Ethnic and Republic Identification in the Russian Federation and Ukraine: A Social Dominance Perspective

Abstract

Using representative survey data of 5,466 ‘titular’ (i.e. named after the states or republics of residence) and Russian respondents, this study examines the relationship between ethnic and republic identification in 28 cities in five autonomous republics of the Russian Federation, in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian Republic of Crimea. In accordance with Social Dominance Theory, ethnic and republic identification turned out to be positively and more strongly correlated among dominant than among subordinate groups. Group-size ratio was not found to affect identification patterns. At the contextual level, perceived cultural threat and the endorsement of multiculturalism and minority rights moderated the association between ethnic and republic identification of both groups. Intergroup differences in identification patterns were smaller in cities where both support for multiculturalism and the perception of cultural threat were higher. These results also shed light on the developing relationships between Russian and titular populations in the former Soviet Union.

Keywords:

• Russian Federation
• Ukraine
• Social Dominance Theory
• Ethnic Identification
• Republic Identification
• Context Effects

Acknowledgements

We thank INTAS (International Association for the Promotion of the Co-operation with Scientists from the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union) for supporting the 2005 survey (grant: 03-51-4997).

Notes

1. ‘Titular’ refers to the population groups after which the republics/states are named, such as Tatars in Tatarstan or Ukrainians in Ukraine.

2. We additionally controlled for income and education in our analysis, but found no significant effects, as between-group differences in these indicators are negligible in our research context.

3. In a series of alternative models, we also looked at economic threat as an indicator of the intergroup context. No significant three-way interactions between this indicator and ethnic identification and group status were found. Therefore, we present the results of a reduced model.

4. The use of republic identification as an outcome and ethnic identification as a predictor is not meant to suggest a causal relationship between the two. We are only interested in the association between the two types of identification.

5. In the city of Suoiarvi (Karelia) this correlation could not be computed, as republic identification was constant among titulars, while ethnic identification was constant for Russians.

6. Results are not shown here, but are available on request from the authors.

7. We additionally tested the effects of group-size ratio, outgroup bias and economic threat. Although some of these variables had a significant main effect, they did not provide an answer to our research question in the absence of a significant three-way interaction. Considering the limited number of cities included in the analysis, we chose the most parsimonious model and excluded these variables. The order of inclusion of the context variables did not affect the results. However, in a model containing all contextual effects, the three-way interaction between economic threat, dominant-group status and ethnic identification became marginally significant (b = −0.210, s.e. 0.097).