The functioning of American democracy requires that citizens of highly disparate
perspectives be equal in their rights. For this reason, Americans ideally practice political
tolerance -- or the willingness to allow the exercise of such rights as freedom of speech,
association, and demonstration -- even when confronted with individuals or groups
espousing ideas that are upsetting or repellant to their own views. Despite high levels of
citizen support for political tolerance in the abstract, however, previous scholars have
found Americans to be much less supportive of extensions of rights as applied to specific
groups and situations. In the 1995 book, With Malice Toward Some,
scholars innovated with respect to the study of political tolerance through an emphasis on
the effect of information on citizen support for political tolerance. Previous literature had
focused instead upon long-term individual predispositions in order to explain tolerant
decisions.
This project extends the study of the interaction between information and citizen
willingness to allow unpopular groups to exercise certain fundamental American rights.
Indeed, following September 11, 2001, the American public has been subjected to an
almost continuous stream of threatening information with respect to terrorism. This
project investigates the effect of such exposure upon Americans' support for civil liberties
in a quantitative and experimental manner. In addition, this project extends prior tolerance
research through a focus upon often neglected categories of civil liberties, such as
protections against unlawful search and seizure and against self-incrimination. It is with
respect to procedural rights like these that the greatest possible erosion in citizen support
for democratic principles exists, as support for the extension of these rights to members of
unpopular groups is often lower even absent national crisis.
1
Marcus, George E., John L. Sullivan, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, and Sandra L. Wood. 1995. With Malice
Toward Some. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2
Convention