GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL TOLERANCE: EVIDENCE FROM A TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

Abstract

According to the toleration theory presented by John Locke (Cholakov, 2015), political tolerance (PT) is the only democratic trait that brings civility, peace, and development to a country. Currently, Pakistan is lacking PT generally and the research area particularly. According to the existing literature, scholars profess that there are variations of political tolerance among different age groups. Therefore, the current study has been designed to find out the level of PT in different generations (i.e., children, parents, and grandparents). The fieldwork for the study is carried out in the Pakhtun Community, i.e. Lower Dir, a northern district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The total number of respondents consisting of both genders, is 1200, has been calculated by Yamane’s formula (1973) through a simple random sampling technique. To collect the data, the researchers used an interview schedule. A simple linear regression test has been applied to analyze the collected data. The findings reveal that the generation plays a significant role in influencing PT (P <0.001). Further, all the three generations showed different results on the level of PT. The children showed lower PT than their parents and grandparents respectively. Moreover, the R² = .024 indicates that the model explains about 2 % of the variance in PT. The higher political tolerance among grandparents is due to long life experiences and the informal socialization process.