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Social Distance from Jews in Russia and Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Vicki L. Hesli ,
Arthur H. Miller ,
William M. Reisinger  and
Kevin L. Morgan
Vicki L. Hesli
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
Arthur H. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
William M. Reisinger
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
Kevin L. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Iowa, US Army
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Extract

With the rise of ultranationalist organizations throughout Europe, the issue of attitudes and orientations held toward designated "out-groups" has become a critical concern of anxious observers. In Russia the strength registered by Vladimir Zhirinovskii's ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party during the parliamentary elections of 1993 has been interpreted as a sign of intolerance among the Russian populace. In fact, the success of candidates associated with the Liberal Democratic Party was not only based upon appeals to strengthen the Russian nation against perceived enemies, but also upon promises of a return to price stability and upon Zhirinovskii's anti-establishment, populist program. Nonetheless, Zhirinovskii's success in the 1991 presidential elections (he attracted 7.8% of the electorate) does serve to reaffirm the importance of tracking how attitudes toward groups that have often been targeted as scapegoats in times of social or economic upheaval have evolved in the late Soviet and immediate post-Soviet period. Two major questions concern us here: first, how pervasive among Russians and Ukrainians are perceptions of significant "social distance" between themselves and designated out-groups, most notably the Jewish population; and second, to what extent do these perceptions of distance form part of a cohesive ideology of ultranationalism? Understanding the basis of sentiments toward Jewish populations is particularly important for interpreting the workings of the complex mosaic of the post-Soviet political culture.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , Fall 1994 , pp. 807 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1994

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References

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17. This finding reaffirms a survey undertaken in March-April 1992 sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and conducted by the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research in seven states of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the three Baltic republics: anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia remained relatively unchanged over the year and a half since the first such survey was conducted (in Ukraine attitudes had improved) (Antisemitism World Report [1992]: 68).

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19. Although many Lithuanians are self-identified Catholics, Russian social distance from Lithuanians is not the same as Russian social distance from Catholics— the two measures are correlated but not identical (Pearson correlation coefficient for the two measures among Russians in 1992 is .483).

20. Few straightforward comparisons between our findings and those drawn from surveys conducted in other countries are possible. The National Election Studies of the United States do include a feeling thermometer on Jews which ranges from 0 (negative) to 100 (positive). Among 1992 respondents in the United States, 5.3% rated Jews below 50 (assumed to be neutral), 36.3% ratedjews at 50, and 58.4% ratedjews above 50. A question on closeness to Jews was also asked, but there were only two possible response categories: 8.95 said they felt close to Jews while 91.1 percent said that they did not feel close.

21. Respondents were first asked to name the group with which they had the most in common.

22. Gitelman, op. cit., for example, has identified the belief that Jews have received more privileges than the average citizen as one of the major arguments of anti-Semites.

23. Among Russians in 1991, 31% of those who had nothing in common with Jews also saw the Jews as having too much influence. The Ukrainians in 1991 were very much like the Russians in the sense that 32% of Ukrainians with nothing in common with Jews also saw the Jews as having too much influence.

24. If respondents said Jews were the group that they had the least in common with, they were assigned a score of 3. If they said Jews had too much influence, they also received a 3. For the social distance measure, scores were assigned as follows: 4 = nothing in common, 3 = very little, 2 = some, 1 = a great deal in common.

25. For this type of analysis see Miller, Hesli and Reisinger, op. cit.

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30. According to Brym, Pamiat’ sympathizers were opposed to reform, and attitudes associated with anti-Semitism and authoritarianism tended to overlap. (Robert Brym, “Perestroika, Public Opinion, and Pamyat,” Soviet Jewish Affairs 19 [1989]: 23-31).

31. According to Tambiah, these types of “group entitlement claims” reflect group competition based on relative comparison and relative deprivation in a universe of redistributive politics ( Tambiah, StanleyJ, “Ethnic Conflict in the World Today,” American Ethnologist [1988]: 335-49CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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35. We decided to test a regression model rather than test for goodness of fit with a probit model. The probit model estimates response rates (probabilities) associated with each category of the dependent variable. Because of the continuous nature of the “scale of negative evaluations,” together with the smooth distribution of responses, we selected the regression procedure, even though we understand that a bounded dependent variable consisting of only ten possible scores is less than ideal for OLS regression.

36. Studies of “symbolic racism” in the United States have noted that self-interest and personal experience have less to do with aversion to African Americans than do learning and cultural absorption. See Paul, M. Sniderman and Philip, E. Tetlock, “Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis,” Journal of Social Issues 42 (1986): 129–50Google Scholar; and Donald R. Kinder, “The Continuing American Dilemma: White Resistance to Racial Change 48 Years After Myrdal,” Journal of Social Issues 42 (1986): 151-87.

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38. The results of the factor analysis for Ukrainians only is different, indicating yet a different attitudinal structure, but no single, strong factor exists which brings together authoritarian, anti-west, and anti-Jewish attitudes. The complete factor analysis results are available from the authors by request.