IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v82y1988i02p511-529_08.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare

Author

Listed:
  • Gibson, James L.

Abstract

I test several hypotheses concerning the origins of political repression in the states of the United States. The hypotheses are drawn from the elitist theory of democracy, which asserts that repression of unpopular political minorities stems from the intolerance of the mass public, the generally more tolerant elites not supporting such repression. Focusing on the repressive legislation adopted by the states during the McCarthy era, I examine the relationships between elite and mass opinion and repressive public policy. Generally it seems that elites, not masses, were responsible for the repression of the era. These findings suggest that the elitist theory of democracy is in need of substantial theoretical reconsideration, as well as further empirical investigation.

Suggested Citation

  • Gibson, James L., 1988. "Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 511-529, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:82:y:1988:i:02:p:511-529_08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400085142/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Davenport, 1999. "Human Rights and the Democratic Proposition," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(1), pages 92-116, February.
    2. David A. Freedman, 2009. "Limits of Econometrics," International Econometric Review (IER), Econometric Research Association, vol. 1(1), pages 5-17, April.
    3. Conway W. Henderson, 1991. "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(1), pages 120-142, March.
    4. April K. Clark & Michael Clark & Marie A. Eisenstein, 2014. "Stability and Change," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(1), pages 21582440145, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:82:y:1988:i:02:p:511-529_08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.