Tolérance, discours racistes et réseaux sociaux. (summary) Social Science Quarterly 91 (3): 723-739.
Allison Harell (2010)

Objective. This study examines the influence of ethnic and racial network diversity on young people's attitudes about speech rights in Canada by examining the impact of diversity on racist groups' speech compared to other objectionable speech. Methods. After reviewing prior work on diversity and political tolerance judgments, the study presents multinomial logistic regressions to assess the impact of network diversity on three types of political tolerance dispositions. The data are drawn from the Canadian Youth Study, a sample of 10th- and 11th-grade students in Quebec and Ontario (N=3,334). Results. The analysis suggests that exposure to racial and ethnic diversity in one's social networks decreases political tolerance of racist speech while simultaneously having a positive effect on political tolerance of other types of objectionable speech. Conclusions. The dual effects arguably represent an evolving norm of multicultural political tolerance, in which citizens endorse legal limits on racist speech. Future work should assess the extent to which target group distinctions in political tolerance judgments have evolved over time and across age cohorts.

The Limits of Tolerance in Diverse Societies: Hate Speech and Political Tolerance Norms Among Youth. Canadian Journal of Political Science 43 (2): 407-432.
Allison Harell (2010)

Conventional measures of political tolerance have tended to assume that people see all forms of speech as equally legitimate (or equally illegitimate). This article develops an alternative view, and measure, of political tolerance to account for individual distinctions across types of speech. Political tolerance is conceptualized using three individual-level dispositions. The intolerant reject speech rights for all objectionable groups; absolute tolerators endorse speech rights for all groups viewed as objectionable; and multicultural tolerators support free speech except when such freedoms are used to target racial and ethnic minorities. Survey data from close to 10,000 youth in Canada and Belgium show that multicultural tolerance reflects civil liberties attitudes among many young citizens. These youth do see exclusionary speech as a special category of intolerable" speech

Anti-Gay Sentiment among Adolescents in Belgium and Canada: A Comparative Investigation into the Role of Gender and Religion. Journal of Homosexuality 57 (3): 384-400.
Marc Hooghe, Ellen Claes, Allison Harell, Ellen Quintellier and Yves Dejaeghere (2010)

Previous research has indicated that opposition toward LGBT rights remains prevalent among Western populations. In this article we investigate the determinants of antigay attitudes among adolescents in two liberal democracies, Belgium (n=6,330) and Canada (n=3,334). The analysis indicates that hostile feelings toward LGBT rights are particularly widespread among boys, while the effects of socio-economic status and parental education remain limited. Various religious denominations proved to have a strong and significant negative impact on tolerance, with especially high scores for Islam. Religious practice, too, contributes to a negative attitude toward LGBT rights. The consequences of these findings with regard to tolerance for gay rights among Islamic youth in Western democracies are discussed.

La couverture médiatique des accommodements raisonnables dans la presse écrite québécoise. Vérification de l'hypothèse du tsunami médiatique. Canadian Journal of Communication 35 (3).
Thierry Giasson, Collete Brin and Marie-Michèle Sauvageau (2010)

From March 2006 to May 2008, the province of Québec engaged in a contentious public debate on diversity and reasonable accommodation practices. This study examines the evolution of press coverage in eleven Québec dailies dedicated to the issue of reasonable accommodation over the intensive twelve-month period during which the concept entered the public agenda. We examine the media tsunami" hypothesis

Le Bon, la Brute et le Raciste. Analyse de la couverture médiatique de l'opinion publique pendant la "crise" des accommodements raisonnables au Québec. Canadian Journal of Political Science 43 (2): 379-406.
Thierry Giasson, Collete Brin and Marie-Michèle Sauvageau (2010)

De mars 2006 - décembre 2007, le Québec a été secoué par un débat sociétal sur la question de la gestion de la diversité culturelle. Cette 'crise' aurait été alimentée par un tsunami médiatique traitant de divers cas d'accommodements juridiques ou d'ajustements administratifs accordés dans les services publics - des citoyens québécois issus de l'immigration dans la grande région de Montréal (Giasson et coll., 2008). Par le biais d'une couverture étendue, les médias ont attiré l'attention de la population sur ces pratiques d'accommodement. L'article présente les données exploratoires d'une analyse de contenu de la couverture faite par onze journaux québécois du climat de l'opinion des Québécois en matière de diversité et d'immigration pendant la phase intensive de développement du débat. L'étude montre que dans leur analyse des sondages d'opinion et dans la présentation générale des tendances de l'opinion publique sur les accommodements raisonnables, les journaux ont mis l'accent sur l'évaluation du malaise des répondants envers l'immigration et la diversité religieuse plutôt que sur l'ouverture de la population québécoise envers la diversité et sur l'apport social de l'immigration, renforçant ainsi davantage l'impression populaire qu'une crise sociale majeure se déroulait et qu'il existait un fossé entre les Québécois 'de souche', les Québécois issus de l'immigration et les autres Canadiens.

National Identity and Support for the Welfare State. Canadian Journal of Political Science 43(2): 349-377.
Richard Johnston, Keith Banting, Will Kymlicka and Stuart Soroka (2010)

This paper examines the role of national identity in sustaining public support for the welfare state. Liberal nationalist theorists argue that social justice will always be easier to achieve in states with strong national identities, which, they contend, can both mitigate opposition to redistribution among high-income earners and reduce any corroding effects of ethnic diversity resulting from immigration. We test these propositions with Canadian data from the Equality, Security and Community survey. We conclude that national identity does increase support for the welfare state among the affluent majority of Canadians and that it helps to protect the welfare state from toxic effects of cultural suspicion. However, we also find that identity plays a narrower role than existing theories of liberal nationalism suggest and that the mechanisms through which it works are different. This leads us to suggest an alternative theory of the relationship between national identity and the welfare state, one that suggests that the relationship is highly contingent, reflecting distinctive features of the history and national narratives of each country. National identity may not have any general tendency to strengthen support for redistribution, but it may do so for those aspects of the welfare state seen as having played a particularly important role in building the nation or in enabling it to overcome particular challenges or crises.

Value Diversity and Support for Political Authorities in Canada. The American Review of Canadian Studies 39 (3): 191-223.
Mebs Kanji and Nicki Doyle (2009)

Canada is a diverse society with several historic divides, which makes democratic governance challenging. There are reasons to suppose that governing in Canada may be becoming even more complex, and this could have important implications for political support. It is also conceivable that the Canadian case may reflect some of the same challenges that could affect many other post-industrial democracies. Several structural and lifestyle changes have been altering the socio-cultural mix of Canadian society, possibly contributing to the expansion of various new value divides. Because values play a prominent role in shaping people's policy demands and political preferences, it is plausible that such a transformation could elevate the degree of intra-societal stress on Canada's political system and make governing more complex. In this essay, we have two main objectives. The first is to employ data from the Canadian World Values Surveys to explore the possibility that value diversity across various new value divides may be on the rise. The second is to test whether the degree of value diversity between different social groups poses negative implications for political support - specifically, support for people in government.

Alberta Bill 44 of 2009: All the Commotion May Just be the Start of What is Yet to Come. Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 3 (2): 383-389.
Mebs Kanji and Nicki Doyle (2009)

Ethnic Diversity and Generalized Trust in Europe: A Cross-National Multilevel Study . (summary) Comparative Political Studies 42 (2): 198-223.
Marc Hooghe, Tim Reeskens, Dietlind Stolle and Ann Trappers (2009)

While most current research documents a negative relation between ethnic diversity and generalized trust, it has to be acknowledged that these results often originate from one-country analyses in North America. In this article, attitudinal measurements from the European Social Survey are combined with Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development data on migration patterns, thus examining the relationship between diversity and trust in a comparative manner across 20 European countries. More fine-grained measurements of diversity (including type and rise of diversity over time and legal status of immigrants) are included in a multilevel model. At the individual level, most of the familiar relations were confirmed. At the country level, hardly any indicators for migration or diversity proved to be strongly and consistently related to generalized trust. Results suggest that the pessimistic conclusions about the negative effects of ethnic diversity on generalized trust cannot be confirmed at the aggregate level across European countries.

When Does Diversity Erode Trust? Neighborhood Diversity, Interpersonal Trust and the Mediating Effect of Social Interactions . (summary) Political Studies 56 (1): 57-75.
Dietlind Stolle, Stuart Soroka and Richard Johnston (2008)

This article contributes to the debate about the effects of ethnic diversity on social cohesion, particularly generalized trust. The analysis relies on data from both the èCitizenship, Involvement, Democracy' (CID) survey in the US and the èEquality, Security and Community Survey' (ESCS) in Canada. Our analysis, one of the first controlled cross-national comparisons of small-unit contextual variation, confirms recent findings on the negative effect of neighborhood diversity on white majorities across the two countries. Our most important finding, however, is that not everyone is equally sensitive to context. Individuals who regularly talk with their neighbors are less influenced by the racial and ethnic character of their surroundings than people who lack such social interaction. This finding challenges claims about the negative effects of diversity on trust - at least, it suggests that the negative effects so prevalent in existing research can be mediated by social ties.

The Cost of Multiculturalism: Does Diversity have a Negative Effect on Social Capital? . WZB-Mitteilungen 118: 14-17..
Kenneth Newton and Dietlind Stolle (2007)

RACE AND THE CITY: Neighborhood Context and the Development of Generalized Trust. Political Behavior 26 (2): 125-153.
Melissa J. Marschall and Dietlind Stolle (2004)

Previous research has indicated that socio-economic and racial characteristics of an individual's environment influence not only group consciousness and solidarity, but also affect his or her views toward minority or majority groups. Missing from this research is a consideration of how context, social interaction, and interracial experiences combine to shape more general psychological orientations such as generalized trust. In this study we address this gap in the literature by conducting a neighborhoodlevel analysis that examines how race, racial attitudes, social interactions, and residential patterns affect generalized trust. Our findings suggest not only that the neighborhood context plays an important role in shaping civic orientations, but that the diversity of interaction settings is a key condition for the development of generalized trust.

The State and Social Capital: An Institutional Theory of Generalized Trust. Comparative Politics 40 (4): 441-467.
Bo Rothstein and Dietlind Stolle (2008)

In the discussion of the sources of social capital, it has been stressed that generalized trust is built up by the citizens themselves through a culture that permeates the networks and organizations of civil society. This approach has run into conceptual problems, and empirical evidence has provided only mixed support. An alternate approach is to highlight how social capital is embedded in and linked to formal political and legal institutions. Not all political institutions matter equally, however. Trust thrives most in societies with effective, impartial, and fair street-level bureaucracies. The causal mechanism between these institutional characteristics and generalized trust is illustrated in a cross-national context.

A Complicated Story: Exploring the Contours of Secularization and Persisting Religiosity in Advanced Industrial Democracies like Canada. In John Young and Boris DeWiel, Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada, United Kingdom, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 13-35.
Mebs Kanji and Ron Kuipers (2009)

The Development of Dual Loyalties: Immigrants' Integration to Regional Canadian Dynamics. (summary) Canadian Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 515-544.
Antoine Bilodeau, Stephen White and Neil Nevitte (2010)

The transformations in recent patterns of immigration have the potential to reshape the trajectory of Canada's regional political dynamics. Drawing on data from the 1993-2006 Canadian Election Studies, this analysis explores how immigrants adjust to the prevailing regional political norms in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Do newcomers adopt the political orientations, feelings towards Canada and their province, confidence in provincial and federal governments, perceptions about how the province is treated by the federal government and support for the Liberal party that resemble those of their native-born provincial counterparts? The results suggest that immigrants, especially newer waves from non-traditional source countries, tend to develop orientations that are more federally oriented than the local populations in their province. This tendency is most pronounced in Quebec where both groups of immigrants from traditional and non-traditional source countries internalize political grievances and norms less efficiently than their counterparts in other provinces.

The New Immigrant Voter, 1965-2004: The Emergence of a New Liberal Partisan? . In Laura Stephenson and Cameron Anderson (eds), Perspectives on the Canadian Voter: Puzzles of Influence and Choice. Vancouver: UBC Press..
(2010)

L'Adpatation á la démocratie des immigrants en Australie. (summary) International Political Science Review 31 (2): 141-165.
Antoine Bilodeau, Ian McAllister, and Mebs Kanji (2010)

This article examines adaptation to democracy among immigrants who leave authoritarian regimes to settle in Australia. Two questions are addressed. First, do immigrants from authoritarian regimes successfully adapt to democracy, in terms of both supporting democracy and participating in the electoral process? And second, does the pre-migration socialization in authoritarian regimes influence immigrants' democratic transition? Using the 2004 Australian Election Study and the Australian section of the 2005 World Values Survey, the findings indicate that if immigrants from authoritarian regimes lag behind the rest of the population in terms of support for democracy, they tend to participate at least as much as the rest of the population in electoral activities. Overall, the study highlights both the persistence of and the change in immigrants' pre-migration political orientations.

The Political Socialization of Young People in Canada: Is There a Differential Effect of Citizenship Education on Visible Minorities? . Canadian Journal of Political Science 42: 613-636.
Ellen Claes, Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe (2009)

It is assumed that civic education has persistent effects on political attitudes and behaviours of young citizens. There is no consensus, however, on what kind of efforts have the strongest effects on specific outcomes, like political knowledge and intended political participation. In some of the older literature, it has been shown that effects of civic education are stronger for children from a visible minority background. This article takes up these questions using a dataset with a sample of 15-17-year olds from Canada (n=3,334). The results show that active efforts for civic education can make a difference. Especially community service, a rather new form of civic education, fosters political knowledge and conventional future participation. However, in Canada, adolescents from a visible minority background do not benefit disproportionately from civic education efforts.

Immigrants' Voice through Protest Politics in Canada and Australia: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Migration Political Repression. (summary) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (6): 975-1002.
Antoine Bilodeau (2008)

This paper examines immigrant participation in protest politics in Canada and Australia. It focuses on the related impact of immigrants' pre-migration experience of political repression. Three main findings emerge. First, immigrants from repressive regimes abstain more from protest politics than those from non-repressive regimes. Second, the higher the degree of repression in the country of origin, the more likely immigrants are to abstain from protest politics. Third, even after living for 30 years in the host country, some groups of immigrants continue to abstain from protest politics to a greater degree than the local population. This article contributes, therefore, to two understudied aspects of immigrants' political adaptation: immigrant participation in protest activities and the impact of their pre-migration experiences.

Residential Segregation and the Electoral Participation of Immigrants in Australia . (summary) International Migration Review 43 (1): 142-167.
Antoine Bilodeau (2009)

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in situations of residential segregation (federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants) participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that immigrants participate more when living in federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants and also exhibit greater homogeneity in their partisan preferences. The analysis also indicates that the impact of residential segregation is primarily observed among immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. Immigrants from visible minority background, such as those from South East Asia as well as those from Southern and South Eastern Europe, tend to be more strongly affected by the ethnic composition of their constituencies than other immigrants such as those from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Immigrants' Voice through Protest Politics in Canada and Australia: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Migration Political Repression. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (6): 975-1002.
Antoine Bilodeau (2008)

This paper examines immigrant participation in protest politics in Canada and Australia. It focuses on the related impact of immigrants' pre-migration experience of political repression. Three main findings emerge. First, immigrants from repressive regimes abstain more from protest politics than those from non-repressive regimes. Second, the higher the degree of repression in the country of origin, the more likely immigrants are to abstain from protest politics. Third, even after living for 30 years in the host country, some groups of immigrants continue to abstain from protest politics to a greater degree than the local population. This article contributes, therefore, to two understudied aspects of immigrants' political adaptation: immigrant participation in protest activities and the impact of their pre-migration experiences.

La resocialisation politique des immigrants : résistance ou apprentissage de vie?. (summary) Political Research Quarterly 61 (2): 268-281.
Stephen White, Neil Nevitte, André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil and Patrick Fournier (2008)

Theories of political socialization contain competing expectations about immigrants' potential for political resocialization. Premigration beliefs and actions may be resistant to change, exposure to the new political system may facilitate adaptation, or immigrants may find ways to transfer beliefs and behaviors from one political system to another. This analysis empirically tests these three alternative theories of resocialization. The results indicate that both transfer and exposure matter; there is little evidence that premigration beliefs and actions are resistant to change. Moreover, how immigrants adapt depends on which orientation or behavior is being considered and on what kind of political environments migrants come from.

Le rôle des résaux sociaux dans l'intégration politique des femmes immigrantes. (summary) International Migration Review 43 (4): 727-763.
Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle (2009)

This article examines how immigrant women's social networks affect their propensity to vote and to participate in unconventional political activities, as well as their knowledge of politics and government services and programs. Our primary source of data is a telephone survey of women living in Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Our findings show that contrary to the social capital literature, bonding ties do not exert strong negative effects on political incorporation, while bridging ties are not as helpful as hypothesized. What is important for immigrant women are the resources that are embedded in their social networks.