Democracy

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the four formal and informal governments of post-Soviet Georgia, which were led by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Eduard Shevardnadze, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Bidzina Ivanishvili, through the prism of vertical social contracts. 

This essay describes a journey in time. We ‘hike’ from the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution to the 2021 election. The hike covers selected parts of the IT landscape, especially its role as a driver for economic transformation and social change.

The Georgian judiciary has been in the process of ongoing reform since Georgia gained its independence. However, to this day, we have not created judicial institutions that will resist internal and external influences. We could not make a system free from internal corporate, financial, or party interests.

Discussions around the most popular topics in Georgia are often submerged in doubts and mistrust. Many social groups feel that everything is not what it seems at first glance, the explanation of events is often misleading, and there are alternative understandings of what is going on that are rarely revealed and are kept secret.

While visiting Kutaisi Airport, the question came to my mind how would it be possible to study this area through ethnography lenses. Airports are somewhat new places of study, and I have not heard of academic research in this regard.

The article is a detailed historical overview of the border issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the beginning of the 20th century. The author of this article analyzes the roots and the development of the demarcation process.

As stated by a number of political and public figures, there is a concern about the possibility of a civil war.

Left-wing ideology in Azerbaijan – as it usually happens in the post-soviet space – is associated with the Soviet past, the era, most would love to forget about, rewrite, or even cancel somehow. Thus, it has a bad reputation.  Read in Azerbaijani, Read in Russian

 The neoliberal political elite are uninterested in the needs of a society stricken by a pandemic. Their egotism favours informal structures leading to a creeping "Russification" of the country.

The pandemic has become a litmus test to diagnose the ailments of contemporary states and political regimes. The state of emergency, which the pandemic brought about, also serves as a revelation demonstrating the political and social realities of the whole world without embellishment, which was impossible under normal circumstances.