ABSTRACT
Poland is one of the most ethnically and religiously homogeneous countries in the world today. Yet it still remains important to study ethnic and religious intolerance in Poland given the legacy of intergroup conflict in pre- and post-war Poland, spirited nationalism in post-Communist Poland, the continuing efforts of remaining minorities to achieve recognition, and a steady trickle of immigrants and Muslim refugees. The author’s previous work on ethnic and religious tolerance in Poland was inspired by John Sullivan’s seminal work on political tolerance in the United States and beyond. The chapter builds on Sullivan et al.’s research to develop a framework for the study of ethnic, national, and religious tolerance. The focus is on tolerance of national and ethnic minorities’ cultural rights in the public domain in Poland, and the chapter explores the linkages between different markers of Polishness and predispositions toward cultural diversity, on the one hand, and tolerance, on the other. Data reviewed in the chapter suggest that opinions about cultural diversity, as a proxy for cultural threat from national and ethnic minorities, and both subjective and objective religiosity, turned out to be the most important influences on tolerance.
