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Some 200 foreign fighters from Georgia were among those who left their homes and traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq. The Georgian case is interesting due to the large number of foreign fighters but an apparent lack of previous direct experiences with terrorism. This article examines the profiles of Georgian foreign fighters and discusses the patterns that emerge. The analysis is based on an original dataset of 54 foreign fighters. The examination of their profiles reveals that even foreign fighters who share national origins differ in motivations for departure, group affiliations, and the way they arrange the journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the democracy aid practices of the Czech Republic and Poland in Georgia. These two countries have recently emerged as promoters of democracy, and have argued that their own transition experience puts them in a unique position to support democratization and the consolidation of democracy in the European Union's eastern neighbourhood. The article evaluates how these two countries provide democracy aid to Georgia along three criteria, derived from the aid effectiveness literature: supporting locally driven change, learning from results, and coordination. The results indicate that both countries have plenty of space to improve the way their democracy aid is delivered. Neither country has formal systems in place to ensure that they actually support Georgian priorities; evaluations are ad hoc and feedback loops missing; and there is significant scope to improve coordination with other donors. Nonetheless, there seems to be a general perception among stakeholders that the democracy aid provided by the Czech Republic and Poland is relevant to Georgia's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay discusses the concepts of liberty and black slavery among British colonists in Georgia between 1732 and 1770 as a case study. It argues that British colonists saw liberty and slavery as significant and essential elements in the function of Georgia in particular and British America in general. It also discusses Georgia's prohibition of slavery prior to the American Revolution, Georgia's governance by a group of trustees including James Oglethorpe, and the relationship between Georgians and the trustees.

Planning scholars have cited state growth management programmes as a critical outcome of the ‘quiet revolution’ in the regulation of land use in the United States, a phenomenon that Fred Bosselman and David Callies identified in 1971. Typically referring to a collection of state-level laws that provide support for planning, mandate local land-use plans, require coordination among adjacent jurisdictions, and enhance protections for fragile natural resources, the academic understanding of growth management has tended to be based on the experiences of a few environmentally ‘progressive’ states. The US state of Georgia has rarely been lauded for its efforts to regulate development. Yet in 1989, the state enacted a law that instituted new tools to improve coordination between local governments and the state, but stopped short of mandating local land-use planning. Like policies in other states, Georgia's growth management scheme was designed to strengthen state control over the local planning process. Unlike other states, Georgia's system did little to determine the location of that growth. This paper provides a detailed account of the political process by which an idea for reigning in ‘abusive’ land development hatched by Governor Jimmy Carter in the course of a government reform movement in the early 1970s was repurposed by Governor Joe Frank Harris in the 1980s to support urban sprawl. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]