The three facets of national identity: Identity dynamics and attitudes toward immigrants in Russia

Abstract

This study contributes to the discussion on individual-level determinants of anti-immigrant prejudice by applying a multi-dimensional model of manifestations of national identity in Russia. This context is particularly interesting as anti-immigrant sentiments are widespread across all social strata and thus, socioeconomic indicators and political views are weak predictors of such sentiments. We use cross-sectional data from 1995, 2003, and 2013 ISSP National Identity module to assess the dynamics of three facets of national identity in Russia, namely nationalism, political patriotism, and cultural patriotism, and their relations with attitudes toward immigrants. We find nationalism, political patriotism, and anti-immigrant attitudes to increase over time. More importantly, our findings support the theoretical distinction between the facets of national identity: nationalism is linked to anti-immigrant attitudes, political patriotism is linked to more positive attitudes, and cultural patriotism is largely unrelated to attitudes toward immigrants. We show that these facets of national identity have much higher predictive power than sociodemographic indicators or political views. Our findings underscore the utility of a nuanced assessment of national identity in explaining attitudes toward immigrants in non-Western contexts.