Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 2/5/2008
Diversity, Conflict, and State Failure:
Chances and Challenges for Democratic Consolidation
in Georgia after the "Rose Revolution"
December 2006
Cornell University Peace Studies Program
Abstract
The events of November 2003, taking place against the backdrop of extensive election fraud and mass demonstrations in Georgia, resulted in the non-violent change of government known as the Rose Revolution. It brought a young administration under Mikheil Saakashvili into power and gave rise to hopes for an advance in the democratic consolidation that has been stalled since 2001, thus unfolding a political dynamic of unexpected chances and challenges.
Georgia’s transition towards a democratic regime started even before independence, when the national opposition headed by Zviad Gamsakhurdia came to power following the parliamentary elections of October 1990. Further development in the process of democratization has been marked by several interruptions. The first president of independent Georgia, Gamsakhurdia, was driven from office in a violent coup d’état in January 1992. While his successor, Shevardnadze, succeeded in establishing a certain degree of public order, physical security, and stability in the diverse Georgian society by taking action against competing violent non-state actors, his administration failed to halt a progressive political and cultural fragmentation of the country. Although, with the adoption of the 1995 Constitution, the formal requisites of democratic statehood were introduced under his presidency, he manipulated and transgressed these norms, and his rule came to be based on the accommodation of fluid clientelistic networks. Corruption and economic stagnation have undermined political, economic and legal reforms that are essential steps for a democratic consolidation.4 Facing a decline in its authority due to internal splits and the emergence of an opposition, the Shevardnadze administration was compelled to adopt authoritarian measures in order to remain in power. The deterioration of performance in nearly all policy areas caused not only a deepening of internal splits within the ruling party, but also an alienation of the international donor community, which eventually suspended financial support in 2003.
