This article examines the degree to which citizens of four Russian cities and four American cities differ in their claimed knowledge of technical terms used in policy discussions about the consequences of nuclear weapons production in the two countries. The four cities are the host city, the downwinder city, the neighboring indigenous/minority towns, and a control city. The analysis thus compares cross-national patterns and cross-context patterns within nation. Americans claim to be better informed than do their Russian counterparts. In the United States in particular, the host city respondents claim to be better informed than do the other sets of citizens. In the United States, the contextual variable of living in the host city has a large and significant impact on claimed knowledge levels even after affective, cognitive, and background variables. In Russia, living in the indigenous/minority city has a small and significant independent impact on knowledge levels. Context has a bigger impact on opinions in the American samples than in the Russian respondents.
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