The Role of National Identity in Anti-Immigrant Attitudes
A report by Lusine Grigoryan at the regular LCSR seminar
On September, 26, Lusine Grigoryan (junior research fellow at the International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research, NRU HSE) presented a report on "The Role of National Identity in Anti-Immigrant Attitudes" at the regular seminar of LCSR.
Lusine aims to reveal the structure of national identity in Russia, to test the effects of different dimensions of national identity on attitudes to immigrants. In order to reveal the structure of national identity Lusine used the most popular method from social psychology. The researcher distinguished between two dimensions of national identity - nationalism and patriotism. Lusine explained that «nationalism» in her report means that the country is perceived as superior to other countries and «patriotism» meant positive assessment of the country out of comparative context. Lusine used the International Social Survey Program measurement for dimensions of national identity and attitudes towards immigrants which had been adapted for Russia.
Lusine applied confirmatory factor analysis to crosscheck the methodology for Russia. All indicators of “nationalism” suited the Russian case well enough. However, “patriotism” concept turned out to be unstable and fell into 2 factors. One group оf indicators measured pride in nation’s achievements in art, science and sport. Another group measured pride for social and political system.
The author compared these results those obtained by measurements in 12 European countries and made a conclusion that 8 of these 12 countries had a structure of national identities similar to Russia. Analysis of the European data showed the presence of one more element of the structure of national identity. This element is a shame for the nation. Lusine suggested that this dimension of national identity was present in Russia too but she was not able to test it due to the data limitations.
Lusine used exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to reveal correlations between dimensions of national identity and anti-immigrant attitudes as well as between identity and other variables. She found out that the level of nationalism depends on the age: the older are more nationalistic than the younger. Women are more nationalistic than men. Women are also more often proud of nation’s achievements. Pride in socio-political system doesn`t correlate with age or gender.
The hypothesis of an inverse connection between nationalism and positive attitudes towards immigrants was confirmed. Lusine`s study showed that pride of nation’s achievements is not connected with the attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time it showed that pride for socio-political system and attitudes to immigrants correlate: those who have more positive view of their countries` political institutions usually are more tolerant towards immigrants. Lusine suggested an explanation for this finding: pride in socio-political system may be the indicator of subjective well-being, which leads to positive attitudes towards immigrants.
The discussant was Eduard Ponarin, the director of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research. He pointed the importance of the terminological clarity and reported that the dimensions of national identity are represented by other terms in sociology and political science than in psychology: cultural nationalism, political nationalism and xenophobia instead of pride in nation’s achievements, pride in socio-political system and nationalism. Eduard also gave some methodological comments on confirmatory factor analysis and urged Lusine to verify the conclusion about the prevalence of xenophobic attitudes among women.
by Fedor Belov
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