Coordination Funds

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Our Research Unit will engage in a collaborative and programmatic investigation into tolerance and the multifaceted challenges associated with the concept and practice of tolerance in order to shed new light not only on the difficulty, but also on the possibility of tolerance. The investigation will be guided by the disapproval–respect model of tolerance, which has its roots in important insights from multiple disciplines, especially political, social, and moral philosophy as well as social psychology. While we are confident that the model is well suited to serve this guiding function, the model itself will be put to the test during the investigation. It is open to further development (specification, articulation, and amendment), but also revision, or even rejection and replacement if it does not stand the test. The main objective of the Research Unit is to build a theoretically coherent and empirically robust framework for understanding the foundations, dynamics, and (intended as well as unintended) outcomes of tolerance in plural societies. In response to the multifaceted nature of the challenges associated with the concept and practice of tolerance, the Research Unit brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers to put the disapproval–respect model to the test and build a convincing evidence-based case for it or for a revised and improved version of it (or else replace it with a better alternative in case the model fails to stand the test of our rigorous research). The multidisciplinary composition of the Research Unit will enable us to cover a broad spectrum of relevant facets or dimensions. We will take into account content (e.g., whether religious, ethnic, political, gender, or sexual identities are at stake), context (e.g., the broader national or cultural contexts of intergroup relations), and time perspective (e.g., immediate cause-effect relationships as well as long-term developments). Our concerted effort will move the state of the art forward with a powerful conceptual device for understanding tolerance based on consolidated, mutually supportive insights from different disciplines. We are confident that it will pave the way not only to a scientific but also a public appreciation, in Western societies and beyond, of tolerance that is both realistic (i.e., expects of tolerance neither too much nor too little) and uncontaminated by politicization and ideology.