ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 38 (Nº 49) Year 2017. Page 27

Civic and ethnic identities in subjective experiences of national integration in the borderland of Russia

Identidades cívicas y étnicas en experiencias subjetivas de integración nacional en la frontera de Rusia

Svetlana MAXIMOVA 1; Oksana NOYANZINA 2; Daria OMELCHENKO 3; Anastasiia MORKOVKINA 4

Received: 30/09/2017 • Approved: 05/10/2017

Content

1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Data, Analysis, and Results

4. Characteristics of border regions

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

Acknowledgment

References

1. Introduction

Civic and ethnic identity indexes are widely used for evaluation of civic participation and interethnic tension for it is an important factor of social accord and national unity, which significance is underlined in scientific and governing community (Kondrateva et al., 2016; Ivanov, 2016).

In December 2012 the President of Russia signed Executive Order On the National Policy Strategy of the Russian Federation through to 2025 (Edict by the President of Russian Federation, 2015). Measures for realization of the Strategy were worked out in each subject of Russian Federation by empowered bodies, responsible for stabilization of interethnic relations, corresponding documents and legislation were elaborated. Such measures are the most actual for border regions, which are in close inter-state connections and possess unique situation, caused by history, national composition, ethnic and cultural development. In the light of the foregoing, sociological researches of civic and ethnic identity in regions of country could provide important and up to date information about how the national policy is implemented, about attitudes and representations of population concerning the sphere of interethnic relations.

2. Methods

The paper presents the theoretical realization of the objects (the theories and views) under consideration and that’s why the main methods of research should be the semantic analysis of theoretical principles and concepts.

This publication is a review article, in connection with which the main research mechanism should be considered scientific information search and methods for constructing theoretical models.

3. Data, Analysis, and Results

A notion of ‘identity’ first appeared in works of D. Hume (1996) and then was widely reproduced in psychological, anthropology, political and sociological theories. According to English psychologist H. Tajfel (1986), social identity is ‘the part of Self-concept of individual, that emerge from understanding of own group membership together with value and emotional significance of the group’ (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), i.e. individual’s self-identification with certain community.

Several basic approaches to the research of social identity could be highlighted: symbolic interactionism, cognitive theory of social identity and constructivist theory.

According to psycho-analytic approach (Marcia, 1996), the identity is understood as internal continuity of personality. Significant input of the given theory is the recognition of variability of identity and the description of mechanisms of its formation through interiorization of values, goals and convictions, either conscious or unconscious.

In symbolic interactionism (Cooley, 2000; Goffman, 2003) social identity acts as the mean of delimitation against other people and the instrument of integrity with society, at the same time. Mechanisms of identity formation are determined as a result of socialization (Cooley, 2000), assimilation of Self’s representations of the ‘generalized other’, and roles, prescribed by social structure, but caused by certain personal features of an individual (Goffman, 2003).

Thus, according to the theory of ‘reflected or looking-glass self’ by Charles Horton Cooley, self-identification depends on imaginations of others about him/her in process of social interaction (Cooley, 2000). In G. Mead works, identity is determined by attitudes of the ‘generalized other’ – averaged image of representatives of social groups, which his/she tends to belong (Mead, 2009). Thus, the development of the ability to ‘take the attitudes of others’ is the essential prerequisite of identity formation. According to E. Goffman’s (2003) theory of Frames, the construction of self-presentation of social subject is determined by its personal characteristics and social position, dependent on the system of norms and necessity to follow them. Social identity in these theories is understood as a result of interiorization of the self-image in attitudes of the others, perceived in social interactions.

From the point of view of described theories, it is supposed that identification finds its general components in socialization process. It is also assumed, that social identity is characterized by a certain stability and influence on behavior of social subject in different situations.

Further sociological researches of identity imply a focus on the role of social context in its formation. In such frameworks scientists study mechanisms of culture (as the whole) influence on process of identification and pay attention to concrete situations of interactions as forming situational identities.

Representatives of constructivist approach to identity concentrate on determination of mechanisms of perceiving social reality. In Berger and Luckmann’s (1995) theory, identity is a part of subjective reality, result of interaction between personality and society. In their opinion, identity is constructed under influence of concrete social structure and is peculiar to each historical epoch.

Identity as general element of subjective reality and result of interactions between society and personality is one of central notions of P. Berger and T. Luckmann theory. Identity is determined by the character of social structure and may be a factor of its transformation. Berger and Luckmann deny the appropriateness of use of the ‘collective identity’ notion and suggest the statement about existence of types of identity, originated from separate historical social structures.

A. Giddens (1976) in his structuration theory associates social identity with positions of actor (‘human agency’) in social structure. Social structure determines actor’s rights and duties and postulates situational character of identity, revealed in frameworks of concrete social practices.

Authors of cognitive theory of social identity determine identity as a system of meanings, regulating social behavior, emerging in the process of categorization of social ‘others’. According to H. Tajfel (1986), social identity – ‘is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). Those part of individual’s Self-concept, what emerge from sense of social group belonging together with value and emotional meaning of the in-group and out-group’. Here identity is not only the mean of personality’s orientation in society, but also the base for inter-group differentiation.

Researches of social anthropologist R. Barth (2007), who showed how group efforts in support of ethnic borders promote to perception of cultural differences as considerable and ethnically important, could be mentioned here. Barth’s approach is general principle in researches of ethnic identity and cultural borders in constructivist paradigm (Hobsbawm 2003).

T. Stefanenko (1999) specializes in research of ethnic communities and empathizes several functions of social groups, which any individual could identify with: a) orientation in surrounding world; b) determination of general vital values; c) protection and provision of social and physical wellbeing. Group identity, including the ethnic one, in her opinion, bases on subjective perception, interconnected cognitive and emotional processes, but is not prescribed from the outside.

The social identity is not homogeneous and consists of many structural components, including ethnic and civic ones. Hereby, the striving for formation of united national identity, expressed in the Strategy of state national policy of Russian Federation, has a certain theoretical base. According to L. Drobizheva (2014), if different types of identity (civic, ethnic, regional and local) are combined and do not counteract to each other, social development could be harmonic. When civic and ethnic identity are mutually associated, they able to strengthen each other. Furthermore, by data of W. Swann et al. (2009), different types of identities are not always clearly divided in consciousness of individuals and may combine in mixed identities. A. Iyer et al. (2009) made corresponding conclusions and revealed successful adaptation to the changes among persons with multiple identity.

Nowadays sociologists establish the transition from total givenness of identity by external conditions to its free construction by individual and mark its progressive uncertainty, caused by inclusion of individual into several number of groups and dynamics of contemporary society. Initially, ‘identity’ notion supposed continuity, totality and stability of personal experience as own conditions, but nowadays content of the notion is understood as a problem. Thus, as Berger and Luckmann state, in contemporary society identity experiences influence of many external factors, able to provoke full rejection of identity. One of these factors, according to M. Ahearne, F. Kraus and others (2012), is the level of identification with given community: the higher the level of identification of other people (in authority, especially) the higher is individual’s identity.

In contemporary researches of social identity, we mark out the lowering of its stability and increase of its variability (Bird, Saalfeld & West, 2010). Transformation processes in contemporary world – globalization, deviation from traditions and so on – lead to the change of characteristics of civic and ethnic identity, forms of their revelation and level of significance, which cause the necessity to develop and refine the existing theoretical approaches and accomplish new researches.

4. Characteristics of border regions

The aim of the study was to describe characteristics of civic and ethnic identity in border regions of the Russian Federation. The analysis was made on the base of the data, collected within the framework of the research project ‘Civic and ethnic identity in the system of preservation of social security of population in border territories of Russian Federation’, fulfilled in 2015. Six subjects of Russian Federation were engaged in the study: Altai region, Transbaikalia region, Kemerovo region, Omsk region, Orenburg region and the Republic of Altai.

The following indexes we used to study civic and ethnic identity:

• extent of identification with Russian citizens, residents of native region (settlement), representatives of own ethnos, religion, profession and so on (from 1 - ‘in considerable extent, largely’ up to 4 – ‘no any similarity’);
• level of identification with ethnic groups, civic and religious community, assessed on the base of 18 statements (from 1 – ‘absolutely disagree’ up to 5 – ‘absolutely agree’);
• identification with one or several ethnic groups;
• attutudes towards representatives of alien ethnos;
• attutudes towards the state national policy;
• evaluation of level of interethnic tension in region and country;
• evaluation of degree of manifestation of several characteristics of interethnic relations by 10-point scales.

Construction of indexes was realized according to the Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner 1986), suggested indexes correlated with often used in studies in the sphere of social identity (including national and civic components). In particular, works by R. Luhtanen and J. Crocker (1992) provided indeed a proper base for specific measure of ethnic and civic identity and a suitable approach in measuring the characteristics of interest.

Scales similar to our research were designed and described in the works by M. Rosenberg (1965), and were tested as the conceptually most important measures of national identity by G. Marks and L. Hooghe (2003) and others. Indexes seemed suitable to the examination of the identity aspects covered by the scale.

The association between civic and ethnic identity, religious identity and social-demographic characteristics of respondents was evaluated by different regression models.

We found useful to point out general characteristics of regions, determining peculiarities of civic and ethnic identity of their residents and as interethnic relations. The description of population and ethnic composition is based on data of the All-Russian Population Census (2010).

4.1. Altai region

Geographic position. The region is located in the South of Western Siberia. It borders with Republic of Kazakhstan in the south and south-west, with Alta Republic in the south-east, with Kemerovo region in the east and Novosibirsk region in the north.

The estimated population – 2 419 755.

The population density – 14,20 inhabitants per km2.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 93,9; Germans – 2,1; Ukrainians – 1,4; Kazakhs – 0,3; Armenians – 0,3; Tatars – 0,3; Byelorussians – 0,2; Altays – 0,1; Kumandins – 0,1. It is the most homogeneous ethnic composition among presented regions.

National policy. The regional government supports ethnic-cultural public organizations, regular ethnic-cultural events, national celebrations, festivals of folk arts and traditional culture. Since 2010 in the regional government there is the Council on questions of realization of the state national policy (before 2015 – the Council on ethnic-cultural development). Its goal is to form recommendations about questions of interethnic relations and preservation of ethnic culture.

4.2. Transbaikalia region

Geographic position. The region is located in the South-East of Siberia, in Zabaikalie. It borders with People's Republic of China in the south-east, Mongolia in the south, Buryatia Republic in the west, Irkutsk region in the north and Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and Amur region in the east.

The estimated population – 1 107 107.

The population density – 2,52 inhabitants per km2.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 89,9; Buryats – 6,8; Ukrainians – 0,6; Tatars – 0,5; Byelorussians – 0,2; Evenks – 0,1.

National policy. There are regional public organization “Assembly of Zabaikal people” and consulting-advisory body under the Legislative Assembly of the region – the Assembly of representatives of Aginsk Buryat area. The local government supports activity of ethnic organizations and provide assistance to preserve the culture of ethnic minorities. The region approved a state sub-program ‘Strengthening of Russian nation and ethnic-cultural development of people in Transbaikalia region’. However, regional residents mark insufficient attention to people of Russian nationality.

4.3. Kemerovo region

Geographic position. Located in the South of Western Siberia. It borders with Republic of Altai in the south, with Altai region in the south-west, with Novosibirsk region in the west, with Tomsk region in the north, with Krasnoyarsk region in the north-east and with Republic of Khakassia in the west.

The estimated population – 2 763 135.

The population density – 28,47 inhabitants per km2, it is the most densely populated region among those, covered by the research.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 93,7; Tatars – 1,5; Ukrainians – 0,8; Germans – 0,9; Shors – 0,4; Armenians – 0,4; Chuvashs – 0,3; Byelorussians – 0,2; Mordvins – 0,2; Teleuts – 0,1; Kumandings – 0,01.

National policy. The Department of culture and national policy, which includes Administration on national policy and Section of interethnic relations and support of indigenous small people is the most important actor of national policy in the region. Local government supports organizations, occupied with preservation of and interaction between ethnic cultures, assistance to local self-governing of native ethnic and ethnic minors. Practice of ethnological expertise in conflict situations is rather spread, allowing to create based recommendations.

4.4. Omsk region

Geographic position. The region is located in the South of Western Siberia. It borders with Republic of Kazakhstan in the south, with Tumen oblast in the west and north, with Novosibirsk region in the east.

The estimated population – 1 977 665.

The population density – 14,02 inhabitants per km2.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 85,8; Kazakhs – 4,1; Ukrainians – 2,7; Germans – 2,6; Tatars – 2,2; Armenians – 0,4; Byelorussians – 0,3.

National policy. The Department on national policy and religion functions in the structure of the regional Ministry of culture, its activity is directed on protection of constitutional rights of representatives of different ethnic groups and promotion of the development of ethnic cultures. The Omsk administration regularly organizes monitoring of ethnic-confessional sphere of the city. Regional government supports activity of ethnic-cultural public organizations and their projects.

4.5. Orenburg region

Geographic position. Located in the south of the Urals. Borders with Republic of Kazakhstan in the south, with Samara region in the west, with Chelyabinsk region and with republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortastan in the north.

Number of population – 2 033 072 persons.

Density of population – 16,18/km2.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 75,9; Tatars – 7,6; Kazakhs – 6,0; Ukrainians – 2,5; Bashkirs – 2,3; Mordvins – 2,9; Chuvashs – 0,6; Germans – 0,6; Armenians – 0,5; Azerbaijanis – 0,4; Byelorussians – 0,3.

National policy. In the region there are the Council on ethnic affairs, the Assembly of Orenburg people, the public council under the local authorities. Regional administration organizes different ethnic-cultural events, takes measures for social and cultural adaptation of migrants, elaborates regional program on distribution of positive ethnic attitudes among youth.

4.6. Republic of Altai

Geographic position. Located in the south part of Altai Mountains. It borders with Kemerovo region in the north, with Altai region in the north-west, with People's Republic of China in the south-west, with Republic of Kazakhstan in the south-west, with Mongolia in the south-east, with Republic of Tuva in the east.

Number of population – 206 168.

Density – 2,30/km2, the less populated among presented regions.

Ethnic composition (%): Russians – 56,6; Altays – 33,9 and the most numerous sub-ethnos among them: Telengits – 1,8, Tubalars – 0,9 and Tchelkans – 0,5; Kazahs – 6,2; Kumandins – 0,5; Germans – 0,4; Shors – 0,1.

National policy. The principal subject of interethnic sphere regulation in the region is  the Committee of the State Assembly El Kurultay on legislation and national policy. The regional administration works to provide of peaceful life among two general ethnic groups – Russians and Altays, solve inner ethnic problems of Altays, realizes special program on support of indigenous small people.

5. Discussion

It is worth beginning the analysis by the general evaluation of the indicators of civic and ethnic identities in six regions in the whole. One of the most evident indicators of civic identity is the auto-identification with the community of citizens of the country. As our data suggest, 98.0% of people, living in border regions, associate themselves with Russians, citizens of Russia. In particular, 78.2% of respondents experienced a great association with the community of Russians, whereas 17,4% – felt weak association (Table 1). Regional and local identifications were very strong as well: 94.4% respondents felt similarity with citizen of their region and 94.6% – with citizens of their village or town.

Table 1
Distribution of responses to the question “Do you feel similarity
with listed communities? To what extent?”, % by rows

The post-soviet studies on the Russian social identity (Arutyunova, 2007) state the priority of civic identity over the ethnic one. Our results reaffirm this statement. Only 67.6% of respondents felt a strong association with their nationality, that was 10.6% less than those who identify themselves with the citizens of Russia.  Only small portions identified themselves to a large extent with their generation (60.7%), profession (47.9%) or religion (46.5%). Thus, it became apparent that civic identity of the citizens from border regions was more distinct than ethnic identity. Meanwhile, the latter, being inferior, was also very important and occupied the second place in the identical hierarchy.

Significant differences between regions were found in evaluations of attachment to communities of citizens of Russia, citizens of one’s region or place of residence (village or town), nationality or religion (χ2, p<0.05). Inhabitants of Transbaikalia region gave the lowest evaluations of all these communities, inhabitants of Kemerovo region – the highest ones (Table 2).

Table 2
Comparative distribution of responses to the question “Do you feel similarity
with listed communities? To what extent?” (response “largely”), % by columns

In Kemerovo region such results could be determined by high ethnic homogenity of population (according to the Russian Census of 2010, the amount of Russians in the structure of population attains 93.7%, while other nationalities occupy only 1.5%). The low level of identification with given communities in Transbaikalia region could be explained by recent formation of this region, which current borders were established only in 2008 by the merge of rather heterogenic by their composition and population density (2.3 people per km2) neighbors.  Given that in five regions a large extent of similarity with citizens of Russia was reported by 80.8% to 86.5% of respondents in average, in Transbaikalia region this rate achieved only 56.0%. The same could be said about regional and local identities which rates were higher in all regions except Transbaikalia.

The amount of those who felt a large extent of similarity with their nationality varied from 54.5% in Transbaikalia region to 79.3% in Kemerovo region. The association with the representatives of their religion was stronger in Kemerovo and Orenburg regions (58.4% and 58.8% respectively), given that the number of the faithful people were approximatively equal in all regions.

For the more detailed evaluation of the relationship among civic, ethnic and religious identities the respondents were asked to judge the statements about their feelings of belonging to such and such community. For every type of identity mean values of agreement with statements were calculated. Taking into account that 1 point denoted full disagreement, and 5 points – full agreement, the mean rank for ethnic identity amounted to 4.09, for civic – 4.34, and for religious – 3.52 average points. The difference between mean ranks in regional subsamples was insignificant (H-Kruskal-Wallis test, p>0.05).

The scores of indicators of civic and ethnic identities, related to belonging to communities, varied to a moderate extent: 86.9% of respondents considered themselves to be a part of the Russian culture, whereas the attachment to the culture of ethnic group was relevant for 82.4% of participants. The differences in emotionally colored evaluations of these attachments were more considerable: 67.6% of respondents agreed with the statement “I’m happy to feel myself to be a part of a certain ethnic group” and 79.1% were happy to be Russians.

Religious identity was significant for 52.1% of respondents from all regions and for 70.1% of those who considered themselves to be a representative of a certain religion.

Let’s examine in more detail results of evaluation of indicators of ethnic identit. Answering the question “What nation (nationality) do you belong to?” 81.1% of the participants defined themselves as purely “Russians”, 14.5% reported that they belong to other ethnic group, and 4.4% identified themselves with two or more ethnic groups that implied they had a mixed ethnic identity. The amounts of Russians in particular regions corresponded to the data of the Russian Census of 2010.

Examining ethnic identity, it was necessary to outline determinants, basic for its confirmation. Most frequently respondents reported that the principal ground for their identification was the proficiency of language (75.1%), the origin and parents’ nationality (68.2%), the attachment to national culture (54.4%), the residence on the territory, considered being a motherland for ethnic group (42.0%).

In addition, the ethnic identity was also characterized by attitudes towards and relations with other ethnic groups. About 38.2% of respondents had positive feelings towards representatives of other ethnos, 50.3% – neutral, and 8.8% – negative (Table 3).

Table 3
Comparative distribution of responses to the question “What do you
feel about representatives of alien ethnos?”, % by columns

Among all regions, the most tolerant attitudes were observed in the Republic of Altai – a region with heterogenic national composition (positive feelings were experienced by 55.5% of participants and negative – by 2.4%). The worse attitudes towards representatives of other ethnos were fixed in Omsk region: only 27.3% of respondents said that they had positive feelings and 20% - negative.  According to the rating of inter-ethnic tension, calculated by the Center of exploring international conflicts “Bunches of anger”, the Omsk region had the less favorable inter-ethnic relations among all regions covered by our research. This region received an index of “3”, designating that in this region multiple cases of ethnically motivated violence and non-violent actions were detected. The Republic of Altai and Orenburg region were recognized as the quietest regions where such actions didn’t occur, while three other regions were qualified as middle-ranged and received index of “2” denoting that there were only non-violent conflict actions or unique and violent actions non-related to each other.

In the united sample about 2.1% of respondents answered that they felt very often hostility towards people of alien nationality and 7.9% – often, that much less than the rates acquired during the all-Russia public opinion research in October 2013 where the same question was asked and the response “Very often” was given by 6% of respondents, “Often” by 14% (Russians about migration and interethnic tension, 2013). The antipathy to representatives of other nationalities was explained by their unwillingness to respect Russian customs and social norms (21.9%), terrorism threats (21.3%). Meanwhile, the cases when respondents experienced hostility from other nationalities were much rarer. In the whole, the majority of respondents (64.5%) described their relations with people of other nationalities as normal and harmonious, 15.5% defined them as friendly and only 9.6% respondents – as stressed, full of conflicts and dangerously explosive. Transbaikalia differed considerably from other regions, as far as the stressed, conflict character of relations was noted by 22.2% respondents from this federal subject.

The political slogan “Russia for Russians” was supported to a greater or lesser extent by 47.2% of respondents who identified themselves with Russians and 26.6% of those who belonged to other nationalities (43.3% in the whole sample). The considerable part of participants has noted that it would be better to limit the entrance into the territory of Russia for representatives of different ethnic groups, especially for natives from Caucasus (33.5%), Chinese (25.8%), Gypsies (19.7%). About 17.4% of respondents were in favor of the entrance restriction for natives from the former USSR Middle Asia republics. Over third part of participants per contra contested a claim about possibilities of such restrictions, but in different region this amount varied significantly (Table 4).

Table 4
Comparative distribution of answers to the question “Whether to
limit the stay in Russia of…” in six border regions, % by columns

Thus, in Transbaikalia region, having borders with China, there were the highest restriction rates towards Chinese (35.5%), natives from Caucasus (36.8%) and Ukrainians (17.4%). In Omsk region 20.5% of respondents were in favor for entrance restrictions for all nationalities except Russians. The most tolerant position towards other nationalities, living in Russia, was articulated by the respondents from Altai region.

The probability of manifestation of interethnic violence was estimated as very little by the majority of respondents. Forthcoming mass bloody battles in the country were assessed as more or less probable by 23.7% of respondents, in the place of their residence – 8,1%.

The overall analysis of the actual state of interethnic sphere in border regions was completed by the assessment of 21 indicators representing 10-point graded scales. After mean values computation, several characteristics with highest means (above 6.0 points) were selected as revealing the most salient features of interethnic relations in border regions: “Mutual help in difficult situations without dependence of ethnicity”, “Interethnic friendship”, “Respect in relation to other ethnos”. In other hand, some statements with negative content were graded below 4 points: “Abuses in interethnic relations, physical violence (harm, fight)”, “Psychological pressure (insults, threats)”, “Denunciation in interethnic marriages”, “Unfriendly and hostile statements about people of alien ethnos” (Table 5).

Table 5
Evaluation of degree of manifestation of ethnic
indexes (mean values, 10-scaled evaluations)

Assuming that negative events are usually perceived as increasingly more negative, these low estimates were relevant to the inverse sense of the statements meaning rather harmonious interethnic relations.

In the evaluation of parameters of interethnic sphere there were some significant differences between regions. Positives statements were estimated higher in Omsk and Kemerovo regions, while in Transbaikalia region the corresponding mean values were the lowest ones. The most considerable differences were related to the assessment of the state national policy. Regions were divided into three groups: the first with the highest rates (Omsk and Kemerovo oblasts), the second with lower but still over 5 points mean rates (Orenburg region and Republic of Altai) and the third with the lowest estimates below 5 points (Altai region and Transbaikalia region).

The most significant differences from all-regions mean values were revealed in Omsk region by characteristic “Public denunciation of nationalism” (mean value 6.63, 5.46 in all-regions sample) and “Control in the sphere of legislation about state national policy” (6.43 and 5.41 respectively).

One of the most important factors of national accord and stability in the state is the national unity. Representing a complex, ambiguous and polysemous notion, it could be defined as a process of uniting different people into one entity bound by common norms, values and interests, associated with social and political processes. The existence of national unity in Russia was declared by 56.3% of respondents, 32.6% were prone to deny it, while 11.1% of respondents could not explain their position about this question. The principal grounds for the positive answer were as follows: “At critical moments Russia unites” (67.4%), “People help each other” (33.8%), “All nationalities get on peacefully” (32.3%), other variants were chosen by less than a third part of respondents (Table 6).

Table 6
Distribution of responses to the question “If you agree with the
statement that there is a national unity in Russia, why?», %

The absence of national unity was explained by the majority of those who reported such an answer by high rates of misery and poverty, large gap between rich and poor, selfishness of people and the increase of animosity. About a third part of respondents related the lack of unity with the lack of national idea and weak manifestation of patriotism (Table 7). It is notable that the most infrequent variant was “multinational society”, implying that population didn’t consider ethnic differences being important causes of national disintegration.

Table 7
Distribution of responses to the question “If you don’t agree with
the statement that there is no national unity in Russia, why?», %

At the next stage the analysis was focused on the essential characteristics of civic identity, described by the question “What does it mean for you to be a good citizen?” For 55.0% of respondents being a good citizen meant to be a patriot and love Russia, for 49.4% - to respect laws and the Constitution; for 33.4% – to have rights, granted by the legislation of the country, and enjoy them; for 29,6% - to understand one’s civic duty and to have civic responsibility and conscience; for 29,0% - to feel stable and sure economically and morally (Table 8).

Table 8
Distribution of responses to the question “What
does it mean for you to be a good citizen?”, %

Hence, in the conscience of inhabitants, the major attributes of civic consciousness were related not only to patriotism and acceptance of responsibility towards what occurs in the country but also to guaranties of state, insuring the minimum of rights and freedoms.

Though patriotism is considered to be an important indicator of civic identity, there is no agreement about its measuring. Meanwhile, multiple social scientists, exploring national beliefs and expectations, assume that pride and shame are principal feelings related to patriotism. According to our results, 89.3% of citizens from border regions felt proud of the country. The most popular reasons of pride – the victory in the Great Patriotic War (67.0%), the authority of Russia in the world (34.1%), the great Russian art workers (31,8%) and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin (30.4%).

Over 60% of respondents felt a profound sense of shame for the country. The most remarkable causes of shame, noted by 74,3% of respondents – low incomes and standards of living, poverty and unemployment, corruption, bureaucracy (42.8%), decline of industry, agriculture and economic in the whole (30.9%); alcoholism and drug abuse (27.5%). Causes associated with internal and external policy of the state were selected much rarer, that indirectly indicated the support of current political course of the government by the population.

Socio-structural determinants of civic and ethnic identities were explored by linear regression models. On the base of the preliminary analysis of statistically significant differences several categorical and ordinal predictors were chosen: region, gender, age, nationality, income (self-assessment of economic situation in the household), level of education, place of residence and index of religious identity. The principal results of regression analysis, including standardized coefficients and estimated overall quality of the model are presented in the table 9.

Table 9
Regression models of prediction of civic and ethnic identity

Note: Values in cells indicate standardized coefficients (β) in final model *p<0,01

All factors in total had a considerable impact on the amount of explained variance, although the model for ethnic identity was more informative (R2=0,181 for civic identity, R2=0,204 for ethnic identity) and the influence of single factors was rather weak. It should be noted that the strongest impact on both civic (β=0,405, p<0,01) and ethnic identity (β=0,420, p<0,01) had religious identity. This index was constructed by means of indicators of the intensity of attachment to religion, including auto-identification with the representatives of certain religion or confession, the willingness to practice the chosen or prescribed religion and respect its doctrine. The high degree of interaction between these types of identities witnessed about more manifested disposition of faithful respondents to feel similarity with reference communities, including national (civic) and ethnic ones.

Among other predictors of civic identity, the most important was nationality (β=–0,127, p<0,01). Assuming that Russian identification was coded as “1” and other ethnos identification as “2”, more distinct civic identity was associated with Russian identification. For ethnic identity the considerable effects were associated with age and place of residence: the attachment to one’s ethnic group was greater in groups of respondents, living in big cities and among older people.

6. Conclusion           

Our research has revealed that the Russian civic identity was shared by the majority of population from border regions and dominated over other types of social identity. Its basic components relied on the feeling of patriotism and civic responsibility, associated with the guarantees of security and welfare, required from the state. The ethnic identification was weaker than the civic identity, its main grounds were related to the objective characteristics of language proficiency and ancestry.

On the base of regression analysis, we found the most influencing factors, having impact on both civic and ethnic identity, among which the identification with religious communities was the most salient one. It was also revealed that civic identity had importance for ethnic Russians, while the ethnic identity was stronger among older people and people, living in urban areas.

The research has permitted to detect differences in civic and ethnic identities manifestations, relevant for inhabitants of distinct regions. Thus, citizens of Kemerovo region had the highest degrees of identification with civic and ethnic communities, the inhabitants of Transbaikalia region – the lowest ones, in other regions the indicators of identity had intermediate but rather high rates.

The state on interethnic sphere in all regions could be described as favorable, especially in Kemerovo and Omsk regions where it’s positive characteristics were highly estimated. Meanwhile, the attention should be paid to the existence of moderate level of interethnic tension in Omsk region and Transbaikalia region, expressed by the hostility felt by population towards representatives of other nationalities. The greatest regional differences were found in the evaluations related to the state national policy implementation.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, under the State Order for the scientific research № 28.2757.2017/4.6 “Transit migration, transit regions and Russian migration policy: security and Eurasian integration” (2017-2019).

References

Kondrateva, I. G., Madakina, N. Y., Sigal, N. G., & Valeev, A. A., (2016). The Development of the Student as a Person of Culture in the Context of Multicultural Education in Non-Language High School by Means of a Foreign Language. IEJME-Mathematics Education, 11 (1), 57-69 p.

Ivanov, A. V., Fotieva, I. V., Shishin, M. Y., & Belokurova, S. M., (2016). The Ethno-Cultural Concept of Classical Eurasianism. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 11 (12), 5155-5163 p.

Edict by the President of Russian Federation, (2012). N. President of Russia; 1666 December, http://kremlin.ru/acts/bank/36512 (Date of access 21.10.2015).

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C., (1986). The social identity theory of inter group behavior in S Worchel & WG Austin (Eds) Psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago: Nelson, 7–24 p.

Marcia, J. E., (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3 (5), 551 p.

Hjelle, L. A., & Ziegler, D. J., (1992). Personality theories: Basic assumptions, research, and applications. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 603 p.

Cooley, C. H., (1992). Human nature and the social order. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 741-755 p.

Goffman, E., (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 577 p.

Mead, G., (2009). Selected works. Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences. Moscow: RAN INION, 290 p.

Berger P., & Luckman T., (1995). Social construction of reality: Tractate about sociology of Perception. Moscow: Academica-Centr Medium, 247 p.

Hobsbawm, E. J., (2003). Class Consciousness in History. In Identities: Race, Class, Gender and Nationality. Malden: Mass, 126-135 p.

Ahearne, M., Kraus, F., Lam, S., & Wieseke, J., (2012). Toward a Contingency Framework of Interpersonal Influence in Organizational Identification Diffusion. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 118 (2), 162-178 p.

Bird, K., Saalfeld, T., & West, A., (2010). The Political Representation of Immigrants and Minorities: Voters, Parties and Parliaments in Liberal Democracies. New York: Routledge. West European Politics, 36 (3), 564-579 p.

Arutyunova, E., (2007). Forming of state-civic identity of the youth: on the example of researches among Moscow students. Moscow: Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, 154 p.

Drobizheva, L. M., (2014). Theoretical problems of study of civic identity and social practice. Network edition of Center of researches and analysis Perspective. http://www.perspektivy.info/rus/gos/teoreticheskije_problemy_izuchenija_grazhdanskoj_identichnosti_i_socialnaja_praktika_2014-09-10.htm

Giddens, A., (1976). Functionalism: Apres la Lute. Social Research, (43) 325-366 p.

Hume, D., (1996). A Tractate about human nature. Philosophy. Moscow: Academica-Centr Medium, (23) 358 p.

Iyer, A., Jetten, J., Tsivrikos, D., Postmes, T., & Haslam, S. A., (2009). The more (and the more compatible) the merrier: Multiple group memberships and identity compatibility as predictors of adjustment after life transitions. British Journal of Social Psychology, (48) 707-733 p.

Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J., (1992). A collective self-esteem scale. Self-evaluation of one’s social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, (18) 302-318 p.

Marks, G., Hooghe, L., (2003). National identity and European integration: A multi-level analysis of public opinion" draft paper. Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum, 5-25 p.

Rosenberg, M., (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 326 p.

Stefanenko, T. G., (1999). Social psychology of ethnic identification. Moscow: Dissertation Thesis, 23-34 p.

Swann, W. B., Gamez, A., Seyle, C. D., Morales, F. J., & Huici, C., (2009). Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (96) 995-1011 p.

Barth, R., (2007). The teacher leader. Uncovering teacher leaders, 82(6), 443-449 p.

1. Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia

2. Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia. E-mail: onoyanzina@yahoo.com

3. Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia

4. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia