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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceAuthor(s): Caroline Hodges Persell, Adam Green and Liena GurevichSource: Sociological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 2001), pp. 203-230Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/685063.

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Sociological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2001

Civil Society, Economic Distress,and Social ToleranceCaroline Hodges Persell,' 2 Adam Green,1 and Liena Gurevich1

The idea that civil society is declining has been much discussed recently, forexample, by Fukuyama (Trust:The Social Virtues and the Creation of Pros-perity. New York:Free Press, 1995) and Putnam (The American Prospect 13(Spring):35-42, 1993; Nobel Symposium, Uppsala, Sweden, August 27-30,1994; PS: Political Science and Politics, December: 664-683). At the sametime, another stream of research suggests that racial tolerance is increasingthroughtime (Quillian, American Journalof Sociology 101 (3):816-860,1996;Firebaugh and Davis, American Journal of Sociology 94 (2):251-272. Thispaper combines ideas from several intellectual traditions to suggest that eco-nomic conditions may affect civil society, which in turn may influence socialtolerance. Theseideas areexplored, usingmultivariateanalysis ofpooled Gen-eralSocial Surveydatafrom 1972 to 1994. The resultssuggest thatthefabric ofcivil society and economic conditions may contributesomewhat to espousedtolerance. Greater economic security,together with the attitudesfostered by avibrant civil society including greatertrustand less anomia, appear to increaseespoused social tolerance. Period effects and the effects of other demographicfactors remain strongly related to expressions of tolerance. While alternativeinterpretations may be offered depending on whether the interaction terms,Year x Education or Cohort x Education, are included in the analysis, thehigh correlation between the two suggests that these interpretationscannot beseen as oppositional. Finally and most important, the analysis reveals manyparallels between espoused racial and homosexual tolerance, suggesting amore generalizable model of social tolerance.KEY WORDS: civil society; racial tolerance; homosexual tolerance.

1Department of Sociology, 269 Mercer Street, 4th Floor, New York University, New York,New York 10003.2To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: [email protected]

0884-8971/01/0600-0203$19.50/0 ? 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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Persell, Green, and GurevichINTRODUCTION

The problem of building and sustaining democratic societies and theimportance of civil society for that process has captured the attention of con-cerned citizens, social philosophers, and social scientists in Western Europeand the United States for decades at least (see Cohen and Arato, 1992;Gellner, 1994; Habermas, 1989; Putnam, 1995a; and Wolfe, 1989, amongothers). Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989-90, civil society has been acentral concern in Eastern Europe as well (see, e. g., Havel, 1994; Ignatieff,1995; Seligman, 1992; Walzer, 1991).This paper examines several traditions of social theory and research,with the goal of proposing and analyzing a set of relationships between eco-nomic conditions, civil society, and social tolerance. While a number of the-orists have suggested ways in which civil society may be linked to economicconditions or to social tolerance andsome social researchers have linked eco-nomic conditions with tolerance, our goal is to synthesize these previouslyunconnected theoretical and empirical writings in a model suggesting theinterrelationships between economic conditions, civil society, and espousedtolerance.First, we define these very general concepts and discuss the most rel-evant theoretical and empirical work dealing with them. Then we build onexisting research and theory to postulate a theoretical model of how theseconceptual elements may be interrelated. Finally,we operationalize the con-cepts, suggest our empirical expectations, and use General Social Survey(GSS) data to analyze those expectations.

DEFINITIONS, RELEVANT THEORY, AND RESEARCHSocial life in modern societies may be usefully conceptualized as con-sisting of three spheres-the state, the economy, and civil society. This de-lineation is developed in Persell (1994) and Wolfe (1989). As Gellner (1994)and Persell (1994) stress, these three spheres are interdependent and theintegrity of each sphere can be seen to depend on the vitality of the othertwo. A strong and growing economy is needed to sustain humanitarian ide-als because societies concerned only with survival tend to develop highlycentralized, tyrannicalmodes of administration,with the economy andpolitymerged (Gellner, 1994). The state mitigates some of the most glaringinequal-ities, facilitates communication between diverse groups in society, and helpsto forge a common national framework. Further, Walzer (1991) notes thecritical support that state institutions provide for institutions of civil society

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concepts has been the subject of considerable thought and research, andvarious scholars have suggested ways in which they may be interrelated.

Civil SocietyCivil society is a concept that has been much discussed and variouslydefined by social theorists and observers. In the broadest possible terms,Gellner (1994) describes civil society as one form of social order, amongother forms. Seligman (1992) suggests that the concept does little to go be-yond the ideas of democracy or citizenship, particularly as developed by

Marshall (1964) with his idea of civil, political, and social forms of citizenship.However, because of the historical baggage the term democracy carriesin Eastern Europe (e.g., as in People's Democracy), civil society is a lessencumbered term there, as Seligman (1992) notes. We think it helps to useseparate terms for political institutions and actions (such as voting) andnongovernmental institutions of civil society and certain cultural attitudes.Therefore, we do not accept Seligman's suggestion that democracy andcivil society can be used interchangeably.Civil society has both institutional and qualitative dimensions. Institu-tionally, civil society consists of all the associations to which people belong,includingfamilies, religious organizations,social movements, parent-teacherassociations, neighborhood associations, sports leagues, labor unions, volun-teer groups, professional or occupational associations, clubs, support groups,and so forth. Although these associations entail connectedness and commit-ment to others that is not based solely on instrumentalism, the networks andbonds forged by such memberships are vital for communities, for the pre-vention of crime (Coleman, 1988;Furstenberg and Hughes, 1994; Sampsonand Groves, 1989; Sampson and Laub, 1990), for the education and devel-opment of young people (Furstenberg and Hughes, 1994), for promotingtolerance of social differences (as suggested by Cohen and Arato, 1992),and for economic growth (Fukuyama, 1995;Putnam et al., 1995).Civil society also contains a qualitative dimension that includes socialattitudes such as loyalty and trust, social practices such as civility and coop-eration, and the health and safety of members of a society. It is importantto stress that civil society is not a monolithic or homogeneous concept thatposits a single moral vision although the writings of some, such as Alexanderand Smith (1993:161), might suggest this when they say that the goal of civilsociety is the moral regulation of social life. It is not clear whether theymean a single morality, or multiple moralities. Other theorists who discussthe concept stress the pluralistic, diverse nature of civil society (Cohen andArato, 1992; Gellner, 1994).

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceA central feature of civil society is the concept of social capital, used firstby Jacobs (1961:138), developed by Coleman (1988), and explored empiri-

cally by Putnam (1993, 1995b, 1996a,b). Social capital inheres in such humanrelationships as marriage, associational memberships, and friendships. Thedensity and frequency of these social relations promote trust, adherence togroup norms, cooperation, and reciprocity (Coleman, 1988:97-100; Putnam,1993, 1995a).In these associations, people build relationships of trust and mutual aid.Trust,a key ingredient of civil society, is vital for sustaining economic well-being (Fukuyama, 1995:12;Granovetter, 1985;Putnam et al., 1995). Withoutinvolvement in civic associations, Bellah and Sullivan warn, the ethos ofself-advancement has been able to work itself out with fewer constraints....Inability to commit oneself to or believe in anything that transcends one'sown private interests leads to the weakening of commitment in family andcommunity and the self-absorption that is called 'narcissism ' (Bellah andSullivan, 1981:45).

Economic ConditionsTo the extent that civil society is interdependent with particular eco-

nomic contexts, it becomes necessary to assess economic conditions andtheirpossible effects on the qualitative and institutional dimensions of civil society.Gellner (1994), for instance, suggests that economic growth is a preconditionfor civil society and that societies concerned with survival are less likely tofoster a rich civil society than are societies concerned with the improvementof production.3 Others (Bellah et al., 1991; Bellah and Sullivan, 1981) positthat economic decline has negative effects on civil society and individuals.As they note, Povertyis not a condition of effective citizenship (Bellah andSullivan, 1981:41). What unites both frameworks is the notion that wherepeople have a sustainable economic existence they will be more inclined toparticipate in community-based associations and institutions, freed from anincessant concern with material well-being. There is no question that eco-nomic conditions are changing dramaticallyin the industrialized nations, andparticularly in the United States. The United States has been moving frommanufacturing to service work, toward greater job insecurity, and increas-ing income and wealth inequality (Danziger and Gottschalk, 1995;Harrisonand Bluestone, 1988;Krugman, 1992;Levy, 1998; Mishel, 1995; Persell, 1997;Wolff, 1995).3Such an assertion is quite consistent with the observations of the Ik described by Turnbull(1972) and of the Ojibwan of Grassy Narrows, Ontario, Canada, studied by Shkilnyk (1985),both societies in decline.

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explanation for the decline is a generational one, with the developmentof TV in postwar America contributing to the decline. In contrast, socialthinkers who see civil society as interdependent with the economy and thestate look more to changes in the balance of power among the three ma-jor spheres, especially to changes in economic and political conditions aspossible explanations for a decline. Skocpol (1996), for example, acceptsPutnam's assertion of a decline, but takes issue with the causes and insteadsuggests changes in the structure of political life, the role of professionalelites, and possible cultural splits between generations. We will not explorethe importance of political democracy or the role of the state in this paper,in part because there is little variation in political democracy in the timeperiod covered by the GSS, especially if Skocpol (1996) is right that the keypolitical changes occurred in the 1960s. We do, however, question Putnam'sprovisional explanation and we offer an alternative explanation rooted inchanging economic conditions.If there are direct connections between economic conditions, civil so-ciety, and social tolerance, we would expect that expressions of tolerancewould be declining, unless there are significantcountervailing forces at work.One such countertrend could be education, because educational levels in thepopulation were also increasing from 1971 to 1994 and educational levelsare highly related to expressions of social tolerance, at least among youngercohorts (Quillian, 1996). Steeh and Schuman's work reveals that there isno indication of decreasing tolerance among cohorts coming of age in the1980s (Steeh and Schuman, 1992:340),suggesting that some factor, perhaps

include, for example, writingchecks to special interest groups and class-action lawsuits. We re-ject this broadening and agree with Putnam (1996b:27) that including financial contributionsleads to a very constricted notion of citizenship. Paxton (1999) analyzes multiple indicatorsof social capital over a 20-year period, and finds that trust in individuals has declined, al-though general trust in institutions has not declined nor has membership in groups declined.Moreover, Paxton underscores Wuthnow's observation (Wuthnow, 1998) that declines in theassociational component of social capital have been concentrated in the most marginalizedand disadvantaged segments of the population, an important point worthy of furtherresearch.In 1996, Helliwell and Putnam (1996) published a correction reporting an error in theGSS data series as published and distributed for the years 1989-94. They found that in theGSS for 1989-94, the entry for 'number of group memberships' (MEMNUM) mistakenlyexcludes memberships in 'service clubs' (such as Rotary clubs) and 'school service groups'(such as parent-teacher associations). Correcting this error increases, by approximately 15%,the number of reported group memberships per capita during these years. As a result, thecorrected aggregate number of group memberships per capita reported in the GSS (weightedto represent American adults, but not adjusted to compensate for rising educational levels)shows only a slight decline over the period 1974-1994 (Helliwell and Putnam, 1996). Theynote further that the error in the GSS time series does not change other measures of civicdisengagement reported by Putnam (1995a,b, 1996a,b), such as political engagement, timebudgets, social trust, and membership in specific organizations.

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Persell, Green, and Gurevicheducation, may mitigate the hypothesized dampening effects of economicdistress and lessened civil society on tolerance.

We expect that people experiencing one or more forms of economicdistress will have fewer types of associational memberships, lower levels oftrust, higher levels of anomia, and will be less likely to espouse tolerance to-ward African Americans or homosexuals, two frequently stigmatized socialgroups.These expectations are consistent with Ostheimer and Ritt's findings(Ostheimer and Ritt, 1982) that economic losers (i.e., people experienc-ing economic distress measured by a change for the worse in their financialsituation in the last few years) had fewer associational memberships thannon-losers, and expressed less interpersonal trust, less confidence in gov-ernment, and more political cynicism (anomia). Boor (1982) also found thatperceived change for the worse in one's financial situation was related tohigher rates of anomia.We expect that people with more types of associational membershipswill express higher levels of trust, lower levels of anomia, and higher levelsof tolerance, when other factors are held constant. These expectations areconsistent with Putnam et al.'s observation (Putnam et al., 1995) that com-munities with a greater density of associational and informal connectionshave higher levels of trust and cooperation than communities with fewerassociational ties, and with Granovetter's observation that trust is gener-ated and malfeasance discouraged when agreements are 'embedded' withina larger structure of personal relations and social networks (Granovetter,1985:490). These expectations are also consistent with Cohen and Arato'sview that civic experience is a primary way that individuals develop a con-ception of civic virtue, learn to tolerate diversity, to temper fundamentalismand egoism, and to become able and willing to compromise (Cohen andArato, 1992:7). The public and associational spheres of civil society providethe terrain where people can learn to value differences (Cohen and Arato,1992:23).Thus,we expect that people who are more involved in both formaland informal social relationships in civil society will express higher levelsof trust and lower levels of anomia and intolerance. However, another ex-pectation can also be advanced. If people tend to associate primarily withothers who hold intolerant world views, that could lead to a hardening ofintolerant attitudes. The Klu Klux Klan or militia groups, for example, areforms of voluntary associations. Given that trustand anomia are proposed asmediating links between economic conditions, associational memberships,and tolerance, we lean toward the expectation that when levels of trust arehigher, espoused tolerance will also be higher. We also expect that peoplewith higher levels of anomia will be less likely to espouse tolerant attitudes.The key variables and their proposed relationships are presented schemati-cally in Fig. 1.

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+

Fig. 1. Hypothesized relationships among variables in the model.

DATA, VARIABLES, AND MEASURESTo test the model in Fig. 1, we need operational measures of the majorvariables and measures of relevant control variables. We examine data fromthe GSS, 1973-94, to develop multivariate models for analyzing whether in-dividuals experiencing greater financial hardships are less engaged in civil

society, express less trust and more anomia, and are less tolerant than indi-viduals experiencing less economic distress.The GSS is an almost annual, 'omnibus,' personal interview surveyof U.S. households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center(NORC) with English-speaking persons over 18 years of age. It switched toa biennial design in 1994. NORC uses a national area probability sample ofnoninstitutionalized adults, ensuring a sample that is representative of thegeneral population. In our study we pooled the years of the survey to cre-ate as large a sample as possible. Consequently, the analysis spans a range of22 years, from 1972 to 1994 (with the exception of 1979,1981, and 1992, yearsin which the GSS was not administered), and the pooled sample consists of32,380 cases. Most variables in the statistical analysis contain informationfor most years of the survey; however, some of the questions were admin-istered selectively in only a few years. Because of this problem of missinginformation, we employ pairwise deletion in our regression procedures.66The problem of using pairwise deletion and the ensuing issue of data loss in these modelsconcerned one of the paper's reviewers. Therefore, it is extremely important to understandwhat contributes to the data loss and whether the reasons for such loss undermine the validityof the inferences drawn. If there were considerable data loss because people refused to answercertain questions, that could be very problematic, because nonresponders might differ insignificant,but unknown, ways from responders, introducing the possibility of bias. To considerthis possibility we analyzed the number of respondent-generated no answer responses to

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Persell, Green, and GurevichEconomic Conditions

At the individual level, economic conditions can be conceptualized as achange in individuals' financial situations over time; individuals' perceivedjob security; their unemployment history; their relative financial position,that is, where they see themselves compared to others; and finally their ab-solute financial position. Accordingly, six questions from the GSS are usedto tap an individual's economic situation. FINSTRES is a composite mea-sure designed to gauge respondents' perceptions of financial distress, basedon three GSS variables, FINRELA, FINALTER, and SATFIN. FINRELAasks, Comparedwith American families in general, would you say your fam-ily income is far below average, below average, average, above average, orfar above average? Responses were coded 1 (above average), 2 (average),and 3 (below average). FINALTER asks, Duringthe last few years,has yourfinancial situation been getting better, worse, or has it stayed the same? Re-sponses were coded 1 (better), 2 (same), and 3 (worse). SATFIN reads, Weare interested in how people are getting along financially these days. So faras you and your family are concerned, would you say that you are prettywell satisfied with your present financial situation, more or less satisfied,or not satisfied at all? Responses were coded 1 (satisfied), 2 (more or lesssatisfied), and 3 (not at all satisfied). The three variables were combined ad-ditively to form the composite. All were dummy variables with the negativeresponse coded as 0 and the positive response coded as 1. The specific asso-ciations were as follows: membership in a church group, farm organization,fraternal group, school fraternity,hobby club, literary or art group, nation-ality group, political club, professional society, school service, service group,sports club, labor union, veteran group,youth group, and membership in anyother group. The resulting scores range from 0 (none) to 16. The index wascomputed from 16 variables and needed to have at least 14 valid answersper case to be included because in some years not all questions were asked,but generally at least 14 of the possible 16 were asked.7

the variables in our models. The highest percent of such no answer responses was 0.5%(half of 1%) for the variable Finalter. For all other variables the no answer response rangedfrom 0.1% to 0.3%. The largest single reason, by far, for excluding cases from the analysis wasbecause a particular question was not asked in a given year. We believe that this may be seenas a random reason for exclusion, rather than a reason that could create bias, and therefore webelieve it does not undermine the meaningfulness of our conclusions. Using pairwise deletionmeans that slightly different samples are used for each variable in the regression, a fact thataffects their comparability. However, when we tried to conduct the analysis using listwisedeletion there were too few cases to compute the regressions.7We considered a reviewer's suggestion that the proportion of the total number of responsesreported would be a better measure of associational memberships than would the sum ofresponses because it is a good idea in principle. However, the number of people reportingmore than 12 responses was exactly 10, or much less than 1% of the total, and 99.7% of

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceSOCOMMUN is an ordinal variable measuring how often the respon-dent spends a social evening with someone who lives in the neighborhood.

Response categories were recoded so that the greatest amount of socialcontact with neighbors was coded as 6 (several times a week), while the leastamount of social contact was coded as 1 (never).SOCFREND indicates how often the respondent spends a social even-ing with friends who live outside the neighborhood. Measured ordinally,responses were recoded so that the greatest amount of social contact outsidethe neighborhood was coded as 6 (several times a week), while the leastamount of social contact was coded as 1 (never).SOCBAR is an ordinal variable measuring how often the respondentvisits a bar or tavern. Like SOCOMMUN and SOCFREND, SOCBAR wasrecoded so that the greatest frequency of attendance at a bar or tavern wascoded as 6 (several times a month) and the least frequency of visiting a baror tavern was coded as 1 (never). Especially for people who live in small orcrowded dwellings, bars are a place where they can associate informally withothers. Thus this measure provides one indicator of informal socializing.TRUST is a variable indicating respondent's perceptions of whetherpeople can be trusted. The question was, Generally speaking, would yousay that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in dealingwith people? Responses were recoded into can't trust(0) and can trust(1).Responses from the intermediate category, depends, of the original GSSquestion were coded as missing values, since there were too few (N = 819)to create an ordinal level measure with reasonably equal numbers of casesin each category.Two variables-ANOMIA5 and ANOMIA7-are used to tap percep-tions of social conditions and societal institutions. ANOMIA5 is measuredby agreement (coded 1) or disagreement (coded 0) with the statement thatthe lot of the average man8 is getting worse, and ANOMIA7 is measuredby agreement (coded 1) or disagreement (coded 0) with the statement thatofficials are not interested in the lot of the average man. 9The measures

respondents reported nine or fewer types of memberships. For this reason, we decided it wasunnecessary to change the measure used.8The GSS began in 1972, which undoubtedly affected how this question was worded.9We use only these two indicators of civil society even though the GSS makes available sevenvariables measuring various aspects of anomia (ANOMIA3 through ANOMIA9). Our rea-soning is as follows: First,ANOMIA5 and ANOMIA7 are available for all years of the survey,but the only other question asked during all years is ANOMIA6, which asks the respondentto agree or disagree with the statement It is not fair to bring a child into this world. We feelthat ANOMIA6 is measuring something other than anomia as defined for the purposes ofthis paper. It is questionable whether this measure can be seen as related to civil society. Theother four measures of anomia (ANOMIA 3, 4, 8, and 9) were asked in only 3 years of thesurvey (1973, 1974, and 1976) and, as with ANOMIA6, we think that they represent aspectsof anomia that extend beyond the stated purposes of this paper.

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Persell, Green, and Gurevichwere not combined into a single index of anomia, because the CronbachAlpha for the two was only .40.

Social ToleranceSocial tolerance has usually been measured by variables indicating atti-tudes toward members of different social groups.There are several problemswith measuring tolerance in this way. When attitudes are assayed throughsurvey research, there is the problem of bias toward answers seen as more so-cially acceptable. As people move in more diverse social circles or as they getmore education, they may feel social pressure to express more tolerant atti-tudes toward persons of different races or sexual orientations, regardless ofwhat they really think. For example, Schuman and Presser (1977) suggestedthat response bias probably inflated the positive effects of education ontolerance (cited in Wagner, 1986:48). The measurement of social toleranceis rendered additionally problematic by the way a professed commitmentto the universalistic ideas of equality may not be consistent with the way aperson acts when confronted with real flesh and blood people, or when aperson feels threatened in some way by someone perceived as different (seeCase et al., 1989).For these reasons, in this paper we try to tease out some of the broadersocial conditions under which people may be more or less likely to espousetolerant attitudes. The reduction of open statements of intolerance, in ourview, is a step toward social tolerance, at least at a threshold level. We donot know how someone who expresses tolerant or intolerant attitudes willbehave. However, we believe that the overt expression of intolerance doesindicate deep-seated resentment of differences irrespective of behavior.Social tolerance has often been studied with reference to AfricanAmericans and to homosexuals. Tolerance toward blacks is commonly op-erationalized with items referring to the degree of willingness (by whites) toinvite a black person to dinner, to support interracial marriage, and to votefor a black president. Attitudes toward school desegregation, busing, andneighborhood desegregation may also be used to measure tolerance (Caseet al., 1989; Tuch, 1987).10 The degree of tolerance toward homosexuals

1?Someresearchers also use questions regarding governmental intervention to help minorities.In such research, the degree of support for governmental intervention to improve the lot ofpreviously disenfranchised groups such as blacks, is ascertained (Steeh and Schuman, 1992).We believe it is problematic to treat these measures as indicators of personal feelings ofintolerance or acceptance, since they involve more intricate political and ideological issues.As Firebaugh and Davis note (1988), the variables that refer to the support of governmentalprograms constitute measures of symbolic racism rather than measures of traditional anti-black prejudice, and the two ways of measurement must be carefully distinguished in drawingconclusions about the persistence and decline of racism (Firebaugh and Davis, 1988:259,260).

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social Toleranceis commonly measured by combining items referring to the civil rights ofgay people, such as the right to speak in the community or to teach inuniversities (Gibson, 1992; Gibson and Tedin, 1988; Ostheimer and Ritt,1982).Racial tolerance was measured here by combining indicators of atti-tudes toward African Americans and computing mean scores of responsesto three or more of the following five questions: RACPUSH: (Negroes/Blacks) shouldn't push themselves where they're not wanted (0 = agree, 1 =disagree); RACSEG: White people have a right to keep (Negroes/Blacks)out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and (Negroes/Blacks) shouldrespect that right (0 = agree, 1 = disagree); RACSCHOL: Do you thinkwhite students and (Negro/Black) students should go to the same schoolsor to separate schools? (Recoded as 0 = segregated, 1 = nonsegregated);RACMAR: Do you think there should be laws against marriages between(Negroes/Blacks) and whites? (Recoded as 0 = yes, 1 = no), and RACDIN:How strongly would you object if a member of your family wanted to bringa (Negro/Black) friend home to dinner? (Recoded as 0 = will strongly ormildly object and 1 = will not object). The racial tolerance index (RACTOT)was constructed after performing a factor analysis that included these fivevariables along with multiple other measures of traditional anti-black preju-dice, such as likelihood of voting for a black president (RACPRES in GSS)and support for busing programs (BUSING), among others.A 3-factor solution produced loadings for RACSEG, RACMAR,RACDIN, RACSCHOL, and RACPUSH, which were moderately high inmagnitude (.681, .673, .666, .637, and .599, respectively). For 1972, 1976,1977, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1985, the index is constructed with all five items(Cronbach's a = .73). For 1973, RACDIN, RACPUSH, and RACMARare used (Cronbach's a = .59). For 1994, the index is based on the vari-ables RACPUSH, RACSEG, and RACMAR (Cronbach's a = .64). Foreach of the three composite measures, the mean scores were computed.The 5-item and the 3-item indices are highly correlated (r = .843, .867, and.883). This was tested for the years where all five items were available. (SeeAppendix A for a correlation matrix of the indices). Scores on the RACTOTrange from 0, indicating the least tolerance, to 1, indicating the highest es-poused racial tolerance. (See Appendix B for a frequency distribution on theRACTOT).In this study,two indicators of attitudes toward homosexuals were com-bined to construct an index of tolerance toward homosexuals. HOMINDEXis a composite measure combining responses to the following GSS ques-tions: SPKHOMO: Suppose this admitted homosexual wanted to make aspeech in your community. Should he be allowed to speak or not? (Re-coded as 0 = not allow, 1 = allow). COLHOMO: Should such a person

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(see above) be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not? (0 =not allow, 1 = allow). HOMINDEX was constructed following the resultsof a factor analysis that included three variables: SPKHOMO, COLHOMO,and a third indicator of tolerance, HOMOSEX (homosexual sex is O.K.). A1-factor solution resulted, where COLHOMO and SPKHOMO producedhigh loadings (.884 and .864, respectively), while HOMOSEX did not loadhigh. Responses to the two high-loading variables were then combined intoan additive index of tolerance for homosexuals, and each variable was givenequal weight (Cronbach's a = .81). Scores on HOMINDEX range from0 (relatively lower tolerance) to 2 (relatively more tolerance).

Control VariablesThe most developed research tradition bearing on the model in Fig. 1draws on studies of tolerance, although Putnam's empirical analyses offactors affecting participation in civil society is also relevant (Putnam,1995a,b). These two streams of research suggest a number of importantcontrol variables.Because we are pooling all available years of the GSS, the first control

variable must be the YEAR in which the survey was conducted, as wellas the respondents' AGE when they answered the GSS survey (range =18-89). The importance of both year and age is underscored by the work ofSteeh and Schuman (1992). Additionally, the respondent's year of birth iscaptured in the COHORT variable (range = 1883-1976) and is included inorder to tap cohort effects, shown in past research to be directly related toracial tolerance independent of age (Firebaugh and Davis, 1988; Quillian,1996). Firebaugh and Davis (1988), for instance, found that the replacementof older, more prejudiced cohorts with younger, less prejudiced ones wasimportant for explaining the decline of racial prejudice in recent decades.11Moreover, it is essential to consider the possibility of period effects.12Therewere too few cases to conduct separate analyses for each year of the GSS, andcertain independent variables were not present in all years. Therefore, wecreated interaction terms for year and the predictor variables in the model,dropping those terms with a high degree of collinearity.131lAs one anonymous reviewer noted, the only kind of recent decline (or leveling off) oftolerance I know of in the GSS is a decline in tolerance for the civil liberties of racists.This comment underscores the importance of year and cohort as control variables for bothmeasures of espoused tolerance studied here.12Wethank David Greenberg and an anonymous reviewer for stressing this point.13Collinearitywas assessed using the variable inflation factor (VIF) computed by SPSS in theregression diagnostics routine. Variables with a VIF of more than 2.00 were considered toshow collinearity and were dropped from further analyses.

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceBecause Quillian (1996:846) found an interaction effect betweeneducation and birth year such that the effect of education on reducing

prejudice increases over birth cohorts, we created and used an interactionterm, COHED, consisting of COHORT x EDUC. He also notes that AGE,COHORT, and YEAR are linearly dependent and therefore all three cannotbe used in an analysis at one time. Because the educational level of the U.S.population has increased dramatically over the time covered by the GSS,mostly among younger cohorts, it is particularly important to retain year asa control variable.EDUC provides an interval measure of respondent's highest year ofschool completed, ranging from 0 (no schooling) to 20. Numerous research-ers since Stouffer (1955) have found the educational level of respondents tobe significantlyrelated to tolerance, including Case et al. (1989), Gibson andTedin (1988), Jackman and Muha (1984), Nunn et al. (1978), and Quillian(1996), although they do not always agree on how to interpret this relation-ship. Education is related to higher espoused tolerance regardless of howtolerance was measured. Hence educational level is an extremely importantcontrol variable.Tuch (1987) identified three contextual variables as especially impor-tant for racial tolerance, namely REGION, dichotomized here into South(coded 1) and non-South (coded 0); RES16, an ordinal variable indicatingthe size of the community in which the respondent lived at age 16 (responsecategories range from 1 = country, nonfarm to 6 = citygreaterthan250,000);and CMYSIZE (SIZE in GSS), an interval variable indicating the size of therespondent's community in thousands at the time of the interview. The rangeof community sizes was from 0 to 7,895,000. Stephan and McMullin (1982)found that urbanism was significantly and positively associated with toler-ance toward homosexuals as well as other target groups. Research on gaytolerance by Gibson and Tedin (1988) suggests that REGION was importantfor gay tolerance as well as racial tolerance.RACE is a dichotomized variable indicating respondent's self-identification (0 = black, 1 = white). RACE (being white) was found byGibson and Tedin (1988) to have a small but significant relationship withgay tolerance. The racial tolerance analysis is performed on whites alone,since it is their attitudes toward blacks that are being measured.SEX is a dichotomized variable (interviewer coded) with 0 = female,1 = male. SEX (being male) was found by Gibson and Tedin (1988) to have asmall positive bivariate relationship with support for the political repressionof homosexuals.

Finally, because Putnam (1995b) suggests the effects of television asa partial explanation for reduced associational memberships, we includeTVHOURS as the best available measure of that variable. TVHOURS is

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Persell, Green, and Gurevichan interval measure indicating the average number of hours the respondentwatches television per day. The range is 0-24, with 95% of respondentswatching 6 h or less per day.

RESULTSIn order to assess the expected relationships,we employ OLS regressionprocedures in which we regress the dependent variables on the relevantindependent and control variables.

Racial ToleranceAmong whites, the strongest effects (Table I) are from the factors con-sidered control variables. We see evidence for what might be called theQuillian (1996) education effect, in that education is more strongly related

Table I. Racial Tolerance by Economic Conditions, Indicators of Civil Society, and ControlVariables (Including Cohort x Education)aVariables b T value

Economic conditionsUnemployment .006 .082*** 5.377Real income .000 .060*** 3.504Job security .013 .029* 1.979Financial distress .005 .023 1.396Civil societyYear x Trust .001 .084*** 5.562Socialize with friends .016 .071*** 4.525ANOMIA7 -.044 -.060*** -3.985ANOMIA5 -.031 -.045** -2.972Married or widowed -.037 -.049** -3.056Frequent bars .009 .048** 2.959Associational memberships .003 -.015 -0.941Socialize with neighbors -.002 -.013 -0.877Control variablesCohort x Education .000 .244*** 13.928Year of survey .010 .194*** 13.013Region -.113 -.152*** -10.409Residence at age 16 .015 .064*** 4.251Sex (male) -.024 -.035* -2.353TV hours -.005 -.029* -1.926Community size .000 .015 1.024Constant -.579 -7.616***Note. R2 = .265;deletion = pairwise; adjusted R2 = .261.aWhites only (N = 3,650); OLS regression, full model.*p < .05; **p < .01;***p < .001.

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social Toleranceto espoused tolerance among younger cohorts (Cohort x Education), evenwhen year of the GSS survey is constant. Quillian suggested this might be dueto changes in the content of education, especially college education, in recentyears. Even with Cohort x Education held constant, younger respondentsare more likely to espouse racial tolerance than older ones, and respondentsin more recent years of the GSS espouse higher levels of tolerance than dorespondents in earlier years.Consistent with the findingsof Quillian (1996) and Firebaugh and Davis(1988), we find that non-Southern residents (REGION) are more likely toespouse racial tolerance. People who lived in larger communities at age16 are also somewhat more likely to express tolerance than people wholived in smaller communities at age 16, and women are slightly more likelyto espouse tolerance than do men. The amount of television watched byrespondents has a very small but significant negative effect on the expressionof tolerance. With the other controls in the model, current community sizehas no significant effect on espoused racial tolerance.The addition of economic and social factors, as suggested by our earliertheoretical discussion, increases the explanatory power of the model some-what. Among whites, some indicators of their economic situations have smallbut significantdirect effects on racial tolerance. People who have been unem-ployed in the last 10years espouse more racial tolerance than those who havenot been unemployed, as do people with higher real incomes, and peoplewho enjoy higher job security.Financial distress, however, has no significantdirect relationship to espoused racial tolerance.Several indicators of civil society are significantly related to higherlevels of espoused tolerance. We know from earlier analyses that trust hasa substantial and significant impact on racial tolerance. People who expresshigher levels of trust are also more likely to espouse higher levels of racialtolerance. However, trust has been declining through time. The interactionterm, Year x Trust,has a positive effect on tolerance, suggesting that in morerecent years, people who indicate greater trust are more likely to espouseracial tolerance than people expressing less trust. People who express moreanomia of either kind are also less likely to espouse tolerant attitudes to-ward African Americans. People who socialize more often with their friendsare somewhat more likely to espouse racial tolerance than people who as-sociate less often with their friends, as are people who frequent bars moreoften, and people who are not married or widowed (Table I). Neither asso-ciational memberships nor socializing with neighbors is significantly relatedto espoused racial tolerance.This model for whites explains 26.1% of the variance in espoused racialtolerance. The control variables alone explain 22.6% of the variance. Addingeconomic variables raises the variance explained to 23.5% and the addition

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Persell, Green, and Gurevichof civil society variables increases the variance explained to 26.1%, an in-crease of 3.5% in the variance explained over the model with control vari-abels alone.There is a further complexity, however. Three variables-year of sur-vey, cohort, and education-are all strongly related to each other. Youngercohorts are getting more education in recent years, and each of those threefactors is related to greater tolerance. However, the older people who havemore education appear to be less willing to express intolerant attitudes inmore recent years.Table I indicates a strong effect from the interaction term Cohort xEducation. A competing interpretation is that there is a period effect, whichcould be measured by the interaction term Year x Education. Year xEducation and Cohort x Education are so highly correlated (r = .954) as tobe almost interchangeable. What differs depending on which is used is theinterpretation given to the results.When Year x Education is substituted for Cohort x Education inTable II, respondents with more education espouse more tolerance in morerecent years of the GSS, even when cohort is held constant. This means thateducation is more strongly related to espoused tolerance in more recentyears, even among older respondents. This is a somewhat different interpre-tation than that of Quillian's. He suggested that the content of the educationreceived by younger birth cohorts heightened their racial tolerance. Whenthe variable Year x Education is used, it appears that more educated re-spondents regardless of their age are more likely to espouse tolerance inmore recent years of the GSS survey than they were in earlier years. Thus,instead of suggesting, as Quillian does, that the changing content of educa-tion especially in the social sciences might explain the interaction of cohortand education, an alternative interpretation is that more educated respon-dents may be more attuned to changing norms about expressions of tolerancethrough time. Such an interpretation is consistent with the view advanced byJackman and Muha (1984:760), that dominant groups (i.e., more educated)learn how to respond to subordinate-group demands with symbolic, ratherthan substantive, concessions. We believe there is evidence supporting botha cohort and a period interpretation. Because the two interaction terms areso highly related, the interpretations need not be seen as oppositional, butas different ways of viewing the same phenomenon.Cohort (year of birth) remains independently related to espoused toler-ance, meaning that younger respondents express more tolerance than olderones. Region remains significantlyrelated, with non-Southerners expressingmore racial tolerance than Southern residents. Year x Trust is positivelyrelated to espoused racial tolerance, suggesting that in more recent years,trusters are even more likely to espouse racial tolerance than arenontrusters,

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social Tolerancewith this effect being stronger than it was for earlier years of the survey,con-sistent with Table I.

Several other indicators of civil society have small positive and signif-icant effects on racial tolerance. People expressing higher levels of bothtypes of anomia express lower levels of racial tolerance. Respondents whosocialize more often with their friends are slightly more likely to espousehigher levels of social tolerance than those who socialize less, consistentwith Table I. The other indicators of civil society are not significantly relatedto social tolerance, a slight change from Table I.As was the case in Table I, the same three indicators of a respondent'seconomic situation have small significant effects on espoused tolerance.Those with higher incomes espouse more tolerant attitudes, as do thosewho have been unemployed compared to those who have not (although thebeta is smaller in Table II). Respondents feeling greater job security areslightly more likely to espouse higher levels of tolerance than those feelingless security.Table II. Racial Tolerance by Economic Conditions, Indicators of Civil Society and ControlVariables (Including Year x Education)a

Variables b B T valueEconomic conditionsReal income .000 .040* 2.318

Unemployment .031 .040** 2.591Job security .015 .034* 2.333Financial distress .004 .019 1.175Civil societyYear x Trust .001 .101*** 6.757ANOMIA7 -.041 -.055*** -3.715ANOMIA5 -.037 -.052*** -3.466Socialize with friends .016 .071*** 4.525Frequent bars .002 .012 0.718Married or widowed -.017 -.022 -1.368Associational memberships .001 .004 0.245Socialize with neighbors .000 -.016 -1.117Control variablesYear x Education .000 .214*** 10.956Cohort .004 .202*** 11.073Region -.121 -.162*** -11.230Year of survey .004 .073*** 4.196Residence at age 16 .015 .064*** 4.297Sex (male) -.020 -.029* -1.991TV hours -.004 -.024 -1.599Community size .000 .018 1.240Constant -7.147 -11.417***Note. R2 = .285;deletion = pairwise; adjusted R2 = .281.aWhites only (N = 2,266); OLS regression, full model.*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

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Persell, Green, and GurevichThe control variables alone explain 25.9% of the variance in espousedtolerance, the addition of economic variables increases the variance ex-

plained to 26.2%, and the furtheraddition of the civil society variables raisesthe explained variance to 28.1%, an overall increase of 2.2% in the explainedvariance. This model explains slightly more of the variance than did the onein Table I, although the social and economic variables add somewhat lessthan they did in Table I.

Homosexual ToleranceOne of the questions that Quillian did not address is whether espousedracial tolerance is unique or whether similar factors also explain other formsof social tolerance. We explore this question using espoused homosexualtolerance as a dependent variable. Because the results are so similar forYear x Education and Cohort x Education, we present only the first ofthese interaction effects (Table III). While it is not appropriate to comparethe size of the betas in two different analyses, we can say something aboutthe relative importance of various factors for the two types of tolerance.With a few small exceptions, the story is remarkably parallel. Most of

the same control, economic, and social factors are related to homosexual tol-erance in ways that are similar to the racial tolerance model. The same threeeconomic factors are significantly related to espoused homosexual toler-ance as were related to racial tolerance. People with higher real incomes aresomewhat more likely to espouse tolerance toward homosexuals than arepeople with lower incomes, even when education and other factors are heldconstant. People who have been unemployed in the last 10 years are some-what more likely to express tolerance toward homosexuals than people whohave not been unemployed, and people with greater job security are some-what more likely to express tolerance than are people who feel less jobsecurity. Financial distress is not significant as was true for racial tolerance.Among the social variables, frequenting bars makes the biggest differ-ence, although socializing with friends and neighbors also has somewhatdifferent effects than for race. People who frequent bars more often aresignificantly more likely to espouse homosexual tolerance than people whofrequent bars less often, while visiting bars was only weakly related to racialtolerance and only in the model given in Table I. People who socialize morefrequently with their neighbors are somewhat less likely to espouse homo-sexual tolerance than people who socialize less often with their neighborsand this form of socializing was not significantly related to espoused racialtolerance in either of the models in Tables I and II. Socializing more oftenwith friends has no significant effect on espoused homosexual tolerance,

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceTable III. Homosexual Tolerance by Economic Conditions, Indicators of Civil Society, ControlVariables, and Interaction Termsa

Variable b T/ T valueEconomic conditionsReal income .000 .069*** 4.132Unemployment .009 .047** 3.153Job security .004 .040** 2.831Financial distress .001 .019 1.227Civil societyFrequent bars .006 .123*** 7.917Year x Trust .000 .054*** 3.714ANOMIA5 -.009 -.048*** -3.310ANOMIA7 -.007 -.039** -2.687Socialize with neighbors -.002 -.038** -2.714Socialize with friends .001 .024 1.571Associational memberships -.006 -.013 -0.849Married or widowed -.048 -.025 -1.637Control variablesYear x Education .001 .251*** 13.288Cohort .006 .132*** 7.410Residence at age 16 .057 .099*** 6.926Region -.181 -.098*** -6.916Sex (male) -.095 -.054*** -3.862Year of Survey .005 -.036* -2.165Race (white) -.078 -.031* -2.125Community size .000 .021 1.500TV hours .007 .018 1.296Constant -11.368*** -7.328

Note. R2 = .242;deletion = pairwise; adjusted R2 = .238.aN = 4,201; OLS regression, full model.*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.while it had a small positive effect on racial tolerance in both models inTables I and II. Year x Trust is significant for both types of tolerance, butwas stronger for race than for homosexual tolerance.

Of the control variables, Year x Education has the greatest effect onboth types of tolerance, cohort has the next largest effect, and region isstrongly related to both types of tolerance. As was the case with racial tol-erance, residence at age 16 and year of survey are both significantly relatedto homosexual tolerance. Younger people are much more likely to espousehomosexual tolerance compared to older ones, people who lived in largercommunities when they were 16 are more likely to express homosexual tol-erance than people who lived in smaller communities, and non-Southernersare significantlymore likely to express homosexual tolerance than are South-erners. People responding to the GSS in later years are slightly more likelyto express tolerance than those responding earlier. All of these results forespoused homosexual tolerance parallel those for race, as does the effectof gender, with women being somewhat more likely than men to espouse

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Persell, Green, and Gurevichboth types of social tolerance. Race is not a variable in the racial toleranceanalysis, but it has a small and significant effect on homosexual tolerance,with African Americans being slightly more likely than whites to espousehomosexual tolerance. When Tables II and III are compared, the same threecontrol variables, namely marital status, community size, and the number ofhours of television watched per day, are not significant for both types ofsocial tolerance.

Overall, the model explains nearly 24% of the variance in tolerance to-ward homosexuals (adjusted R2 = .238). The control variables alone explain21.1% of the variance, adding the economic variables raises the adjustedR2to .227, and including the civil society variables in a stepwise regressionincreases the adjusted R2to .238, an overall increase of 2.7% in the explainedvariance.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONSOverall, the results show that several measures of economic situationhave some small direct effects on racial and homosexual tolerance. Real

income, having been unemployed, and job security are all positively, albeitmodestly, related to both types of social tolerance. Unemployment is themost puzzling of these results.Possibly those who have been unemployed aremore likely to have worked in more diverse situations or are more likely toappreciate vulnerability based on social events or characteristics and there-fore be more likely to espouse greater tolerance.Informal socializing appears to have mixed effects on tolerance. Peoplewho socialize more often with their friends express more racial tolerancethan people who socialize less often with friends, and people who frequentbars more often express more tolerance toward homosexuals than peoplewho visit bars less. Yet, people who socialize more often with neighbors areslightly less likely to espouse tolerance for homosexuals than people whosocialize less with their neighbors. These findings indicate that the fact ofsocializing by itself may be less decisive in shaping espoused tolerance thanthe substantive dimensions of social exchanges. Perhaps people who frequentbars more often meet people of diverse backgrounds and become moretolerant as a result, while people who socialize more often with neighborsmeet a less diverse range of people. These results suggest that informalassociations operate in complex ways,consistent with our mixed expectationsabout informal socializing. The effects of informal socializing very likelydepend on the values and norms of the people with whom one associates,rather than on the fact of socializing itself.Contraryto previous research findings(Gibson andTedin, 1988;Klassenet al., 1989; Peterson, 1992), African American respondents were slightly

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social Tolerancemore likely to espouse tolerance toward homosexuals than were whiterespondents.14Finally, the interaction term, Year x Education, had impor-tant effects on both forms of social tolerance.In sum, economic distress and indicators of engagement in civil soci-ety add modest explanatory power to the models of racial and homosexualtolerance above and beyond that offered by social and demographic fac-tors such as year of survey, age of respondent, educational level, region,current community size, and community size at age 16. Thus, the resultsprovide small but significant support for the view that economic conditionsand the fabric of civil society may contribute somewhat to espoused toler-ance. Greater economic security, together with the attitudes fostered by avibrant civil society, including greater trust and less anomia, appear to in-crease expressed social tolerance. Economic conditions and indicators ofengagement in civil society do not eliminate period effects and the effects ofother social and demographic factors, since such factors remain significantlyrelated to expressions of tolerance. We have noted the high correlation be-tween Year x Education and Cohort x Education, and indicated how theinterpretations suggested by the use of one rather than another term maydiverge, although the two terms are very highly correlated. Finally and mostimportant, we suggest the many parallels between espoused racial toleranceand homosexual tolerance, and bring out the factors that contribute smalldifferences to the explanation of the two types of social tolerance. In this waywe suggest what might be a more comprehensive model of espoused socialtolerance.

Suggestions for Future Research1. There is a need for more research on the role of the state in mitigat-ing the anomia and distrust related to economic distress. The state

cannot affect civil society directly in very many ways, although itcan promulgate an official ideology of tolerance and support for therights of minorities. The state might also do more to mitigate theeffects of economic distress caused by structural transformations inthe economy, as European states and Japan try to do.2. The GSS indicator of associational memberships is only a quantita-tive measure of the number of memberships of various types thata respondent has. It does not provide meaningful qualitative dis-tinctions among types of memberships. Future work on civil society14As we discuss elsewhere (Persell, Green, and Gurevich, in progress) this divergence fromearlier research appears to be due to whether homosexual tolerance is measured with a civilrights component (as is done here) or as an attitudinal response to homosexual behavior.

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Persell, Green, and Gurevichwould benefit from richer measures of associational involvement,sensitive to such qualitative dimensions of membership as commit-ment and depth of involvement. Moreover, ideally an indicator ofassociational memberships would distinguish groups promotingdemocratic values, inclusivity, and trust of others from those thatdo not. Indeed, the fact of membership itself may tell less about civilsociety than would the nature of an individual's commitment or theideological values of the group. The importance of various qualita-tive dimensions of civic engagement and associational membershipare underscored by Berman (1997). She found that Nazi party mem-bers joined and seized control over civic associations in the WeimarRepublic. Berman argues and documents how the existence of largenumbers of clubs, voluntary associations, and professional organi-zations both weakened German citizens' political involvement andprovided a base from which the National Socialist German Workers'Party could launch its seizure of political power.3. If attitudinal expressions of intolerance are related to declines in eco-nomic conditions and civil connectedness, might violent acts of intol-erance such as gay bashing incidents or black church fire-bombingsbe related to economic conditions and civil connectedness as well?Might they even be related to other acts of violent intolerance aswell, such as abortion clinic bombings or the shooting of doctorswho perform abortions? As one anonymous reviewer speculated,extremists may see terrorism as a more acceptable option for them,apart from the fact (or even because of the fact) that they are outof step with a society in which people are increasingly likely toespouse tolerance publicly. Growing expressed tolerance may fuelthe fury of the remaining few who are intolerant, as they fear theirview is losing support. These and other questions await furtherresearch.

APPENDIX ACorrelation Matrix of 5- and 3-Item Indices

3-items used in 1973 3-items used in 1994(RACPUSH, RACSEG, (RACDIN, RACPUSH,RACMAR) RACMAR)

RINTOT (5-item index): .908* .943*RACSEG, RACMAR,RACSCHOL, RACPUSH,RACDIN*p < .01.

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Civil Society, Economic Distress, and Social ToleranceAPPENDIX B

Frequency Distribution on the Racial Tolerance (RACTOT) IndexValue Frequency Valid percent.00 (low) 2,498 10.6.20 667 2.8.25 111 0.5.33 546 2.3.40 973 4.1.50 2,690 11.4.60 1,590 6.7.67 870 3.7.75 230 1.0.80 2,435 10.31.00 (high) 11,017 46.6100.0

System missing 8,752

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank Kurt Seidel for his significant research assistance on thisproject and David Greenberg and three anonymous reviewers for their most

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