Conclusions

One of the most straightforward and arguably most important questions concerning political tolerance has eluded clear answer for decades. Stouffer (1955) projected that trends in society were such that tolerance would in­crease in future years, yet the nature of available data has prevented direct test of this possibility. The initial problem was that researchers simply copied Stouffer's approach 20 years later without considering whether the context had changed in such a manner as to confound compar­isons centered on Stouffer's three target groups. In an effort to address this problem, the GSS has asked an iden­tical battery of improved tolerance items regularly since 1976, but debate and uncertainty over what these data rep­resent have led most analysts to steer clear of longitudinal analysis. In an effort to shed what light we can on the mat­ter of trends in tolerance, our strategy in this article has been to approach this question using the old data in a new way.

Drawing on Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1982), we have argued that people are tolerant if they are willing to extend the full rights of citizenship to all others with­out exception. In diagnosing tolerance within a society, it follows that two questions must be asked. First, what proportion of citizens is tolerant in the absolute sense de­fined here? And second, among the intolerant, to what extent does their intolerance vary in breadth (the num­ber of groups toward which they would deny rights) and depth (the number of rights they would deny)? Though related, these questions are distinct, and both are impor­tant. Nonetheless, most research implicitly merges the two questions, with the bulk of attention paid to the latter. This apparently has occurred not for reasons grounded in theory, but rather because the most commonly available tolerance data happen to include items about multiple groups and multiple acts.

We have argued that the GSS modified Stouffer bat­tery used since 1976 provides data pertinent to both as­pects of tolerance and intolerance, although the data are better suited to answering one question than the other. The GSS data are useful for identifying the proportions of Americans who are tolerant and intolerant. So long as all, or nearly all, respondents strongly dislike one or more of the five GSS groups, those respondents have the oppor­tunity to express tolerance. Consequently, a dichotomous indicator that divides the tolerant from the intolerant is easily obtained. Unfortunately, the GSS data are much less useful for diagnosing the breadth and depth of intolerance for the simple reason that we cannot determine whether apparent declines in levels of intolerance are genuine or

merely the consequence of changes in affect toward the GSS target groups. We have decomposed the issue of tol­erance into two separate questions, and we have focused our attention on the one that is answerable. This does not mean that we see study of levels of intolerance as unim­portant, for we most certainly do not. We have set aside this second question only because it cannot be answered reliably with available data.

Our central empirical results will provide little or no solace to those observers who project, or hope, that levels of tolerance will rise dramatically over time. In many ways, our portrait of tolerance in the period 1976-1998 resem­bles the view from the late 1970s reported by Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1982). Strong majorities of Amer­icans were willing to limit civil liberties for members of unpopular groups in every year we considered, including over 79% of Americans in the last year we studied, 1998. There is evidence that tolerance has increased marginally in that 82 to 85% of respondents were coded as intol­erant for the years 1976-1989 versus 79 to 82% for the years 1990-1998. But the change is slight and represents the upper bound of possible movement toward tolerance. Tolerance may be on the rise, but any increase is taking place at a shuffling pace. Absent a development that fun­damentally transforms Americans' conceptions of civil liberties, nothing in the current results provides reason to believe that a majority of citizens will be willing to extend the full rights of citizenship to all others at any point in the foreseeable future.

Although tolerance in an absolute sense has varied little since 1976, the data suggest that the breadth and depth of intolerance may have declined markedly. Put differently, the underlying condition has changed mini­mally, but outward manifestations of that condition have abated. In the short run, this state of affairs surely consti­tutes good news for those observers who wish to see an increase in tolerance. What this might mean in the long run, however, is less certain. It may be that expressions of intolerance will ebb and flow in response to factors such as incidents that alter the salience of particular target groups and the manner in which media report those groups' ac­tivities (e.g., Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997). If the vast majority of citizens remain willing to express intoler­ance, then the breadth and depth of intolerance may well rise in the future if new target groups draw the ire of the American public.