Rugged individuals and social butterflies: the consequences of social and individual political participation for political tolerance

Abstract

Empirical studies of political participation beyond voting include a variety of different activities—from campaigning and convincing friends to writing letters and writing checks. Some activities may have very different consequences for citizens. This paper presents the argument that social political activities, such as campaigning and attending meetings, enhance political tolerance, while individual political activities, such as contributing and contacting, do not. Survey data from the 1990 Citizen Participation Study reveals support for this argument. Consequently, it is suggested that future research pay more attention to the social and individual nature of political activities, particularly when considering the consequences for attitudes such as political tolerance.

Notes

1 The CVM examines voting and political discussion as unique activities.

2 The model depicted in Fig. 1 satisfies the rank and order conditions and, therefore, is mathematically identified. In other words, there is enough information to obtain a unique solution, since the model depicts ideology and racial diversity of neighborhood as unique exogenous influences on tolerance and since efficacy, civic skills, vocabulary skills, and nonpolitical organizational affiliation are postulated as unique exogenous influences on participation. For a good discussion of the issue of identification see Berry (1984).

3 The political tolerance index is the sum of tolerant responses to four questions. Respondents were probed as to whether or not they would allow the following: removing a book on homosexuality from your public library, removing a book arguing that Blacks are genetically inferior from your public library, advocating doing away with elections and letting military run the country, and a speech in your community by someone who is against all churches and religion.

4 Since political tolerance questions elicit individuals’ support of liberal principles, the concept can be somewhat confounded with ideology. In this case the Pearson’s r correlation of the index of tolerance and ideology is −.1 (p<.001) where “1” is extremely liberal and “7” is extremely conservative.

5 Volunteered for national, state, or local office in 1988 election year (see Verba et al., 1995, p. 539)—8.5%. Volunteered in past 2 years on official local governmental board or council that deals with community problems and/or attended meetings regularly in past year (see Verba et al., 1995, pp. 540–541)—26.8%. Contributed to candidate or candidate organization in 1988 election year (see Verba et al., 1995, p. 540)—23.6%. Contacted federal elected or appointed official or local elected or appointed official in the past year (see Verba et al., 1995, p. 541)—34.1%.