Saturday, December 13, 2025

Georgian Puzzle – Minorities and New Challenges

Arnold Stepanian is chairman of the movement Multinational Georgia. (Photo: Interpressnews.)

Part 1: Russia and Georgia

One cannot Play at Giveaway

Since the Rose Revolution and the assumption of political power by Mikhail Saakashvili the scope of influence of the Russian Federation over Georgia has been weakened to that extent that the Russian Federation has

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Cherchez la femme: look for the woman in Georgian politics

Nina Tsihistavi is a researcher in gender issues and women's rights activist.

It was a long way of looking for the women in Georgian politics. For the last decade, the only explanation for the lack of women in positions of power was: women are not ready themselves, are not showing will, writes Nina Tsihistavi, researcher in gender issues and women’s

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Analysis of 2012 State Budget and Elections

Davit Narmania is executive director of Caucasian Economical and Social Research Institute.

Georgia’s 2012 budget is significantly different from the 2011 budget due to it being an election year. The expenditure part of the budget is particularly interesting. There are several expenditures which directly or indirectly aim to increase voters’ content, and this will

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eTransparency in the Government of Georgia

Constantine Janjghava is project coordinator at the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information.

From 2009 to 2011, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) carried out the first and so far only survey of eTransparency in Georgia, monitoring some 100 web pages of different public authorities in Georgia, writes Constantine Janjghava, project

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Saakashvili’s victory is his own defeat

Zaza Khatirishvili is a philosopher and philologist.

In official or semi-official conversations, president Saakashvili’s supporters often remark that Saakashvili should somehow stay in power to finish the reforms he started, because otherwise the country’s direction will be reversed and it will head back into the past,

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Lazika: Democratic Deficit in Public Decision Making Process

Tamar Iakobidze is an analyst intern at the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information.

On December 4, 2011, the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili announced an initiative to build a new city called “Lazika” in the West of Georgia, between Anaklia and Kulevi. The new city is supposed to be the largest after the capital, Tbilisi, and reach a population of about

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Administrative-territorial reform – a taboo in Georgian politics

David Losaberidze is project coordinator at the Caucasus Institute for Peace Democracy and Development.

A lot of reforms have been carried out in the country during the first two decades after Georgia’s independence in 1991. Although some of them were rather controversial and contradictory, they led to significant changes in various spheres of Georgia’s social life, writes David Losaberidze,

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Saakashvili: “We basically got what we wanted to get”

Giorgi Margvelashvili is a PhD in philosophy.

– Right!

What we did not get was, something that was in the preliminary statement of the White House, stating that: “The President will reconfirm U.S. support for the integrity of Georgia’s territory within its internationally recognized borders”. We did not hear that; and really lacked that

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Beyond Reset – Building a Pluralistic Political Society

Levan Tsutskiridze is international relations specialist and Georgia representative of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy.

Georgia’s only way forward towards strengthened security, economic growth and modernization is to build a pluralistic political society. Georgia cannot build a national security state, it must build a liberal state, writes international relations specialist Levan Tsutskiridze.

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