Ethnic hierarchy and public attitudes towards immigrants in Russia

Abstract

Explanations of anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe have been centred around the labour market competition and group threat theories. The article tests these theories with the data from Russia and finds some support for the group threat theory. Attitudes towards several immigrant ethnic groups are analysed separately. While Russians generally accept Ukrainians and Moldovans as their potential neighbours, they are more hostile to immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia. This ethnic hierarchy is shared by all large ethnic groups populating Russia. The analysis of regional-level covariates of anti-immigrant sentiment shows that higher concentration of immigrants is associated with more negative attitudes towards most immigrant groups, except Ukrainians. Poorer regions are more xenophobic. The predictive power of statistical models explaining anti-immigrant prejudice is considerably lower in Russia compared with Western European countries. The article discusses to what extent standard explanations of anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe can be applied in Russia.