Interethnic discordance and stability in Estonia

Abstract

This article proposes a theoretical model of perceived intergroup stability (STB) consisting of two factors: the perceived strength differential (PSD) between the groups, expressing the changeability of the power relations, and the level of intergroup discordance (D), expressing the level of aversion towards the outgroup combined with the perceptions of legitimacy of intergroup power relations. A quantitative study of Estonian (N = 538) and Russian-speaking (N = 460) communities revealed that the perceived stability was highest in monolingual Estonian regions while it was lowest in Russian-speaking eastern Estonia. The findings concur with the results of previous empirical studies, validating the conceptual structure of the theoretical model underlying the current study.

Keywords:

• interethnic relations
• discordance
• legitimacy
• perceived stability
• Estonians
• Russians

Acknowledgements

This paper is a part of the project ‘Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Identity Construction: Estonia in Baltic Background’ supported by the Estonian Science Foundation grant no. 7350. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose useful comments helped to improve the paper considerably.

Notes

Notes

1 By the term dominant group we mean one that has more privileges and decision-making power in the society than other groups called subordinate groups. Usually the dominant group is also the majority group, but there are cases where the numeric minority group is dominant in the society (as was the case in South African Republic before 1994). Mostly the dominant groups have high prestige in society while the subordinate groups have less prestige or are outright stigmatized.

2 The phenomenon of ideological asymmetry was confirmed by the empirical data: among Estonians (the dominant group), there was a positive correlation between the perceptions of legitimacy of the intergroup setting and outgroup distrust (r = 0.201, p < 0.01), while among Russian-speaking respondents the correlation was negative (r = −0.368, p < 0.01). Thus, for the dominant group, the more legitimate the situation was perceived to be, the higher was the feeling of aversion towards the outgroup. For the subordinate group, the more illegitimate the situation was perceived to be, the higher was the feeling of aversion.

3 The two-step cluster analysis is a statistical tool for revealing natural groupings (or clusters) within a dataset that would not otherwise be apparent. Unlike the traditional clustering methods, two-step analysis allows analysis of large data files. By comparing the values of a model-choice criterion across different clustering solutions, the procedure can automatically determine the optimal number of clusters. This allows exploring the data for a best solution by not imposing the number of clusters arbitrarily beforehand.

4 The sample sizes in cluster analyses are smaller than the ones reported in Table 2 on p. 219 because of the missing values for some questionnaire items that, in their turn, excluded some respondents from the analysis.