With Malice toward Some How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments

The authors examine how citizens faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups.

With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments addresses an issue integral to democratic societies: how people faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups. Relying on several survey-experiments, Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, and Wood identify and compare the impact on decision making of contemporary information, long-standing predispositions, and enduring values and beliefs. Citizens react most strongly to information about a group's violations of behavioral norms and information about the implications for democracy of the group's actions. The authors conclude that democratic citizens should have a strong baseline of tolerance yet be attentive to and thoughtful about current information.

Preface: Political tolerance and democratic life; Part I. Theoretical Background and Overview: 1. Political tolerance and democratic practice; 2. Antecedent considerations and contemporary information; 3. Thinking and mood; Part II. Contemporary Information and Political Tolerance Judgments: 4. Tolerance judgments and contemporary information - the basic studies; Appendix 4A. The basic experiments - manipulation checks; Part III. Refining the Model - The Role of Antecedent Conserations as Individual Differences: 5. Threat and political tolerance; 6. Democratic values as standing decisions and contemporary information; 7. Source credibility, political knowledge and animus in making tolerance judgments - the Texas experiment; 8. Individual differences: The influence of personality; Part IV. Implications and Conclusions: 9. Intensity, motivations, and behavioral intentions; 10. Human nature and political tolerance; Appendices; Bibliography.

How do citizens faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups? Relying on several survey-experiments, the authors identify and compare the impact on decision making of contemporary information, long-standing predispositions, and enduring values and beliefs.