Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa: Experiments in Democratic Persuasion

by James L. Gibson, Amanda Gouws

Overview

James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws investigate the degree to which the political culture of South Africa and the beliefs, values, and attitudes of ordinary people affect democratic reform. One set of values is of particular concern for their research: political tolerance. Gibson and Gouws contend that political tolerance is a crucial element of democratic political cultures in general. And it is perhaps more important than any other democratic value in polyglot South Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521813907
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/23/2002
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

James L. Gibson is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University in St. Louis. He has published four books and numerous articles on mass behavior and democratization in the United States, Europe, and Africa. He has recently held visiting research and teaching positions at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), the Institute for Social Justice and Reconciliation (South Africa), and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Amanda Gouws is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch. She has been involved in numerous survey research projects in South Africa and has published academic articles on political tolerance, the electoral system, and gender politics in South Africa.

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures; Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Political tolerance in the New South Africa; 2. The South African context; Part II. South African Intolerance as It Is: 3. The nature of political intolerance in South Africa; 4. Social identities, threat perceptions and political intolerance; 5. Making tolerance judgements: the effect of context, local and national; Part III. South African Intolerance as It Might Be: 6. The persuasibility of tolerance and intolerance; 7. The law and legal institutions as agents of persuasion; 8. Becoming tolerant? Short-term changes in South African political culture; 9. Conclusions: experimenting with tolerance in the New South Africa; Appendix: research design and methodology; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

Commentators since the late 1980s have identified political intolerance as a serious obstacle to successful democratization in South Africa. This study tackles the issue as a problem in social psychology, using interview data from a broad 1996-97 survey. It confirms that intolerance is widespread: about two-thirds of South Africans favor banning the group they dislike the most, and almost three-fourths would prohibit that group from demonstrating — even when their most disliked group is a mainstream political party. Experimental questions show that tolerant attitudes are held less strongly than intolerant ones, especially among Africans. Most Africans are not influenced to modify their hard-line views even by Constitutional Court judgments that promote civil liberties. To lower intolerance levels significantly, the study indicates that most South Africans must experience diminishing perceptions that their physical security is under threat from their "enemies." Also, local and national elites must make concerted efforts to build a public commitment to the full spectrum of democratic values: multipartyism, the rule of law, and a prioritization of individual liberty over social order.¶

Foreign Affairs

"...an excellent illustration of how good social science can contribute to theory, research, and our political understanding of politics and society." Contemporary Psychology

"Gibson and Gouws have created a pathbreaking study of political tolerance in a new democracy. It offers both fresh findings and questions for tolerance research..." American Political Science Review

"From time to time there are works that change how we ought to think about important problems...[this] is such a work." Paul M. Sniderman, Stanford University

"Jim Gibson and Amanda Gouws have written...a courageous book...a creative, meticulous, and thoroughly honest depiction of the condition of mass political tolerance in South Africa..." Law and Politics

"[E]xcellent survey.... Defining tolerance as 'putting up with that with which one disagrees ..., allowing one's political enemies to compete openly for political power,' the authors surveyed a stratified sample according to province, race, and community size of the country's mass political culture.... Recommended." Choice

"South Africa's transition from repression to democracy has been hailed as a miracle because so many had expected a bloodbath. Still, the infant democracy is grappling with many and daunting problems, such as the existence cheek by jowl with one another of a diversity of political and other ideologies, ethnic and racial groups and nationalities, as well as the necessity of dealing with the inequitites of the past, and having to combat one of the highest levels of HIV / AIDS pandemic and a burgeoning crime rate. No wonder intolerance should have raised its ugly head in such fertile soil. And it is a very serious problem. This gronudbreaking study of the problem is timely in looking for solutions to what could so easily subvert what so many laboured so valiantly for and many others gave their lives. It is to be welcomed enthusiastically." Archbishop Desmond Tutu

From the Publisher