Journal Article10.2307/2960233
Institutional Learning versus Value Diffusion: The Evolution of Democratic Values among Parliamentarians in Eastern and Western Germany
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TL;DR: This paper examined the effect of institutional learning and value diffusion processes on political elites' views regarding civil liberties and found that while eastern and western MPs differ little over general democratic rights, eastern MPs are considerably less tolerant than western MPs.
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Abstract: After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, public opinion surveys persistently document that eastern Germans are surprisingly supportive of general democratic rights, like other publics in East-Central Europe. Analysts frequently resort to a value-diffusion model to explain the apparent evolution of democratic cultures in former socialist nations. In contrast to this perspective, an institutional learning perspective, which stresses that democratic restraint is mainly internalized through practice, would predict that eastern Germans are less democratic than western Germans. This article uses 168 personally conducted interviews with members of the united Berlin parliament to examine the effect of institutional learning and value diffusion processes on political elites' views regarding civil liberties. I find that while eastern and western MPs differ little over general democratic rights--which corroborates the diffusion argument--eastern MPs are considerably less tolerant than western MPs. Moreover, an ope...
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Citations
The Impact of Persistent Terrorism on Political Tolerance: Israel, 1980 to 2011
TL;DR: This paper found that the corrosive influence of terrorism on political tolerance is much more powerful among Israelis who identify with the right, who have also become much more sensitive to terrorism over time.
93
Freedom for All? The Strength and Limits of Political Tolerance
TL;DR: In this paper, the formation of tolerance judgements is shown to differ depending on a group's association with violent and non-democratic behaviour and the theory suggests that tolerance is high and resilient towards groups that themselves observe democratic rights.
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Das Demokratiedefizit der Europäischen Union und die politische Integration Europas : Eine Analyse der Einstellungen der Bürger in Westeuropa
TL;DR: Beetham/Lord 1998; Thomassen/Schmitt 1999; as discussed by the authors findet eine transformation from a inter-gouvernementalen Regime with primar okonomischen Kompetenzen to a supranationalen regime with weiterreichenden Kompetsenzen statt.
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References
Democracy and Its Critics
TL;DR: The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical as discussed by the authors, and context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn).
•Book
Political Tolerance and American Democracy
John L. Sullivan,James E. Piereson,George E. Marcus +2 more
- 01 Jan 1982
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A Culturalist Theory of Political Change
TL;DR: Eckstein introduced the political cultural approach as one of two viable options for theory in political science, the other being rational-choice theory as discussed by the authors, and explained why the cumulative socialization process that he associates with culture leads to what he calls "expectations of continuity".
Alternative Measures of Political Tolerance: Must Tolerance Be "Least-Liked" ?*
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the traditional Stouffer-based measure of political intolerance with the Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus "least-liked" measure using data from a national survey.
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