A new article in Problems of Post-Communism

The article “Proletarian Internationalism in Action? Communist Legacies and Attitudes Towards Migrants in Russia” by Alexander Libman and Anastassia Obydenkova was published online on the Problems of Post-Communism website.

The article was prepared within the framework of the research project "Political Economy of Development: Response of economic actors to changes in institutional environment". It is published online and available for reading: "Proletarian Internationalism in Action? Communist Legacies and Attitudes Towards Migrants in Russia"

Abstract: The paper investigates the effect of Communist legacies on attitudes toward migrants in present-day Russia. Midway through the first decade of the 2000s, Russia established itself as an attractive center of labor migration. This rise of migration triggered an upsurge of xenophobic sentiment and nationalism. This paper examines the variation of anti-migrant sentiments across the regions of the Russian Federation and concludes that it is strongly affected by the legacies of the Communist regime. Regions with a higher share of CPSU members in their population in the 1970s are characterized by stronger negative attitudes towards migrants.