Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to further our understanding about the relationship between territorial conflict and political tolerance. Previous studies have demonstrated that external territorial challenges have a negative effect on tolerance in defender states (i.e., countries whose land is being claimed by another actor). Focusing on these settings, we argue that a person's willingness to extend civil liberties to out-group members is influenced by his/her level of attachment to the disputed territory. If citizens have no strong feelings about a particular piece of land, they experience smaller psychological pressures to solidify identity boundaries. If however, individuals are strongly attached to a disputed area, tolerance levels should be lower since people are likely to interpret a given territorial claim as a significant challenge to their national community. Our analysis relies on original survey data collected in India. We show that individuals who feel more attached to the disputed region of Arunachal Pradesh (a piece of land claimed by China) are less tolerant than citizens who place less value on this territory. Furthermore, this relationship is even stronger for respondents who possess more information about this issue. These findings suggest that the relationship between external territorial challenges and tolerance is non-uniform.