Authors

Emil Kamalov¹; Ivetta Sergeeva¹;  ¹ European University Institute, Italy

Discussion

Community support can be a matter of life and death for people trying to escape a repressive political regime. In the six months since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian migrants established dozens of non-governmental institutions and informal initiatives, many of which help Russian citizens’ relocation and integration. 31.8% of Russian migrants report that they help other Russian migrants. Given resource constraints and obstacles caused by anti-Russian sanctions, people willing to support other migrants face tough choices about their funds and other resource allocation. 
We draw on the literature on deservingness, in which the lion's share is taken up by studies of the attitudes of European and U.S. citizens toward newly arriving migrants. We bear in mind that our respondents are themselves recent migrants who have left their country amidst the political and economic crises, provoked by the military conflict with a neighboring country. Hence, to shed light on the formative effect of their political experience on their support choices, we also utilize concepts of repression, guilt, and responsibility.
To test the different determinants of support, we employ a choice-based conjoint experiment with paired profiles. The experiment is conducted as part of the panel survey of the recent Russian migrants.