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Ethnicity, the Security Dilemma, and Hostility towards Asian Migrants in Russia
| How and why are migrants representing different ethnic groups become associated with threats to national security in the receiving societies? Specifically, what are the impacts of regional context within a state, type of interaction between the natives and the migrants, media preferences, and trust in certain opinion leaders? To what extent is anti-migrant hostility fueled by the sense that government institutions are ineffective in the face of perceived migration trends? How does the sense of personal insecurity—reflected in concerns over income and crime--relate to perceptions of threats to national security arising from migration? The proposed paper will explore these and related questions by comparing the models that associate the Chechens and the Chinese with national security threats in the Russian Far East (Primorskii Krai) and in Southern Russia (Volgograd Oblast). The analysis is based on mass opinion surveys designed and directed by the author as part of the project on migration and ethnoreligious hostility in the Russian Federation supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. The surveys were conducted by the Levada Analytical Center (Moscow) and the Public Opinion Research Laboratory of the Vladivostok Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences in September-November 2005 and in December 2006 – January 2007. Most tests will be run using the Primorskii (N=660) and Volgograd Oblast (N=650) regional samples, as well as the Russian Federation national sample (N=650). In addition, assessments of the Chechens and the Chinese will be contrasted with those of other Caucasian and Asian ethnic groups by both ethnic Slavs and ethnic non-Slavs. The results of the survey analysis will be interpreted drawing on the findings from interviews, focus groups, and expert groups held by the author and his associates in Russia in 2005 and 2006.
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