25 Years of Independence, Georgia's

Georgians may be rightfully proud of their ancient history, but their modern state has just passed a stage of infancy. Approximately a quarter of century ago, Georgia started to build a new nation and a new state. The opening conditions were not promising. Under the civil wars, col- lapsing economic system and nonexistent public services not many people believed in viability of the Georgian state. Today, twenty five years later Georgia still faces multiple challenges: territorial, political, economic, social, etc. But on the balance, it is an accomplished state with fairly functional institutions, vibrant civil society, growing economy, a system of regional alliances and close cooperative relations with a number of international actors, European Union and NATO among them. How the progress was achieved, in which areas Georgia is more successful and what the greatest deficits are which it still faces and how to move forward are the questions this volume tries to answer. This book tries to reconstruct major tasks that the Georgian state was facing in the beginning, and then track success and failure in each of those areas till today. Thus, the authors of six chapters deal with nation-, state-, and democracy-building in Georgia as well as evolution of civil society, economic development, and last but not least, the role and place of Georgia in the new post-Cold-War international system. We very much hope that this volume will contribute to the debate about Georgia’s development. Since it is based on academic research, the authors tried to make it a good and useful read for anybody interested in all matters of Georgia. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) is a political foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Democracy, peace and justice are the basic principles underlying the activities of KAS at home as well as abroad. The Foundation’s Regional Program South Caucasus conducts projects aiming at: Strengthening democratization processes, Promoting political participation of the people, Supporting social justice and sustainable economic development, Promoting peaceful conflict resolution, Supporting the region’s rapprochement with European structures. Editor: Prof. Gia Nodia Manuscript Editor: Nato Jmukhadze Text Design: Ketevan Gogava, Irma Revishvili Cover Design: David Kelberashvili Disclaimer The papers in this volume reflect the personal opinions of the authors and not those of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation or any other organizations, including the organizations with which the authors are affiliated. © Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V 2016 © Ilia State University 2016 ISBN 978-9941-18-251-8 Ilia State University Press 3/5 Cholokashvili Ave, Tbilisi, 0162, Georgia Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Regional Program South Caucasus 9a Akhvlediani Aghmarti, Tbilisi, 0103, Georgia Contents SummariZing Quarter OF CENTURY OF DeveLOpment Ghia Nodia, Ilia State University Canan Atilgan, Konrad Adenauer Foundation 5 Redefining THE NatiON: FROM ETHnic FragmentatiON TO Civic IntegratiON? Christofer Berglund, Uppsala Universty Timothy Blauvelt, Ilia State University 11 THE STORY OF GEOrgia’S state-buiLding: dramatic but CLOser TO COMPLetiOn Ghia Nodia, Ilia State University 56 25 YEARS OF GEOrgia'S DEMOcratiZatiON: STILL WORK IN PROGRESS David Aprasidze, Ilia State University 91 GEOrgia’S PROtracted TransitiON: CIVIL SOcietY, PartY POLitics AND CHALLenges TO DEMOcratic TransfOrmatiOn Kornely Kakachia, Tbilisi State University Bidzina Lebanidze, Free University of Berlin 130 GEOrgia’S RevOLUTIONS AND ECONOmic DeveLOpment Eric Livny, International School of Economics 162 GEOrgia’S SECURITY Predicament S. Neil MacFarlane, The University of Oxford 208 SUMMARIZING QUARTER OF CENTURY OF DEVELOPMENT Ghia Nodia, Ilia State University Canan Atilgan, Konrad Adenauer Foundation Georgians may be rightfully proud of their ancient history, but their modern state has just passed a stage of infancy. Since the early 19th century, Georgia only existed as a part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, save for a brief intermission in 1918-1921. Thus, approximately a quarter of century ago,1 Georgia started to build a new nation and a new state. The opening conditions were not promising. In late December 1991, when leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were signing an agreement putting an end to the Soviet Union, Georgians were fight- ing each other in downtown Tbilisi. In a few days, Zviad Gamsakhur- dia, the first democratically elected president, was forced to flee, but for another two or three years Georgia was plunged into chaos and violence. Economic system imploded, with overall output dropping about three times. Public infrastructure collapsed as well, with central heating ceasing to exist and electricity becoming precious rarity. Not many people believed in viability of the Georgian state then – including some Georgians. Many fled the country to Russia and other places. However, paradoxical as it may have seemed to some observers, most people were not overwhelmed by nostalgia for the Soviet order and maintained resolve to develop their own institutions. Today, twenty five years later Georgia still faces multiple challenges: territorial, political, economic, social, etc. But on the balance, it is an accomplished state with fairly functional institutions, vibrant 5 Ghia Nodia , Canan Atilgan civil society, growing economy, a system of regional alliances and close cooperative relations with a number of international actors, European Union and NATO among them. Overall progress is obvious, even if most Georgians are hardly satisfied with how the things stand at this moment. How the progress was achieved, in which areas Georgia is more successful and what the greatest deficits are which it still faces and how to move forward: these are the questions this volume tries to answer. When designing the structure of this book, we first tried to reconstruct major tasks that the nascent Georgian state was facing in the beginning, and then track success and failure in each of those areas. Nation-building was the most obvious one of those. At the moment of the Soviet break-up, Georgia was an ethnically diverse place with about seventy percent of the population being ethnic Georgian. There was no guarantee that all of these people would be equally committed to the project of Georgian independent state. Within the So- viet system, Georgia was considered just an administrative unit, and minorities who happened to live within it primarily identified them- selves with the Soviet state. Now they had to make a transition from being Soviet to being Georgian. The fact that Georgian nationalism (like all other nationalisms that emerged on the debris of the Com- munists’ ostensible ‘proletarian internationalism’) tended to be ethnically exclusivist and suspicious of others did not help. This was a background for ethnic conflict. Such conflicts could happen every- where, but Caucasus and the Balkans turned out to be the two regions where most of them happened. There was an important distinction between these two regions, though: western powers considered the Balkans part of Europe and took responsibility for establishing peace there – even though it took a lot of time and bloodshed. The West never developed comparable level of commitment towards the Cau- casus, where Russia remained the leading player. Georgia got involved in two ethnic-territorial wars, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and lost both of them. This defeat was consolidated following a brief war with Russia in 2008, after which the whole 6 Summarizing Quarter of Century of Development territory of the two regions came under military control of the sep- aratist authorities and of Russia, who also recognized them as independent states. Georgia considers these regions, which constitute some twenty percent of its territory, as being under Russian occupa- tion, and does not give up its claim to restore jurisdiction over them. In 2014, more than 230 thousand people were considered internally displaced people as a result of these conflicts. However, Georgia is also fully committed to exclusively peaceful methods of dealing with the issue. In practice this means that while the government encour- ages informal contacts with the people living in the occupied ter- ritories, any hope of finally resolving the conflict is postponed for better times. Would this outcome allow us to deem the story of Georgia’s nation-building a failure? Rather, the picture is mixed. Yes, twenty percent of the country is effectively outside Georgia’s reach, and there is no prospect of changing that in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, Georgia has consolidated control over the rest of its territory and there are no further evident challenges to the integrity of the nation. Twenty five years ago, this was far from taken for granted. This is not to discount further problems Georgia faces: It still has to create a sense of fully inclusive citizenship for all of its ethnic and religious groups and ensure enabling conditions for all of them to fully parti- cipate in economic, civic, and political life. Issues related to this area have actually become more visible and are broadly discussed in the last several years. A paper by Timothy Blauvelt and Christopher Ber- glund deals broadly with them. While at the outset of Georgia’s independence, complications related to national unity and, respectively, territorial control were most conspicuous, Georgia was also considered a failing state in the sense that its public authorities were not capable of carrying out functions that modern states are expected to deliver. In the early 1990s, Georgia was run by competing warlords and street toughs who did not recog- nize any legitimate state authority. While this condition was mainly overcome by mid-1990s, the Georgian state was counted among the 7 Ghia Nodia , Canan Atilgan most corrupt in the world, salaries of the public servants were well below the living wage, and public infrastructure came into disrepair. Many Georgians as well as foreigners came to believe that corrup- tion was endemic to the country and any attempts to change this were futile.

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