Democracy, Toleration, and the Strains of French Politics

公民在压力下对民主实践的承诺是我们提出的这项研究的独特目标。一系列著名的研究提供了公民对一系列民主价值观支持的基准观点（斯托弗，1955年；麦克劳斯基，1964年；麦克劳斯基和布里尔，1983年；吉布森，1988年；沙利文等人，1978年，1982年）。虽然民主价值的范围很广，但对承诺这些价值的条件的审查仍然很狭隘。对政治问题态度的评估通常是在刻意保持中立的条件下进行的。问题的措辞、备选方案的框架，甚至面试官的举止，都是为了消除（或至少是平衡）受访者在公共问题上采取一方而不是另一方的压力（关于开创性的例外，见Marcus et al., 1995; Gibson, 1998）。这些研究是有价值的，但是，如果要掌握处于紧张状态的民主国家的政治，就有必要研究处于压力下的公民的承诺。当他们不是在人为中立的情况下权衡自己的选择，而是必须在压力下做出选择时，他们有多愿意履行对民主价值观的承诺？当他们面对相互竞争的价值观时，他们准备好了吗？什么样的压力——信息的、规范的、社会的或意识形态的——对公民对民主价值观的承诺施加了最大的压力？为谁?,为什么?对民主政治的实践有什么影响？我们提出的这项研究旨在开辟新的领域，以理解法国或其他地方的公民在相互竞争的价值观的压力下，或面对对权威（包括民意权威）的呼吁时，什么时候会支持或放弃民主原则。为了实现这一目标，我们与巴黎的法国政治生活研究中心（CEVIPOF）和里昂的政治研究学院（CERIP）建立了伙伴关系。每个人都有自己独特的方法论专长。在过去的二十年中，CEVIPOF小组一直是法国选举政治研究的主要调查研究小组（Boy and Mayer, 1993; Boy and Mayer, 1997; Mayer, 1997）。该中心一直是通过密切观察和密集访谈研究普通公民政治的主要论坛。我们的团队专注于通过计算机辅助访谈，将随机实验的推断强度与代表性样本的描述强度相结合。通过合作，我们可以完成一项单凭一己之力无法完成的研究。

The commitment of citizens to democratic practices under pressure is the distinctive objective of the study that we propose. A celebrated series of studies has provided a benchmark view of citizens' support for an array of democratic values (Stouffer, 1955; McClosky, 1964; McClosky and Brill, 1983; Gibson, 1988; Sullivan et al., 1978, 1982). Although the coverage of democratic values is wide, the examination of the conditions of commitment to them remains narrow. The assessment of attitudes toward political issues typically is carried out in conditions that deliberately are studiously neutral. The wording of questions, the framing of alternatives, and even the demeanor of the interviewers are designed to eliminate (or at least to balance) the pressure on respondents to take one, rather than another, side of a public issue (for pioneering exceptions, see Marcus et al., 1995; Gibson, 1998). These studies are valuable but, if the politics of democracies under strain is to be grasped, it is necessary to examine the commitments of citizens under pressure. How willing are they to honor their commitments to democratic values, not when they weigh their choices in an an artificially neutral situation, but when they must make them under pressure? How ready are they to qualify, or even abandon, them when they come face-to-face with competing values? What kinds of pressure - informational, normative, social or ideological, impose the greatest strain on the commitment of citizens to democratic values? For whom? And why? And with what consequences for the practice of democratic politics? The study that we propose is designed to break new ground in understanding when citizens, in France or elsewhere, stand by or forsake democratic principles under the pressure of competing values or in the face of an appeal to authority - including the authority of the popular will. To make this possible, we have partnerships with the Centre d'Etude de la Vie Politique Francaise (CEVIPOF) in Paris and the Institute d'Etude Politiques (CERIP) in Lyon. Each has a distinctive methodological expertise. The CEVIPOF group has been the leading survey research team in the study of electoral politics in France over the last two decades (Boy and Mayer, 1993; Boy and Mayer, 1997; Mayer, 1997). The CERIP group has been the principal forum for the study of the politics of ordinary citizens through close observation and intensive interviewing. Our group concentrates on marrying, through computer-assisted interviewing, the inferential strength of the randomized experiment with the descriptive strength of the representative sample. Working together, we can carry out a study that none of could accomplish on our own.