Post-Soviet Affairs The nature of anti-immigrant sentiment in post-socialist Russia (original) (raw)
Related papers
The nature of anti-immigrant sentiment in post-socialist Russia
Post-Soviet Affairs, 2015
The main aim of this study was to investigate whether the competition and cultural theoretical models that have received solid empirical support in the context of Western European societies can explain anti-foreigner sentiment in post-socialist Russia as a society searching for new national identity borders. Data obtained from the third round of the European Social Survey (2006) indicate a high level of anti-foreigner sentiment in contemporary Russia – more than 60% of Russians claimed that immigrants undermine the cultural life of the country, and almost 60% claimed that immigration is bad for the economy of the country. Our multivariate analysis showed that the two sets of individual-level predictors of anti-foreigner sentiment – the socioeconomic position of individuals (as suggested by the competition model) and conservative views and ideologies (as suggested by the cultural model) – are not meaningful in predicting anti-foreigner sentiment in post-socialist Russia. The results are discussed from a comparative sociology perspective and in the context of the Russian society.
Two peoples – Two stories: Anti-immigrant attitudes in Post-socialist Russia
Social Problems, 2017
This article investigates mechanisms underlying anti-immigrant sentiment in post-socialist Russia in particular, and in societies undergoing a search for new national identity borders in general. We argue that when the borders of national identity are drawn and redefined, the forces that drive anti-immigrant attitudes differ meaningfully for members of the ethnic majority group and for members of the minority population. Our empirical analysis utilizes data obtained from a representative sample of the Russian population by the European Social Survey (2006-2012). Descriptive data reveal that the level of anti-immigrant attitudes among ethnic Russians (the majority population) is higher than among non-ethnic Russians (ethnic minority group), reflecting the fact that the crisis of national identity in post-socialist Russia has undermined, primarily, a sense of group position of ethnic majority. Our main findings demonstrate that in post-socialist Russia, as a society undergoing the critical period of the reconsideration of national identity, the anti-immigrant attitudes of the ethnic majority group rely mostly on perceptions of collective (state) vulnerability, while the anti-immigrant attitudes of ethnic minority groups rely to a greater degree on individuals’ vulnerable socioeconomic position, and conservative views and ideologies (i.e., self-interests).
Does Origin Matter? Ethnic Group Position and Attitudes Toward Immigrants: The Case of Russia
Nationalities Papers, 2022
This article analyzes the relationship between the relative position of an ethnic group, as measured by its majority/minority status at a subnational level, and attitudes of its members toward immigrants of different origins. Based on the Russian case, it addresses the question whether the effects of in-group majority status within a region on attitudes toward the general category of immigrants hold regardless of out-group origin and, if not, what may drive this variation. Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics and Bayesian hierarchical structural equation modeling, the study demonstrates that the relative position of an ethnic in-group is of varying importance as a predictor of attitudes toward migrant groups of European versus non-European origin in Russia. A group's majority status within a region proved to play a role in predicting attitudes toward migrants originating from the "south" (encompassing North and South Caucasus; Central Asia; and China, Vietnam, and Korea) but not toward migrants coming from the "west" (Ukraine and Moldova). We draw on arguments related to the source and the level of threat induced by the out-groups, ethnic hierarchies, and group cues to explain this pattern of results.
Xenophobia and Nationalism in Russia
We consider the relationship between xenophobia and nationalism in Russia, by examining multi-level determinants of xenophobia and considering how those factors speak to existing models of nationalism. We begin with a discussion of the theoretical relationship between xenophobia and nationalism, including definitions and theoretical models of contributing factors. We then conduct an original analysis of the determinants of xenophobia in Russia. In particular, using hierarchical linear models we analyze how individual and regional level characteristics affect xenophobic attitudes. We discuss the significance of these findings within the context of the Russia and in the broader evaluation of common understandings of the causes of xenophobia. We then discuss these results in light of the existing literature on nationalism in Russia and other former Soviet states.
Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in the Socio-Political Life of a Siberian City: The Example of Irkutsk
Inner Asia, 2000
Although the great majority of Siberians are themselves ‘immigrants’ from central Russia and other Slav regions, the post-Soviet period has seen the re-emergence of previously latent anti- immigrant attitudes even among contemporary Siberians. The article examines the case of Irkutsk and explains why it is that hostility is now directed against the Caucasian nationalities and against the Chinese. One factor is the historical dislike of ‘trading minorities’ by peoples with an egalitarian, labour-oriented ethos; another is the way the new immigrants play into local stereotypes of the ‘stranger’; a third is the exploitation of rising nationalism by local politicians in their electoral strategies. The article concludes that self-protective strategies, especially by the Chinese, often prevent integration. Anti-immigrant attitudes are likely to remain, even
Contextualizing Anti-Immigrant Attitudes of East Europeans
Review of European Studies, 2020
This paper article examines attitudes toward immigrants by analyzing data from the 2010 and 2016 waves of the EBRD’s Life in Transition Survey among respondents from 16 East European countries. Logistic regressions with clustered standard errors and country fixed effects show significantly higher anti-immigrant sentiments after the 2015 immigration pressures on the European Union borders compared with attitudes in 2010. Almost two thirds of the respondents agreed in 2016 that immigrants represented a burden on the state social services, even when the actual immigrant population in these countries was quite small. In addition, East Europeans expressed greater negative sentiments when the issue of immigration was framed as an economic problem—a burden on state social services—than as a cultural problem—having immigrants as neighbors. On the whole, these results point to the importance of contextualizing anti-immigrant attitudes and understanding the effect of external events and the f...
tended to change radically, with more and more groups and theoreticians referring in some way to the Western model and borrowing from it organizational methods or narratives. This rapprochement with the West is based on a common civilizationist reading that contrasts a "white world" in danger of demographic and cultural disappearance with the overly numerous "peoples of color" and with migration flows that are gradually transforming the host countries, Western europe, the united States, and russia. 4 after recalling the partly outmoded schema of anti-Westernism of the russian far right, this article focuses on the changing enemy, the rethinking of relations with the West, and the integration of new ideological notions that occurred in the 2000s among the main russian radical nationalist groups. It aims to initiate debate about the growing europeanization of the russian far right and the need to undertake more comparative research.
The goal of this chapter is to investigate sources, manifestations and regional specifics of everyday migrant phobia and xenophobia among residents of Moscow which has been, throughout the post-Soviet period, one of the main magnets for numerous labour migrants from poverty- and/or war-stricken Transcaucasian republics and North Caucasus in Russia itself, and also, since the early 2000s, from certain parts of Central Asia. The analysis is deliberately comparative in two aspects. First, it is aimed at drawing some parallels between the scale and manifestations of anti-migrant sentiments in different countries of Western Europe and those among residents of Russia (taking Moscow as a case-study). This type of research both in Europe and in Russia operates with the results of large-scale surveys based on representative samples. The first part of the paper is an attempt to show how the main factors provoking anti-migrant attitudes in Europe (various individual-level and contextual factors) as well as the main concepts explaining these attitudes (e.g., concepts of potential threat, of social contact; defended neighbourhood theory, etc.) might reveal themselves and operate under the social conditions of the biggest city of Russia. Second, proceeding from the idea that quantitative and qualitative methods of collecting empirical data are complementary, in the second part of the chapter we turn to comparison of the results of ROMIR large-scale survey conducted in Moscow in June 2013 within the framework of the NEORUSS project, with those of a series of 30 in-depth interviews conducted by the authors among Muscovites in 2013-2014. In the authors’ knowledge, micro-level research of popular attitudes towards migrants and migration have not yet been conducted in Russia. According to the interviews, two features of Muscovites’ perceptions of labour migrants deserve special attention. This is, first, social-political contextualization of “migration issue” within wider social situation in Moscow — the fact which reveals itself in a marked overweight of social/political associations in respondents’ narratives, compared with a much lower interest in “ethno-cultural otherness” of migrants. Second, Muscovites’ opinion is marked by what we call a “demonstrative xenophobia”. Many of them select questionnaire options which reflect their perception of migrants as a source of threat to the Russian culture, economy, etc. In the same time the ways of interpretation of migration via interviews testify that real migrants whom Muscovites meet every day in various parts of the city, are not perceived through the lens of “threat”.