Does Origin Matter? Ethnic Group Position and Attitudes Toward Immigrants: The Case of Russia

Abstract

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.

The Effects of Binding Moral Foundations on Prejudiced Attitudes toward Migrants: The Mediation Role of Perceived Realistic and Symbolic Threats

“…Bridges and Mateut (2014) showed that Europeans were more inclined to reject immigrants from racial minority groups. Various studies have suggested that different minority groups can elicit different perceptions of threat and prejudice (e.g., Bessudnov 2016;Brunarska and Soral 2022;Hellwig and Sinno 2017). Following this literature, our study investigates the relationship between the binding moral foundations and prejudice toward migrants in Italy and Malta who come from different regions of the world.…”

Counting Migrants in Russia: The Human Dimension of Administrative Data Production

“…The Russian case also does not align smoothly with theories emerging from the Western-focused migration literature (Natter 2018), nor with comparative categories dependent on contrasting liberal and authoritarian systems (Breunig, Cao and Luedtke 2012; Mirilovic 2010; Shin 2017). Russia is, instead, typical of many societies with large labor migrant populations, independent of regime type, and experiences high demand for migrant workers alongside social anxieties and political demands for increased immigration control (Brunarska and Soral 2022; Schenk 2018a), or what Calavita (1992) calls a “structural contradiction” between economic and social demands. 5 Therefore, engaging evidence from Russia can help us develop theoretical perspectives on how states produce and use data while also expanding knowledge about non-Western contexts and the motivations that drive their immigration policy and practice.…”