POLICY WAS MEANT TO WEAKEN THE HOLD OF RELIGION OVER POLITICS AND THUS TO LESSEN THE POSSIBILITY THAT A FANATICAL ADHERENCE TO A PARTICULAR RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE MIGHT INTERFERE WITH AN INDIVIDUAL'S RIGHT TO PURSUE HAPPINESS AS HE OR SHE SAW FIT (SEE, FOR EXAMPLE, LOCKE 1950).

The single error most likely to lead to trouble, even disaster, in the field of foreign affairs is misapprehension about the basic motivations of the Soviet leadership. They are the product of centuries of history very different from that of the West; & the despotic-messianic party emerging from that milieu underwent a rigorous selection process under Stalin. The result is men soaked not merely in ideology (though there is that too), but in attitudes so deep in their bones that they cannot see the world in terms other than those of struggle ("who-whom?") in which other political life forms should be destroyed when & if possible The issue of "human rights" in the USSR provides a simple test in the way they regard ideas central to the Western culture. When those who express ideas are in their power, they are repressed. When & if this ceases, we would know that a genuine detente based on toleration was possible. Meanwhile, the worst way to try to induce even gradual change is to grant approval to the status quo. AA.

A revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Gerontological Society, Miami Beach, Fla, Nov 1973. While aging is often said to be associated with increasingly conservative social & political attitudes, very few studies have employed appropriate methodological procedures to study long term change. Examination is made of Stouffer's hypothesis (COMMUNISM, CONFORMITY, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES, New York, NY: John Wiley, 1955) that aging is associated with decreasing tolerance of ideological nonconformity. The analysis is based on 9 items common to the 1954 Stouffer Cross Section Survey (N=4,903) & the 1972 NORC General Social Survey (N=947), both of which are national samples. The dependent variables include 3-item Guttman scales measuring tolerance of the civil liberties of atheists, socialists, & Communists, & a 9-item Guttman scale measuring general tolerance of ideological nonconformity. A cross-sequential design is used which compares the dependent variable scores for each of 5 cohorts in 1954 (ages 21-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, & 60+) with the dependent variable scores for each cohort in 1972 (ages 39-47, 48-57, 58-67, 68-77, & 78+). Cohort differences exist in 1954 & in 1972. Older cohorts are less tolerant than younger cohorts in both surveys on the 4 dependent variables. The pattern of intracohort changes over the 18 year period however, indicates clearly that all cohorts have higher tolerance scores in 1972 than in 1954. While absolute increases in tolerance characterize all cohorts, the degree of change varies: younger cohorts exhibit greater change than older cohorts. These findings show that growing older is not invariably accompained by more conservative political attitudes in an absolute sense. However, because the older cohorts appear to be more likely to adhere to their earlier attitudes, this differential propensity for change leads to a widening gap between the cohorts. It is only in this relative sense that growing old would appear to be accompanied by increasing conservatism. 3 Tables. Modified AA.

How should societies utilize their mechanisms of socialization in order to improve the quality of relations between constituent racial & ethnic groups? Among white people, educ should help to foster greater toleration of alien cultures. But among black people, the central problem is not intolerance but dependency. Dependency in this case is a crisis of psychological inadequacy, sometimes manifesting itself in indiscriminate imitation of western culture, & sometimes in aggressive hostility towards that culture. The dependency complex can be either submissive or aggressive. Submissive dependency is characterized by high deference & emulative behavior, as in former French Africa. Aggressive dependency is a militant rejection of authority, a form of counterdependency. Black militancy in the US often falls within this category. To solve the dependency complex in Africa would require an elimination of white teachers from primary Sch's, a reduction of white teachers in post-primary levels of educ, Africanization of the headship of each Sch, & systematic promotion of the primacy of African material in the syllabus. The changes needed in the US have to draw a distinction between Sch's which are primarily black & Sch's which are primarily Caucasian. Black Sch's should aim for heterogeneous staffing, with a black headmaster, conspicuously authoritative & active. White Sch's should attempt to have a least 1 or 2 black teachers &, where realistic, a black headmaster. The idea of mixing the student composition is desirable both in Africa & the US. In areas with pop's which are both multi-ethnic & multi-religious, there should be a purposeful policy to insure that each Sch not only mixes races & tribes but also mixes religions. 3 values retain relevance regardless of the nature of diff'iation in the plural society: tolerance, toil, & teamwork. They are themselves to be seen as supplementary to the three R's of basic educ. Modified AA.