Fletcher Sun
Author's Statement
I wrote this piece for Nonviolent Conflict and Revolution (84-322) As its name suggests, this course taught by Professor John Chin in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology explored non-violent political movements in history. The course introduces theories of non-violent conflicts, and encourages students to study past political events which they found interesting, using those theories and concepts.
This piece of work is for an assignment where students explore recent events of civil resistance movements with the help of various quantitative metrics of liberal democracy. I chose the country of Georgia as the topic due to the nation’s soccer team’s outstanding performance in Euro 2024 a year before and the political storm that they were drawn into at the same time.
While the common belief is that democracy often fails abruptly and violently, like invasion or military coup, Georgia presents a more challenging scenario of gradual and non-violent democratic backslide. Georgian Dream, the ruling party of the nation, used various subtle measures to strengthen their control of the nation and allowed democratic backslides. In an era of political polarization, it’s important for the public to be aware of those more subtle hints of encroachments, and to stand firmly against them.
I would like to thank my faculty advisor, Professor John Chin, and editor Dr. Alan Thomas Kohler for their support and thoughtful advice throughout the creation and revision process of this work.
Civil Resistance to Autocratization in Georgia: A Georgian Dream not Shared by all Georgian People
While Georgian soccer reached its new height in Euro 2024, the nation is simultaneously facing one of its gravest challenges since its independence from the USSR in 1991. A in 2024 saw the Georgian Dream, a conservative populist party founded and led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, taking another big step towards authoritarianism (shown in Figure1 below) as they now have total control over . This blog will examine their agenda and how the public mobilized against them.
Last edited: April 12, 2025
Democratic Backsliding in Georgia
Figure 1: Dimensions of Democracy in Georgia, 1991-2024. Data Source: Prof. Chin replication of using V-Dem 2025, v. 15
Georgia does not have a strong history of democracy after its independence from the USSR in 1991. Throughout the state’s history, there has only been one occasion of peaceful transfer of power by . Before that there was a coup that turned into a in 1991 and known as the Rose Revolution in 2003. The former led to devastating damage to the state, while the latter helped the opposition coalition United National Movement (UNM) to take power and enact a series of and put much effort on , which includes a complete reform of the police force. The improvement is reflected in Figure 1 with a sharp increase in Democratic Dimension, a multidimensional quantitative measure of factors of democracy, which includes constraints on the executive, election participation, and contestation, using data gathered by .
However, while the 2012 election should have been seen as a victory for democracy, the winner, Georgian Dream, became the main culprit of the recent wave of democratic backslide. Founded and led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream was initially built to be a liberal coalition against the ruling UNM party in the 2012 election. However, after the party won the election, it was more and more centralized around Ivanishvili himself and turned into a right-wing populist party with anti-democratic tendencies, parting ways from his previous allies who sought further reforms.
The current constitution of Georgia includes a which heavily favors the ruling party and leads to a de facto two-party system between Georgian Dream and UNM. The has also made it easier for the winner to take more control of the government. Both major parties have . Georgian Dream has also escalated from this approach recently and in 2021.
Mass Mobilization for Democracy
Georgia does have a strong history of overthrowing failed regimes with mass mobilization. The fall of both regimes before UNM started with civil disobedience.
The Rose Revolution in 2003 was the height of civil resistance in Georgia. Then president Eduard Shevardnadze’s attempt to falsify the result of the 2003 parliamentary election didn’t convince the public and led to mass protests around the country. The civil resistance movement was and . With to repress the protests, Shevardnadze was forced to resign.
Current oppositions in Georgia certainly hope to re-create such success against the ruling Georgian Dream administration, but the closest they got was the movement against the foreign agent act in 2023.
In 2023, the Georgian parliament was on the verge of passing a proposed , which “demanded that nongovernmental groups and news media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from a “foreign power” register as “agents of foreign influence.” This was interpreted as the administration’s effort to mimic a similar legislation in Russia and a further step toward democratic backsliding. The result was successful but only for a short time: the parliament the bill, but only for it to be passed and a year later.
Relations with the European Union have also led to multiple protests, namely regarding a bid to join the EU. In late 2024, the government , which also led to mass protests. Even the president, Salome Zourabichvili, , and the pro-EU protest merged with the protest movements against the fraudulent parliamentary election earlier that year. Other recent major protests movements include protests in 2021 and in 2018, with both protests leading to the resignation of the prime ministers at the time.
Though mass mobilization is common in Georgia, none of the protests above have achieved a decisive result that could overthrow the Georgian Dream administration or stop democratic backsliding.
Why Civil Resistance is (Not) Working (Yet)
of Ivanishvili in his mansion in Tbilisi
Starting with the Georgian Dream’s leader, Ivanishvili is by far the wealthiest person in the nation. His wealth was around back in 2018 and in his party’s victory in the 2012 election against UNM. He is also heavily involved in philanthropy, on top of directly using his resources to . In key moments of a potential mass mobilization against the regime, Ivanishvili’s personal wealth could be used to strengthen his regime’s stability by buying support through . Moreover, a great portion of Ivanishvili’s wealth is closely tied to Russia, which, combined with his , means that it is unlikely that he will take measures to fight against Russian influence.
The Georgian Dream has also been able to utilize its own administrative power and vast control of the civil service to exert their influences on the constituents. The central ministries controlled by Georgian Dream are capable of and allocating resources for them. This gives them much control over the rural areas with affiliated officials, entrepreneurs, teachers etc. The residents also enjoy unemployment pensions and financial support from local governments. This approach makes it more difficult for the opposition to find places to mobilize beyond the autocrat's reach and represents a much different from other autocrats’ tactics whose control is typically centered in major cities.
But, like many other autocrats, the strong economy in Georgia plays in favor of the regime. The state has experienced in mid 2024. It is also worth noting that in the previous , efforts did not improve the economy instantly, so current growth would likely discourage opposition movements. Thus, economic prosperity in the short term would only serve to solidify Georgian Dream’s rule.
Additionally, the opposition has not made the best strategic decision. By , they only handed Georgian Dream more seats in the parliament and harmed their chance to use further institutional methods against democratic backslides.
With the rise of the Georgian Dream, democratic backsliding will likely continue in the short term, as the support for the ruling party is still strong with all its investment in public infrastructures and economic growth. To counter this trend, oppositions must form a tighter coalition and contest the Georgian Dream, preventing them from further consolidating the power using the current advantage.