A Study of Political Tolerance in the Context of South Africa PDF Download
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Author: Amanda Gouws
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africana Collection
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
This study measures levels of political tolerance and degrees of consensus on democratic norms in the South African context. Tolerance is the willingness to put up with opposition. It implies procedural fairness--a commitment to the rules of the game and a willingness to apply them equally. The argument is made that models of democracy should be congruent with existing levels of tolerance in a society. As South Africa is a transitional society, political leaders should take into account the empirical reality of existing levels of tolerance when choosing a specific democratic model. The levels of political tolerance of a regionally stratified random sample of 270 white and 270 black South Africans were measured. The results revealed very high levels of intense intolerance that were distributed widely across the political spectrum. In other societies where high levels of intolerance exist repressive policies are usually a consequence. In South Africa one consequence is the legitimation of violence through which political opponents are killed because the institutional channels which are supposed to deal with grievances are nonexistent or illegitimate. The consequences of intolerance for the process of democratization are examined. This study also reveals that civil liberties as procedural norms do not take priority over other procedural norms. Indeed South Africans give them very low priority when they are traded-off against substantive rights and capitalist values. Given these results, it is argued that a federal system would be best suitable to deal with the high levels of intense intolerance as well as the lack of consensus on democratic norms in South Africa. A federal system that embodies a Bill of Rights can eventually bring about the needed consensus out of which more political tolerance may develop.
Author: Amanda Gouws
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africana Collection
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Get Book Here
Book Description
This study measures levels of political tolerance and degrees of consensus on democratic norms in the South African context. Tolerance is the willingness to put up with opposition. It implies procedural fairness--a commitment to the rules of the game and a willingness to apply them equally. The argument is made that models of democracy should be congruent with existing levels of tolerance in a society. As South Africa is a transitional society, political leaders should take into account the empirical reality of existing levels of tolerance when choosing a specific democratic model. The levels of political tolerance of a regionally stratified random sample of 270 white and 270 black South Africans were measured. The results revealed very high levels of intense intolerance that were distributed widely across the political spectrum. In other societies where high levels of intolerance exist repressive policies are usually a consequence. In South Africa one consequence is the legitimation of violence through which political opponents are killed because the institutional channels which are supposed to deal with grievances are nonexistent or illegitimate. The consequences of intolerance for the process of democratization are examined. This study also reveals that civil liberties as procedural norms do not take priority over other procedural norms. Indeed South Africans give them very low priority when they are traded-off against substantive rights and capitalist values. Given these results, it is argued that a federal system would be best suitable to deal with the high levels of intense intolerance as well as the lack of consensus on democratic norms in South Africa. A federal system that embodies a Bill of Rights can eventually bring about the needed consensus out of which more political tolerance may develop.
Author: James L. Gibson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521813905
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
In Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa, Gibson and Gouws investigate the degree to which the political culture of South Africa the beliefs, values, and attitudes toward politics held by ordinary people impedes or promotes the consolidation of democratic reform. One set of values is of particular concern for their research political tolerance. The authors contend that political tolerance is a crucial element of democratic political cultures in general, but that in the case of polyglot South Africa, tolerance is perhaps more important than any other democratic value.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Apartheid
Languages : en
Pages : 64
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Book Description
Author: UN. Special Committee against Apartheid
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil rights
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
Author: Douglas I. Thompson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019067993X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
"Toleration is one of the most studied concepts in contemporary political theory and philosophy, yet the range of contemporary normative prescriptions concerning how to do toleration or how to be tolerant is remarkably narrow and limited. Contemporary thinking about toleration evinces, paradoxically, an intolerance of politics. This book argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. For Montaigne, toleration is an expansive, active practice of political endurance in negotiating public goods across lines of value difference. In other words, to be tolerant means to possess a particular set of political capacities for negotiation. Douglas Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. Thompson argues that we need a Montaignian conception of toleration today if we are to negotiate effectively the circumstances of increasing political polarization and ongoing value conflict, and he applies this notion to current debates in political theory, as well to contemporary issues, including the problem of migration and refugee asylum. Additionally, for Montaigne scholars, he reads the Essais principally as a work of public political education, and resituates the work as an extension of Montaigne's political activity as a high-level negotiator between Catholic and Huguenot parties during the French Wars of Religion"--
Author: David Chidester
Publisher: HSRC Press
ISBN: 9780796920300
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
Examines the effects of a range of global forces on local forms of identity, coherence, and cohesion. With contributions from intellectuals from business, organised labour, community organisations, government structures and academics, this book is useful for those interested in the wide-ranging effects of globalisation on South Africa.
Author: James L. Gibson
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610442474
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
Perhaps no country in history has so directly and thoroughly confronted its past in an effort to shape its future as has South Africa. Working from the belief that understanding the past will help build a more peaceful and democratic future, South Africa has made a concerted, institutionalized effort to come to grips with its history of apartheid through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Overcoming Apartheid, James L. Gibson provides the first systematic assessment of whether South Africa's truth and reconciliation process has been successful. Has the process allowed South Africa to let go of its painful past and move on? Or has it exacerbated racial tensions by revisiting painful human rights violations and granting amnesty to their perpetrators? Overcoming Apartheid reports on the largest and most comprehensive study of post-apartheid attitudes in South Africa to date, involving a representative sample of all major racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups. Grounding his analysis of truth in theories of collective memory, Gibson discovers that the process has been most successful in creating a common understanding of the nature of apartheid. His analysis then demonstrates how this common understanding is helping to foster reconciliation, as defined by the acceptance of basic principles of human rights and political tolerance, rejection of racial prejudice, and acceptance of the institutions of a new political order. Gibson identifies key elements in the process—such as acknowledging shared responsibility for atrocities of the past—that are essential if reconciliation is to move forward. He concludes that without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would diminish considerably. Gibson also speculates about whether the South African experience provides any lessons for other countries around the globe trying to overcome their repressive pasts. A groundbreaking work of social science research, Overcoming Apartheid is also a primer for utilizing innovative conceptual and methodological tools in analyzing truth processes throughout the world. It is sure to be a valuable resource for political scientists, social scientists, group relations theorists, and students of transitional justice and human rights.
Author: Sten Widmalm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317078632
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
What makes people agree to the extension of political rights to those they clearly dislike? This book moves beyond the extensive research on this question in western contexts to focus on the global south, offering unique empirical studies of political tolerance in plural societies where poverty is prevalent and democratic institutions can often be fragile. Based on extensive data gathered in India, Pakistan and Uganda, this volume offers an account of the factors that shape the foundations of a society and its capacity to be democratic, but where the need for the protection of human rights is great and where the state is either weak or even constitutes a counter-force against the rights of individuals and groups. Combining large scale survey data with in-depth interviews in each national setting, the author exemplifies the great variation of factors which are related to political tolerance, shedding light on the fundamental patterns existing in the organisation of state-society relations and the ways in which they produce certain results owing to the manner in which the forces of modernisation operate. A broad and empirically informed study of what shapes the foundations of a democratic society in modernising nations, Political Tolerance in the Global South will appeal to scholars of sociology and political science with interests in democracy, human rights, diversity and tolerance.
Author: Sten Widmalm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317078640
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
What makes people agree to the extension of political rights to those they clearly dislike? This book moves beyond the extensive research on this question in western contexts to focus on the global south, offering unique empirical studies of political tolerance in plural societies where poverty is prevalent and democratic institutions can often be fragile. Based on extensive data gathered in India, Pakistan and Uganda, this volume offers an account of the factors that shape the foundations of a society and its capacity to be democratic, but where the need for the protection of human rights is great and where the state is either weak or even constitutes a counter-force against the rights of individuals and groups. Combining large scale survey data with in-depth interviews in each national setting, the author exemplifies the great variation of factors which are related to political tolerance, shedding light on the fundamental patterns existing in the organisation of state-society relations and the ways in which they produce certain results owing to the manner in which the forces of modernisation operate. A broad and empirically informed study of what shapes the foundations of a democratic society in modernising nations, Political Tolerance in the Global South will appeal to scholars of sociology and political science with interests in democracy, human rights, diversity and tolerance.
Author: Wendy Brown
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231170181
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 113
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Book Description
We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity.
