Why Russians don’t trust the USA: Analysis of World Values Survey data
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2024.204Abstract
Public opinion polls in Russia show that the majority of Russians have a negative attitude towards the United States. Under these conditions, it seems interesting to understand the origins of anti-American sentiments in Russian society. The purpose of this article is to identify the factors that explain the nature of anti-Americanism in the mass consciousness of the country’s citizens. The source of the information was the data of the seventh wave of the World Values Survey. The author has tried to empirically test a number of working hypotheses formulated on the basis of the main provisions of the theory of post-materialistic values of R. Inglehart, S. Huntington’s clash of civilizations concepts, as well as the Scapegoat theory. The data obtained indicate that the more citizens consider Russia to belong to European civilization, the higher their trust in the United States. For those who adhere to the point of view that Russia is an independent/Eurasian or some other civilization, a negative attitude towards the United States is characteristic. It is shown that anti-Americanism in Russia does not depend on the values that citizens adhere to (traditional or post-materialistic). It was found that the thesis that citizens who are dissatisfied with their financial situation are more likely to transfer this discontent to USA has not been confirmed. An important result of the study is that the level of anti-Americanism in women is higher than in men. The article emphasizes that people with a higher level of education are less critical of Washington. The results of this study demonstrate that the Russian public is very sensitive to pro-government news content.
Keywords:
anti-Americanism, US foreign policy, clash of civilizations, Scape-goat theory, public opinion
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Published
2025-01-17
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Mukhametov, R. S. (2025). Why Russians don’t trust the USA: Analysis of World Values Survey data. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology, 17(2), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2024.204
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Social processes and social dynamics
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.
