Putting Up With Fellow Russians: An Analysis of Political Tolerance in the Fledgling Russian Democracy

Abstract

Research from the early days of Russian democratization has suggested that political tolerance among the mass public was in terribly short sup ply Several questions remain, however. Has intolerance persisted since the late 1980s and early 1990s? Further, how intolerant are the Russians when compared with the mass publics of other Central and Eastern Eu ropean democratizing countries; how intolerant are the Russians when compared with Western Europeans and Americans? Most importantly, is Russian intolerance likely to become pernicious? That is, does it have the attributes that make it likely to result in political repression? I answer these questions by theoretically specifying and investigating empirically four attributes of Russian public opinion that presage whether political consequences are likely to flow from political intolerance. My overriding conclusion is that Russian intolerance has several traits that may indeed make it pernicious, especially for unpopular political minorities.