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The purpose of this article is to study the role of the Kmara youth organization in the preparation and implementation of the Rose Revolution, conducted in Georgia in the fall of 2003. The relevance of the research, which is being carried out on this topic for the first time in Russian historiography, lies in the need to analyze the destructive activities of youth movements during the color revolutions in order to prevent such negative scenarios on the territory of Russia, its allies and strategic partners. The article considerssuch issues asthe history of the creation of Kmara, the peculiarities of itstactics and strategy on the eve of the Rose Revolution, and the activities during the overthrow of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. The structures funded by George Soros, especially the Liberty Institute and the Open Society Georgia Foundation, played a huge role in the creation of this organization. Activists of the Serbian youth movement Otpor also had a significant influence. Thanksto funding from foreign structures and the advisory assistance of Otpor, Kmara quickly became an important actor in the Rose Revolution. Its main strategic task was to mobilize the protest electorate and to struggle against the political apathy of the population. The authors come to the conclusion that the role of Kmara in the preparation and implementation of the Rose Revolution is very significant, but in fact, the young activists were used skillfully by the organizers of the color revolution to seize power. After Shevardnadze's resignation, the new president and the government no longer felt the need for the youth structure, and in the absence of support from foreign sponsors, Kmara quickly sank into political oblivion.

This article explores the perceptions of personal (in)security in the public space of Tbilisi, Georgia following the Rose Revolution in 2003. Based on the concept of vernacular security, I suggest a bottom-up approach to the subject, focusing on its culturally and socially specific character and observing the production of the discourses of (in)security at the intersecting notions of modernisation/backwardness, formality/informality, criminality/lawfulness, and the West/Russia, reflecting post-revolutionary political, social, and cultural transformations. While the government of the Rose Revolution introduced full-scale reforms formalising security in Georgia, the article reveals that citizens' perceptions of personal (in)security in the public space are often ambiguous and even self-contradicting, as they waver between the notions of formality and informality, often interpreting the same phenomenon as a source of both their security and insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the stages of the nation-building process in Georgia, which gained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, will be discussed. In the article, first of all, the historical elements that contributed to the nation-building process of Georgia will be discussed chronologically. In the following part of the article, the policies and steps taken by Independent Georgia until the Rose Revolution in the name of the nation and state-building will be discussed. Finally, the new understanding of identity that came with the Rose Revolution, a peaceful revolutionary movement, will be discussed. Throughout the article, it will be pointed out to what extent Georgia has achieved such features as providing equality and justice in political life, achieving economic prosperity, and increasing the freedom of civil society and media organizations, which are necessary for being a democratic country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georgia which has an ethnic diversity, has not been able to provide its full stability since it has declared its independence and has experienced events that have shaken central authority throughout history. In particular, the independence demands of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have lost much blood to the country. Saakashvili, the leader that came to governance after the Rose Revolution, took steps to restore the central authority and attracted Russia's reaction with the pro-Western and US pro-politics. The fact that Saakashvili tried to solve the problem of separatist territories in order to secure the central authority by controlling them tightly reinforced this tension and consequently the conflict between Georgia and the South Ossetians started in 2008 and eventually became a Russian-Georgian war. The NATO's intence interest in the region has made Russia very uneasy, and the possibility that the Black Sea is a NATO lake has led Russia to follow aggressive policies towards the region. Although the Russian-Georgian war that took place in 2008 and caused great devastation for Georgia has been concluded, the strife and tensions between the two sides continue to be cold. In particular, the EU is giving visa liberalization to Georgia, German Prime Minister Merkel's visit to the region reveals that the Georgian support for the EU-led way, NATO's joint exercises in Georgia with the participation of Georgia, Russia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia supporting statements, "Is climbing a new chaos in the region? Is Russia, the winner in Syria, wanted to be besieged in the South Caucasus?" In this article, all this process will be discussed in historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ukraine has experienced two popular uprisings in a decade (2004, 2013–2014), which took place in four different circumstances. Firstly, the Orange Revolution began as a protest against election fraud during an election cycle while the Euromaidan began in protest at the abrupt end to European integration and was outside an election cycle. Secondly, whether the incumbent was leaving office (Leonid Kuchma, 2004) or seeking to be re-elected and remain in power indefinitely (Viktor Yanukovych, 2013–2014) had a direct bearing on regime strategies against the protestors. Thirdly, Russian intervention was limited to finances, the supply of political technologists and diplomatic support in the former whereas during the latter, Russia used its intelligence, special forces and military to intervene in the protests, annex territory and invade Ukraine. Fourthly, the type of leader which was in power (former Soviet nomenklatura versus thuggish and criminalized Donetsk clan) had a direct impact on whether the authorities would seek compromise and non-violence (Kuchma, 2004) or reject compromise and resort to violence through vigilantes, Berkut riot police and the Security Service (Yanukovch, 2013–2014).

This essay takes a first look at Armenia’s 2018 ‘velvet revolution’ by analysing its political system since independence and comparing it to the circumstances of the 2003 Georgian Rose Revolution. By considering parameters such as protection of civil liberties and freedom of elections, it characterises the regimes in Armenia since 1991 as competitive authoritarian according to Levitsky and Way’s definition. Low levels of influence from the West and prevailing informal structures made caused this state of affairs to persist. A first look at the events of 2018 reveals that Nikol Pashinyan, the new prime minister, acts more democratically than his predecessors. However, having established that the Rose Revolution happened under similar circumstances with similar goals, its failure to directly advance democratisation shows that systemic reasons for authoritarian structures are prone to persist even if the political leadership has democratising ambitions.

After Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union, it experienced civil war and strife for more than a decade. In late 2003, the peaceful Rose Revolution installed a new government that began a series of radical market‐liberal reforms. However, the effectiveness of these reforms was controversial. We offer a rigorous evaluation of these reforms via the synthetic control method which creates a credible counterfactual. Compared to the synthetic controls, we find that the reforms enacted after the Rose Revolution led to significant improvements in Georgia's social and economic development, albeit with temporary side effects and argue that this case provides some support for the effectiveness of rapid, multidimensional reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the Georgian government implemented a number of major institutional reforms which have succeeded in modernising Georgia’s state institutions, reducing corruption and ‘formalising’ the public sector. While the effects of Saakashvili’s reforms on state and institution-building, corruption and the rule of law have been examined by a large and growing body of academic literature, there has been little discussion about the impact of institutional changes on the previously widespread culture of informality in Georgia. This article explores the effects of Georgian institution-building from such aspects of informality as the use of informal networks and connections in exchanges of favours, gift-giving and other types of informal activities. The findings of this study, based on the analysis of recent surveys and in-depth interviews, conclude that the reforms succeeded in undermining the overall importance of informal practices in dealings with state bureaucracy, education system, healthcare, law enforcement, judiciary and some other areas previously dominated by informality. However, the reliance on informality did not disappear, and informal networks are still employed as coping mechanisms and as social safety nets.

This article examines the role of civic groups in Georgia’s Rose Revolution using Larry Diamond’s framework of the democratic functions of civil society. The author argues that the contribution of civil society to the peaceful transfer of power in 2003 is best understood by expanding the analytical focus out from the Kmara youth movement to include a larger set of organisations. Rather than focusing on the Kmara youth movement as the primary civil society actor in 2003, the author contends that Kmara was, in fact, a product of the coordinated involvement of a cohort of NGOs. The article stresses the highly interconnected nature of Georgian civic leaders and organisations, particularly regarding networks with other NGOs, opposition politicians, and journalists from the Rustavi 2 television station.

Since the Rose Revolution (2003), Georgia has encountered an unprecedented scale of institutional reforms concomitant with the rise of American and European involvement in the “democratization” process. Various scholars have suggested that Georgian nationalism developed from an ethno-cultural basis to a more civic/liberal orientation after the Rose Revolution. This paper analyzes Georgian nationalism under President Mikheil Saakashvili to demonstrate the significant divergence between political rhetoric on national identity, the selection of symbols, and state policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church versus state policy toward ethnic minorities. The aim of this article is to examine the at times conflicting conceptions of national identity as reflected in the public policies of Saakashvili’s government since the Rose Revolution. It attempts to problematize the typologies of nationalism when applied to the Georgian context and suggests conceptualizing the state-driven nationalism of the post-Rose Revolution government as “hybrid nationalism” as opposed to civic or ethno-cultural. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Georgia's Rose Revolution of November 2003 was a demonstration of the Georgian people's desire for fundamental change. More specifically, it expressed their aspiration to overcome their post-Soviet status and to establish a fully functioning state and a fully competitive developed society. These ambitions took strength from a decades-long experience of cultural resistance to Soviet totalitarianism and Russian domination. Thus, the revolution had nationalcultural causes and origins as well as political ones. The resistance to Russian dominance, which has been an issue in Georgian culture for the last two centuries, has gained new ground in the post-Soviet period, and the Rose Revolution was a clear symbol of Georgia's desire to develop a new identity based on a free and democratic state. Despite the cultural aspects of the Rose Revolution, it was primarily a social movement. Therefore, post-Soviet Georgian literature was not found in the center of the political upheavals. However, the revolutionary process was supported by young Georgian writers, practicing a predominantly postmodernist style and thus maintaining the ideas of pluralism and Westernization through their texts. The Revolution as a socio-political event has had a significant impact on the development of literature. The establishment of well-functioning state institutions, improved safety, increased social responsibility, and the attempt to integrate elements of Western culture into the fabric of society all provided new impulses to Georgian literature. Georgian literature of the 2000s still has made its contribution to the development of the narrative of liberalization and to rehabilitation in the face of historical traumas. However, the tendency toward elitism remained in Georgian literature; it was unable to influence the whole of Georgian society, part of which has maintained its ambivalent and dualistic outlook on the past and the future of the Georgian nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the Georgian government implemented a number of major institutional reforms which have succeeded in modernising Georgia's state institutions, reducing corruption and 'formalising' the public sector. While the effects of Saakashvili's reforms on state and institution-building, corruption and the rule of law have been examined by a large and growing body of academic literature, there has been little discussion about the impact of institutional changes on the previously widespread culture of informality in Georgia. This article explores the effects of Georgian institution-building from such aspects of informality as the use of informal networks and connections in exchanges of favours, gift-giving and other types of informal activities. The findings of this study, based on the analysis of recent surveys and in-depth interviews, conclude that the reforms succeeded in undermining the overall importance of informal practices in dealings with state bureaucracy, education system, healthcare, law enforcement, judiciary and some other areas previously dominated by informality. However, the reliance on informality did not disappear, and informal networks are still employed as coping mechanisms and as social safety nets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of civic groups in Georgia's Rose Revolution using Larry Diamond's framework of the democratic functions of civil society. The author argues that the contribution of civil society to the peaceful transfer of power in 2003 is best understood by expanding the analytical focus out from the Kmara youth movement to include a larger set of organisations. Rather than focusing on the Kmara youth movement as the primary civil society actor in 2003, the author contends that Kmara was, in fact, a product of the coordinated involvement of a cohort of NGOs. The article stresses the highly interconnected nature of Georgian civic leaders and organisations, particularly regarding networks with other NGOs, opposition politicians, and journalists from the Rustavi 2 television station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the color revolutions and parliamentary democracy in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia were accepted and substantiated. Trade turnover between the two nations is expected to reach 1.4 million U.S. dollars. It is mentioned that the media in Kyrgyzstan uses Georgia as an example of successful economic policy and anti-corruption initiatives. The Georgian Policy and Management Consulting Group formed a project in Kyrgyzstan in 2009 to create the business environment in the republic.

This article places new works in the context of the major implications arising from Georgia's Rose Revolution and the war of August 2008 for both Georgia and the wider Euro-Atlantic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains Georgia's achievements against rampant corruption that plagued the country for decades. It demonstrates how Georgia has moved from being a ‘failed state’ to the state with low corruption rates following the Rose Revolution of 2003. It is argued that several internal and external drivers motivated Georgian leadership to fight corruption in the post-revolutionary setting, including drawing legitimacy from anti-corruption campaign and using it for political purposes, ‘the West’ as allure and desire to drift away from Russian trajectory of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the paradoxes inherent in the Rose Revolution in Georgia. The Rose Revolution and its colored companions precipitated two disappointing reactions in the former Soviet space: first, disillusion with popular democracy movements, and second, what Vitali Silitsky calls ‘preemptive authoritarianism’, or the ability of post-Soviet regimes to anticipate popular challenge. I connect the ideology and style of the Rose Revolution with the constitutional crisis of November 2007 in Georgia, and with the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Serbian Revolution of 2000, Georgian Rose Revolution of 2003, and Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004 are examined from the perspective of both the causes of popular engagement and the elite interaction. The authors argue that the model of Electoral Revolutions based on democracy promotion from outside and election fraud as a trigger for action does not fully explain either what brought people to the streets or why there was not a clear move to democratization in these cases. Instead, they show that corruption, failed administration, and state weakness were the triggers, that the opposition politicians were from the old administration, that people were repeating what they had done before in demonstrating, and that the mass movements did not result in the growth of civil society, increased popular engagement, or (on their own) significant democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the long-standing criticisms of cross-sectional survey data is that they provide only a contextually driven “snapshot” of attitudes. These attitudes are, the “snapshot critique” contends, highly fragile—subject to significant fluctuation based on events that arise domestically and globally. Although it makes sense that a major event can alter the percentage of people who respond to a given survey question in a particular way, it is less obvious that such an event jeopardizes the validity of multivariate analyses of survey data collected prior to the event. Given the prevalent use of cross-sectional survey data in quantitative political research, this question has significant implications for comparative politics. This study employs survey data from Ukraine before and after the “Orange Revolution” and from Georgia before and after the “Rose Revolution.” Its findings challenge the snapshot critique and support the idea that, even in the wake of a dramatic political event, the underlying relationships among variables measured by survey data can remain quite stable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the economic change and development in Georgia after the Rose Revolution and analyzes its impact on the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's struggle for remaining in power. It also explores the periods of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Eduard Shevardnadze, the first and second president of Georgia, respectively. The article discusses how Gamsakhurdia's policies prepared the ground for the emergence of complex problems that would result in weakening of Georgian state in many fields including economy besides bringing about his own removal from power. It lastly puts forward that whereas economic hardship motivated the masses to rise against Shevardnadze in the framework of Rose Revolution, economic development and improved life standards resulted in sustained support for Saakashvili and strengthened his hand against the opposition [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Central Asian & Caucasian Studies is the property of International Strategic Research Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To provide long-term democracy development assistance, foreign actors need to develop a medium through which such assistance will be provided. The NGO community which emerged in Georgia in the 1990s fulfilled this function. It was envisaged as developing into a civil society, but turned out to be elitist and politicized. The role that the NGO community was able to play in Georgia's democratization was weakened by the fact that the community was expected to be politically impartial and to achieve a political result at the same time. During the Rose Revolution, democracy promotion was channelled through the NGO community, and contributed to a change of power, but democracy did not follow. After the Rose Revolution, democracy promotion weakened. Despite the fact that a new wave of political protests during 2007-2008 provided another opportunity for Georgia to accomplish a democratic transition, foreign actors did not play the same role as they did before. The change in approach of the foreign actors can be explained not only by political considerations, but also by the fact that the international community had weak personal, organizational and ideological links with the new wave of the pro-democracy movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georgian politics since late 2007 has attracted interest mainly because of its highly polarized political climate. The leadership of Mikheil Saakashvili, widely heralded as a beacon of democracy in the post-Soviet space following the peaceful Rose Revolution of 2003, is pitted against an array of determined opposition forces that seek his removal and accuse his government of authoritarian tendencies. Yet a closer study of Georgian politics since the August 2008 Russian invasion suggests that the polarization of its politics is not reflected in society, which overwhelmingly supports conciliation and dialogue rather than another round of revolutionary change. By mid-2009, the overheated Georgian political scene showed signs of adapting to this reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georgia's August War with Russia prompted a new wave of political mobilization against the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili after a previous effort faltered in 2007-2008. Despite its renewed vigor, the postwar opposition failed for at least three reasons: 1) increased levels of political discontent did not translate to broad public support for the president's resignation; 2) the opposition remained divided with regard to its methods and aims; and 3) the government successfully represented itself as an alternative engine of democratization. Georgian "street politics" ought to now be replaced by the implementation of desirable constitutional, electoral, and media reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the experience gained in the area of poverty reduction and private sector development in Georgia. The Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Programme approved by the President of Georgia in 2003 has never been implemented because the Georgian Government had neither the will nor the ability to launch its implementation. During the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in 2008, the Government's electoral slogan was "An Integrated Georgia Without Poverty!" Unfortunately, however, even this slogan did not prepare the grounds for the Government to develop a more-or-less complete poverty reduction programme. The post-revolution Government was not always consistent in its endeavours to support private sector employment programmes. Very often its steps were populist rather than practical. Poverty reduction may be achieved as a result of co-ordinated efforts of the government and the private sector: however, this kind of co-ordination requires the active involvement of trade unions and civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the since the Rose Revolution, the Georgian government led by President Mikheil Saakashvili has created a false dichotomy between democracy and state building. They have prioritized the latter. Initially, in areas such as reducing bureaucracy, combating petty corruption, improving tax collection, service delivery and infrastructure, the government succeeded in rebuilding the Georgian state. However, because issues of democracy were ignored, efforts to strengthen the Georgian state were not as successful as they might have been. Moreover, the absence of sufficient democracy has contributed to poor decision making, most notably in the run-up to the August war, which ultimately has undermined the major state building accomplishments in Georgia since 2004. Accordingly, any efforts to repair the damage from that war and rebuild the state will be unsuccessful unless they incorporate meaningful democratic reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Tiers Monde is the property of Librairie Armand Colin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

New pipelines and the Rose Revolution have provided a backdrop for economic growth and improved fiscal stability, resolved some territorial disputes, and created the beginnings of a strong state in Georgia. Such developments suggest that there is good reason to be sanguine about where the country is headed, but significant and potentially ominous problems remain. Among these are continuing disputes over breakaway regions and the failure of economic development to have a real impact on the country's poor. On the governance front, the party in power has failed to develop a strong independent judiciary and does not appear to appreciate the long-term importance of having a viable political opposition. On the other side, however, prospects remain positive for Georgia to emerge as a successful laboratory for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]