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National Attachment, Past In-Group Perpetratorhood, and Out-Group Attitudes
Author(s): Balcells, Laia; Dinas, Elias; vanderWilden, Ethan
Date: 2026
Topics: Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys, Surveys, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Methodology, National Identity
Abstract: Exclusionary attitudes are often justified by histories of conflict. A large body of literature explores how making in-group victimhood salient can affect attitudes towards out-groups. Much less, however, has been done to study how episodes in history that position the in-group as perpetrators may reduce or exacerbate animosity towards the victimized group. We fill this gap by studying antisemitism in contemporary Spain. Using a well-powered and pre-registered survey experiment, we prime respondents with the historical expulsion of Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century. The effects of priming this historical episode are conditional on one’s degree of national attachment: respondents who are less attached to the Spanish nation express lower levels of antisemitism in response to the treatment, while those reporting high levels of attachment appear to exhibit a modest backlash. These results update our understanding of how majority populations confront histories that implicate their own group as perpetrators.
Russian Anti-Semitism and the Scapegoating of Jews
Author(s): Gibson, James L.; Howard, Marc Morjé
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Surveys, Attitudes to Jews
Abstract: Throughout Russian history, Jews have often been blamed when turmoil has arisen in the country. It is
surprising, therefore, that Russian politics in the 1990s focused so little on Jews as a source of the political
and economic crises afflicting the country. This article investigates anti-Jewish attitudes in Russia over time
and cross-sectionally, carefully scrutinizing the hypothesis that perceptions of economic, social and political
upheaval activate latent authoritarianism into anti-Semitism. Little if any support is found for the hypothesis
and therefore it is argued that scapegoat theory, as currently constituted and applied to Jews, is too simplistic
to be useful. Russian Jews were not subject to intolerance and repression in the 1990s because anti-Semitic
beliefs were not widespread enough to be used successfully by political entrepreneurs seeking advantage
through attacks on Jews.