Russia’s invasion of Ukraine displaced millions of people, resulting in the largest refugee crisis in Europe since WWII. Poland’s warm welcome of Ukrainian refugees contrasts sharply with its refusal to accommodate a much smaller number of Syrians in 2015. What explains this disparity in the treatment of Ukrainians and Syrians? What type of individuals help refugees and what type of refugees are most likely to be helped?
To address these questions, Volha Charnysh presents the results of an original nationally-representative survey conducted in the fall of 2022 in Poland, in collaboration with L. Peisakhin, N. Stoop, and P. van der Windt.
Volha Charnysh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at MIT and an Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in May 2017. Her work examines the legacies of wartime violence and repression, the role of identity in state-building and economic development, and the intergenerational persistence of political attitudes and behavior.