Gerard Toal

Biographic Data

ID833140
NAMEGerard Toal
GIVEN NAMESGerard
FAMILY NAMEToal
SIGNATURETOAL G
AFFILIATIONSVirginia Tech
ORCID0000-0002-9110-458X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS55
TOTAL CITATIONS494
AUTHOR COUNT54
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1994
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX13

  • Outgroup Threat, complex identities, and attitudes toward war and peace in Ukraine

    Open AccessKarina V Korostelina, Michael M Sweigart et al.ARTICLEGroup Processes & Intergroup…2025References: 23

    The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of the relationship between perceptions of threat, complex combinations of social identity, and civilians’ willingness to support peace negotiations during active war. Using survey data ( N = 1,812) collected in three eastern cities of war-torn Ukraine, we examined the relationship between threat perceptions and support for continuing the war or making concessions to pursue peace negotiati…

  • The Many Semantic Lives of Geopolitics: Evidence from the New York Times Archive 1900-2023

    Gerard Toal, Derya Ipek ErogluARTICLEGeopolitics2025References: 35

    Henry Kissinger’s death foregrounds a puzzle in the history of geopolitics. How did a word made infamous by Nazi Germany become so ubiquitous and popular in the English-speaking world? Was Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, responsible for its rehabilitation into respectability in English? Historians, geographers and political scientists have traced how Western geopolitical thought developed in the twentieth century through transatlan…

  • The challenges of surveying in war zones: Lessons from Ukraine

    Open AccessKit Rickard, Gerard Toal et al.ARTICLEJournal of Peace Research2025Cited by: 2References: 18

    Conflict scholars commonly employ public opinion surveys to understand the causes and consequences of violence. However, surveying in wartime presents a distinctive set of challenges. We examine two challenges facing polling in countries at war: under-coverage of national samples and response bias. Although these issues are acknowledged in the literature on surveying methods, they become significantly more pronounced in war zones due to the geogr…

  • Reply to commentaries

    Open AccessGerard ToalARTICLEEnvironment and Planning C…2024References: 1

    The commentaries on my essay reveal the culture of debate on the Russia-Ukraine war. They also provide some evidence for the argument I sought to make. In this response I contextualize the original essay, sharpen its political implications, and engaging the commentaries. I conclude by addressing Ukraine’s seizure of Russian territory which reveals a shifting attitude toward negotiations and territory

  • The territorial taboo: Explaining the public aversion to negotiations in the Ukraine war support coalition

    Open AccessGerard ToalARTICLEEnvironment and Planning C…2024References: 10

    Despite severe and mounting war costs, many in the international coalition supporting Ukraine have publicly expressed strong aversion to negotiations with Russia, and Ukrainian territorial concessions, to end the war. What explains this aversion to negotiations and seeming taboo on territorial concessions? This commentary, drawing particularly on US policy debate, suggests that proclaimed sacred values helps explain this disposition. Ukraine’s wa…

  • Exposure to violence and attitudes toward war and peace in Ukraine

    Open AccessKarina V Korostelina, Michael M Sweigart et al.ARTICLEPeace and Conflict Journal of…2024Cited by: 2

  • Politicizing Memory: Evidence from Ukraine

    Open AccessKristin M Bakke, Kit Rickard et al.ARTICLEProblems of Post-Communism2024References: 27

    Research shows that people's perceptions of historical violence shape many present-day outcomes.Yet it is also plausible that people emphasize or downplay certain events of the past based on how these resonate with their beliefs and identities today.With a population of diverse orientations involving Russia and Europe, Ukraine in 2019 was an important case for exploring how people's present geopolitical orientations shaped perceptions of victimiz…

  • Support for Vladimir Putin in Russia's neighbors: Survey evidence from an endorsement experiment in six post-Soviet countries

    Open AccessJohn O''Loughlin, John Ο’loughlin et al.ARTICLEPolitical Geography2024References: 44

  • What Political Status Did the Donbas Want? Survey Evidence on the Eve of Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

    Open AccessJohn Ο’loughlin, John O’loughlin et al.ARTICLEGeopolitics2024References: 39

    This article reports original survey data collected in both parts of the divided Donbas region of Ukraine on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The research employs a methodological innovation by having the same telephone survey implemented by three different survey agencies: one based in Ukraine, one based in Russia, and one based in the UK. Comparing similarities and differences in results identify key effects induced by …

  • The geopolitical orientations of ordinary Belarusians: Survey Evidence From Early 2020

    John O''Loughlin, John Ο’loughlin et al.ARTICLEPost-Soviet Affairs2022Cited by: 7References: 29

    Examining geopolitical orientations in a representative survey of Belarus in early 2020, we adopt a critical geopolitical perspective that highlights geopolitical cultures as fields of contestation and debate over a state’s identity, orientation, and enduring interests. We examine support among 1210 Belarusians to four foreign policy options for the country–neutrality as the best foreign policy, joining the European Union, staying in the Eurasian…

  • Reflection on Criticisms of Critical Geopolitics

    Open AccessGerard ToalARTICLEGeopolítica(s) Revista de…2021Cited by: 1References: 36

    The book Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space was first published twenty-five years ago. In this article, I briefly discuss the geopolitical and intellectual sources of inspiration for the development Critical Geopolitics as a distinctive approach within Anglo-American political geography. In doing so, I distinguish it from other concurrent critical approached to International Relations and the world-system within English-sp…

  • Critical Geopolitics/critical geopolitics 25 years on

    Open AccessSara Koopman, Simon Dalby et al.ARTICLEPolitical Geography2021Cited by: 20References: 33

  • Geopolitics - Thick and Complex. A conversation with Gerard Toal

    Open AccessVeit Bachmann, Gerard ToalARTICLEErdkunde2019

  • Borderization theatre: Geopolitical entrepreneurship on the South Ossetia boundary line, 2008–2018

    Gerard Toal, Gela MerabishviliARTICLECaucasus Survey2019Cited by: 4References: 7

    Borderization refers to the construction of physical barriers to transform a territorial ceasefire line into an international border. The term was used first by European Union officials to refer to the administrative boundary line between Georgia and de facto state of South Ossetia. The article analyses how physical border construction in this area became a theatre of symbolic (geo)political gamesmanship, a background prop for political competiti…

  • The Crimea conundrum: Legitimacy and public opinion after annexation

    John Ο’loughlin, Gerard ToalARTICLEEurasian Geography and Economics2019Cited by: 8References: 7

    The widespread international condemnation of the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014 is at odds with the strong local support for the transfer of territory in the peninsula. Though regarded as illegitimate by most governments as indicated in a UN General Assembly vote, the Russian government argued that the transfer was justified since it reflected the majority opinion in Crimea. The examination of attitudes in December 2014 through a re…

  • Does War Change Geopolitical Attitudes? A Comparative Analysis of 2014 Surveys in Southeast Ukraine

    John O''Loughlin, John Ο’loughlin et al.ARTICLEProblems of Post-Communism2019Cited by: 6References: 25

    John O'Loughlin*a & Gerard Toalb a Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USAb School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech, Arlington, VA, USA

  • Dynamics of state-building after war: External-internal relations in Eurasian de facto states

    Open AccessKristin M Bakke, Andrew M Linke et al.ARTICLEPolitical Geography2018Cited by: 7References: 45

    Post-war state-building is fraught with challenges as “war-makers” pivot to become “state-makers.” Citizen assessments of public good provision and physical security provide a measure of how state-building is perceived internally. State-building may also necessitate external dependence (Russia, for example, provides significant financial and military assistance to the post-Soviet de facto states), yet new state authorities want to be seen as more…

  • Muted impact: Is political geography still a backwater

    Open AccessGerard ToalARTICLEPolitical Geography2018Cited by: 7

  • Studying Shock Events Using Survey Research: Ukraine in 2014

    Gerard Toal, Gearoid O TuathailARTICLEGeopolitics2018References: 3

  • Why Did MH17 Crash: Blame Attribution, Television News and Public Opinion in Southeastern Ukraine, Crimea and the De Facto States of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria

    Gerard Toal, John Ο’loughlin et al.ARTICLEGeopolitics2018Cited by: 5

    Shock events are often pivotal moments in geopolitics and objects of intense disagreement among conflicting parties. This paper examines the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 and the divergent blame storylines produced on Russian and Ukrainian television about the event. It then examines results of a question asking why MH17 crashed in a simultaneous survey conducted in December 2014 in six oblasts in …

  • Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus

    Gerard ToalBOOKNear abroad2017Cited by: 36

    Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia's "near abroad" - newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union and are now Russia's neighbors. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines in the wake of the global recession, the geopolitical contest that created it did not. Six years later, the spectre of a revanchist Russia returned when Putin's forces invaded and annexed the…

  • The rise and fall of “Novorossiya: Examining support for a separatist geopolitical imaginary in southeast Ukraine

    John O''Loughlin, John Ο’loughlin et al.ARTICLEPost-Soviet Affairs2017Cited by: 37References: 14

    In the spring of 2014, some anti-Maidan protestors in southeast Ukraine, in alliance with activists from Russia, agitated for the creation of a large separatist entity on Ukrainian territory. These efforts sought to revive a historic region called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) on the northern shores of the Black Sea that was created by Russian imperial colonizers. In public remarks, Vladimir Putin cited Novorossiya as a historic and contemporary hom…

  • Who identifies with the “Russian World”? Geopolitical attitudes in southeastern Ukraine, Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria

    John Ο’loughlin, Gerard Toal et al.ARTICLEEurasian Geography and Economics2016Cited by: 23References: 16

    The concept of the Russian world (Russkii mir) re-entered geopolitical discourse after the end of the Soviet Union. Though it has long historical roots, the practical definition and geopolitical framing of the term has been debated and refined in Russian political and cultural circles during the years of the Putin presidency. Having both linguistic-cultural and geopolitical meanings, the concept of the Russian world remains controversial, and out…

  • Author’s response: On the critical becoming classic

    Open AccessGerard ToalARTICLEProgress in Human Geography2015Cited by: 1References: 1

  • Inside the post-Soviet de facto states: A comparison of attitudes in Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Transnistria

    John Ο’loughlin, Vladimir Kolossov et al.ARTICLEEurasian Geography and Economics2014Cited by: 42References: 18

    In the wake of the Ukrainian crisis in 2013–2014, renewed attention has been given to the earlier so-called “frozen conflicts” of the successor states of the Soviet Union. In Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan, national conflicts of the early 1990s resulted in establishment of four breakaway regions, the de facto states of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Nagorny Karabakh. While the first three are supported by Russia, the latter is suppo…