Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

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Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality

Nino Pokleba

To cite this article: Nino Pokleba (2016) Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality,
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 16:2, 235-253, DOI: 10.1080/14683857.2016.1156344

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Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2016
VOL. 16, NO. 2, 235–253
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2016.1156344

Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality

Nino Pokleba
Caucasus and Black Sea Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Academic analysts, political commentators and activists in Georgia are Received 7 July 2014
almost unanimous in their assessment that the public in Georgia is Accepted 2 February 2016
generally passive, civil society is weak, and that this may be one of the KEYWORDS
key reasons why Georgia – despite numerous democratic openings – Civil society; third sector;
keeps failing to consolidate its democratic institutions. In order to NGO; civic participation;
measure the strengths and weaknesses of Georgian civil society, the volunteering; Georgia
present article uses interviews with respondents from the Georgian
non-governmental organization sector and academia on two areas:
(a) citizen participation: to what extent is civic participation in the
public sphere aimed at advancing shared interests and (b) influence
on policy-making: to what extent is Georgian civil society able to
foster popular influence on political and economic developments. This
paper applies the concept of delegative democracy to contemporary
developments in Georgia, and argues that one of the major factors
which contribute to this trend in Georgia is a weak civil society and,
therefore, a lack of intermediary institutions to safeguard democratic
norms.

Structural reasons for democracy failure in Georgia: a conceptual outline

Georgia,1 despite numerous democratic openings, keeps failing to consolidate its demo-
cratic institutions.2 The first of these transitions was made in 1990, when the first multi-
party elections were won by a nationalist and anti-Communist coalition that mobilized the
public around the slogan of independence from the Soviet Union. The second transition
occurred after this government, which despite having won a strong popular mandate, was
denounced as authoritarian and overthrown in 1991/1992. But no stable political institutions
were created either during this period or after that (1992–2003). Though space for civic and
political freedoms existed, few conditions were present for genuine political competition and
participation (Nodia and Scholtbach, 2006, 5–21). The Rose Revolution of November 2003
marked a new (third) attempt at democratic transition in Georgia. This time Georgia made
significant achievements in modernizing state institutions, but the same fundamental reforms
that had been instrumental in this process contributed to democratic imbalances through
the excessive concentration of power in the executive.3 However, parliamentary elections

CONTACT  Nino Pokleba  nino.pokleba.1@iliauni.edu.ge

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
236    N. Pokleba

held on 1 October 2012 proved that Georgia had made progress in the area of democracy as
well: for the first time in the recent history of a country known for disturbance and uncer-
tainty, political institutions worked to ensure an orderly, constitutional transfer of power.4
Once again, the new government promised to bring Georgia to a qualitatively higher level
of democracy after years of ‘autocracy’.5 It is too early to tell whether this has truly occurred.
Experts (Diamond [2002]; Levitsky and Way [2010]; Diamond 2015 – Public Lecture –
Democracy and State-Building in the Post-Soviet Realm: Where We Stand Twenty-Five Years
Later – delivered at Ilia State University) tend to define Georgia as a ‘hybrid’ or ‘ambiguous’
regime with both democratic and autocratic features. But what is stopping Georgia grad-
uating to a qualitatively different category, that of a stable democracy? The key lies in the
structural weakness of the political system. O’Donnell (1994, 55–69) was one of the first
authors to analyse such hybrid regimes, a ‘new species’ of democracy, that of delegative
democracy. While focusing on the reasons for deficiencies in such regimes, he emphasized
the importance of structural factors, which is of particular relevance to Georgia. According
to O’Donnell, democratization is a two-stage process. Stage one occurs when authoritarian
regimes develop gradually into weakly democratic ones, and stage two occurs when these
weak democracies transform themselves into institutionalized and consolidated democra-
cies. Delegative democracy is part of this ‘second transition’– from a democratically elected
government to a consolidated democratic regime. Only in cases where institutions are
developed that play decisive roles in the flow of political power, can this second transition
be made.
For O’Donnell the structural reasons for democratic weakness lie in the weakness of
‘intermediate institutions’. These are democratic institutions that
… in the functioning of contemporary, complex societies … provide a crucial level of mediation
and aggregation between, on one side, structural factors and, on the other, not only individ-
uals but also the diverse groupings under which society organizes its multiple interests and
identities. This intermediate – i.e. institutional – level has an important impact on the patterns
of organization of society, bestowing representation upon some participants in the political
process and excluding others. (O’Donnell 1994, 59)
Such intermediate institutions allow civil society to articulate and defend various societal
interests and impose accountability on the state. Civic participation without such institutions
is unstable, inconsistent and unfocused, and the resulting democratic political system is
superficial and difficult to consolidate.
While O’Donnell says that accountability is ‘embedded in a network of institutionalized
power relations’ (1994, 61–62), Fukuyama (2011, 479), speaking of successful liberal democ-
racy, states that civil society has to be ‘strong and cohesive and able to impose accountability
on the state’. Therefore, the initial hypothesis of the research paper will be that civil society
in Georgia fails to implement the role of ‘intermediate institution’, which can be one of the
factors that explain the structural weakness of democracy in the country.

Defining civil society

Civil society has been defined in different ways and there has been little agreement on its
precise meaning. On the one hand, the term civil society often refers to non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) (see, e.g. Clark 1992; Evers 1995; Fernando and Heston 1997; Heurlin
2009; Marcussen 1996; Roche 1996; Sinnar 1995/1996). This approach originated in the
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   237

1990s and is currently most wide-spread definition. According to a widely used definition
(Najam 1996; Rayner and Malone 2000), civil society is an ‘… arena of uncoerced collective
action around shared interests, purposes and values …’, ‘… often populated by organiza-
tions such as registered charities, development non-government organizations, commu-
nity groups, women’s organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations,
trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and
advocacy groups’. Indeed, NGOs have been involved in a wide spectrum of activities and
played an important role throughout the world. In public life they may express the values
and interests of their members. In periods of transition, NGOs as civil society actors can
be in opposition to the state if they are at the vanguard of reforms or revolution. They can
also be in collaboration with the state when states contract them to provide public services
or provide technical services to the state. They can also try to ensure better performance
from democratic institutions (watchdog organizations). They can also serve the interests
of philanthropic goals of their donors by implementing projects.
But this definition assumes that civil society can be equated to the NGO world. It ignores
the fact that that has defined civil society in a much broader way. The original conception
of civil society was explored by classical theorists such as de Tocqueville and Hegel. Hegel
(2008) envisioned civil society as a sphere separate from the state, in which various inter-
ests compete with one another. At the same time, a range of institutions ensure that some
interests do not predominate over others and provide an opportunity for communal life.
These institutions also mediate between the interests of individual members of society and
the universal interests of the state. The concept of free voluntary associations as ‘interme-
diary institutions’ was central to de Tocqueville’s (2006) vision of civic life: through free
associations, they promote their own political, social, cultural and economic interests. De
Tocqueville concluded that individuals are able to overcome short-sighted egoism by par-
ticipating in associational groups, they learn to trust each other and both discuss and tackle
issues of common interest peacefully. Thus, members of the society develop capacities and
dispositions, both of which bring benefits to the society and affect the public sphere in a
positive way.
Therefore, the general principle of civil society is that it promotes the voluntary
­association of people.6 It encompasses shared interests, purposes and values, and ordinary
citizens can effect or prevent change by acting through their organizations. Indeed, those
motives, p ­ urposes and values held by individuals and described as ‘habits of the heart’ by
de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (2006) exert influence on the whole of society
and government as well as on political thought.
Putman (1994, 2001) also argues that democratic governance tends to be most effective
when there is a strong civil society to support its activities. Civil society helps to initiate,
promote and strengthen comprehensive and objective dialogue between governments and
their people. Historical institutionalists, such as Skocpol (2004) argue that the organiza-
tions of civil society provide a direct source of popular influence on political and economic
developments and, therefore, benefit both individuals and society. Manent (2003, 114–125)
based on Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (De l’esprit des lois, first published in 1748)
concludes that the most distinctive trait of democracy is a system of separations, including
both the separation between civil society and government institutions and the separation
of powers between branches of government. And since civil society is represented by a
divided power, by different societal interests that interact with each other, limit each other’s
238    N. Pokleba

power and thus remain roughly equal in strength, citizens cannot ‘do much harm to one
another’ (Manent 2003, 120). And this is how democracy’s system of separations produces
the system of liberty. According to Diamond (1999, 2009), civil society is an indispensable
component of the development and consolidation of democracy; in addition to checking
and limiting the power of the state, it creates additional channels for articulating and rep-
resenting interests. He also argued that it widens and enriches the flow of information to
citizens, stimulates political participation, recruits and trains new political leaders, develops
a democratic culture of tolerance and bargaining and improves the functioning of demo-
cratic institutions. Through participation in the public sphere, individuals are linked with
social forces that regulate society and lead to social change. This strengthens civic activism
in various forms and as a result improves democratic governance.
Therefore, in relation to the strength and sustainability of democratic institutions, one has
to ascertain whether civil society is indeed composed of genuine social forces (Fukuyama
2011, 139; Huntington 2006, 8–11), a network of various groups that are capable both of
using their own resources efficiently to achieve their objectives and that constitute inde-
pendent sources of power within society.
Since, this paper is aimed at discussing the current situation in Georgia with regard to the
actual level of development of civil society, and as to what extent Georgians as members of
a political community get involved in its governance, the classical definition of civil society
(that of Alexis de Tocqueville) has been chosen for the purposes of this research.
Civil society is multifarious and it encompasses a wide range of spaces, actors and insti-
tutional forms.7 However, this article does not attempt to study the whole diversity of civil
society but rather focuses on one of the segments of civil society in Georgia, the so-called
‘third sector’. NGOs in Georgia do indeed play important roles. Highly skilled and energetic
professionals work there. They are actively involved in public affairs. They are dynamic and
capable of influencing government decisions. They promote liberal values such as human
rights, democracy, good governance and transparency. But do they comply with the classical
definition of civil society? Have they become genuine social forces capable of assuming the
role of intermediate institutions and affecting qualitative changes in the political system
of the country?
A certain amount of literature (Beissinger and Young 2002; Coppieters and Legvold 2005;
Gurgenidze 2005; Matsaberidze 2003; Muskhelishvili 2006, 2009; Nodia 2012, 2005; Nodia
and Scholtbach 2006; Sumbadze 2003, 2013) has been published on Georgian civil society
in recent years. The published literature mainly focuses on the context to Georgian civil
society, the NGO sector in Georgia, its level of development, relationships with the state,
societal, political and legislative environment. This paper is an attempt to fill a gap in the
understanding of the role of civil society in Georgia through the use of qualitative methods
to assess Georgian civil society’s strengths and weaknesses. It is hoped that this research will
be helpful in informing people working in Georgian civil society about the successes and
failures of the sector. At the same time, it aims to show how important Georgian civil society
is for the development and institutionalization of democratic institutions in the country.

Methodology
This paper considers the impact of the civil society on political development process in
Georgia. The first step in the research was to identify the areas in order to assess the strengths
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   239

and weaknesses of Georgian civil society. Because of the complexity of the concept of civil
society, there is little agreement on its precise meaning (although its core conceptual com-
ponents overlap). In this research certain characteristics of civil society were emphasized
over others. This paper does not measure all components of civil society, but it represents
essential conceptual aspects of civil society. My main focus was on the concept of civil
society as of that comprised of genuine social forces (a) capable of articulating and repre-
senting their interests and (b) capable of exerting influence on the government. Keeping
these requirements in mind, I identified two indicators: (a) citizen participation: the extent
civic participation in the public sphere is aimed at advancing shared interests and (b) influ-
ence on policy-making: the capacity of civil society to influence political and economic
developments.
What activities and characteristics of individuals, groups and institutions/organizations
do these two indicators refer to? In order to assess whether individuals/groups in the society
are able to associate voluntarily to advance common interests, one needs to find out which
forms of civic participation are mostly developed in the country. This would include people’s
activities such as membership, volunteering and supporting specific causes. One also needs
to find out to what extent are self-organizational skills widespread in the society, to what
extent does the NGO/the third sector in Georgia expresses the interests of the wider public,
the donors’ role in civil society, expansion of and qualitative changes in civil participation.
With regard to policy influence it is important to find out people’s views/perceptions of
their role in political development: what changes have been made or are being made in
the country as a result of civil participation, extent to which the public/the third sector’s
opinion is taken into consideration or ignored by the government, government’s motivation
to reckon with the civil society’s opinion (whether because of the good will of government
or strength of the civil society), examples of influences exerted upon the decision-makers/
political processes in Georgia through civil participation.
As part of this research project, qualitative data was obtained through semi-structured
interviews that were conducted by me. The specific questions were identified to practically
assess the above-mentioned two areas. Interviews on civil society development were held
both with representatives of the Georgian NGO sector (from the six largest local non-­
government organizations) and academics (from Ilia State University, Free University of
Georgia and Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University). Respondents were chosen based on
their expertise – some of them are social scientists, some used to work in the public sector,
some have experience of working in the NGO sector. Thus, the crucial factor in selecting
respondents was their various backgrounds and their capacity to give different perspectives
on a specific question (triangulation from different sources).
In total, 20 interviews were conducted. The interviews were recorded and then tran-
scribed. Data were coded according to the types of issues/themes and organized into similar
categories. Next step was to summarize the main themes. The results obtained were com-
pared with the initial research hypothesis and indicators. In addition, literature and research
(including quantitative research) papers on civil society as well as analytical papers published
in the media contributed to the various data sources for the research. And findings from
the analysis of the research were cross-checked with these various types of data sources.
240    N. Pokleba

Citizen participation: forms and methods

The peaceful Rose Revolution has demonstrated that Georgians are both able and ready to
defend democratic values in their country. The 2012 elections, which ensured a constitu-
tional transfer of power also took place against a backdrop of expanded civic participation.
On the other hand, however, it is a common complaint that most Georgians are passive and
unwilling to take part in public affairs.
A large majority of Georgian citizens use limited forms of political participation, such
as elections and occasional public protests, but not other participatory forms (Sumbadze
2003, 29–35). There are almost no mass membership organizations in Georgia, such as
issue-based associations. Trade unions, on the other hand, exist and they have relatively
large memberships, but this can be explained by the Soviet legacy. Trade unions functioned
in the Soviet period, but the aim of these organizations was to express official policies rather
than defend their members’ rights (Sumbadze 2013, 42). The party system in Georgia is
extremely unstable because of its low level of institutionalization (Nodia and Scholtbach
2006, 103–106): political parties serve the interests of relatively small groups and are weakly
linked to social groups. In periods between elections, they tend to create coalitions, change
partners, and individual politicians move from one party to another. People in Georgia
express trust in particular political figures and cast their vote based on their attitude to the
leader, and not necessarily because of their adherence to the specific political principles or
policies of the political party. The fact that parties are created around leaders and are thus
dependent on their personalities has meant that political parties that played prominent roles
in the past have disappeared altogether as their founders who brought them to power left
politics (this was the case for three ruling parties - the Communist Party, Round Table-Free
Georgia and the Citizens Union of Georgia). However, as past and current developments
demonstrate, the UNM may be the first party to avoid that fate. Despite losing power, the
UNM remains the strongest opposition party according both to the results of elections
held in 2012–2013 and opinion polls carried out for the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs (NDI) by Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) Georgia for
the period between 2012 and 2014.8
While discussing citizen participation in Georgia, this paper focuses both on the so-called
‘third sector’, civil society, as represented by the nucleus of NGOs and on the civil society
as a public sphere, that of genuine volunteering, where various societal interests and values
are shaped, expressed and interact.

The third sector in Georgia

Respondents interviewed for this research paper agreed that NGOs in Georgia mainly
provide opportunities for employment. Although, there may be various stimuli behind the
desire to found an organization (e.g. participating in civic and political processes, protect-
ing the interest of a particular societal group), such organizations in Georgia tend to be
professionalized. They tend to be less based on volunteering or a process of self-organizing
in which, individuals have other jobs or independent financial sources but organize on a
voluntary basis in order to advance their shared interests.
According to the NGO sector representatives interviewed, more students in Georgia are
joining the NGO sector as volunteers. But it is important to explore the motives behind
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   241

this kind of volunteering. NGOs may use volunteers to economize on financial resources.
At the same time, an organization may realize that it needs more human resources in order
to extend its activities. Volunteering can also help organizations test their future staff; if
volunteers prove themselves to be worthy, they may have a chance of being recruited. Of
course, students understand that in order to develop their careers and learn, they need to
accumulate practical experience. If someone can provide evidence that she or he has been
working as a volunteer for a highly respectable organization, either managing administra-
tive tasks or coordinating training and conference events, their chances of being recruited
will improve. So as volunteers in Georgia expect to get a job offer, they are less interested
in genuine volunteering or civic participation. It can also be argued that those referred to
by NGOs as ‘volunteers’ are, in fact, interns.
NGOs in Georgia have been disseminating and protecting liberal values as well as pro-
viding useful services to the public. At the same time, however, NGOs have seldom been
oriented towards mobilizing citizens, articulating their interests and thus, facilitating wider
public participation.9
This insufficient link to the wider public has always been the greatest weakness of
Georgian NGOs. International donor organizations have been trying to promote the devel-
opment of community-based organizations. A recent such attempt was the creation of the
Regional Network of Civil Society in December 2012 which aimed to identify and strengthen
local skills and resources available in different regions of Georgia. However, no significant
achievements have been made so far regarding the sustainability of such activities.
Another weakness may be that the civil sector organizations in Georgia rely too exces-
sively on external assistance. Does dependency on foreign donors create problems with
regard to the substance of NGO activities? NGO representatives and experts opinions are
divided over whether such dependence restricts Georgian NGOs in their ability to define
their own strategy and objectives. According to some respondents (mostly coming from
the NGO sector), such dependence does not seriously limit organizations in defining their
own agenda, although it sets certain boundaries for them. Institutional funding allows some
space for flexibility for NGOs to plan their own activities within the broader framework
of programmatic goals. In addition, donors are aware of the problems and priorities in the
country, because they receive information from the relevant NGOs in the first place, and
their projects are based on these priorities.
However, while the majority of the NGO sector respondents stated that international
donor assistance does not influence their priorities or operation in any significant way,
experts claim that donors do exert influence over the agenda of the NGOs. Thus the prob-
lems that concern Georgian society most may be replaced with other ones, problems that
may not have been so pressing without so much money, time and energy spent on them.
For example, gender problems in Georgia have been constantly emphasized by international
organizations and perceived as far less important by Georgian society itself. In this case,
there is a large gap between the agenda supported by international donors and the actual
interests and priorities voiced by society. This certainly does not imply that those issues
do not present a problem and that no work is required in that direction. But it certainly
means that for society other issues (unemployment, poverty, healthcare, etc.) constitute
higher priorities that do not attract as much donor money. In this sense, donor financial
assistance may ‘distort’ the reality that exists in the country and may impose certain prior-
ities or frameworks on NGOs dependent on their assistance. Thus, in Georgia, where civic
242    N. Pokleba

participation of any form completely depends on external assistance, some of the foreign
donors’ priorities may not completely reflect the agenda that exists in Georgia. NGOs, having
realized this weakness of theirs, try to outweigh it by making sure that their activities are
more based on direct communication with the population as well as on research. They claim
to represent specific target groups and that they are aware of their priorities and interests,
and so have all the necessary information to make decisions. But all these efforts have not
yet changed how the public perceives them.
There is a risk that should international donor assistance cease, civil society organizations
in Georgia will not be able to continue operating and disappear. The organizations are aware
of the dangers of such dependence and are seeking alternative sources of income, but they
have not achieved much success in this regard so far. While seeking alternative income,
NGO representatives emphasize grants again, but this time from other sources, such as
business or the Georgian government. NGOs hardly give any consideration to other forms
of fundraising, such as membership fees for instance.
It is widely believed, that civil society in Georgia, as represented by the NGOs has been
playing significant social functions: they have been involved in advocating for democracy,
the rule of law, good governance, human rights and other worthy causes. But what these
civil society organizations have failed to do is to build a base of voluntary supporters who
can take action or provide an arena for wider public participation in civil processes (Nodia
2005; Sumbadze 2013).

New arenas of volunteering

Other forms of civic participation exist in Georgia, associated neither with financial motives
nor career incentives, but this type of participation is not developed enough to exert con-
siderable influence on political processes in the country.10 Volunteering in the strict sense
of the word, which was weak in Georgia in the past, has been increasing in recent years. It
is not a dramatic increase, still not enough by the standards of developed democracies, but
an increase nonetheless. Voluntary–based participation in Georgia has been expanding to
some extent. More youth organizations including various clubs and unions have emerged.11
Members of such organizations are mainly motivated by their desire to establish contacts
with those who share similar interests and to work in partnership on equal terms with
each other.
One such voluntary-based organization is Borani,12 a charitable fund, all the resources of
which are directed to help specific people in need. Its members are mainly students, from
Ilia State University and Free University of Tbilisi. They pay visits, collect information on
the population living below the poverty line to find solutions to their problems and promote
the establishment of discussion clubs in various regions of the country in order to foster the
circulation of information education. Through social networks such as Facebook, Borani
reaches out to citizens with its own messages and citizens can contribute to its operations
by any means available to them.
Borani is a young organization. It remains to be seen whether it will unite large groups
of people around certain values and interests and serve as a genuinely non-professional part
of civil society. Borani does not simply contribute to expanding volunteering throughout
Georgia. Their aim is to create a society in Georgia based on a set of norms and values. It is
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   243

not a political organization, but an organization united by ideas, which Georgia currently
lacks.
Environmental protection presents another issue, around which societal forces unite
throughout the world and which in Georgia has generally been considered to be of little if
any importance at all. However, a new movement, known in the West as Guerrilla Gardening
has emerged in Georgia; it has been expanding and become more visible in the last couple
of years as a result. It is a totally voluntary movement with no formal structure whatsoever.
A group of people, who are concerned with environmental issues in the country decided to
initiate Guerilla Gardening to respond to specific problems on the one hand and promote
public awareness on the other hand. They seek to provoke change through direct action,
and have been planting plants with the intention of beautifying areas in Tbilisi and other
large cities of Georgia. This movement has proved to be quite successful in achieving both
these objectives, since far more public discussions are held on environmental issues today
than a year ago. Considering that Georgia has had no tradition of voluntary movements,
one can state that today Guerilla Gardening represents one of the most genuine, sponta-
neous, voluntary and large-scale movements in the country. Approximately 12,000 people
have joined it so far.13
Of course, other forms of participation have developed in Georgia, but the types of
participation which are most prominent encompass voicing concerns, preferences and
demands the government ought to understand and respond to. Different groups such as
the church and political parties require that the government undertake certain measures to
solve specific problems. Nobody asks the government to devolve more power to commu-
nity groups to enable them to tackle their problems on their own. On the other hand, this
does not constitute a real problem, since those organizations fail to operate efficiently and
tend to be dependent on external assistance. Among the demands mostly voiced are social
problems, problems related to governance, improvement of the situation generally and
political preferences. Members of civil society in Georgia demonstrate neither individual
autonomy nor engagement in expressive forms of civic activity.
Finally, while NGOs have tended to promote western-type liberal principles since the
1990s and 2000s, different values have started to shape the public sphere outside of the NGO
sector. People have united voluntarily around traditional, non-liberal goals and values. The
most vivid example of these non-liberal associations that exist within Georgian civil society
are the Orthodox groups (e.g. Union of Orthodox Parents).
It has been argued that an organization can only be considered a part of civil society if
it does not pose a clear and direct danger to political pluralism and represents the interests
of a segment of society (whatever values it espouses) (Diamond 1999; Inglehart and Welzel
2005; Keane 1999). These traditional, anti-liberal associations certainly represent the inter-
ests of a certain segment of Georgian society, but, on the other hand, they do not accept the
legitimacy of other groups or their right to exist in a mutually recognized public realm. For
example, a wave of religious violence swept Georgia and reached its peak in the beginning
of the 2000s – when extremist representatives of the Orthodox Church assaulted certain
religious minorities, namely the Jehovah’ Witnesses. Another vivid example of such practices
is the 17 May 2013 incident, when a small group of Georgian supporters of LGBT rights
were assembled for a peaceful rally to mark the International Day Against Homophobia
and Transphobia. The event was interrupted by a large crowd of angry counter-protesters,
244    N. Pokleba

who were accompanied by and apparently encouraged by the religious authorities of the
Georgian Orthodox Church.
It even seems that the Georgian public is growing more indifferent towards social prob-
lems and more readily takes part in manifestations against gay activists, religious minorities
or any other groups that fail to fit within the ‘genuine’ (Orthodox Christian) Georgian iden-
tity (Maisuradze 2014). Therefore, groups united on a voluntary basis around non-liberal
values (religious intolerance, homophobia, etc.) seem to be relatively strong compared to
those ones espousing liberal values, which might be ‘alien’ to the Georgian identity. It should
also be noted, that while during the Soviet Union the Georgian intelligentsia (the most
influential strata in that period) identified Christianity directly with Georgia’s pro-western
orientation and belonging to European civilization, today Orthodoxy is associated with
anti-Western values and isolationism.

Influence on policy-making: ability to effect or prevent change

NGO representatives in Georgia claim that their organizations are in a position to offer soci-
ety, state agencies and international organizations their own initiatives, which they consider
important for society. The main priority of the NGO sector is to influence the behaviour
of the government. It is mainly on these terms that experts as well as NGO representatives
themselves evaluate the NGO sector’s effectiveness.
The relationship between the government and civil society in Georgia has been charac-
terized by both cooperation and confrontation (Nodia 2005, 31–33). The level of influence
held by NGOs partly depends on the level of competence within the organization and the
extent to which they have been able to develop self-organization and articulation skills.
But there are also a number of other factors. Since the beginning of the 1990s, one such
factor was whether a particular organization has links with the West. Successive govern-
ments in Georgia have attached a great deal of importance to Western support14 and have
stressed respect for recommendations coming from the West on issues related to democratic
governance.15 This orientation towards Western values has been popular with the public16
as well. Therefore, it can be presumed that those civil society organizations that are asso-
ciated not only with Western donors but also with Western ideas and values, have always
had better chances of exerting influence on the government.
On the other hand, taking advantage of media resources has always been extremely
important for NGOs. It can be argued that while in Western countries the media represents
an instrument through which civil society is capable of exercising oversight over elites, it is
the political elites that have taken advantage of the media in Georgia, and instead of being
monitored and controlled by society, they control society themselves (Zedania 2011, 8–9).
In addition, the elite has always used the media to retain power, while ‘the other’ – alterna-
tive, oppositional - elite has used it to gain power (through revolution as well). Many NGO
leaders in Georgia have become familiar public faces capable of influencing public opinion,
owing to the close contacts that exist between the media and the civil society sector.
It has also been important for an organization to be capable of mobilizing the support
of a considerable segment of society. If significant segment of the public shows interest in a
given organization’s issues, then it is much easier to influence the respective decision-makers.
When active people gather together to discuss a specific problem, or make their demands
and preferences known to the government, this can work because an inadequate response
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   245

from the government may cause disapproval among voters. On the other hand, inadequate
capacity to mobilize wide public support, weakens the position of the NGOs and diminishes
their potential influence on other societal actors.
Finally, it is very difficult for a single NGO to successfully advocate for change or exert
influence on political processes. The stronger the NGOs’ capacity for collaborative activi-
ties, the more able they are to achieve specific goals and gain a certain level of public and
political influence. In this respect, most active NGOs in Georgia have learned to join forces
to achieve their goals.
To demonstrate the particular success of this kind of collaboration, the representatives of
the largest NGOs in Georgia – the Young Lawyers’ Association, Transparency International
Georgia and the ISFED referred to the example of the ‘must-carry’/‘must-offer’ rules that
were adopted before the 2012 parliamentary elections. This Affects You Too was a campaign
group of election watchdogs, media outlets and legal advocacy organizations. It called on
the parliament of Georgia to consider a package of legislative amendments to obligate cable
operators to carry all television stations with news programmes. The aim of this initiative
was to increase the public’s access to information during the electoral campaign period for
the October 2012 parliamentary elections. Initially, the ruling party (UNM) lawmakers
opposed to these ‘must-carry/must-offer’ rules, claiming that such a move would amount
to meddling into private companies’ business. But eventually, they agreed on it and the
parliament passed the relevant legislative amendments to the election code. These amend-
ments obligated cable providers to transmit television channels with news programmes
for sixty days before the elections. The ‘must-carry/must-offer’ rules came into effect and
three Tbilisi-based television stations (including Channel 9, co-owned by Georgian Dream
leader Bidzina Ivanishvili’s spouse), became available to approximately 180,000 cable TV
subscribers across the country (Civil Georgia 2012). According to the NGO sector repre-
sentatives, this has had a tremendous effect and was one of the factors that led to the victory
of the opposition.
However, the opinions of the experts were different from those of the NGO represent-
atives. They agreed that the ‘must-carry/must-offer’ rules did play an important role, and
were indeed one of the factors that ensured the victory of the opposition. However, they
also argued that it was not just NGO pressure that led to the rules’ adoption. Indeed, local
NGOs were not the only ones that were calling for these rules, they did it in tandem with
international organizations. It was a combined effort: the local NGOs voiced this demand,
but it was a demand that was strongly supported by the international community. Therefore,
it can be surmised that the influence of the international community (the EU and the US)
on the government was much more considerable in this particular case than that of the
local NGO sector.
One of the most interesting examples of how the public can influence developments in
the country is the case of the 2014 local elections. Residents of some towns directly elected
their mayors. One of the promises of the current ruling coalition’s candidate in Tbilisi was
that he would be willing to plant one million trees in the capital during his mayoral term
(Dfwatch Staff 2014; Georgia Today 2014). Environmental problems have never been at the
centre of election campaigns in Georgia. And one may argue that, both the mobilization of
citizens and expansion of civil participation in certain directions (as in the case of Guerrilla
Gardening) had an immediate political effect on the campaign promises of the eventual
victor in the Tbilisi mayoral election.
246    N. Pokleba

In principle, civil society in Georgia seems to be able to organize resistance and mobilize
people power. It has been involved in all important political developments in Georgia, which
include but are not limited to the victory of the national-liberation movement in 1991, when
two ideas - nationalism and democracy – dominated Georgia’s political agenda; the Rose
Revolution in 2003, which demonstrated the Georgian people’s commitment to defend
both the values of democracy and their political rights, and the parliamentary elections
held in 2012, the first constitutional transfer of power in the recent history of the country.
On the other hand, the interviewed experts (Zedania 2011) argued that the capacity of
civil society to influence political processes in Georgia is rather limited. While elite-chal-
lenging activities in developed democracies reflect a critical citizenry whose members are
able and willing to put incumbent authorities under pressure to respond to their demands,
Georgian society is still led and controlled by the elites. In all the above examples, the
politicians and interested parties were either already holding certain political positions
by the time of the relevant transformations or entered political office as a result of those
developments. It can be stated that while the Orthodox church and political parties, which
are dominated by small circles of leaders, have much more ability to mobilize the masses
(politicians may build alliances with special clients and groups and help them solve some
of their problems), because of the insufficient link to the wider public the influence exerted
by the civil society sector in Georgia is not considerable enough to cause any qualitative
changes in the political system of the country. Thus, it is mainly the political arena that
defines everything in Georgia.

Causal relationships
This research has demonstrated that the civil society in Georgia is still weak. And, indeed, the
initial hypothesis of this research – that civil society in Georgia fails to implement the role
of ‘intermediate institution’ has been proven correct as Georgian civil society groups do not
represent genuine social forces capable of exerting significant influence and causing change.
Social forces and groups in Georgian civil society fail to create effective and large organ-
izations and, as a result, they tend to develop networks of small groups dependent on per-
sonal trust rather than on common values and formal rules. And since they cannot create
organizations able to tackle problems on their own, they depend more on state intervention.
So what is needed to remedy this situation? Perhaps, there needs to be a transformation
of political culture towards more active civic involvement that contributes to democratic
accountability. This is the most difficult aspect of the transformation. But as long as this
sort of mental and attitudinal change does not take place, the transformation of Georgia
into a democratic civil society cannot be completed.
When civil society is weak, state power is easily seized and concentrated in the hands of
one political group and its leader. This is especially the case where there are no mechanisms
in place for separation of powers and horizontal accountability (a complex system of checks
and balances to power within the state structures) is not adequately developed. Without a
strong civil society sector, the population is not able to put the government under pressure
to respond to their demands. In this case, elections become virtually the only mechanism of
accountability. Elections and accompanying rallies (that in Georgia have sometimes led to
revolutions) in such states are the only relevant point of contact between voters (represented)
and elected officials (representatives). Civic activity does not allow adequate individual
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   247

autonomy and members of civil society fail to create effective and large organizations in
order to advance their shared interests, as well as monitor the performance of the govern-
ment and exert influence on political and economic developments in the country. As a result,
democratic breakthroughs do not entail institutionalized and consolidated democracies.
This paper has not sought to gain insight into the possible causes of the weakness of
Georgian civil society. Its aim has been to demonstrate, using the Georgian example, link
between weak civil society and weakly developed democratic practices and institutions.
However, existing literature may be able to help us explain why civil society is weak
in Georgia. For example, Coleman (1988) and Fukuyama (1996) defined the concept of
‘social capital’ which refers to the extent to which people cooperate for common ends on
the basis of shared informal norms and values. Social capital is essential for successful
political and economic development and may be what is lacking in Georgia. Lipset (1963,
31–41) maintained that there are direct linkages between the various aspects of economic
development, such as wealth, industrialization, urbanization and education on the one hand
and democratic governance on the other. At the same time, in his presidential address for
the 88th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association at the Fontainebleau
Hilton, he concluded that for the transition to democracy: ‘cultural factors appear even
more important than economic ones’. Inglehart and Welzel (2005) have asserted that civic
culture – particularly values such as freedom, choice, tolerance and trust in other people –
has a significant impact on democratic stability. Muller and Seligson (1994) have demon-
strated that democratic experience is conducive to a civic culture or at least that there is a
reciprocal relationship here. In any case, this issue goes beyond the scope of this paper, and
cannot be comprehensively addressed here.

Notes
1. 
Georgia is a country in the South Caucasus region, with the strategic location at the crossroads
of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. As a state, it is both very ancient and very young.
Georgia was among the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion
(in the fourth century) and it had relations with ancient Greece and Rome. The Georgian
state reached its peak of influence in the eleventh–twelfth centuries, a period that ended in
the thirteenth century when Georgia faced the Mongol invasions. In the fifteenth century
the country became fragmented and it was reunited only in the nineteenth century under
the Russian Empire. It gained its independence in 1918 but was invaded by Soviet Russia in
1921. Georgia as a modern state emerged after the collapse of the USSR: Georgia declared
independence in 1991.
2. 
The term ‘democratic institutions’ refers to those institutions that contribute to democracy.
O’Donnell (1994, 57–59) attempted to define democratic institutions in the following way: ‘…
democratic institutions are political institutions. They have a recognizable, direct relationship
with the main themes of politics: the making of decisions that are mandatory within a given
territory, the channels of access to decision-making roles, and the shaping of the interests
and identities that claim such access’; ‘… Some political institutions are formal organizations
belonging to the constitutional network of a Polyarchy … Others, such as fair elections,
have an intermittent organizational embodiment but are no less indispensable’. According to
Fukuyama (2011), a liberal democracy combines three characteristics: a strong and capable
state, state’s subordination to a rule of law and government accountability to the interests of
the whole of society. Huntington (2006) argues that the distinctive institution of a modern
polity is an effective party system capable of organizing and structuring the participation of
the mass of the population in politics. 
248    N. Pokleba

On the other hand, the concept of ‘democratic consolidation’ denotes a stable and deeply
rooted democratic regime that faces no risk of an authoritarian reversal. For Linz and
Stepan (1996b), a consolidated democracy is a ‘… political regime in which democracy as a
complex system of institutions, rules and patterned incentives and disincentives has become,
in a phrase, “the only game in town”.’ They distinguish five, mutually reinforcing arenas of
consolidated democracy: civil society, political society, the rule of law, the state apparatus and
economic society. According to Diamond (1999), ‘… consolidation is most usefully construed
as the process of achieving broad and deep legitimation, such that all significant political
actors, at both the elite and mass levels, believe that the democratic regime is the most right
and appropriate for their society, …’. Diamond also thinks that there is a strong connection
between norms, principles and practices at elite, organization and public levels and democratic
consolidation (1999, 74–77). And, while Rustow (1970) states that established democratic
institutions bring about pro-democratic mass values and, thus, institutional development
results in democratic consolidation, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) claim that a society's mass
values influence subsequent democratic performance more strongly than previous levels
of democracy influence those values. Therefore, they argued, pro-democratic values are
conducive to effective democracy and they support successful democratization rather than
result from it. 
For more detailed information on Georgia’ institutions see Beissinger and Young (2002) and
Coppieters and Legvold (2005).
3. 
According to Huntington (2006), the precondition for reform is, in general, the concentration
of power in a single modernizing elite. In 2003, Georgia was a failing state characterized by weak
governance, high levels of corruption, an inability to collect taxes and provide basic services.
During the nine years (2003–2012) of the government of the United National Movement
(UNM), the Georgian state managed to develop competent public administration, eradicate
large-scale corruption in major public agencies and raise taxes for the public good. On the
other hand, amendments made to the constitution of Georgia in 2004 promoted the excessive
concentration of power in the executive. Thus, the weakest point in Georgian democracy
became the imbalance between different governmental branches. While the opposition was
concerned with a weakening of Parliament, proponents of the 2004 amendments considered
the extended powers of the institution of the presidency necessary for a transitional period
when fundamental reforms were needed (On the Georgian reforms see The World Bank
(2012). On democratization see Caryl (2012) and Tatum (2009).
4. 
Case for non-Georgia experts: In multiparty elections held in October 1990, the opposition
(Round Table – Free Georgia) won the parliamentary elections and later, in May 1991, its
leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected president. The political agenda of the new government
was to transform Georgia into an independent and democratic state. However, Georgia faced
serious challenges to the creation of stable political institutions. Allegedly autocratic president
Gamsakhurdia was driven from office in a military coup (January 1992). The violent coup
d’état was followed by episodes of civil war between Gamsakhurdia’s supporters and the new
government led by Eduard Shevardnadze (a former Communist leader of Georgia and foreign
minister of the USSR, who was elected to the position of Chairman of Parliament of Georgia
and Head of State in 1992). Shevardnadze’s party - the Citizens’ Union of Georgia (CUG)
gained a majority of votes in the next two parliamentary elections (1995, 1999). Thomas
Carothers categorized the CUG run Georgia among countries ‘which have some attributes of
democratic political life’ but ‘suffer from serious democratic deficits’ (Carothers 2002, 7–17). 
In the November 2003 parliamentary elections, Shevardnadze’s government refused to provide
for an orderly and constitutional transfer of power and reverted to large-scale fraud in order
to retain power. Serious discrepancies existed between the official results announced by the
Central Election Commission (CEC) and the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) conducted by
the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a Georgian election-
monitoring organization working in cooperation with the National Democratic Institute
of the United States. The CEC announced a victory for the pro-government parties {‘For a
New Georgia’, an electoral bloc of Shevardnadze’s supporters} while the PVT gave the four
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   249

opposition parties a clear and overwhelming victory. Mass protests of citizens triggered by the
fraudulent elections continued for approximately three weeks and resulted in the president’s
resignation (an event known as the Rose Revolution). In contrast to the events of 1992
however, after the resignation of the president, events quickly fell back into the constitutional
framework. Saakashvili was elected president in January 2004, and later on in March his
party - the UNM won the parliamentary elections with a large majority (66.24%) of the vote. 
In stark contrast to the above scenarios, Georgia’s parliamentary elections held in October
2012 proved historic in the sense that power changed hands through free and fair elections,
and the former governmental party, the UNM conceded and left power through constitutional
democratic mechanisms and emerged as a legitimate opposition party.
5.  See Written Statement of Bidzina Ivanishvili, 2011, Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 7 Oct.'11, available at
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=24006 (accessed March 20, 2015), PCGD (Political
Coalition Georgian Dream), 2012, Founding declaration, Civil Georgia, February 21, Tbilisi,
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=24467 (accessed April 15, 2015) and Freedom House.
2013. Nations in Transit – Georgia, available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-
transit/2013/georgia#.VRupxPmUcew (accessed April 15, 2015).
6.  This notion of civil society may not take into account those forms of participation that
may be outside of associational life: for instance, ‘the effect of virtual communities
and virtual participation through the internet is an important element of modern
democratic participation’ (Wallace and Pichler 2009). But according to Analysis and
Consulting Team, in Georgia this type of participation has rather a narrow scope; 25%
of Georgians are social media users, only 7.9% of Georgians know what is a blog and
only 0.9% of Georgians have a blog, which is approximately 40,000 people (available at
http://mirianjugheli.com/2011/08/12/social-media-in-georgia/ [accessed on May 23, 2015]).
7.  Civil society encompasses a wide array of groups and associations, including community/
local organizations, educational and cultural activities, churches/religious organizations,
human rights, peace and environmental groups, etc. Political parties act in a social context
and seek support among specific social groups or fragments of society and by their nature
they also are civil society organizations. The media is a profit-oriented and therefore, the
business entity, but since with the help of media social groups are mobilized around certain
interests and values, it is often considered a part of civil society. Labour unions, professional
and employer associations as well as economic interest groups concerned with influencing
economic outcomes also belong to civil society, since their membership basis is voluntary
and they consist of people who come together to act on their common interests (Howard
2003; Keane 1999; Linz and Stepan 1996a).
8.  Results of the 2012 parliamentary elections: the Georgian Dream coalition – 53.25% Majoritarian,
54.07% Party List; the UNM – 41.39% Majoritarian, 39.68% Party List; 2013 presidential
elections, the Georgian Dream candidate – 62.09%, the UNM candidate – 21.71%; available at
http://data.electionportal.ge/en (accessed February 27, 2015). According to NDI surveys,
51% of respondents considered UNM as the strongest opposition party (NDI August 2014
and Public Attitudes in Georgia, May 2014); 52% of respondents identified UNM as the
strongest opposition party (NDI poll, December 2013); UNM was identified as the strongest
opposition party by 47% of those surveyed (NDI Poll, July and September 2013) – available at
https://www.ndi.org/georgia-polls (accessed February 27, 2015).
9.  According to Policy, Advocacy, and Civil Society Development in Georgia (G-PAC), 2014
Follow-up Report on Civic Engagement, formal civic engagement, including formal membership
and contact with NGOs, remains very low in Georgia: in 2014, only 2% of the Georgian
population were members of any type of union. With regards to NGOs actively engaging the
public, in 2014, 13% of the population reported that NGO representatives contacted them
(6% reporting the same in 2011), 9% of the population had attended a meeting organized by
an NGO over the last two years (5% had attended such a meeting in 2011), 6% had called or
went to the office of an NGO (2% in 2011).
10. According to the Caucasus Barometer (the annual household survey about social
and economic issues and political attitudes conducted by CRRC), 2013, 81% of
250    N. Pokleba

the Georgian population have not volunteered in the last 6  months, available
http://feradi.info/en/visualizations/missing-volunteerism-in-georgia (accessed January 15,
2015).
11. Source: Ilia State University, Student Service Centre, 32 Chavchavadze Avenue, Tbilisi,
Georgia.
12. The rationale behind Borani’s selection as an example was the following: to (a) select a genuine
voluntary association, since it can be argued that volunteerism means more active participation
in civil society and demonstrates a higher level of commitment and (b) focus on an association
whose aim is to promote change to and improve society. Information on Borani is available at
http://borani.org/eng/ (accessed April 11, 2015).
13. The rationale behind the selection of Guerilla Gardening as an example was to demonstrate
the existence of large voluntary movements in Georgia, that operate both in the capital
and other cities of the country (Guerrilla Gardening in Tbilisi, https://www.facebook.
com/Tbilisitrees?fref=ts; Guerilla Gardening in Kutaisi, https://www.facebook.com/
mebageoba?fref=ts,https://www.facebook.com/groups/mebageoba/; Guerilla Gardening in
Rustavi, https://www.facebook.com/groups/196656237175423/).
14. Evidence of political consensus on pro-western orientation: the EU Association Agreement,
2014; Georgia’s new national security concept (2011), available at http://civil.ge/eng/article.
php?id=24299 (accessed January 11, 2015); the Georgia-European Union Action Plan within
the European Neighborhood Policy, 2006; the Individual Partnership Action Plan of Georgia,
2004.
15. However, there has been speculation from some representatives of the current ruling
party (Georgian Dream Coalition) in Georgia about the possibility of the country
joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EAU) established by the Russian Federation;
Andrew Rettman, 2013, Georgia PM says 'why not?' on Eurasian Union, available at
https://euobserver.com/foreign/121315 (accessed April 20, 2015); Paul Rimple, 2015, How
Strong Is Russia’s Soft Power in Georgia, available at http://eurasianet/org/node/72671
(accessed April 20, 2015).
16. According to the NDI’s surveys (Public Attitudes in Georgia, August 2014, April 2014,
November 2013, September 2013 and June 2013), 59% (August 2014) / 65% (April 2014) /
68% (November 2013)/81% (September 2013)/79% (June 2013) of the respondents support
Georgia’s goal of joining the EU and 54% (August 2014)/58% (April 2014) think that Georgia
will benefit more from Euro-Atlantic Integration than from better relations with Russia. At
the same time, 73% supported Georgia’s stated goal of entering NATO in June and September
2013.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Prof. Ghia Nodia for his invaluable comments and to the respondents, who gen-
erously helped me with information.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor
Nino Pokleba is a PhD candidate and a visiting lecturer at the Ilia State University, Georgia,
Tbilisi. Her main research areas of interest include political development in transition states,
state building, political participation and civil society development. The present article
‘Georgian Civil Society: Expectations Versus Reality’ is her first publication.
 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies   251

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