Abstract:

The industrialization project under the Soviet Union has created uneven distribution of resources across its vast territory, with cities carrying key industries receiving more and direct resources from Moscow. The array of ideals exemplified by being a Soviet citizen is also more likely to take root in such localities. I argue that residents of critical industrial cities with special status in former USSR demonstrate unique patterns in a certain set of contemporary political attitudes caused by the very arrangement. Combining historical evidence and geo-coded survey data in post-Soviet Armenia and Kazakhstan -- both heavily industrialized under the Soviet rule while demonstrating variations in many other aspects -- I show that the long-term effects exerted by the Soviet industrialization are discernible after decades of the Soviet collapse. One’s proximity to Soviet-era large factories is associated with her regime preferences, perceptions on inequality, trust in government and political activism. Process tracing of several subnational cases in both countries is conducted to indicate the causal mechanisms behind the association.