Introduction
Following the collapse of the USSR, many thought liberal democracy was a spear aimed at the heart of autocracy. Because it was more open, efficient, and popular, it would eventually triumph globally. Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc. challenges this view and describes how dictatorships have since gained the upper hand. Today, Eurasian powers like Russia and China threaten the democratic gains of small, resource-weak states, like Georgia, which depend on international law, free trade, and democratic allies to protect their economic and political sovereignty; this growing international network of authoritarian states continues to stem and reverse the spread of democracy. Yet Western states still have the means to resist the spread of authoritarianism. To that end, safeguarding the rights of small states in the international system would prove a crucial first step.
The decline of Georgian democracy under the rule of Georgian Dream, the country’s ruling party since 2012, exemplifies this trend and the corresponding responsibility of Western states. The growing international network of authoritarian states and the persistent failure of the West to provide a democratic model that provides outcomes for Georgia’s citizens has allowed the country to slowly retreat toward authoritarianism. Western states and the EU, frustrated with Georgia’s abandonment of democracy, have lost interest. The EU, by continuing to disengage with Georgia, not only weakens Georgian democracy but also its own credibility in the eyes of other struggling democracies. This article argues that as the EU maintains significant leverage over the Georgian economy, it should support grassroots opposition, amplify anti-corruption messaging, and help civil society organizations (CSOs) to challenge GD’s repressive policies.
Dashed Hopes of Liberalism
Liberalism has never captured popular favor in Georgia, and GD has tapped into a prominent narrative that the West ultimately fails to deliver on its promises. In the 1990s, after the disintegration of the USSR and Georgia’s declaration of independence in April 1991, Georgian citizens were optimistic about their country’s “return” to the West. However, that hope was snuffed out soon after. Georgia—internally divided, isolated from the global market, and subject to Russian interference—quickly sank into civil war. Over the coming years, it lost 20 percent of its territory in separatist conflicts, and between 1988 and 1994, its real GDP per capita declined by a catastrophic 76 percent, more than any other country in the twentieth century except Liberia.
The World Bank and IMF’s neo-liberal economics of the 1990s and 2000s aimed to restore Georgia’s monetary stability but discredited an already weak democratic tradition by associating Western models of democracy with the rising inequality, high unemployment, and rural decline that characterized this period. Liberal values, such as equal opportunity, the rule of law, competitive elections, and minority rights lost their allure in the process. GD has since veered toward the Russian and Chinese examples; it argues that it serves the nation by defending national sovereignty against Western anti-family values, and preserves the peace by resisting the “global war party,” an imagined conspiratorial association located somewhere abroad. Amid this historical context of compounding economic losses and political conflict, Georgia’s political leaders remain unaccountable to the citizenry and subservient to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the powerful billionaire founder of GD, despite ostensibly free elections.
A History of Illiberalism at Home
Cultural, historical, and political structures continue to undermine Georgian reformers’ aspirations for liberal democracy. These include persistent patterns of nepotism, corruption, overzealous faith in commanding leaders, as well as popular distrust of institutions like parliament, the courts, and the press. Civil society, despite its youthful vitality, has not established credibility with the broader public or cooperative relations with the state. Each of these factors compounds Georgia’s illiberal environment.
Despite portraying themselves as “democratic saviors,” Presidents Eduard Shevardnadze (1992-2003) and Mikheil Saakashvili (2003-2013), exemplified undemocratic habits. Neither Shevardnadze nor Saakashvili ever supported the independent authority of the judiciary, civil service, or local government. Shevardnadze’s family amassed significant wealth during his presidency and Shevardnadze personally oversaw rampant graft, cronyism, and state capture. Saakashvili ordered violent attacks on peaceful protesters in November 2007 and shut down the opposition TV channel, Imedi. The government subsequently seized ownership of the TV station. Both Shevardnadze and Saakashvili were central to the weakening of democratic procedures and the permeation of corruption into Georgian politics. Opposition political parties, undemocratic internally, lacking a broad political base, and uncollaborative with one another, have been unable to meaningfully challenge GD leaders.
In his rise to power, Bidzina Ivanishvili presented himself as yet another “democratic savior.” Like his predecessors, he quickly adjusted to the informal norms characteristic of Georgian politics, such as managed elections, illegal political surveillance, and state intervention in business contracts. As a result of Georgia’s traditionally weak institutions, dysfunctional opposition, and a weak civil society, Georgian politics continued to succumb to unaccountable decision making under Ivanishvili’s stewardship.
After the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, GD intensified its anti-democratic policies and the slide towards authoritarianism accelerated. In February 2023, the GD-dominated parliament introduced two bills on domestic “foreign agents,” which targeted Georgian CSOs and journalists. A September 2024 Law on Family Values and Protection of Minors outlawed “LGBT propaganda,” and April 2025 changes to the Law on Grants deprived the civil society sector and independent media of financial support from foreign foundations. Despite similarities to the conduct of former Presidents, GD’s scale of suppression dwarfs past political repressions under Shevardnadze and Saakashvili. In accusing all major opposition party leaders of sedition or attempts to overthrow the government, GD has started a new chapter of Georgian authoritarianism.
While grassroots protests to GD’s policies offered a glimmer of hope when they exploded onto the streets of Tbilisi in 2024 to 2025, these efforts have failed to culminate into a meaningful, multi-pronged strategy of civil resistance, Stimulated by the GD decision in November 2024 to suspend negotiations for accession into the EU, these mass protests went viral on global media platforms. They were theatrically imaginative but tactically weak. Georgian protestors were unable to affect any political change, allowing GD to maintain its grip over Georgian society and institutions.
International Sources of Georgian Illiberalism
Alongside domestic conditions unfavorable to liberal democracy, the West’s interventions, or lack thereof, have accelerated the withering of Georgian democracy. Despite decades of calls for integration into the European Union and billions of Western dollars of international aid, Georgia has pivoted away from the EU towards Eurasia. This shift has taken place against the backdrop of the 86 percent of Georgians who favored EU membership in January 2025. Partnerships with China, Iran, and Turkey, and increased economic dependencies on Russia, have encouraged GD to loosen its financial and political obligations to the EU. An increasing lack of accountability to international laws has allowed GD to operate in a way that is antithetical of the EU’s values of transparency, political pluralism, and civil rights.
Georgia signed a free trade agreement with China in 2017 and a strategic partnership in 2023. China has not brought the economic gains Georgia leaders were anticipating. Investment in the Georgian section of the Middle Corridor has fallen short of expectations, and a contract promising a partnership in Georgia’s Black Sea port of Anaklia remains unsigned. Yet China provides an alternative model of development. Its leaders ignore the poor Georgian record on human rights and support Georgia’s diplomatic distancing from the EU. This provides GD with a diplomatic and political lifeline.
69 percent of Georgians consider Russia the greatest security threat to their nation. Despite that, GD relies on Russia for economic and political support. Russia’s influence in the Georgian church, its anti-Western messaging across Georgia’s social media, its role as a vital market for Georgian goods and labor, and paradoxically, its military bases in occupied Georgia, all align with GD’s strategy for self-preservation. Russia helps GD ensure popular compliance with its authoritarian model. War with Russia, GD leaders argue, can only be avoided through the suppression of Georgia’s “radical opposition.” Russia’s use of soft power, such as social media messaging, trade dependencies, and propaganda highlighting the West’s threats to traditional family values, reinforces Georgia’s isolation from the EU.
GD has transformed Georgia’s historical enemy, Turkey, into a strategic ally. Under President Erdogan, Turkey has become the regional energy hub and the dominant power in South Caucasia; it connects to China’s Middle Corridor through South Caucasian oil and gas pipelines and as such integrates Georgia into the region’s most important energy artery. Turkey also remains economically indispensable to Georgia as its largest trading partner. Against this backdrop, GD’s rejection of liberalism has aligned Georgia and Turkey ideologically. Meetings in 2024 and 2025 between the two governments underlined their common strategic interests, with both states promoting anti-Western rhetoric and resisting EU penetration into the region.
These international alliances, along with the success of anti-democratic movements abroad, have emboldened GD. Integrating into a growing network of authoritarian governments, GD has learned from its newfound partners and possesses modern technologies that weaken domestic resistance. Through its choice of international cooperation, Georgia has thus not only pivoted from Europe to Eurasia, but from democracy to authoritarianism.
The Economics of Authoritarianism
Despite domestic and international factors in its favor, GD’s political survival is based on its ability to finance law enforcement agencies and to provide cash to an impoverished Georgian population. A vast number of Georgians remain dependent on government largesse in the form of health insurance, pensions, or social services, with a staggering 97 percent of the country’s population receiving at least one social benefit from the government. Additionally, one third of all Georgia’s salaried employees depend on employment by the state with this number significantly higher in the country’s more rural regions. Such economic dependencies contribute to GD’s stability. However, at the same time they harm the economy corresponding with swings in the global economy.
Unemployment in Georgia stands officially at 14 percent; however, joblessness remains significantly higher at 50 percent. Official figures tout GDP growth at 8-10 percent, but they have almost no meaning in the real economy where most Georgians live. GD’s messaging of peace and prosperity is a mirage against the realities of the economy. These economic fantasies delegitimize GD in the eyes of its citizens. Georgia’s debt-dependent development model, reliant overwhelmingly on foreign capital, in turn subjects GD to the will of its authoritarian partners whose willingness to support the country’s fragile economy is conditional on their own interests.
Policy Implications
Western states, distracted by multiple international crises, have offered Georgia limited policy attention or commitment. Even so, the survival of Georgia’s democracy is in Europe’s interests. First, a democratic Georgia could serve as a bulwark against Russian expansion into the South Caucasus. Second, a Georgian government accountable to its electors has the potential to strengthen Georgia’s integration into the EU. Third, a democratic Georgia promises to benefit the South Caucasus region, encouraging Armenia’s own reformist leaders to move closer to democratic Europe.
The West’s options for concrete support to Georgia’s struggling democracy are limited, but economic levers still exist. Georgia’s major creditors, like the EBRD and the European Investment Bank (EIB), should condition loans on the introduction of democratic reform (the EBRD has an explicit requirement in its Charter to work only in multiparty democracies). The EU must work harder to find ways to aggressively sanction Georgian government members and actively challenge GD’s legitimizing narrative. Supporting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (REF/RL) through permanent EU financing for its radio broadcasts in Georgia would allow more effective messaging against the anti-democratic discourse of GD. Any counter-narrative should focus on corruption, something ordinary Georgians understand very well. This approach is low-cost and feasible since REF/RL retains public credibility. The EU should simultaneously pursue other short-term policies to stem the entrenchment of authoritarianism.
Currently, international aid sent directly to civil society organizations can trigger criminal liability for Georgian NGOs and as such, the EU must use workarounds. It can establish funds for expert “consultants” or fellowships for individual Georgians, create “sister” organizations abroad to channel funds to Georgian NGOs without routing through a Georgian bank account, or use intergovernmental organizations like the Council of Europe and EU Technical Assistance to manage designated civil society funding. Finally, it can provide legal aid, secure communication tools and training for strategies of peaceful civil resistance through international forums and workshops.
The EU, through its actions and political practices, must show Georgian citizens that closer integration with Europe will guarantee Georgia’s sovereignty and security far better than alignment with fickle Eurasian hegemons.
. . .
Stephen Jones received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the founding Director of the Program on Georgian Studies at the Davis Center, Harvard. He is currently a Professor of Georgian Modern History at Ilia State University in Georgia.
Image Credit: Jelger Groeneveld, CC-BY-4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
.jpg){kind=link}
