Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Immigration Phobia and Its Paradoxes
- 2 The Immigration Security Dilemma: Anarchy, Offensiveness, and “Groupness”
- 3 The Two Faces of Socioeconomic Impact Perceptions
- 4 In the Shadow of the “Asian Balkans”: Anti-Chinese Alarmism and Hostility in the Russian Far East
- 5 Who's Behind “Fortress Europe”? Xenophobia and Antimigrant Exclusionism from Dublin to the Danube
- 6 Los Angeles Ablaze: Antimigrant Backlashes in the Nation of Immigrants
- 7 Immigration and Security: How Worst-Case Scenarios Become Self-Fulfilling and What We Can Do About It
- Appendix A Primorskii 2000 Survey: Regression Results
- Appendix B Eurobarometer Survey No. 47.1 (1997): Regression Results
- Appendix C A Journey into Fear: The Immigration Phobia Self-Test
- References
- Index
3 - The Two Faces of Socioeconomic Impact Perceptions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Immigration Phobia and Its Paradoxes
- 2 The Immigration Security Dilemma: Anarchy, Offensiveness, and “Groupness”
- 3 The Two Faces of Socioeconomic Impact Perceptions
- 4 In the Shadow of the “Asian Balkans”: Anti-Chinese Alarmism and Hostility in the Russian Far East
- 5 Who's Behind “Fortress Europe”? Xenophobia and Antimigrant Exclusionism from Dublin to the Danube
- 6 Los Angeles Ablaze: Antimigrant Backlashes in the Nation of Immigrants
- 7 Immigration and Security: How Worst-Case Scenarios Become Self-Fulfilling and What We Can Do About It
- Appendix A Primorskii 2000 Survey: Regression Results
- Appendix B Eurobarometer Survey No. 47.1 (1997): Regression Results
- Appendix C A Journey into Fear: The Immigration Phobia Self-Test
- References
- Index
Summary
If only the neighbor's cow would die or, better still, his house would burn down!
A Ukrainian proverbYes, I'd rather the Chinese not come here. But look around. You'll see that all these Russian factories are idle. Salaries are unpaid. Our back is against the wall. We've got to help these Chinese traders.
Mikhail Vetrik, former director of the “Ussuri” market for Chinese traders in the Russian Far Eastern city of Ussuriisk. Interview with the author, May 1999.In the previous chapter, I linked immigration phobia to perceptions of anarchy, intent, and group distinctiveness. However, these factors are not the only ones that affect threat perception and hostility. Interacting with the political and intergroup logic of immigration phobia is a substantively different logic of economic valuations. While it is rarely disputed that economic perceptions have an effect on interethnic attitudes and relations, the exact nature of these effects is highly contested. It is, in fact, at the heart of some of the most entrenched debates in the study of international relations and comparative politics. While some scholars have provided case studies showing that economic growth favors acceptance of other ethnic groups by engendering a social climate of optimism and generosity, others have countered with cases in which economic growth accentuates and aggravates ethnic grievances by generating a perception of relative deprivation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Immigration Phobia and the Security DilemmaRussia, Europe, and the United States, pp. 70 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005