Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T22:31:57.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The consequences of social intolerance on non-violent protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2015

Carolin Rapp*
Affiliation:
Institute for Political Science, University of Bern (CH), Bern, Switzerland
Kathrin Ackermann
Affiliation:
Institute for Political Science, University of Bern (CH), Bern, Switzerland
*

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes the impact of intolerance toward diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups on an individual’s willingness to actively engage in non-violent protest. Following new insights, we examine the individual as well as the ecological effect of social intolerance on protest behavior. Drawing from insights of social psychology and communication science, we expect that the prevalence of intolerance reinforces the positive effect of individual-level intolerance on protest participation. From a rational choice perspective, however, a negative moderating effect is expected, as the expression of opinions becomes redundant for intolerant individuals in an intolerant society. We base our multilevel analyses on data from the World Values Surveys covering 32 established democracies. Our results reveal that intolerance leads to more non-violent protest participation. This relationship, however, is strongly influenced by the prevalence of intolerance in a country.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allport, G.W. (1958), The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge: Addison Wesley.Google Scholar
Almond, G. and Verba, S. (1963), The Civic Culture. Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Boston: Little Brown.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, S.E. (1956), ‘Studies of independence and conformity: a minority of one against a unanimous majority’, Psychological Monographs 70(9): 170.Google Scholar
Barnes, S.H., Farah, B.G. and Heunks, F. (1979), ‘Personal dissatisfaction’, in S.H. Barnes and M. Kasse (eds), Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, pp. 381408.Google Scholar
Bond, R. and Smith, P.B. (1996), ‘Culture and conformity: a meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgment task’, Psychological Bulletin 119(1): 111137.Google Scholar
Books, J. and Prysby, C. (1988), ‘Studying contextual effects on political behavior: a research inventory and agenda’, American Politics Research 16(2): 211238.Google Scholar
Canache, D. (1996), ‘Looking out my backdoor: the neighborhood context and perceptions of relative deprivation’, Political Research Quarterly 49(3): 547571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong, D. (1994), ‘Tolerance and social adjustment to new norms and practices’, Political Behavior 16(1): 2153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cialdini, R.B. (2001), Influence: Science and Practice, 4th edn, Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Crosby, F. (1976), ‘A model of egoistical relative deprivation’, Psychological Review 83(1): 85113.Google Scholar
Dalton, R.J. (2006), Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 4th edn, Washington: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, R.J., van Sickle, A. and Weldon, S. (2010), ‘The individual-institutional nexus of protest behaviour’, British Journal of Political Science 40(1): 5173.Google Scholar
Downs, A. (1957), An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Dunn, K., Orellana, S. and Singh, S. (2009), ‘Legislative diversity and social tolerance: how multiparty systems lead to tolerant citizens’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties 19(3): 283312.Google Scholar
Edlin, A., Gelman, A. and Kaplan, N. (2007), ‘Voting as a rational choice: why and how people vote to improve the well-being of others’, Rationality and Society 19(3): 293314.Google Scholar
Eisinger, P.K. (1973), ‘Conditions of protest behavior in American cities’, American Political Science Review 67(1): 1128.Google Scholar
Fatke, M. and Freitag, M. (2013), ‘Direct democracy: protest catalyst or protest alternative?’, Political Behavior 35(2): 237260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (1975), Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Flanagan, S.C. and Lee, A.-R. (2003), ‘The new politics, culture wars, and the authoritarian-libertarian value change in advanced industrial democracies’, Comparative Political Studies 36(3): 235270.Google Scholar
Forst, R. (2003), ‘Toleration, justice and reason’, in C. McKinnon and D. Castiglione (eds), The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies, MA: Manchester University Press, pp. 7185.Google Scholar
Freedom House. (2005), ‘Freedom in the World 2005’. Retrieved 10 October 2013 from http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2005 Google Scholar
Freitag, M. and Rapp, C. (2013), ‘Intolerance toward immigrants in Switzerland. Diminished threat through social contacts?’, Swiss Political Science Review 19(4): 425446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, A. and Hill, J. (2007), Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.L. (1992), ‘The political consequences of intolerance: cultural conformity and political freedom’, The American Political Science Review 86(2): 338356.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.L. (2006), ‘Enigmas of intolerance: fifty years after stouffer’s communism, conformity, and civil liberties’, Perspectives on Politics 4(1): 2134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J.L. (2013), ‘Measuring political tolerance and general support for pro-civil liberties policies. Notes, evidence, and cautions’, Public Opinion Quarterly 47(Special issue): 4568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, P.R. and Brown, R. (1995), ‘From ethnocentrism to collective protest: responses to relative deprivation and threats to social identity’, Social Psychology Quarterly 58(3): 195211.Google Scholar
Gurr, T.R. (1970), Why Men Rebel, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ikeda, K. and Richey, S. (2009), ‘The impact of diversity in informal social networks on tolerance in Japan’, British Journal of Political Science 39(3): 655668.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1990), Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1997), Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, R. and Baker, W.E. (2000), ‘Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values’, American Sociological Review 65(1): 1951.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C. (2005), Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
King, P. (1998), Toleration, London/Portland: Frank Cass Publishers.Google Scholar
Kirchner, A., Freitag, M. and Rapp, C. (2011), ‘Crafting tolerance: the role of political institutions in a comparative perspective’, European Political Science Review 3(2): 201227.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H. (1986), ‘Political opportunity structures and political protest: anti-nuclear movements in four democracies’, British Journal of Political Science 16(1): 5785.Google Scholar
Kriesi, H. (2008), ‘Political mobilisation, political participation and the power of the vote’, West European Politics 31(1–2 (special issue)): 147168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kriesi, H. and Wisler, D. (1996), ‘Social movements and direct democracy in Switzerland’, European Journal of Political Research 30(1): 1940.Google Scholar
Kriesi, H., Koopmans, R., Duyvendak, J.W. and Giugni, M.G. (1995), New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Kriesi, H., Lachat, R., Selb, P., Bornschier, S. and Helbling, M. (eds) (2005), Der Aufstieg der SVP: acht Kantone im Vergleich, Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung.Google Scholar
Manevska, K. and Achterberg, P. (2013), ‘Immigration and perceived threat: cultural capital and economic explanations’, European Sociological Review 29(3): 437449.Google Scholar
Martin, R. and Hewstone, M. (2007), ‘Social influence processes of control and change: conformity, obedience to authority, and innovation’, in M.A. Hogg and J. Cooper (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology, Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, pp. 312332.Google Scholar
Meyer, D.S. (2004), ‘Protest and political opportunities’, Annual Review of Sociology 30: 125145.Google Scholar
Mill, J.S. (1984), On Liberty, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. and Tilly, C. (2003), Dynamics of Contention, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mondak, J.J. and Sanders, M.S. (2003), ‘Tolerance and Intolerance, 1976–1998’, American Journal of Political Science 47(3): 492502.Google Scholar
Moore, W.H. (1995), ‘Rational rebels: overcoming the free-rider problem’, Political Research Quarterly 48(2): 417454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moy, P., Domke, D. and Stamm, K. (2001), ‘The spiral of silence and public opinion on affirmative action’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78(1): 725.Google Scholar
Mutz, D.C. (2001), ‘Tolerance’, in N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes (eds), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 1576615771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974), ‘The spiral of silence: a theory of public opinion’, Journal of Communication 24(2): 4351.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (2002), Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (2009a), Democracy Crossnational Data , Release Spring 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2009 from http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/data/Data.htm Google Scholar
Norris, P. (2009b), ‘Political activism: new challenges, new opportunities’, in C. Boix and S.C. Stokes (eds), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 628649.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1965), The Logic of Collective Action, New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Opp, K.-D. (1990), ‘Postmaterialms, collective action, and political protest’, American Journal of Political Science 34(1): 212235.Google Scholar
Peffley, M. and Rohrschneider, R. (2003), ‘Democratization and political tolerance in seventeen countries: a multi-level model of democratic learning’, Political Research Quarterly 56(3): 243257.Google Scholar
Quaranta, M. (2013), ‘The impact of institutional decentralization on protest in Western Europe’, International Political Science Review 34(5): 502518.Google Scholar
Quillian, L. (1995), ‘Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice’, American Sociological Review 60(4): 209233.Google Scholar
Rapp, C. (2015), ‘More diversity, less tolerance? The effect of type of cultural diversity on the erosion of tolerance in Swiss municipalities’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(10): 17791797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roller, E. and Wessels, B. (1996), Contexts of Political Protest in Western Democracies: Political Organization and Modernity. WZB Discussion Paper No. FS III: 96–202. WZB Discussion Paper.Google Scholar
Rucht, D. (2007), ‘The spread of protest politics’, in R.J. Dalton and H.-D. Klingemann (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 708723.Google Scholar
Runciman, W.G. (1966), Relative Deprivation and Social Justice, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Runciman, W.G. and Bagley, C.R. (1969), ‘Status consistency, relative deprivation, and attitudes to immigrants’, Sociology 3(3): 359375.Google Scholar
Schmitt, M. and Maes, J. (2002), ‘Stereotypic ingroup bias as self-defense against relative deprivation: evidence from a longitudinal study of the German unification process’, European Journal Social Psychology 32(3): 309326.Google Scholar
Schneider, S.L. (2008), ‘Anti-immigrants attitudes in Europe: outgroup size and perceived ethnic threat’, European Sociological Review 24(1): 5367.Google Scholar
Schwartz, S.H. (2006), ‘A theory of cultural value orientations: explication and applications’, Comparative Sociology 5(2–3): 137182.Google Scholar
Sniderman, P.M., Tetlock, P.E., Glaser, J.M., Donald, P. and Hout, M. (1989), ‘Principled tolerance and the American mass public’, British Journal of Political Science 19(1): 2545.Google Scholar
Stouffer, S.A. (1955), Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties: A Cross-Section of the Nation Speaks its Mind, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J.L., Piereson, J. and Marcus, G.E. (1993), Political Tolerance and American Democracy, Chicago: The University Of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. (1998), ‘Fishnets, internets, and catnets: globalization and transnational collective action’, in M.P. Hanagan, L.P. Moch and W. Brake (eds), Challenging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 228244.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. (2011), Power in Movement. Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, D.M., Moghaddam, F.M., Gamble, I. and Zeller, E. (1987), ‘Disadvantaged group responses to perceived inequality: from passive acceptance to collective action’, Journal of Social Psychology 127(3): 259272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teorell, J., Torcal, M. and Montero, J.R. (2007), ‘Political participation. mapping the terrain’, in J. van Deth, J.R. Montero and A. Westholm (eds), Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies, London: Routledge, pp. 334357.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1978), From Mobilization to Revolution, New York: Random House.Google Scholar
UNESCO. (1995), Declaration of Principles on Tolerance. Proclaimed and signed by the Member States of the UNESCO on 16 November 1995. Retrieved 10 October 2013 from http://www.un.org/en/events/toleranceday/pdf/tolerance.pdf Google Scholar
van Deth, J. (2009), ‘Politische Partizipation’, in V. Kaina and A. Römmele (eds), Politische Soziologie, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 141161.Google Scholar
Verba, S., Schlozman, K.L. and Brady, H. (1995), Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, L. and Mann, L. (1987), ‘Unemployment, relative deprivation, and social protest’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 13(2): 275283.Google Scholar
Weatherford, M.S. (1980), ‘The politics of school busing: contextual effects and community polarization’, The Journal of Politics 42(3): 747765.Google Scholar
Weldon, S. (2006), ‘The institutional context of tolerance for ethnic minorities: a comparative, multilevel analysis of Western Europe’, American Journal of Political Science 50(2): 331349.Google Scholar
Welzel, C. (2013), Freedom Rising. Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Welzel, C. and Deutsch, F. (2012), ‘Emancipative values and non-violent protest: the importance of ‘Ecological’ effects’, British Journal of Political Science 42(2): 465479.Google Scholar
Whiteley, P.F. (1995), ‘Rational choice and political participation. Evaluating the debate’, Political Research Quarterly 48(1): 211233.Google Scholar
World Values Survey. (2005–2008), ‘Official Data File v20090621a and v20090621b 2009’. World Values Survey Association. Retrieved 3 September 2009 fromhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org. ASEP/JDS, MadridGoogle Scholar