Cartographies of Stalin: Place,Scale, and Reputational Politics

In this article we explore the spatial variation of support for former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in his home country, Georgia. This research contributes to the literature on reputational politics by highlighting the role of spatial, rather than only social, factors in the construction of public opinion about Stalin. We illustrate how geographic factors impact Georgians' perceptions of the Soviet dictator by examining various aspects of place at various scales—including distance to Gori, Stalin's birthplace, the history of urbanization, and economic and political indices. To this end we map attitudes toward the Soviet dictator and use a multilevel spatial regression technique to explain variance in support for Stalin across forty-seven districts of Georgia. This enables us to explore the impact of place on people's attitudes by examining (1) whether there are local and regional hotspots of Stalin admiration and, if so, (2) what the contextual explanations of these attitudes are.