Education and the limits of political tolerance: Exploring the paradoxical legacy of Soviet mass education (Russian Federation, Ukraine)

Drawing on research in cognitive and social psychology, I argue that education shapes political tolerance judgments by altering the cognitive processes that govern social perceptions. Despite the best efforts of the former regime, highly educated post-Soviet citizens think more flexibly about the problems posed by life after communism than less educated individuals. Faced with this novel social environment, citizens who think flexibly are more likely to try on others' perspectives than cognitively inflexible individuals. As a consequence, cognitively flexible citizens reflexively take the "sober second thought" necessary to support the democratic rights of all disliked groups. Cognitive flexibility also engenders antipathy towards public actors with the potential for violence. This antipathy is largely the product of the flexible thinker's propensity to ask not only "what answers to this public problem are possible?" but also "which are reasonable?" The touchstone of reasonable dissent is to eschew the sponsorship of political violence. Tolerance of disagreeable political ideas stops, therefore, when attempts at persuasion and discussion end.