tolerance and the politics of identity in the european union

Tolerance and the Politics of Identity inthe European Union∗

Alan Arwine, University of Kansas

Lawrence Mayer, Texas Tech University

Objectives. The basic research problem in this article is whether hostility towardout-groups is a product of events or whether the degree of hostility toward out-groups exists independently of such events in the form of a generalized bigotry.Methods. We examine two countries that experienced threatening violent eventsfrom an unassimilated minority in order to determine if their levels of intoleranceincreased in the period between two runs of the World Values Survey when theseviolent events occurred. This article also examines six additional EU countries thatdid not experience such violent events. Results. In the six countries that did notexperience violent events, the level of tolerance increased between the two waves of theWorld Values Survey while tolerance decreased in the two countries that experiencedviolent events. Conclusions. The strongest factor in fostering intolerance towardout-groups is a perception of a violent, existential threat to one’s way of life. Ouranalyses tentatively suggest the following factor may exacerbate levels of intolerance:the presence and strength of a nativist or populist party of identity mobilizing arejection of out-groups.

Tolerance is well established as an important aspect of a successful democracy(Almond and Verba, 1965; Adorno et al., 1950). Tolerance here means theacceptance of the legitimacy of groups with attributes different from one’sown. This legitimacy includes acceptance of their right to advocate values andinterests that conflict with one’s own values and interests. Such tolerance allowspeople to commit to the democratic process regardless of the outcome. Wheresuch tolerance is a typically held attribute among the members of a politicalsystem, those in power are less likely to use the administrative power of thestate to suppress those with differing values and interests. Only in societiesin which such tolerance is an established attribute of the political culture canelections be truly competitive. Competitive elections, those in which those inpower do not try to suppress those with competing views and interests, havebeen held by Joseph Schumpeter to constitute the essence of the democraticprocess (Schumpeter, 1950:269).

∗Direct correspondence to Alan Arwine, Department of Political Science, University ofKansas, 1541 Lilac Lane, 504 Blake Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045 〈[email protected]〉. Alan Arwinewill share all data and coding for replication purposes.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 95, Number 3, September 2014C© 2013 by the Southwestern Social Science AssociationDOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12061

670 Social Science Quarterly

This article explains variation in the degree of tolerance afforded frequentlyto oppressed out-groups and accounts for variations in levels of intolerancefrom one state to another. The basic research problem in this article is whetherhostility toward out-groups is a product of events, such as out-groups beingperceived as an existential threat to one’s nation, or whether the degree ofhostility toward out-groups exists independently of such events in the form ofa generalized bigotry.

Other studies have shown citizens of the United States, as of the 1950s, to bequite intolerant of political differences (Stouffer, 1955). Since this classic study,the levels of tolerance have varied. French President Sarkozy, for example,has banned head scarves on Muslim women in schools, and Switzerland hasbanned the construction of minarets built onto mosques. Mueller, on the otherhand, has shown an increase in the United States of tolerance toward leftistssince the McCarthy era of the 1950s (Mueller, 1988). However, Sullivan,Pierson, and Marcus call this apparent increase in tolerance “illusory,” claimingthat intolerance has been redirected to other groups (Sullivan, Pierson, andMarcus, 1979).

Gibson, however, views the essential attribute of the democratic process asthe legitimacy and perceived freedom of groups and individuals to expressunpopular ideas and to compete for political power (Gibson, 1992:338–39).He argues that mass political intolerance, while not an absolute barrier to theexistence of “relatively democratic regimes,” creates “a culture of conformity.”Tolerance itself is conceptualized by Gibson and associates as “opposition tostate actions that limit opportunities . . . to compete for state power” (Gibsonand Bingham, 1985:106). In our article, however, we regard perceptions ofa threat to one’s way of life that, we argue, includes perceived governmentaland societal restraints on freedom to engage in political action, as a result ofintolerance. While Ted Gurr distinguishes between economic and politicaldeprivation, Gibson focuses on the latter (Gurr, 1968). Gibson measuresintolerance by perceptions of the victims of limits to freedom, while intolerancein our work is directly measured by negative attitudes toward particular out-groups rather than general opposition to restrictions on political competition,restrictions that would impact the freedom of groups to engage in politicalaction. We agree with Gibson that mass tolerance of out-groups is an importantdemocratic value, the absence of which can lead to what Gibson calls a “cultureof conformity,” a reluctance to articulate and pursue one’s own interests. Thesuppression of criticism and action toward government creates a situation inwhich the rules for choosing decisionmakers and making decisions becomeless important than the outcome.

While this literature has focused on conceptualizing and measuring toler-ance, we seek to isolate a major factor in the variation in the levels of tolerancein a particular nation and thereby explain some of this variation. We, there-fore, expect that our findings support our contention that the hostility toout-groups (i.e., bigotry) is to a significant extent driven by events and experi-ences rather than such hostility to out-groups existing as a generalized bigotry

Tolerance and the Politics of Identity in the EU 671

independently of such events. This research reinforces Quillian’s concept ofgroup threat (Quillian, 1995). We contend that this perception of a “groupthreat” can be driven by not just an ingrained bigotry but also by the expe-rience of certain events that could negatively impact the lives of the majoritypopulation.

We have hypothesized that such negative attitudes toward out-groups canbe exacerbated by events from which the out-groups may be perceived asposing a threat to one’s way of life. Hutchison and Gibler argue that externalterritorial threats to a nation are more salient to a population than other kindsof threats (Hutchison and Gibler, 2007). Muslims are the fastest growingminority throughout Europe and, hence, are perceived as the main threat tothe lifestyle of white Christian Europe. However, the perceived threat posed bythe Muslim population may take on the status of an external threat given thedegree of alienation and physical isolation of many of that population fromthe country in which they reside. The French gendarmes or police rarely evenenter the Muslim enclaves. Moreover, because some leaders of the Muslimcommunity have asserted an intention to convert Europe into an Islamicsociety under the Sharia or Islamic law and because they have the demographicson their side as the European population is sharply dwindling while the Muslimpopulation is rapidly growing, the Muslim population may be perceived as athreat even in the absence of such events in one’s own country (Steyn, 2006).A conclusion that attitudes and ultimately behavior are shaped by eventsrather than some deep-seated subconscious motivation is consistent with thework of the distinguished psychologist, Gordon Allport, who emphasized theconscious factors in explaining attitudes and behavior. His magnum opus, TheNature of Prejudice, expressed pessimism regarding the prospects for reducingthe ethnic stereotyping that is the underlying basis of prejudice (Allport,1954).

Particular out-groups have traditionally been the victims of European intol-erance: Muslims, Jews, people of color, homosexuals, and Gypsies. Gibson’sfindings that the perception of victimization or suppression is more prevalentamong those out-groups that have in fact been the subjects of intolerant atti-tudes are not surprising (Gibson, 1992:342). These discriminated groups maybe simply stating a fact. The recent clearly anti-Muslim action of Switzerlandof banning the construction of minarets (prayer towers) on the mosques inthat country occurred in the absence of events from which one could infera perceived growing threat from its Muslim community to Swiss way of life.The rise in support for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party, which,in September 2010, won 20 seats in the Riksdag, has apparently occurred inthe absence of violence. The suppression of religious expression among theMuslim minority in Europe, as with Sarkozy’s banning of head scarves amongMuslim women in French schools, also raises the question whether such banson minority religious expression represent widely held views among the gen-eral population or whether such suppression of religious expression reflects anelite-driven choice not reflecting changes in the attitudes of the population.


To test the hypothesis that intolerance of out-groups is to a significant ex-tent the product of such a perceived threat, we initially gathered data fromFrance and the Netherlands, two countries in which such threatening eventsoccurred between earlier and later waves of comparable surveys, the WorldValues Survey runs of 2000 and 2005. This data set had the advantage of runsboth before and after the threatening events and questions that allowed themeasurement of tolerance in general and with respect to particular out-groups.The Netherlands offers a particularly useful data source for our purposes be-cause that country has long been regarded as an especially tolerant nation(e.g., Sniderman and Hagendorn, 2007). Both countries experienced signifi-cant threat-inducing events between the two waves of the World Values Sur-vey: the Muslim riots in France and two highly public assassinations of publicfigures who had taken strong anti-Muslim positions in the Netherlands. More-over, in addition to having experienced these potentially threatening events,both France and the Netherlands had populist, anti-immigrant parties—theNational Front in France, Pim Fortuyn’s List, and Geert Wilders’ FreedomParty in the Netherlands—actively mobilizing hatred toward and fear of theirgrowing Muslim minority. The presence of these parties with their undisguisedcrusade against Muslims supports our inference of a perceived existential threatfrom these events to the Christian, European lifestyle and culture.

We found that expressed intolerance of out-groups was significantly higherin both countries after the threatening events than the earlier run before theseevents.

However, we must still address the question of whether the rise in thelevel of intolerance was due, to a significant extent, to the threatening events.Hence, the next question is whether there was a similar erosion of tolerancein nations that did not experience such threatening events. Regarding thequestion, however, as to whether there has been an erosion of tolerance in otherWestern democracies that did not experience such clearly threatening eventswe used data from six other European countries: Switzerland, Sweden, Italy,Spain, Austria, and Belgium. These six nations constitute the nonthreatenedgroup; hence, they should continue to experience increasing levels of toleranceassociated with a general secularization of the West. The aforementionedexample of Switzerland raises the question of whether there is a growinghostility toward Muslims in particular as a Europe-wide phenomenon orwhether there is growing bigotry toward the various out-groups throughoutEurope stemming from a growing concern about these unassimilated out-group populations. We expect to find sharply decreasing levels of tolerancein these countries. Extending our inquiry to these other countries is a logicalnext step in our research agenda before we can comfortably infer causationfrom the perceived threat of the Islamist minority and intolerance towardout-groups.

A related question in this regard is whether the growing intolerance overthe time period in question is focused more on Muslims than upon the otherout-groups. In other words, are we witnessing a reaction to a perceived threat


of one particular group indicated by particular events or a growing generalbigotry associated with an emerging politics of identity, a focus on a folk whoare thought to epitomize the values and essence of that society? (Arwine andMayer, 2008). If the increase in levels of intolerance after the events that wehave inferred to indicate a perceived threat to one’s way of life is directed atthe Muslim community more than toward other out-groups, we would be onstronger ground in inferring that those events had an impact on tolerance ofout-groups.

One of our indices of intolerance, antipathy toward immigrants, would beaffected by the unemployment rates in the countries we consider. Accordingly,we present those data and see if they predict objections to those particularout-groups.

The French, with the riots that occurred in October 2005 in the banlieus(roughly, suburbs) of 16 major cities, experienced an event that we assumecreated the perception of a potentially existential threat to their way of life.These riots were largely perpetrated by an unassimilated, alienated, and grow-ing Muslim population many of whom are perceived to reject the values andpractices that define Western civilization. Almost 2,900 rioters were arrested,and 126 police and firefighting personnel were injured. Thousands of cars wereburned as were two schools and a church. This was a major event driven bygrievances that went beyond a stagnant economy. Almost all the perpetratorswere Muslim; hence, the riots were perceived to be directed at the existentialattributes of France.

In the Netherlands, two high-profile assassinations of leading critics of theMuslim subculture shocked the nation. Pim Fortuyn, a charismatic youngman who headed his own political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF), achievedserious political success on the issues of curbing Muslim immigration andadvocating tougher measures on crime that was perceived to be dispropor-tionately perpetrated by members of that community. He was killed in 2002by one Volkert van der Graf who claimed his motive was to oppose For-tuyn’s anti-Muslim crusade. The LPF won 26 seats in 2002 elections to theTweede Kamer (Second Chamber). Meanwhile, film maker Theo Van Goghwas killed on the streets of Amsterdam in 2004 by an Islamist militant whoexpressed anger for a film, produced by Van Gogh, critical of the treatment ofwomen in the Muslim community. Then, the formerly conservative politicianGeert Wilders figuratively picked up the banner of Fortuyn’s anti-Muslimcrusade forming the PPV or Freedom Party in 2006 driven by the LPF’santi-Muslim agenda. Far from being a fringe group, in the elections of June2010, the PPV went from nine seats in the 150-seat Tweede Kamer to 24 seats,the third strongest party in a highly fragmented party system. So clearly isWilders identified with an anti-Muslim agenda that he was denied entry intothe United Kingdom on the grounds that he propagated “hate speech” andstirred up racial discord. The perception of a threat from the Muslim commu-nity was probably exacerbated by the death threat to Wilders from Muslimleaders.


FIGURE 1

Low Self-Esteem as an Intervening Variable Between Marginalized Statusand Bigotry

Socio-economicwell-being

Low self-esteem

Bigotrytoward out-groups

We therefore expect an increased level of intolerance to be reflected inthe political success of political parties with an anti-immigrant agenda. Therelationship between public attitudes and the agenda of parties regardingout-groups is probably a reciprocal one; the parties both reflect and mobilizeintolerant attitudes in the public. Thus, we expect a significantly greaterdegree of hostility toward immigrants and other out-groups in those countriesin which a party with a pronounced anti-immigrant agenda such as Francewith its National Front, the Netherlands with their Fortuyn and WildersLists, or Austria with its Freedom Party than in countries such as Italy or theScandinavian countries in which no parties with an anti-immigrant agendaattracted significant success.

Clearly, intolerance toward immigrants and other out-groups varies amongindividuals as well as between nations in the aggregate. Those segments ofthe population that have been marginalized by economic and technologicaldevelopment are going to perceive a greater economic threat from immigrantsthan those in higher socioeconomic strata. People such as unskilled workers,clerks, peasants, owner of small family farms, artisans, or shopkeepers findtheir socioeconomic roles rendered increasingly atavistic by economic mod-ernization. Such people find it difficult to take great pride in their individualachievements; hence, they might compensate for low self-esteem by glorify-ing the group (racial, religious, ethnic, gender) to which they belong. Wetherefore expect a relationship between socioeconomic status and intolerancewith low self-esteem as an inferred intervening variable. Figure 1 indicates thisrelationship.

Hypotheses and Data Sources

Using the two most recent runs of the data from the World Values Survey(WVS), we expect to find a higher level of antipathy toward the severalout-groups included in the second run than in the earlier run of the WVSin the two countries that experienced events from which one may infer an


existential threat and that occurred between the two runs. If we were to findthat intolerance toward out-groups did not increase significantly in countriessuch as Austria, Italy, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries that did notexperience an event or series of events perceived as an existential threat, wewould be on stronger grounds in inferring that increasing levels of intolerancewere driven by these perceived threats.

Belgium presents another possibility. Ronald Inglehart hypothesized thatthe political arena was largely preoccupied by issues of class and material well-being until the unprecedented prosperity of the Western world rendered suchissues less salient (Inglehart, 1971). Arwine and Mayer have hypothesized thatissues of identity with either the nation or a subculture have to a large extentreplaced the formerly class-dominated politics (Arwine and Mayer, 2008).Belgium epitomizes a preoccupation with identity as the segmentation of itsFlemish and Wallonia subcultures has essentially transformed that countryfrom a nation-state to a confederation. Strongly felt identity tends to takeon an exclusive character, rejecting those segments of the population whocould never be part of the “folk” on which the identity is focused. Hence,we expect more strongly expressed rejection of out-groups among supportersof those parties whose principal claim to legitimacy is the representation ofidentity either at the level of national patriotism or chauvinism (such as theFrench National Front) or at the level of subcultural defense (such as Belgium’sVlaams Belang). This party, formerly known as Vlaams Blok, was so stronglysupportive of Flemish nationalism that it was banned as being neofascist, hencethe name change. One might expect a party that has a neofascist backgroundwould list Jews prominently as a despised out-group; yet, Felip Dewinter,the head of Vlaams Belang, was surprisingly quoted as praising the Jews andIsrael (Wildman, 2007:11). Apparently, Dewinter’s main concern is Flemishnationalism and the Jews are a principal target and foe of expansive Islamism,which is seen as the main threat to Flemish nationalism. Therefore, while wedo not expect a significant increase in the level of intolerance in Belgium fromthe earlier to the later WVS run, that country not having experienced eventspossibly perceived as an existential threat, we expect Belgium to have higherlevels of intolerance than countries without significant issues of identity.

We thus expect an increased level of intolerance to be driven by either oftwo factors: events that are likely to be perceived as indicating an existentialthreat to one’s way of life or a primary concern with promoting and protectingthe autonomous identity of a nation or subculture. Either of these situationsinvolves protecting the autonomy of a folk to whom the out-group could neverbelong. It is likely that rejection of the out-groups in a nation is exacerbatedby the political success of the folkish party that would mobilize more peopleagainst those groups. Hence, when the Austrian Freedom Party, the late JorgHaider’s right-wing party stressing Austrian nationalism, climbed to over 20percent of the vote in a fragmented legislature, more Austrians should scoresignificantly higher on the bigotry factor than would a country without astrong party of nationalism.


TABLE 1

The Increase in the Percent Objecting to Immigrants and Foreign Workersas Neighbors

France The Netherlands

Wave year Objected Did not object Objected Did not object

2001 196 (12%) 1,419 (88%) 50 (5%) 953 (95%)2006 363 (36%) 638 (64%) 100 (10%) 950 (90%)

NOTE: Using Fisher’s exact test, French differences were significant at <0.001; Dutch differ-ences at <0.001.

TABLE 2

The Increase in the Percent Objecting to People of a Different Race as Neighbors

France The Netherlands

Wave year Objected Did not object Objected Did not object

2001 147 (9%) 1,468 (91%) 50 (5%) 953 (95%)2006 227 (23%) 774 (77%) 85 (8%) 965 (92%)

NOTE: Using Fisher’s exact test, French differences were significant at <0.001; Dutch differ-ences at 0.006.

Findings

As expected, the intolerance levels in France and the Netherlands, the twocountries that experienced threatening events between 2001 and 2006, rosesignificantly over that period of time as shown in Tables 1 and 2. The datareflect the percent of respondents that indicated an objection to having peopleof a different race or having immigrants or foreign workers as neighbors. An-tipathy toward foreign workers and immigrants might have been interpretedas a nearly rational response to the economic threat such foreigners pose tonative workers competing for scarce semi- and unskilled jobs. There is no suchjustification, however, to objecting to people on the basis of race.

Countries not having experienced such threatening events as the Dutchassassinations or the French riots accordingly should not have their intolerancescores rise over the period between the two waves. This in fact is what wefound. In Sweden, Norway, Italy, Spain, and even Switzerland, despite itsoutlawing new minarets built on to their mosques, the percent of objectionsto out-groups declined. On both indices of intolerance, objecting to havingeither immigrants and foreigners or people of a different race, each of thesecountries experienced a decline in intolerance. Each of these countries eitherhad a smaller Muslim population or, as in the case of Sweden, the Muslimcommunity was concentrated in one city (Malmo), and out of sight and mindfor most of that country’s Christian population. Moreover, none of these


TABLE 3

The Increase in the Percent Objecting to Immigrants and Foreign Workersas Neighbors

Switzerland Spain

Year Objected Did not object Year Objected Did not object

1996 126 (10.4%) 1,086 2000 245 (10.2%) 2,1642007 84 (7.1%) 1,107 2007 78 (6.5%) 1,122Swiss differences significant at 0.004; Spanish differences significant at <0.001.

Sweden Italy

Year Objected Did not object Year Objected Did not object2000 29 (2.9%) 986 1999 330 (16.5%) 1,6702006 19 (1.9%) 984 2005 141 (15.0%) 799Swedish differences significant at 0.188; Italian differences significant at 0.306.

Austria Belgium

Year Objected Did not object Year Objected Did not object1990 295 (20.2%) 1,165 1990 566 (20.3%) 2,2261999 193 (12.7%) 1,329 1999 301 (15.7%) 1,611Austrian differences significant at <0.001; Belgian differences significant at

<0.001.

countries had a significantly successful populist party or identity party, thekind of party usually active in mobilizing anti-out-group sentiments. TheSweden Democrats entered the legislative assembly for the first time in 2010,winning only 20 seats in the 349-seat Riksdag; hence, the long-term impact ofthat party on Swedish tolerance remains to be seen. We expect to see the impactof the mobilizing potential of populist parties of identity in the Austrian andBelgian data. The data from these countries are presented in Tables 3–6.

The first thing one immediately sees in the data is that while France andthe Netherlands had their incidence of intolerance go up significantly afterexperiencing the violent events discussed earlier in this article, the levels ofintolerance went down in every other country examined in this article, withthe exception of a negligible—and statistically insignificant—increase in in-tolerance toward Muslims in Austria between 1990 and 1999. The obviousdifference between the two groups is that all the countries with increasinglevels of tolerance did not experience the kinds of existential violent eventsexperienced in France and the Netherlands. This result supports the inferencethat such an existential threat drove the increasing intolerance in those twocountries.

While the levels of intolerance decreased in all countries except France andthe Netherlands, the indicators of intolerance were higher in Belgium than inSweden, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy. This also fits our expectations becausein Belgium the issues of subcultural defense, which evokes a populist or volkish


TABLE 4

The Increase in the Percent Objecting to People of a Different Race as Neighbors

Switzerland Spain


1996 104 (8.6%) 1,108 2000 266 (11.0%) 2,1432007 73 (6.1%) 1,124 2007 83 (6.9%) 1,117Swiss differences significant at 0.023; Spanish differences significant at <0.001.

Sweden Italy

Year Objected Did not object Year Objected Did not object2000 26 (2.6%) 989 1999 311 (15.6%) 1,6892006 14 (1.4%) 989 2005 112 (12.0%) 819Swedish differences significant at 0.078; Italian differences significant at 0.011.

Austria Belgium

Year Objected Did not object Year Objected Did not object1990 119 (8.2%) 1,341 1990 472 (16.9%) 2,3201999 120 (7.9%) 1,402 1999 266 (13.9%) 1,646Austrian differences significant at 0.840; Belgian differences significant at 0.006.

TABLE 5

Percentage of People Specifically Objecting to Having Muslims as Neighbors

Austria Belgium


1990 207 (14.2%) 1,253 1990 744 (26.6%) 2,0481999 231 (15.2%) 1,291 1999 379 (19.8%) 1,533

NOTE: Austrian differences significant at 0.469; Belgian differences significant at <0.001.

search for identity and community, had come to a head in the decade priorto when the Belgian data were gathered. This rising politics of identity wasespecially apparent in Flanders with the emergence of the right-wing partyof subcultural defense, Vlaams Bloc, which became Vlaams Belang. Such aparty would mobilize feelings of exclusionary identity even in the absence ofthreatening violent events such as occurred in France and the Netherlands.

Our expectation that objection to foreign workers and immigrants may notbe an irrational fear that the immigrants and foreign workers might be a realthreat to the rate of unemployment in that country is supported only by thepositive correlation between the rate of objections to those out-groups andthe employment status of the respondents in Sweden. Unfortunately, we aredenied the opportunity to explore this factor further with this particular dataset as the question of employment status makes its debut in the abbreviated2005–2008 wave of the World Values Survey.


TABLE 6

Correlation Between Employment Status and Tolerance TowardsImmigrants/Foreign Workers

Employment status Percent objecting to foreign/immigrant neighbors

Italy, 2005Full-time employee 9.9%Part-time employee 26.7%Unemployed 8.6%Spain, 2007Full-time employee 7.5%Part-time employee 8.5%Unemployed 5.4%Sweden, 2005–2006Full-time employee 1.1%Part-time employee 1.1%Unemployed 10.3%

NOTE: Sweden—Spearman’s Rho = 0.083, significance = 0.017.

Conclusions

If there are “cultural requisites of democracy,” tolerance of out-groups wouldseem to be one of the most important, especially in the face of rising levels ofantipathy toward out-groups at both the elite and the mass level. Only withsuch tolerance will the political rules of the game be more important thanthe outcome. This article has investigated some of the determinants of thevariation in such tolerance (our dependent variable) and has found that severalfactors have some impact on our dependent variable. The data have reinforcedour earlier hypothesis that the strongest factor in fostering intolerance towardout-groups is a perception of a violent, existential threat to one’s way of life.France and the Netherlands are the only countries in our eight countries thathave experienced such an overtly perceived threat, and they are the only twocountries in which the level of intolerance grew between the time periodsmeasured. However, significant variations in our dependent variable remainamong the other six countries.

Moreover, our findings have implications for countries beyond the eightin our study. In particular, the United States, with its rapidly growing andimperfectly assimilated Muslim immigrant population may be perceived as athreat to the Anglo-European culture that has almost defined that country.In such a context, the American commitment to multiculturalism may bequestioned.

Our analyses tentatively suggest the following factor may exacerbate levels ofintolerance: the presence and strength of a nativist or populist party of identitymobilizing a rejection of out-groups. Moreover, the curious case of Switzerland


where the government banned minarets despite a high rate of economic growthcompared to EU countries and a population in which already low levels ofhostility toward out-groups actually decreased over the time period measuredsuggests a possible difference between elite attitudes and the populations theyputatively represent. The failure of elites to represent their constituencies onthe perceived threat of an out-group may also go in the other direction duringthe emergence of the Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders Lists in the Netherlandsbecause of unresponsive major parties and the success of the National Frontin France. The pressure to have populist parties of identity to represent thegrowing fear of an existential threat to one’s way of life is also epitomizedby the temporary rise and fall of the Reform Party of Canada and Australia’sOne Nation Party (Mayer and Justice, 2003). These are important questionsrequiring the gathering of a greater variety of more recent data in varioussettings. This article could only pose the questions and tentatively suggest thedirections in which future inquiry might proceed.

REFERENCES

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Almond, Gabriel, and Sidney Verba. 1965. The Civic Culture. Boston: Little Brown.

Arwine, Alan, and Lawrence Mayer. 2008. “The Changing Bases of Political Conflict in WesternEurope: The Cases of Belgium and Austria.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 14:428–52.

Gibson, James. 1992. “The Political Consequences of Intolerance: Cultural Conformity andPolitical Freedom.” American Political Science Review 86:338–56.

Gibson, James, and Richard Bingham. 1985. Civil Liberties and Nazis: The Skokie Free-SpeechControversy. New York: Praeger.

Gurr, Ted. 1968. “A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices.”American Political Science Review 62:1104–24.

Hutchison, Marc, and Douglas Gibler. 2007. “Political Tolerance and Territorial Threat: ACross National Study.” Journal of Politics 69:128–42.

Inglehart, Ronald. 1971. “The Silent Revolution in Europe: Intergenerational Change inPost-Industrial Societies.” American Political Science Review 65:991–1017.

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Quillian, Lincoln. 1995. “Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: PopulationComposition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe.” American SociologicalReview, 60(4):586–611.

Schumpeter, Joseph. 1950. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 3rd ed. New York: Harperand Row.


Sniderman, Paul, and L. Hagendorn. 2007. When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and ItsDiscontents in the Netherlands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Steyn, Mark. 2006. America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. Washington, DC:Regnery Publishing Co.

Stouffer, Samuel. 1955. Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties. Garden City, NY:Doubleday.

Sullivan, John, James Piereson, and George Marcus. 1979. “An Alternative Conceptualizationof Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases 1950s–1970s.” American Political Science Review,73(3):781–94.

Wildman, Sara. 2007. “Dewinter’s Tale.” New Republic 236(4) :11–13.

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