h THE BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE by Aaron Joseph Abbarno ...

315 Pages·2014·2.71 MB·English

THE BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE

by
Aaron Joseph Abbarno
B.A. in History, University of Pittsburgh, 2003
M.A. in International Relations and Diplomacy, Seton Hall University, 2006

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science

University of Pittsburgh
2013

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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Aaron Joseph Abbarno

It was defended on
October 18, 2013
and approved by
Jon Hurwitz, Professor, Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
Alberta Sbragia, Professor, Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
James L. Gibson, Professor, Government, University of Washington in St. Louis
Dissertation Advisor: Steven E. Finkel, Professor, Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

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Copyright © by Aaron Joseph Abbarno
2013
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THE BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE
Aaron Joseph Abbarno, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh, 2013

Effective and enduring democratic government requires broad public support for basic
democratic orientations. Chief among these are political participation and political tolerance,
which traditionally have been viewed as closely linked: virtually everyone agrees that democracy
works best when people actively engage in political life and when they do not exclude others
from doing the same. However, empirical evidence to date challenges the idea that political
tolerance and civic engagement are positively, or even directly, related.
What are the behavioral consequences of political tolerance? Using novel experiments
that randomly assign subjects to tolerate the rights of groups they strongly dislike, this
dissertation finds that political tolerance directly stimulates participation in specific modes of
civic engagement. I argue that tolerance for political minorities is a highly unpopular position
that orients citizens toward disagreement and dissent and reduces conflict aversion among the
politically tolerant relative to the intolerant. Through this mechanism, upholding the rights of
groups that society prefers to repress independently raises the likelihood of participation in social
modes of action in which the risk of disagreement and conflict with other citizens is high (e.g.
protests), but does little to facilitate individual modes of action in which disagreement and
conflict are unlikely (e.g. voting).
My evidence is based on two methodological innovations. First, I employ a “self-
persuasion” experiment in which subjects develop original arguments to convince a discussion
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partner to either permit (tolerate) or ban (not tolerate) public demonstrations by the subject’s
most disliked group. Second, I directly observe subjects’ post-test participation using overt
measures of subjects’ political behavior rather than survey items to measure only their behavioral
intentions. Tracing the effects of randomized tolerance on subjects’ overt political behavior
reveals, in support of my hypotheses, that practicing tolerance directly stimulates collective-
contentious activism (in this case, signing one’s name to a petition to challenge the status quo),
but has no effect on individual action (i.e. making an anonymous donation). I further corroborate
these findings by applying nonparametric matching techniques to cross-national survey data
from the U.S. and Europe, and through cross-national survey experiments that test my model in
the U.S. and Hungary.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ................................................................................................................................... XV
1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1
1.2 CONTRIBUTIONS ............................................................................................. 7
1.3 DISSERTATION OVERVIEW ....................................................................... 10
1.3.1 Does tolerance matter? Theoretical challenges in Chapters 2 and 3 ........ 10
1.3.2 Causal inference in the study of tolerance: Methodological challenges in
chapters 4, 5, and 6 ..................................................................................................... 13
1.3.3 Tolerance as a virtue, tolerance as a vice: Responding to normative
challenges in chapter 7 ............................................................................................... 15
2.0 POLITICAL TOLERANCE, POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, AND
POLITICAL THEORY .............................................................................................................. 18
2.1 DEFINITION AND MEASUREMENT OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE .. 18
2.2 POLITICAL TOLERANCE AND POLITICAL THEORY ......................... 20
2.3 TWO EMPIRICAL PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL TOLERANCE
AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION ............................................................................. 28
2.3.1 Evidence for the syndrome account ............................................................. 32
2.3.2 Evidence for the tradeoff account ................................................................ 39
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2.4 METHODOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING THE
BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS OF TOLERANCE ............................................................... 47
2.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................... 53
3.0 THE COSTS-CONSISTENCY THEORY OF TOLERANCE AND
PARTICIPATION ...................................................................................................................... 56
3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 57
3.2 A POINT OF DEPARTURE: MODES OF PARTICIPATION AND THEIR
SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS ........................................................ 61
3.2.1 Summary ........................................................................................................ 66
3.3 POLITICAL TOLERANCE, CONSISTENCY, AND BARRIERS TO
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT .................................................................................................... 66
3.3.1 The social costs of political tolerance ........................................................... 68
3.3.2 Consistency theories and tolerance as a contributor to public activism .. 70
3.4 TOLERANCE, PARTICIPATION, AND DEMOCRATIC CONTEXT ..... 78
3.5 CASE SELECTION .......................................................................................... 85
3.6 LOOKING AHEAD TO THE EMPIRICAL CHAPTERS ........................... 88
4.0 CROSS-NATIONAL PATTERNS OF PARTICIPATION AMONG
POLITICALLY TOLERANT AND INTOLERANT CITIZENS ......................................... 92
4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 93
4.2 OPERATIONAL HYPOTHESES ................................................................... 95
4.3 ANALYTICAL STRATEGY ........................................................................... 98
4.3.1 Data, measurement, and model specification ............................................ 101
4.4 POLITICAL TOLERANCE AND LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION ........ 106
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4.5 POLITICAL TOLERANCE AND MODES OF PARTICIPATION ......... 118
4.6 ROSENBAUM SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF TOLERANCE’S EFFECT
ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ..................................................................................... 123
4.7 DISCUSSION, OBJECTIONS, AND PREVIEW OF SUBSEQUENT
CHAPTERS ...................................................................................................................... 127
5.0 CAUSAL INFERENCE IN THE STUDY OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE: THE
SELF-PERSUASION EXPERIMENT ................................................................................... 131
5.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 132
5.2 EXPERIMENTS IN POLITICAL TOLERANCE ....................................... 136
5.2.1 Framing and experimental vignettes ......................................................... 136
5.2.2 Persuasion experiments ............................................................................... 140
5.3 APPLIED (IN)TOLERANCE AND THE SELF-PERSUASION
EXPERIMENT ................................................................................................................. 144
5.4 EXPERIMENTAL PROTOCOL ................................................................... 148
5.4.1 Sample........................................................................................................... 148
5.4.2 Pre-test questionnaire and measurement .................................................. 149
5.4.3 Manipulation, post-test questionnaire, and measurement....................... 150
5.4.4 Active noncompliance.................................................................................. 153
5.4.5 Compliant essays.......................................................................................... 157
5.5 INITIAL FINDINGS ....................................................................................... 161
5.6 COMPLIERS AVERAGE CAUSAL EFFECT (CACE) OF THE
TREATMENT ON (IN)TOLERANCE .......................................................................... 168
5.7 CONCLUDING REMARKS .......................................................................... 178
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6.0 THE BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF POLITICAL TOLERANCE:
EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED STATES AND HUNGARY......................................... 182
6.1 BRIEF REPRISE AND INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER SIX ............... 182
6.2 OPERATIONAL HYPOTHESES ................................................................. 187
6.3 EXPERIMENTAL PROTOCOL ................................................................... 191
6.3.1 Summary ...................................................................................................... 191
6.3.2 Sample and cover story ............................................................................... 192
6.3.3 Pre-test questionnaire and measurement .................................................. 193
6.3.4 Manipulation and post-test attitudinal measures ..................................... 196
6.3.5 Direct measures of political behavior ........................................................ 199
6.4 DIRECT EFFECTS OF TOLERANCE ON POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION ............................................................................................................ 205
6.4.1 Tolerance and participation in the United States ..................................... 206
6.4.2 Tolerance and participation in Hungary ................................................... 211
6.5 UNCOVERING THE CAUSAL MECHANISM .......................................... 217
6.6 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................... 229
7.0 CARRIERS OF THE CREED? CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ....... 234
APPENDIX A : APPENDIX TO CHAPTER FOUR ............................................................ 244
APPENDIX B : APPENDIX TO CHAPTER FIVE .............................................................. 253
APPENDIX C : APPENDIX TO CHAPTER SIX ................................................................. 259
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 284
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Perceptions of Available Freedom in the United States and Russia ................................ 74
Table 2 Self-Censored Expression in the United States and Russia ............................................. 75
Table 3 Political Tolerance and Levels of Participation in the United States and Europe ......... 107
Table 4 Tolerance and Levels of Participation in the United States using Propensity Score Kernel
Matching ..................................................................................................................................... 110
Table 5 Imbalance between Tolerant and Intolerant Groups on Main Covariates, USCID and
ISSP............................................................................................................................................. 112
Table 6 Tolerance for Most-Disliked Group and Levels of Participation in the United States .. 114
Table 7 Tolerance and Levels of participation in the United States using Content-Controlled
Measures and Propensity Score Kernel Matching ...................................................................... 115
Table 8 Marginal Effect of Political Tolerance on Participation Levels, by Country ................ 116
Table 9 Marginal Change in Participation, Intolerant to Tolerant .............................................. 120
Table 10 Estimating the Propensity of Tolerance ....................................................................... 125
Table 11 Sensitivity Analysis for Effects of Tolerance on Public Participation ........................ 126
Table 12 Pre- and Post-Assignment Attrition by Treatment Condition .................................... 154
Table 13 Attrition Rates across Demographic and Attitudinal Traits........................................ 155
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