With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments addresses an issue integral to democratic societies: how people faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups. Relying on several survey-experiments, Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, and Wood identify and compare the impact on decision making of contemporary information, long-standing predispositions, and enduring values and beliefs. Citizens react most strongly to information about a group's violations of behavioral norms and information about the implications for democracy of the group's actions. The authors conclude that democratic citizens should have a strong baseline of tolerance yet be attentive to and thoughtful about current information.

"The authors have excelled in providing a framework that effectively synthesizes and gives order to disparate perspectives on tolerance judgments." Public Opinion Quarterly

"...an entirely innovative approach to understanding the dynamics of political intolerance....None who care about public opinion and democracy can afford to ignore this most important book." American Politics