Becoming Democratic (?): A Panel Study of Learning to Tolerate in South Africa

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Abstract Gibson 9710214 This research extends the PI's previous research on the process of democratization in South Africa. The current project is a second wave panel study of 3,0331 persons who were interviewed in 1996. The second wave will explore further respondents political intolerance, and changes that are occurring in how South Africans are becoming committed to democratic institutions and processes over the course of the early period of democratization, the role institutional change plays in creating more democratic attitudes, values and behaviors, the effect of efforts to induce tolerance through persuasive communication, and the roles cognitive mobilization and civil society play in creating more democratic attitudes and values. Great care is being taken to minimize the loss of respondents in the second wave of the design, to be sure that respondents can answer in their language of choice, to be certain the questions and experimental scenarios used in the interviews are equivalent across languages, that respondents represent the racial and linguistic heterogeneity of the population, and that reliability estimates for the instruments are calculable. The sophistication of the surveys in this project fill a void that previous survey work in Africa has left because of the questionable methods employed. The project extends theoretical developments in our understanding of the process of democratization as well as provides an invaluable dataset that will be available to other researchers at the conclusion of the project. %%% This research extends the PI's previous research on the process of democratization in South Africa. The current project is a second wave panel study of 3,0331 persons who were interviewed in 1996. The second wave will explore further respondents political intolerance, and changes that are occurring in how South Africans are becoming committed to democratic institutions and processes over the course of the early period of democratization, the role ins titutional change plays in creating more democratic attitudes, values and behaviors, the effect of efforts to induce tolerance through persuasive communication, and the roles cognitive mobilization and civil society play in creating more democratic attitudes and values. Great care is being taken to minimize the loss of respondents in the second wave of the design, to be sure that respondents can answer in their language of choice, to be certain the questions and experimental scenarios used in the interviews are equivalent across languages, that respondents represent the racial and linguistic heterogeneity of the population, and that reliability estimates for the instruments are calculable. The sophistication of the surveys in this project fill a void that previous survey work in Africa has left because of the questionable methods employed. The project extends theoretical developments in our understanding of the process of democratization as well as provides an invaluable dataset that will be available to other researchers at the conclusion of the project. ***