The International Circulation of Attacks and the Reputational Consequences of Local Context: George Soros’s Difficult Reputation in Russia, Post-Soviet Lithuania and the United States

Abstract

This article examines philanthropist George Soros’s reputation in the United States, Russia and post-Soviet Lithuania from the 1990s to 2005–6. A billionaire currency speculator and left-wing philanthropist, Soros has a ‘difficult reputation’. Attacks from American right-wingers and post-Soviet authoritarians circulated internationally, but his reputation was not constituted globally as extreme globalization theorists might predict. We draw on Bourdieu’s analysis of the international circulation of ideas and emphasis on local context. Reputational entrepreneurs in the United States, Russia and Lithuania certainly made extensive use of internationally circulating attacks in the age of the internet. Nonetheless, Soros’s reputation served domestic political needs and was interpreted within a local cultural context, suggesting the value of a ‘sceptical’ perspective on globalization debates on how reputational attacks travel and are received.