Georgia from the Outside: The Path to Democracy
Georgia from the Outside: The Path to Democracy

Author(s): Lela Rekhviashvili
Subject(s): Civil Society, Governance, Post-Communist Transformation, Corruption - Transparency - Anti-Corruption
Published by: CSS - Center for Social Sciences
Keywords: Rose Revolution;
Summary/Abstract: Georgia’s 2003 “Rose Revolution” capitalized on the popular discontent with the corrupt and ineffective government and ushered in hope for freedom, democracy and prosperity. This hope and enthusiasm was true domestically and internationally as well. International observers were keenly looking forward to a new wave of democratization that would now finally sweep over the former Soviet space. Domestically, people were looking forward to a government that would finally hear their voices and prioritize the state interest over their personal. // Saakashvili and his government have proven to be enthusiastic advertisers of own performance. Contrasting the achievements since 2003 with the dark and decayed times of Shevardnadze’s government has been particularly pervasive. However, while progress is visible in some areas, when it comes to democracy, the performance is widely considered to be less than perfect. // To measure the performance this paper looks at various international indices, which assign numerical value and standing to different countries around the world. While narrative assessments are much more numerous and may well provide more details, this paper looks specifically at those resources that allow for comparison of countries performance across pre-defined components/indicators and do so across time, thus showing development trends. These indices and rankings are widely used and internationally recognized scholarly resources. While all approaches and methodologies have inherent limitations and their criticism abounds, these resources still provide valuable data. It is worth noting, additionally, that despite using divergent methodologies, the findings of all of these resources largely point in the same direction and the correlation between the assessments is recognized to be significant.

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