Replication data for: Inter-ethnic Trust in Conflict-Affected Societies: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the North Caucasus Region of Russia

We examine inter-ethnic trust in Bosnia and the North Caucasus region of Russia, two ethnically diverse, post-communist societies, which at times have been racked by inter-ethnic and/or separatist conflicts. We survey attitudes and preferences towards the contemporary situation, revealing that there is substantial inter-ethnic trust in the North Caucasus, while the Bosnian respondents are in general less trusting. Consistent with research in social psychology, we find that respondents who do not express strong ethnic pride and with friends from a variety of ethnic backgrounds are more likely to trust members of other national groups. Furthermore, respondents who doubt that the current situation is improving are less likely to say they trust members of other ethnic groups. While we expected personal experiences with ethnic violence to have a negative impact on inter-ethnic trust, we find the opposite: Survey respondents with personal experiences of ethnic violence are more likely to express trust in members of other ethnic groups. To further examine these results, we investigate differences across ethnic groups in the two survey regions. In order to improve the validity and comparability of survey responses from people of different (cultural, economic, and social) backgrounds, we use an anchoring vignette, a technique that measures and corrects for response category incomparability, allowing for a better comparison of resp onses among and across these two societies.