¹ Sullivan, John L., Piereson, James and Marcus, George E., ‘A Reconceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases, 1950s–1970s’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 781–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, John L., Piereson, James and Marcus, George E., Political Tolerance and American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).Google Scholar

² Shamir, Michal and Sullivan, John L., ‘The Political Context of Tolerance: The United States and Israel’, American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 911–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, John L., Shamir, Michal, Walsh, Patrick and Roberts, Nigel S., Political Tolerance in Context: Support for Unpopular Political Minorities in Israel, New Zealand, and the United States (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar; see also Simon, Rita J. and Mann, Kenneth, ‘Public Support for Civil Liberties in Israel’, Social Science Quarterly, 58 (1977), 283–92.Google Scholar

³ Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance in Context.Google Scholar

⁴ Barnum, David G. and Sullivan, John L., ‘Attitudinal Tolerance and Political Freedom in Britain’, British Journal of Political Science, 19 (1989), 136–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ See, for example, Caspi, Dan and Seligson, Mitchell A., ‘Toward an Empirical Theory of Tolerance: Radical Groups in Israel and Costa Rica’, Comparative Political Studies, 15 (1983), 385–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ See, for example, Fletcher, Joseph F., ‘Mass and Elite Attitudes About Wiretapping in Canada: Implications for Democratic Theory and Polities’ (unpublished paper, University of Toronto).Google Scholar

⁷ Note also that single-nation longitudinal analyses should also be treated as comparative analysis. For a longitudinal analysis in the United States, see Mueller, John, ‘Trends in Political Tolerance’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 52 (1988), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar (see also the rebuttal, Sullivan, John L. and Marcus, George E., ‘A Note on “Trends in Political Tolerance”’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 52 (1988), 26–32)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gibson, James L., ‘The Evolution of Intolerance in the United States’ (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1987).Google Scholar

⁸ Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance and American Democracy.Google Scholar

⁹ Barnum, and Sullivan, , ‘Attitudinal Tolerance and Political Freedom in Britain’, p. 607.Google Scholar

¹⁰ This analysis is based on a survey of a national sample of public opinion in the United States (a two-wave panel), conducted in 1987. This survey was an extension of the 1987 General Social Survey (GSS), a full national probability sample conducted with in-person interviews. The 1987 GSS was conducted in the spring, with a response rate of approximately 75 per cent. In June and July, an attempt was made to reinterview 1,459 of the original subjects. This subsample was selected randomly, within gender strata. Approximately 87 per cent of these subjects were reinterviewed. Most of these were in-person interviews, although because some subjects had moved since the earlier interview, a small percentage of the reinterviews were conducted by telephone. Additional details on the sample are available from the author.

¹¹ It may seem a little surprising that the right-wing groups are so commonly mentioned as ‘most disliked’ in 1987, in that many perceive the United States to have become a more conservative country over the last decade or so. Several explanations are possible. Perhaps the greater conservatism of the country has made the right-wing fringe more threatening. As fairly strong conservatives have moved into positions of power in the United States, liberals may have become more fearful that extreme right-wingers could achieve some degree of influence. There has also been an increase in right-wing political violence in the United States that might account for this finding.

¹² The only correlations that exceed 0.20 are between ideology and affect towards feminists (r = 0.25) and homosexuals (r = 0.20).

¹³ Nor are the relationships between party identification and affect towards these groups any stronger.

¹⁴ For instance, the CSS in 1986 revealed that 77 per cent of Americans disapproved of wiretapping in general.

¹⁵ Gibson, James L. and van Koppen, Peter, ‘Political Tolerance in The Netherlands and the United States’ (paper presented at the Law and Society Association Convention, Chicago, 1986).Google Scholar

¹⁶ To reiterate, the theory of pluralistic intolerance assumes that at the individual level intolerance is idiosyncratically and narrowly focused, resulting in a dispersed pluralistic distribution at the societal level.

¹⁷ It should be noted that the subjects had considerable difficulty in locating the groups on a continuum of liberalism and conservatism. Over 27 per cent rated the KKK as left of centre (another 7 per cent considered the Klan to be moderate), while nearly one-third placed Communists on the right wing (9 per cent consider Communists to be moderates). The subjects do somewhat better in locating Democrats and Republicans, though there is still an extraordinary degree of uncertainty about the meaning of the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’.

¹⁸ For an elaboration of these ideas see Gibson, James L., ‘The Psychology of Political Freedom’ (paper presented at the Western Political Science Association Convention, San Francisco, 1988).Google Scholar