The Georgian Dream movement came to power over a decade ago. It initially claimed to want to uphold the European integration policies of its predecessor, but has slowly moved towards a more sovereign discourse. Over time, Georgian Dream has increasingly fueled affective political polarization, and now accuses its pro-European critics of wanting to drag Georgia into a war with Russia. It has furthermore vehemently defended adopting controversial anti-democratic legislation such as the so called ‘foreign agents’ law.

With 70-80% of Georgians supporting Euro-Atlantic integration, the ruling party avoids openly rejecting this path. Instead, it promises domestic audiences EU membership under the slogan “Toward Europe with Dignity.”

See blog by Lia Tsuladze at The Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia’s website

How can we explain a stronger pro-Russian and weaker pro-European sentiment in Georgia’s peripheral regions compared to the national average? This brief essay combines quantitative data from public opinion polls with my qualitative research in the villages along the de facto border/occupation line of South Ossetia to explain the geopolitical outlook of the peripheral region.

Blog by Lela Javakhishvili
Center for Social Sciences

This work was supported by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE) within the H2020 Programme under the grant SHADOW [no: 778118]; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

Shadow economy and corruption are topics of discussion even for the most developed countries in the world. Although there are rules and laws aimed at eliminating these two, people still find layers within the law to bypass them, which of course does not have any positive effect on states. In the most cases, such actions are motivated by personal interests, although sometimes they are attributed to the public welfare. In this regard, it is interesting to look at Georgia, the country that dedicated many years and a lot of resources to the fight against the corruption and shadow economy. In this blog, we will discuss the certain cases that can be attributed to both shadow economy and corruption coexisting in Georgia. Documents that were studied within the desk research, such as legislative frameworks, surveys, and government estimates, open government data shows that the situation in Georgia is not favorable in this regard [shadow economy and corruption], which will not have a positive impact on the country’s budget and economy.