Democracy

This analysis explores whether competing trade corridors can foster stability or entrench authoritarian bargains, and asks a central question: can there be lasting stability in the South Caucasus without resilient, democratic states at its core?

Located in the south of Georgia, bordering Armenia and Türkiye, lies the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. This article analyses the challenges of youth (those aged 14-29) in and from the region, focusing on mental health, political participation, recreation, and emigration. In demographically and geopolitically complex surroundings, youth issues usually do not stand in the spotlight of public and political discourse. This results in a lack of awareness and support from decision makers, which in turn reinforces the struggles young people face in their daily lives, likely contributing to high youth emigration rates.

This article explores the relationship between identity, heritage, and place in the villages of Akhali Khulgumo and Tambovka near Paravani Lake. It highlights the social change these villages have experienced since 1991. It examines how the interplay between memory of the past and the changing dwelling practices of the Dukhobor houses in Tambovka is constitutive of broader socio-cultural transformations, positioning the two villages also within current (geo)political dynamics and new identity negotiations.

Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has been a central element of the Georgian Dream’s anti-democratic turn towards the far right. How do anti-LGBTQ+ statements and policies help GD expand its grip on power, and why does this strategy work? 

The Kremlin denies sovereignty and territorial integrity not only to Ukraine but also to Georgia. But unlike Ukraine, the ruling Georgian Dream party follows the Russian playbook and uses the Russian threat to maintain authoritarian power. 

The article examines the current state of self-government in Georgia - an area that has received relatively less attention in the process of forming the agenda of modern Georgian public life. 

On April 1, 2023, the Heinrich Boell Foundation Tbilisi Office - South Caucasus Region, in collaboration with Mtsvaneebi (Greens Georgia), organized an online discussion entitled "A Green European Perspective for Georgia". The discussion focused on the recent massive street protests in Georgia led by young people and a broad civil society

Robin Wagener, member of the German Bundestag, became the Federal Foreign Office’s coordinator for inter-societal co-operation with the South Caucasus, the Republic of Moldova and Central Asia on 1 March 2023. In this conversation, we are going to be talking about his new task and the condition of civil societies in the South Caucasus.

The article below will touch upon the potential for the emergence and self-creation of a new political citizenship in the context of the Rioni Valley protest.

Nostalgia for the Soviet era is out of fashion in Azerbaijan, just as it is in the rest of the post-Soviet countries. Looking back at the old days with sympathy is rarely encouraged, if not shunned upon, yet there are still those that do. The authors of this article tried to find out what makes them miss the USSR.

This review summarises the study’s key findings and relates them to multifaceted processes of identity and state-formation, as well as to questions of generational succession.

The short documentary film “Kapitän Wakusch” or in english: “Captain Wakusch” is a poetical portrait of the German-Georgian writer and philosopher Giwi Margwelashvili born in 1927 in Berlin, died 2020 in Tbilisi. A permanent stranger and migrant between Germany and Georgia, East and West, reality and literature. 

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This article discusses the recent key developments that have led to a deteriorating quality of democracy and institutions in the country.

Recent protests at Tbilisi State University demonstrated the precarious conditions of students, particularly those from the regions, on the capital’s housing market. Hence, the Georgian government should put students on the agenda of social housing policies and recognize students as vulnerable group eligible for state housing support. 

This article discusses several key policy features relating to ethnic and religious minorities thirty years after Georgia’s independence.

Germany leads as a destination country for migrants from Azerbaijan ahead of other European states. It is hard to provide an accurate number but according to various expert estimates, Germany is home to approximately 20 to 30 thousand Azerbaijani migrants. 

The recent Namakhvani Hydro Power Plant protests, which started with ecological concerns turned into a path breaking critique of the Georgian state, opposing all the foundations on which the imaginary of development stands: commodification of nature, exploitation of workers, neglecting the public voice, prioritization of private capital interests above the public welfare, and violent methods

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. 

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.