Extreme Value Conflicts and Minority Exclusion

• In Event: Discrimination, Racial Attitudes, and Public Opinion

Abstract

In the so-called culture wars, culturally liberal values are pitted against culturally conservative values. These are first-order value conflicts. This paper draws attention to second-order value conflicts, where culturally liberal values come into conflict with each other. This type of value conflict, we show, can pose an extreme threat to the rights of minorities. Extreme, first, in the sense that the culturally liberal make a 180 degree turn against the inclusionary ideals that they ordinarily uphold; and extreme, second, in the sense that minorities are stripped of bedrock democratic rights-- freedom of religion and speech. Here we provide a general account of second order value conflicts in contemporary Europe, focusing on the role of religion as a trigger point. The key hypothesis is that professions of faith, because they are performative utterances, instances of doing and not merely saying, ratchet up the intensity of second-order conflicts between liberal values. Empirically we offer original evidence generated through a series of survey experiments specially designed to expose random subsets of respondents to different types of value conflicts. The results are strongly consistent with the account we offer. Respondents placed in the extreme value conflict condition in large numbers fail to uphold Muslim minorities’ democratic right to exercise their religion. Compared to the condition where value conflict is low or absent, the reaction is nothing short of a volte-face—a complete reversal of public opinion against the commonly held democratic norm of minority inclusion. And the difference in responses to extreme value conflicts is strongest, not among members of the public who are culturally conservative, but among those that are culturally liberal.

Authors

• Lise Bjånesøy, University of Bergen

• Peter Esaiasson, University of Gothenburg

• Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, University of Bergen

• Paul M. Sniderman, Stanford University