Left-Right Social Identity and the Polarization of Political Tolerance

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231189759
• Author: Mark Peffley,Omer Yair,Marc L Hutchison
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 30–44

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231189759

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Left-Right Social Identity and the

Polarization of Political Tolerance

Mark Peff‌ley

1

, Omer Yair

2

, and Marc L Hutchison

3

Abstract

A growing literature f‌inds that social identity attachments to ideological and partisan groups often generate mistrust,

hostility, and prejudice toward opposition groups. Yet, there are no studies of whether attachments to ideological groups

(i.e., left, right, liberal, and conservative) contribute to political intolerance—def‌ined as an unwillingness to extend basic

liberties to groups one opposes—a widely studied and politically consequential form of outgroup hostility. Using both

observational and experimental data, we examine how social identity attachments to left–right groups in Israel inf‌luence

Jewish Israelis’political intolerance of disliked domestic groups, that is, least-liked groups and Arab citizens. In contrast to

other studies—mostly in the US—that f‌ind roughly parallel levels of political and social prejudice toward opposition

groups, we theorize and f‌ind that more strongly attached rightists and leftists in Israel become more polarized in their

levels of political tolerance toward disliked groups. Among rightists, stronger identities decrease tolerance, whereas

among leftists, political tolerance increases. Thus, outside the US, identity strength can actually be a protector of

democratic values, leading some groups (i.e., Jewish leftists) to become more tolerant.

Keywords

political tolerance, social identity, Israel, polarization, survey experiment

Introduction

A growing literature, mostly in the US, f‌inds that social

identity attachments to ideological and partisan groups

often generate mistrust, hostility, and prejudice toward

opposition groups (e.g., Mason 2018b;West and Iyengar

2022). Yet, there are no studies of whether such attach-

ments to political groups also contribute to political

intolerance—def‌ined as an unwillingness to extend basic

liberties to groups one opposes—a widely studied and

politically consequential form of outgroup hostility. Based

on both observational and experimental evidence, we

examine how social identity attachments with the political

Left or Right among Jews in Israel, the dominant ethnic

group

1

,inf‌luence their willingness to deprive their “do-

mestic enemies”(Gibson 2006) of basic civil liberties.

In a two-wave panel survey of Jewish citizens of Israel

conducted in 2018, we assess left-right identity strength

with a brief index of items similar to those used to measure

ideological and partisan social identities in the US and

other countries (e.g., Huddy, Mason, and Aarøe 2015;

Mason 2018a;Bankert et al. 2017). Such measures focus

on the strength of social attachments to the political

ingroup—in this case, leftists and rightists. Given that

political tolerance involves extending political rights and

freedoms to disliked groups, we broaden the usual targets

of left–right social identity from rival opposition groups to

least-liked groups and Arab citizens. In the f‌irst wave of

the survey, we rely on cross-sectional survey data to show

that stronger social identity attachments polarize levels of

political tolerance toward both target groups across the

Right and Left. Among right-wingers, stronger social

attachments increase political intolerance toward disliked

groups, while among the Left stronger attachments are

associated with greater forbearance. In the second wave of

the survey, we use a novel experiment to determine

whether social identity attachments inf‌luence rightists’

(leftists’) support for (opposition to) harsh counter-

Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY,

USA

2

The Institute for Liberty and Responsibility, Reichman University,

Herzliya, Israel

3

Department of Political Science, University of Rhode Island, Kingston,

RI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Mark Peff‌ley, Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky,

1653 POT, Lexington, KY 40506-0027, USA.

Email: mpeff‌l@uky.edu