What Drives Antisemitic Hostility in the Twenty-First Century? A Comparative Case Study of Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020)
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Abstract
Public concern about antisemitism has increased globally in the twenty-first century, sparking renewed interest from social scientists. However, the crucial question of why trajectories of antisemitic hostility differ between countries remains unanswered due to a lack of studies designed to track temporal and cross-national variation. Addressing this gap, I evaluate the explanatory power of two main lines of argument that divide the literature: generalist and particularist. While generalists see antisemitism as a manifestation of general outgroup hostility common to various forms of prejudice, particularists stress the contextual specificity of antisemitism and posit that its twenty-first-century expressions are distinctively linked to anti-Zionist sentiment (enmity toward Israel and its supporters). I derive observable implications from these positions and conduct a comparative, longitudinal case study of antisemitic hostility in Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020), using a mixed-methods approach to integrate incident counts, victimization surveys, media analysis, and expert interviews. Findings match predictions from the particularist position, with flare-ups in the Israel–Palestine conflict generating or catalyzing antisemitic hostility depending on the strength of local anti-Zionist sentiment, thus demonstrating the centrality of the “Israel factor” in contemporary antisemitism.
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Antisemitism: Israel-Related Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys Antisemitism: Monitoring Longitudinal Studies Main Topic: Antisemitism
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Volume/Issue
46
Page Number / Article Number
34
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Bibliographic Information
What Drives Antisemitic Hostility in the Twenty-First Century? A Comparative Case Study of Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020). 2026: 34. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1007/s12397-026-09723-z
