Georgia’s Year of Turmoil

Issue Date October 2008
Volume 19
Issue 4
Page Numbers 154-168
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Russia’s invasion of South Ossetia in August 2008 was not the beginning of the former Soviet republic of Georgia’s troubles. Following the 2003 Rose Revolution, President Mikheil Saakashvili embarked on a program of sweeping reform and expanded the powers of the executive. Improved access to public goods and internationally-recognized achievements in the sphere of economic reform followed. The building of state capacity and its attendant project of renovating Georgian culture, however, seem to have come at a high cost to Georgian democracy, as opposition parties and the media find themselves marginalized and public unrest becomes increasingly difficult to quell.

About the Authors

Miriam Lanskoy

Miriam Lanskoy is senior director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy. She is the author, with Ilyas Akhmadov, of The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (2010).

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Giorgi Areshidze

Giorgi Areshidze is senior fellow and cofounder of PSI, a think tank in Tbilisi, and was a 2008 Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment of Democracy.

View all work by Giorgi Areshidze