¹ Previous studies include Hyman, Herbert, ‘England and America: Climates of Tolerance and Intolerance – 1962’, in Bell, Daniel, ed., The Radical Right (New York: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 227–57Google Scholar; Budge, Ian, Agreement and Stability of Democracy (Chicago: Markham, 1970)Google Scholar; Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, Samuel H. and Kaase, Max et al. , Political Action (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage Publications, 1979)Google Scholar. For additional analysis of data from the Barnes and Kaase Study, see Muller, Edward N., Pesonen, Periti and Jukam, Thomas O., ‘Support for Freedom of Assembly in Western Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research, 8 (1980), 265–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marsh, Alan, Protest and Political Consciousness (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1977).Google Scholar

² Crick, Bernard, ‘Toleration and Tolerance in Theory and Practice’, in Crick, Bernard, ed., Political Theory and Practice (London: Allen Lane, 1971), p. 63.Google Scholar

³ Previous studies of attitudinal tolerance have not always been careful to control for respondents' feelings towards the groups they were being asked to tolerate. As a result, it was always theoretically possible that some proportion of respondents who voiced support for the basic rights of a specified group did so not because they were ‘tolerant’ – as we define the term – but because they viewed the group itself with sympathy or indifference. For a critical assessment of previous studies of tolerance, see Sullivan, John L., Piereson, James and Marcus, George E., ‘A Reconceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases, 1950s–1970s’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 781–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, John L., Piereson, James and Marcus, George E., Political Tolerance and American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).Google Scholar

⁴ Both surveys were conducted for the authors by Market & Opinion Research International (MORI).

⁵ Respondents were also given an opportunity to name a group they disliked even more than any included in our list. About 3 per cent of the citizen respondents named such a group.

⁶ The list of groups presented to M Ps was identical to that presented to the general public except that it included the Workers' Revolutionary Party instead of Militant Tendency. About 2 per cent of M PS chose as their least-liked group one which had not been included in our original list.

⁷ For additional information about the format of the survey items, see Table 1.

⁸ We readily acknowledge that not everyone would agree that to be tolerant one must be willing to allow a member of Sinn Fein to teach in a state school or members of the National Front to hold a public rally. There is of course a profound ambiguity implicit in many issues of civil liberty. For purposes of the present analysis, however, the ‘permissive’ position is equated with ‘tolerance’. In the meantime, we welcome any tendency of our analysis to stimulate further debate on the meaning of tolerance in a complicated world. See, e.g., the symposium, ‘Toleration’, Government and Opposition, 6 (1971). 144–242Google Scholar; Barnum, David G., ‘Freedom of Assembly and the Hostile Audience in Anglo-American Law’, American Journal of Comparative Law, 29 (1981), 59–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance and American Democracy, Chap. 1Google Scholar; Bellinger, Lee, The Tolerant Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Richards, David A. J., Toleration and the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

⁹ Griffith, Ernest S., Plamenatz, John and Pennock, J. Roland, ‘Cultural Prerequisites for a Successfully Functioning Democracy: A Symposium’, American Political Science Review, 50 (1956), 101–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹¹ Prothro, James W. and Grigg, Charles M., ‘Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement’, Journal of Politics, 22 (1960), 276–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Polities’, American Political Science Review, 58 (1964), 361–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chong, Dennis, McClosky, Herbert and Zaller, John, ‘Patterns of Support for Democratic and Capitalist Values in the United States’, British Journal of Political Science, 13 (1983), 401–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClosky, Herbert and Brill, Alida, Dimensions of Tolerance (New York: Russell Sage, 1983).Google Scholar

¹² Independently of the research reported here, a cooperative project on Anglo-American attitudes was inaugurated in 1985. On fourteen items dealing with civil liberties, the attitudes of British and American respondents were very similar. See Davis, James A., ‘British and American Attitudes: Similarities and Contrasts’, in Jowell, Roger, Witherspoon, Sharon and Brook, Lindsay, eds, British Social Attitudes: The 1986 Report (London: Cower, 1986).Google Scholar

¹³ For an argument that the ultimate purpose of social scientific research on attitudinal tolerance should be to gain a better understanding of the status of ‘individual-level political freedom’ in societies, see Gibson, James L. and Anderson, Arthur J., ‘The Political Implications of Elite and Mass Tolerance’, Political Behavior, 7 (1985), 118–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ See, e.g., Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance and American DemocracyGoogle Scholar, Sullivan, John L., Shamir, Michal, Walsh, Patrick and Roberts, Nigel S., Political Tolerance in Context: Support for Civil Liberties in the United States, Israel, and New Zealand (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Gibson, James L., ‘Pluralistic Intolerance in America: A Reconsideration’, American Politics Quarterly, 14 (1986), 267–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ American citizens also direct their antipathy at an ideologically diverse array of groups: see Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance and American DemocracyGoogle Scholar. Israel, on the other hand, is a society in which high levels of intolerance are focused on a narrow spectrum of groups: see Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance in ContextGoogle Scholar; Shamir, Michal and Sullivan, John L., ‘The Political Context of Tolerance: The United States and Israel’, American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 911–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Klingemann, Hans D., ‘Measuring Ideological Conceptualizations’Google Scholar, in Barnes, and Kaase, et al. , eds, Political Action, 215–54.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Butler, David and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain (New York: St Martin's Press, 1974), p. 337CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an alternative view of the role of ideology in British politics, see Scarbrough, Elinor, Political Ideology and Voting (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).Google Scholar

¹⁸ ‘Dislike very much’ was operalionalized as a score of 11. This scale was used only in the survey of the general public.

¹⁹ The data also show, of course, that large minorities of left-wing self-identifiers (34 per cent) and Labour party identifiers (24 per cent) direct their antipathy exclusively at right-wing groups. Even among the left, however, a majority includes at least one left-wing group among their choices. More surprising is the fact that 11 per cent of Labour party identifiers and 9 per cent of the left-wing identifiers direct their antipathy exclusively at left-wing groups.

²⁰ Stouffer, , Communism, Conformity and Civil LibertiesGoogle Scholar; McClosky, , ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Polities’Google Scholar; Nunn, Clyde Z., Crockett, Harry J. Jr, and Williams, J. Allen Jr, Tolerance for Nonconformity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1978)Google Scholar; McClosky, and Brill, , Dimensions of Tolerance.Google Scholar

²¹ See, for example, Prothro, and Grigg, , ‘Fundamental Principles of Democracy’Google Scholar; Lawrence, , ‘Procedural Norms and Tolerance’Google Scholar; Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance and American Democracy.Google Scholar

²² Prothro, and Grigg, , ‘Fundamental Principles of Democracy’Google Scholar; McClosky, , ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Polities’Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs? (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Key, V. O. Jr, Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961).Google Scholar

²³ A major finding of Budge's study was that support for democratic principles was substantially more widespread among MPs and parliamentary candidates than among voters. See Budge, , Agreement and Stability of Democracy.Google Scholar

²⁴ The general public registers a higher level of tolerance than the Members of Parliament on the governmental wiretapping question. The wiretapping item explicitly mentions ‘the government’ and apparently evokes images of ‘Big Brother’ among the public. Among the MPs, however, it apparently evokes more trusting images of concerned and responsible officials monitoring extremist groups to ensure the public safety. It is significant that in previous surveys of attitudinal tolerance among mass publics in the United States, Israel and New Zealand, ordinary citizens were also more likely to express tolerant views on the item on telephone wiretapping than on any other item. See Sullivan, et al. , Political Tolerance in Context, p. 116.Google Scholar

²⁵ McClosky, , ‘Consensus and Ideology in American Polities’, p. 377.Google Scholar

²⁶ See, for example, Smith, David G., ‘British Civil Liberties and the Law’, Political Science Quarterly, 101 (1986), 637–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wallington, Peter, ed., Civil Liberties 1984 (London: Martin Robertson, 1984)Google Scholar; Street, Harry, Freedom, the Individual and the Law (Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin Books, 1982)Google Scholar; Barnum, David G., ‘The Constitutional Status of Public Protest Activity in Britain and the United States’, Public Law, 1977 (1977), 310–44.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Barnum, David G., ‘Constitutional Organization and the Protection of Human Rights in Britain and the United States’, in Schmidhauser, John R., ed., Comparative Judicial Systems (London: Butterworths, 1987), pp. 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ See Barnum, David G., ‘Decision Making in a Constitutional Democracy: Policy Formation in the Skokie Free Speech Controversy’, Journal of Politics, 44 (1982), 480–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar