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.
Continue reading
This issue looks at Georgia in the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for 26 October 2024. First, Koba Turmanidze describes the preferences of the Georgian electorate based on representative public opinion polls. Tatia Tavkhelidze then goes on to analyse the key contentious issue in Georgian pre-election politics, the foreign agent law. The remaining three contributions analyse pre-election debates. Lia Tsuladze describes the discoursive strategy of the ruling political elites vis-à-vis the domestic opposition and the European Union. Ekaterine Basilaia analyses the reporting of two major TV broadcasters and, finally, Tamar Qeburia comments on the anti-colonialism discourse in Georgia.
Continue reading
The MEDIATIZED EU partner teams have held deliberative discussions with groups of academics, students, journalists and civil society actors interested in the European Union in Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Georgia and Spain, in April and May 2024. In order to share key project findings with the broader public audiences, the teams presented the results of all phases of research —media analysis, elite interviews, and population surveys— to the participants, who then engaged in an inspiring debate about each of the countries’ processes of Europeanization and about the EU’s present and future.
MEDIATIZED EU project team participates in the panel: Political Polarization in the EU and EaP Countries in the Context of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, chaired by Lia Tsuladze.
Dr. Lia Tsuladze’s paper: “The Deviation Discourse as a Manifestation of Polarization: The Case of Georgia”.
Dr. Lia Tsuladze, Executive Director of the Center for Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Sociology at Tbilisi State University, participated in the Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) on May 16-18 at Columbia University, United States, with two panels. The first panel was themed “Who Does Russia Appeal to Anymore? Russian Soft Power and Foreign Policy”, and Dr. Tsuladze presented a paper titled “Tracing Georgia’s de-Europeanization: Discursive Opposition to the EU and its Escalation after Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine”. The second was a special event titled “Georgia’s Euromaidan? Making Sense of Mass Protests in Georgia”, in which Dr. Tsuladze discussed the current situation in the country with Dr. Ana Andguladze, Dr. Kristine Margvelashvili, Dr. Aaron Erlich, and Dr. Jesse Driscoll, with the moderation of Dr. Julie George.