University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School April 2019 When Faced with a Democracy: political socialization of first- generation ethnic Russian immigrants in Central and South Florida Marina Seraphine Mendez University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Political Science Commons, and the Sociology Commons Scholar Commons Citation Mendez, Marina Seraphine, "When Faced with a Democracy: political socialization of first-generation ethnic Russian immigrants in Central and South Florida" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7857 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. When Faced with a Democracy: political socialization of first-generation ethnic Russian immigrants in Central and South Florida by Marina Seraphine Mendez A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Government School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Darrell Slider, Ph.D. Co-Major Professor: Bernd Reiter, Ph.D. Harry Vanden, Ph.D. Cornelis Boterbloem, Ph.D. Elizabeth Aranda, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 19, 2019 Keywords: political culture, immigration studies, qualitative, grounded theory. Copyright © 2019, Marina Seraphine Mendez Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Theoretical Framework: Political Culture ...................................................................... 6 1.1. Political culture: a theoretical overview ...................................................................... 6 1.2. Political culture in the United States of America....................................................... 12 1.3. Political culture in Russian Federation ...................................................................... 17 1.4. American and Russian political cultures compared ................................................... 28 1.5. A closer look at Russia .............................................................................................. 33 1.6. Summary .................................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework: Political Socialization ........................................................... 38 2.1. Political socialization concept development .............................................................. 38 2.2. Political re-learning .................................................................................................... 41 2.3. Immigrant political resocialization ............................................................................ 43 2.4. Conceptual considerations ......................................................................................... 47 2.5. How many socializations at once? ............................................................................. 48 2.6. Summary .................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 3 Previous studies on Soviet/Russian immigrants........................................................... 51 3.1. Immigration waves..................................................................................................... 51 3.2. Russian-speaking Jews in the US .............................................................................. 52 3.3. Relevant literature ...................................................................................................... 54 3.4. A comparison with the experiences of Cuban immigrants to the US ........................ 62 3.5. Summary .................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 4 Method and Description of the Sample Group............................................................. 67 4.1. Research Questions .................................................................................................... 67 4.2. Initial assumptions ..................................................................................................... 68 4.3. Study criteria .............................................................................................................. 69 i 4.3.1. Who is eligible? .......................................................................................... 69 4.3.2. What makes Florida a good place to conduct this study? ........................... 70 4.3.3. Protecting respondents’ identities ............................................................... 72 4.4. Grounded Theory method of data collection and analysis......................................... 72 4.5. Personal disclaimer and ethical issues ....................................................................... 73 4.6. Data collection ........................................................................................................... 75 4.6.1. Interviews .................................................................................................... 75 4.6.2. Surveys ........................................................................................................ 76 4.6.3. Sample size ................................................................................................. 78 4.7. Who are they? ............................................................................................................ 78 4.8. Why did they come to the US? .................................................................................. 80 4.8.1. Group #1 – Better Job Opportunities .......................................................... 80 4.8.2. Group #2 – “I followed my family” ............................................................ 82 4.8.3. Group #3 – “I got married!!!” ..................................................................... 83 4.8.4. Group #4 – “I won a Green Card!!!” .......................................................... 85 4.8.5. Group #5 – “Let’s come for a visit and stay forever!” ............................... 86 4.8.6. Group #6 – “Economic crises had affected our business” .......................... 87 4.9. Exposure to American political socialization agencies ............................................. 87 4.10. Data Coding ............................................................................................................. 88 4.11. Summary .................................................................................................................. 90 Chapter 5 Economic and Social Adaptation ................................................................................. 92 5.1. Economic integration ................................................................................................. 93 5.1.1. Employment ................................................................................................ 93 5.1.2. Education .................................................................................................... 99 5.1.3. Healthcare ................................................................................................. 101 5.1.4. The Welfare State ..................................................................................... 103 5.1.5. Infrastructure and services ........................................................................ 103 5.1.6. How do they compare to other immigrants? ............................................. 105 5.2. Social integration ..................................................................................................... 107 5.2.1. American friends ....................................................................................... 107 5.2.2. American colleagues ................................................................................. 108 5.2.3. American spouses ..................................................................................... 109 5.2.4. How do they compare to other immigrants? ............................................. 113 5.3. Immigrants’ identification and satisfaction ............................................................. 114 5.4. Summary .................................................................................................................. 117 Chapter 6 Theoretical Modeling ................................................................................................. 119 6.1. A brief note on a Grounded Theory-building .......................................................... 119 6.2. A theoretical model of the political re-socialization process ..................................