Neo-liberal State Building and Western ‘Democracy Promotion’: the case of Georgia

Prepared for delivery at the 2010 SGIR 7th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Stockholm, Sweden, September 9-11, 2010

Joel Lazarus St Anthony’s College University of Oxford

Introduction: promoting democracy or aiding competitive authoritarianism? ‘[I]f democracy cannot be consolidated in Georgia, it is not clear where it can be consolidated’, declares Mitchell (2008: 6). Yet, rather than ‘democracy’, politics in post-independence Georgia has been characterised by instability, conflict, and authoritarianism. In this paper, I argue that, rather than promoting democracy, Western foreign policy and diplomatic strategies and aid interventions have actually served to reinforce what Levitsky and Way (2002, 2010) call ‘competitive authoritarianism’ and exacerbate political instability and conflict in the country. In this way, they have helped successive Georgian governments to prolong their grip on power and have supported the most recent ruling elite in its efforts to build the institutions of a neo-liberal state. After describing the methods by which Western governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have aided competitive authoritarianism and neo-liberal state building in Georgia, I ask why they have done so and why, in spite of growing authoritarianism and economic inequality in the country, successive Georgian governments have been portrayed as both democratic and developmental success stories by Western aid donors. I offer three answers to these questions. First, the selfinterest that continues to shape the foreign policies of all states produces an ‘unprincipled democracy promotion’ that often serves to support the state building endeavours of pro-Western, ‘reformist’ autocrats. Second, the bureaucratic and technocratic needs of both the funders and providers of Western democracy promotion produces a centralising rather than a democratic or participatory bias in their modus operandi. Third, understanding the goal of the ‘development’ industry as the integration of peripheral states into the global liberal economy and the goal of ‘democracy promotion’ as an attempt by the transnational capitalist elite to establish a global hegemony based on consensus rather than coercion allows us to understand why Georgia’s current government has earned the praise of Western governments and international organisations for its neo-liberal economic reforms and acceptance of its authoritarian regime-building practices (Robinson 1996). In conclusion, I argue that, since the ‘good’ things that go together in theory – neoliberal state building, economic reforms, and democracy promotion – are, in practice, not delivering on their promises of ‘development’ and ‘democracy’, the Western

model and the organisations that promote this model are experiencing a growing global crisis of legitimacy. Why Georgia? In this paper, I employ a ‘critical case study’ methodology, defined by Flyvbjerg (2001: 79) as ‘one which is likely either clearly to confirm or irrefutably to falsify propositions and hypotheses’. Georgia can be seen as a critical case for several reasons. First, based on an absence of factors seen as detrimental to democratic political development – such as natural resource wealth (Ross 2001), an autonomous military (Geddes 1999), blood- or marriage-based clans (Collins 2002), and ethnic party politics (Barany 2005) – and the presence of factors seen as positive for democratisation – such as high literacy rates, a pro-Western, democratic revolution and government (Bunce & Wolchik 2006), and proximate democratic neighbours (Brinks & Coppedge 2006) - the potential for democratisation is seen as greater in Georgia than in any other post-Soviet country and even beyond (Mitchell 2008: 6; Boonstra 2009: 1). Thus, a lack of progress in Georgia suggests even less hope for a breakthrough anywhere else in the former Soviet Union. Second, Georgia is an example of a competitive authoritarian regime in which the formal political institutions that superficially provide for pluralism and competition are routinely ignored, undermined, and manipulated by the ruling party in order for it to maintain and expand political power and by opposition parties forced to bend and break the rules in order to compete. Party politics in competitive authoritarian regimes is characterised by ‘[e]lectoral manipulation, unfair media access, abuse of state resources, and varying degrees of harassment and violence’ that ‘skew[s] the playing field in favor of incumbents’ (Levitsky & Way 2010: Intro: 1).1 Thus, competitive authoritarian regimes produce dominant-party systems. Since Levitsky and Way find that the more than 30 competitive authoritarian regimes worldwide exceed the number of ‘full democracies’ in the post-colonial world, their study is critical to our understanding of politics in peripheral societies. Finally, as a country receiving large amounts of Western aid – financial support and technical assistance – from Western bilateral and multilateral donors, Georgia is an important case study for understanding the actual consequences of aid for the political 1

The improvised citation style for Levitsky & Way 2010 is necessary because the book is yet to be published.

development of targeted countries. Finkel et al (2007) have offered the most comprehensive evidence to show that American ‘democracy promotion’ assistance has a real and measurable positive outcome on a country’s process of democratisation. Georgia has certainly been a focal point for Western democracy promotion efforts since the early 1990s. Between 1992 and 2000, Georgia received a total of $778 million of American democracy promotion, development, and humanitarian aid, making the country the second largest per capita recipient of American money behind Israel (Jakopovich 2007: 213). Between 2001 and 2003, the U.S. allocated $268.8 million for democracy promotion to Georgia, more per capita than any other post-Soviet nation (Mitchell 2008: 4). From the European Union, Georgia received €420 million in aid between 1992 and 2004, the majority of which funded projects targeting improved democracy and governance outcomes, including reforms to electoral institutions, local government, the judiciary and the development of NGOs (Tudoroiu 2007: 320). Between 1994 and 2003, more European Union money flowed into Georgia than into any other post-Soviet state (Tudoroiu 2007). If Finkel et al are to be believed, the amount of democracy promotion aid the country has received from both American and European sources would lead us to expect Georgians to be enjoying an enhanced democratic dividend. Indeed, Boonstra (2010: 1) argues that: ‘If Georgia’s democratic development were to fail during the next ten to fifteen years, it would prove a severe blow to the concept of democracy promotion. Seldom have so much effort and funding from the international community been directed to democracy promotion in a country that is open to democratic change…’

Thus, it is primarily for these three reasons that Georgia constitutes a critical case to study. The state, democratisation, and democracy promotion: two institutionalist approaches Ever since the late 1980s, ‘good governance’ – ‘the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources’ - has been the holy grail of the ‘development’ industry (World Bank 1989: 1). The state must be governed with sufficient discipline and efficiency in order to create the

appropriate ‘enabling environment’ for private sector economic development (World Bank 1992: 1). Equally essential for ensuring good governance is the construction of a ‘pluralistic institutional structure’ (ibid: 49) – in essence, a robust ‘civil society’ composed of active and organised associations capable of exerting pressure on public officials for better government and more accountability. Though their organisational roots are distinct, Western ‘democracy promotion’ organisations share this neo-liberal, institutionalist conceptualisation of politics and political change: that top-down reforms to a political institution, such as the constitution or electoral code, will produce changes in the underlying political culture. Thus. it is the state that delivers ‘democracy’ by implementing and enforcing the necessary institutional reforms. Its autonomy must be constrained by a ‘pluralistic institutional structure’, which, in the last ten years, has been widened to incorporate political parties alongside civil society (Doherty 2001; Carothers 2006). Of course, political institutions usually take the form they do because they serve the interests of powerful individuals and groups. The goal, then, according to many democracy promoters is either to convince intransigent incumbents of the need for and benefits of reform or, failing that, to expunge autocrats from the state and replace them with democrats. This is the strategy of ‘political’ democracy promotion’ that Carothers (2009) associates predominantly with the governmental and quasigovernmental organisations that dominate the American democracy promotion apparatus. Carothers (2009: 14) contrasts political democracy promotion with a ‘developmental’ approach that: ‘rests on a broader notion of democracy, one that encompasses concerns about equality and justice and the concept of democratization as a slow, iterative process of change involving an interrelated set of political and socioeconomic developments. It favors democracy aid that pursues incremental, long-term change in a wide range of political and socioeconomic sectors, frequently emphasizing governance and the building of a well-functioning state.’

Though, for Carothers, the distinction is not absolute and universal, he recognises that the developmental approach is associated far more with European democracy promotion organisations.

Thus, we have two contrasting, yet both top-down institutionalist, approaches to reforming the political institutions – state and non-state – of peripheral societies in order both to promote ‘democracy’ and construct functioning, efficient, wellgoverned liberal states. Both approaches, I will argue, have served to reinforce competitive authoritarianism in post-independence Georgia. Post-independence Georgian politics: 1991-2010 Sustaining kleptocracy: 1994-2003 It was former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze who finally brought some political stability to Georgia after the country’s first three years of independence were marred by civil war and separatist conflicts. From the outset, the continuation of this stability and Shevardnadze’s authority required the accommodation and appeasement of a ‘motley collection of Gamsakhurdia’s opponents, including gangsters, intellectuals, former Communist Party party leaders, businesspeople, and even a few democrats’ (Mitchell 2008 23-4). Shevardnadze soon lost control over corrupt ministers and their core ministries. All public offices became saleable commodities with the buyer seeking to make returns on his investment immediately on taking office. By 2000, Georgian tax revenues had fallen to less than 16 percent of GDP compared to an average in former Soviet republics of 25 to 30 percent (Wheatley 2005: 108). Instead of providing public goods, the state provided what Wheatley (2005: 131) calls ‘network goods’ – goods and services provided only to individuals linked in to a particular informal network connecting him hierarchically to an individual in a position of state power. Georgia’s citizens shrank away from all areas of public life in fear of the very organisations and institutions supposed to provide security. Georgia was becoming a ‘Mafia-dominated state’ (Darchiashvili & Nodia 2003: 21). A combination of Shevardnadze’s personal prestige and early evidence of rebounding economic growth rates convinced Western governments and aid donors alike of his reformist credentials. At the same time, the political fragility and weak organisational power of Shevardnadze’s heterogeneous Citizens’ Union of Georgia (CUG) ruling party produced a ‘chaotic pluralism’ that donors and certain scholars mistook for democratic progress (Areshidze 2007: 198). In 2000, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report stated that ‘Georgia is to be given recognition for its achievements in the democratization

process of the political, social, and economic aspects of its development’. Eduard Shevardnadze was heralded as the leading reformer in the former Soviet region and, in 1999, was even presented by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) with an award in recognition for his services to Georgian democracy. Ahead of the presidential election of April 2000, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder headed the list of Western dignitaries visiting Tbilisi to lend their support to Shevardnadze. Schröder told the Georgian Parliament that, under Shevardnadze, Georgia had made ‘remarkable progress in developing a democratic, constitutional state’. (Schröder in Volkov 2000). Eduard Shevardnadze was no democrat. Indeed, in his later years in office, he tried unsuccessfully to close down the political space. By this time, however, his authority was evaporating and his ruling CUG party disintegrating. The exodus from the CUG was led by Young Reformers Zurab Zhvania and Mikheil Saakashvili who, accusing Shevardnadze of corruption, left to form their own parliamentary factions and parties in the summer of 2001. In spite of endemic levels of corruption and disastrously low levels of tax collection and public goods provision, Eduard Shevardnadze’s regime lasted for almost a decade. How can we explain this ‘more than astonishing survival’ (Christophe 2004: 9)? Beyond allowing the Georgian state to eat itself, Shevardnadze was able to perpetuate his regime by distributing patronage in the form of the aid funds that flowed from Western aid donors. Continued aid transfers and, by extension, the sustainability of the regime, was largely dependent on Shevardnadze’s personal credibility as ‘reformer’ in the eyes of his Western sponsors. This made him uniquely trusted as the ‘gatekeeper’ of Western funds (Christophe 2004: 10). He, therefore, had another balancing act to pull off: to convince Western donors of his commitment to reform, whilst never actually implementing those reforms since implementation meant undermining the very system that kept him on top. Continued Western support sustained kleptocracy in Georgia. It was only in 2003, the final year of his regime, that perceptions of Shevardnadze seemed to change definitively, and only in September 2003, just two months before the so-called ‘Rose Revolution’ that dethroned him, did the US government finally decided to pull the plug on aid transfers to his government. Why did it take this long? Mitchell (2008: 32) highlights Shevardnadze’s ‘personal prestige and relationships in the West’ which ‘prevented many observers and policy-makers from becoming aware

of the depth of Georgia’s problems’. Areshidze (2007: 303) places the blame, on the American side at least, on United State Agency for International Development (USAID) bureaucrats in Tbilisi who, in order to justify greater spending in Georgia, reported throughout the 1990s that ‘Georgia was reforming and that US support for “democratic reforms” was having a dramatic impact’. Only in late 2001, according to Areshidze, did USAID staff ‘sense that support for Shevardnadze had wavered in Washington, and that it was beginning to be too difficult to hide the truth about Georgia’. Consequently, ‘a new picture was presented to Washington – that Georgia had suddenly become an authoritarian state…and that Shevardnadze was the cause of all the ills in the country’. Adopting a more neo-realist angle, Christophe (2004: 28) argues that ‘it appears to be more than mere coincidence that Shevardnadze’s downfall took place just a few months before construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was scheduled to start’. For Christophe, both the need for certainty among international investors in the project and ‘the prospect of renewed access to externally generated resources’ for a Georgian leader prompted the volte-face in Western capitals. Whatever the reason for their protracted support for Eduard Shevardnadze, what seems clear is that, whilst Western governments enjoyed a high degree of ‘leverage’ over the Georgian President during the course of his rule (Levitsky & Way 2010), they used this leverage not to promote democracy but to sustain his competitive authoritarian and kleptocratic regime. The Rose Revolution By 2002, it was clear to all that only by cheating could Shevardnadze’s newly formed For New Georgia party hope to win in the November 2003 parliamentary elections. Local Western aid donors, embassies, and NGOs worked closely together to ensure that any attempt at malfeasance would be caught and that the opposition was primed for attack. Certain democracy promotion NGOs in particular played a central role in organising what became known as the Rose Revolution. The network of well-organised and assertive elite Georgian NGOs was the product of a decade of continual funding and support by Western governments and NGOs. Hungarian billionnaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) financed both the most radical and active NGOs and the television station Rustavi 2 the mouths and the mouthpiece of the Revolution. With USAID money, NDI financed

a Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) and pro-actively sought to build a coalition of antiShevardnadze opposition parties.2 USAID spent a total of $2.7m on the election campaign and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) dispatched ‘one of [its] longest and largest election observation missions’ (Jawad 2008: 619). In spite of this intense pressure, the government proceeded to orchestrate a ‘standard order post-Soviet stolen election’ (Mitchell 2008: 58). This time, however, it was not to get away with it. Through Rustavi 2, opposition leaders called citizens to the streets to protest and, over the next three weeks, they responded in increasing numbers. Finally, on November 22nd, facing no resistance from police or military forces, Mikheil Saakashvili, alongside fellow leaders Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, led a group of supporters into the chamber of Georgia’s Parliament. The protesters, holding red roses, interrupted Shevardnadze’s inaugural speech with cries of ‘resign!’ Shevardnadze was hastily removed from the chamber by his bodyguards. Saakashvili took to Shevardnadze’s podium and, in a ‘primal and unmistakeable’ act of symbolism drained the President’s teacup (Mitchell 2008: 67, 69). Shevardnadze declared a state of emergency but this only served to bring more protesters to the streets. The coup was complete when he tendered his resignation the following afternoon. The ‘Rose Revolution’ was portrayed by Western leaders as a glorious victory for Georgian democracy. Most famously, George W Bush called Georgia a ‘beacon of liberty’.3 Governments that had backed Eduard Shevardnadze for a decade suddenly seemed to ‘slip into some kind of political amnesia’ as they openly criticised him (Mitchell 2008: 70). The Revolution was portrayed as ‘democratic’ since it reflected the will of the Georgian people. In reality, however, this ‘democratic revolution’ was an unconstitutional bloodless coup executed by a trio of former Shevardnadze protégés. In this process, the measure of ‘democracy’ was in how many citizens politicians could call onto the streets or, more accurately, could claim they had called onto the streets. Western democracy promotion organisations played a central role in the Rose Revolution. Yet, though their efforts succeeded in removing an undemocratic 2

A PVT involves taking a large, statistically significant sample from polling stations nationwide and comparing that to official results, the idea being that any significant difference between the two results would be suggestive of electoral fraud. 3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4534267.stm Accessed 14th June 2010.

government, this was the promotion less of democracy than of a like-minded Englishspeaking, political and NGO elite that espoused the neo-liberal ideology of their Western sponsors. The Rose Revolution heralded in a new era in Georgian politics. A new strongman, Mikheil Saakashvili, had emerged and the organisational structure the National Movement had built over the previous year contained the seeds of a new and stronger dominant party. Post-revolutionary Georgia: 2003-9 Rebuilding the state and a new competitive authoritarian regime At the heart of the new United National Movement (UNM) government was a small vanguard elite comprised of Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania, and members of the NGO elite who espoused a rampantly libertarian ideology.4 In spite of constant cabinet reshuffles, this small clique remained untouched at the heart of the executive. Though heralded as democratic, the new ruling elite focused its efforts on ‘state building…rather than on creating a system of checks and balances including transparent and accountable government’ (Boonstra 2010: 10-1). From the very outset, Georgia’s new leaders sought to close the channels by which they themselves ascended to power – namely, the media (television) and NGO sectors – and to bolster those institutions that could serve to protect their position – namely, the institutions of the state. Here, I document the main practices employed by the Georgian government to build a strong Georgian state, a competitive authoritarian regime, and dominantparty system. Attacking the ancien régime and rebuilding the state In its first year, the new administration conducted a highly public, selective, and often brutal campaign against former officials and other individuals linked to the ancien régime (Wheatley 2005; Cheterian 2008). It also implemented drastic public sector reforms. Almost a quarter of all state employees, 35,000 people, lost their jobs as the new government reduced the overall number of government ministries from 18 to 13 (Stefes 2006: 168). At the top, no Soviet-era personnel remained (CIPDD 2006: 81). Of Saakashvili’s first cabinet, eight had previously worked in the NGO sector and 4

The UNM was the product of a merger after the Revolution between Saakashvili’s National Movement and Zhvania’s and Burjanadze’s ‘Burjanadze-Democrats’ parties.

fourteen were born in 1961 or later (Wheatley 2005: 199). At lower levels, however, though many young UNM activists filled the ranks of the national and local bureaucracies, the new government also allowed some wealthy, powerful individuals to switch allegiances and remain in place (Wheatley 2005: 201). The recentralisation of political control meant huge increases in extractive capacity and dramatic falls in petty corruption. Tax revenues burgeoned, rising by a factor of four in 2004 alone (Cheterian 2008: 702). Georgia’s ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index rose from 124th out of 133 countries in 2003 to 79th in 2007. Georgian citizens also benefitted, living their daily lives again without constant hindrance and benefitting from more reliable energy supplies and infrastructural repairs. Building a dominant party By adopting a new Georgian national flag and making it also the flag of the UNM, the country’s new leaders sent a powerful symbolic message about its intention to build a new dominant party in Georgia that would merge with the institutions of the state (Muskhelishvili 2005: 55). The UNM had already won a huge parliamentary majority and soon national and local state bureaucracies were filled with UNM supporters. ‘Working in public administration increasingly went hand in hand with loyalty to the ruling party’ (Muskhelishvili & Jorjoliani 2009: 697). The Party also ‘encroached upon the spheres of almost all civil society institutions: universities, sports organizations, and professional unions’ (ibid: 694). Attacking the political opposition Backed by its large parliamentary majority, the UNM leadership moved to attack the already weakened opposition parties who opposed the Revolution and those who abandoned the ruling coalition in protest soon afterwards, labelling them ‘counterrevolutionaries’, ‘traitors’, or ‘enemies of the state’ and arguing that they had forfeited their right to criticise when they stood against the Revolution and, therefore, ‘against the people’ (Areshidze 2007: 235-6). Since then, the Georgian leadership has sustained its attack against the political opposition in several ways. The accusations of treachery and treason have continued, usually relating to allegations of collusion with the Russian government. The government has also used threats and sanctions to deter businesses from donating to

opposition parties, thereby starving them of much-needed funds. Instead, businessmen donate to the ruling party in return for political protection and often, indeed, parliamentary (self-)representation. Finally, in the summer of 2008, the government used legislation to withhold state funding from opposition parties boycotting the Parliament in protest at the results of the 2008 parliamentary elections. Formal institutional manipulation Just two weeks after his election, President Saakashvili railroaded through Georgia’s Parliament far-reaching constitutional changes that greatly increased executive power. This move was the first of many changes to formal political institutions designed to serve the interests of the incumbents. The Georgian Constitution was amended a further four times between 2004 and 2007 (CIPDD 2006: 29). Similarly, the electoral code has seen several major amendments. In 2005, for example, the system of party representation on the Central Election Committee (CEC) was replaced with one in which professional election administrators were directly appointed by the president (Landskoy & Areshidze 2008: 161). In another example, right before the 2008 parliamentary elections, the government increased the number of

majoritarian-contested

seats

vis-à-vis

seats

contested

by

proportional

representation in the Parliament in order to ensure that more local strongmen running under the UNM banner would win. Media clampdown The Georgian leadership has sought to banish all criticism from the airwaves and to secure ownership of all national television channels in the hands of allies. The government has successfully used the regulatory body, the tax authorities, the courts, and even the police in its attacks on ‘oppositional’ channels. It is widely believed that the editorial polices of all nationwide television stations are under the full control of the authorities. With the exception of two small oppositional channels, either station owners loyal to the government are now in place or ownership is in the hands of offshore companies with untraceable owners (Civil Georgia 2009a). Unfree and unfair elections Elections under Georgia’s revolutionary government have remained ugly affairs. Even the presidential and re-run parliamentary elections of January 2004 that served

to officially confirm the revolutionary victory of Mikheil Saakashvili and his National Movement party were marred by media bias, the use of state resources, and significant and varied ‘irregularities’ (OSCE/ODIHR 2004a: 1, 2004b: 1). Both the presidential election and the parliamentary elections of January and May 2008 were characterised by the government’s abuse of coercive, regulatory, institutional, financial, and media resources (TI Georgia 2008a). In the presidential election of January 2008, Mikheil Saakashvili won re-election with 53.5 percent versus 27.5 percent for the opposition coalition’s Levan Gachechiladze in an election the chairman of Georgia’s CEC described as ‘maximally democratic, maximally transparent, and maximally fair’ (ISFED 2008: 74). Even though Gachechiladze had won resoundingly in Tbilisi and other major cities, Saakashvili declared the result a ‘landslide’ with an ‘amazingly low number’ of violations (AP 2008). In contrast, the PVT conducted by ISFED showed just 50.8 percent for Saakashvili with a margin of error of 2.2 percent. Furthermore, it was clear that the President had relied heavily on support from the ethnic minority provinces where over 10 percent of the national votes are contested, where voting conditions are notoriously bad, and where local leaders always vote loyally for the incumbent (TI Georgia 2008b: 11). The OSCE’s preliminary verdict on the election was ambiguous. Criticisms of voting conditions and the vote count itself were there, yet the headline statement declared the election ‘in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections and national legislation’ (OSCE/ODIHR 2008a: 1). Reaction from Western governments and multilateral organisations was inappropriately positive. With less than a third of votes counted, US Congressman Alcee Hastings, in his role as representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, announced that democracy had taken a ‘triumphant step’ in Georgia (IWPR 2008a). The US State Department (2008: 1-2) congratulated both Saakashvili and the Georgian people on the conduct of an election which was ‘the most competitive in Georgia’s history’, commending them on ‘turn[ing] to democracy when facing domestic tensions’. Whilst it conceded that the election was ‘far from perfect’, it concluded that it was ‘clear that there were not enough disputed votes to have changed the official outcome’. European reactions were more sober. The European Commission recognised Saakashvili’s victory and concurred with the preliminary statement of the OSCE, but

also placed greater emphasis on the second half of the OSCE’s statement which stated that ‘significant challenges were revealed which need to be addressed urgently’ (OSCE/ODIHR 2008a: 1). The OSCE’s final report was not released for another two months. It listed a litany of pre-election pressures, voting inconsistencies, chaotic administration, fraud, intimidation, and ballot-rigging (OSCE/ODIHR 2008b). Yet, however critical the final report may have been, its late release minimised its political impact. The United Opposition refused to recognise Saakashvili’s victory and took their case to the courts, which was subsequently rejected. On January 13th, they brought tens of thousands onto the streets of Tbilisi calling for a second round. Protesters held signs reading: ‘USA – Supporter of Dictatorship’ and ‘OSCE backs rigged elections’ (AFP 2008). Opposition leaders themselves attacked the Americans in particular. Presidential candidate Davit Gamkrelidze told Rustavi-2: ‘this is cynical when you are telling the Georgian people that the January 5th election was held in accordance with democratic standards…By doing so, the United States has undermined its reputation and questioned [the Georgian public’s] attitude towards the United States’ (Georgian Times 2008).

Yet, American diplomatic intervention was key to calming tensions. Opposition leaders agreed to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza’s appeal to end their campaign to annul the presidential election results in return for American support for a free and fair ‘surrogate run-off between the ruling party and the opposition’ in May’s parliamentary elections (RFE/RL 2008). The conditions before and during May’s parliamentary elections were worse than in January. The OSCE (2008c) cited a ‘polarized and tense environment’, a ‘blurred’ distinction between state activities and the UNM campaign, unbalanced media coverage, inaccurate voter lists, and the compromised independence of the CEC. Most crucially, it found that 22 percent of election observers had rated the vote count as either ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ (ibid: 11) and that in 26 percent of observed vote counts, observers reported ‘significant procedural errors and omissions’ (OSCE 2008d: 24). In a devastating blow to the now fragmenting opposition, the government increased the number of deputies elected under the majoritarian system from 50 to 75 seats, whilst lowering those elected under the proportional system from 100 to 75. The

UNM leadership was taking no chances in ensuring a healthy parliamentary majority, knowing as they did that the local ‘businessmen’ who ran as UNM candidates in single-seat district seats would deliver for the ruling party (Lanskoy & Areshidze 2008: 161). The UNM even hired leading American political consultants Greenberg Quinlan and Rosner who delivered a professional, slick, successful and, no doubt, expensive election strategy. In the presidential election, local and regional governors had hedged their bets. Now that Saakashvili’s presidential position was secure, however, they vied with each other to deliver votes in a display of competitive loyalty. Fearful of an embarrassingly large victory, senior government figures tried to intervene, but they could not halt the political machine (IWPR 2008b). The official results gave the UNM 120 of the 150 seats, including 71 of the 75 seats contested by the majoritarian system. International reaction to the election was more cautious than in January, yet, in spite of OECD’s damning evaluation, criticism was distinctly muted. On May 23rd, all major opposition parties, bar the new Christian Democratic Movement, announced their decision to boycott the new parliament and to continue their legal battles and public protests. The decision inadvertently cemented the victory of President Saakashvili and the UNM. By the summer of 2008, the bitter political stand-off had reached a point of ‘communication breakdown’ with politicians interacting only through ‘‘monologues’ that frequently stoop[ed] to the realm of personal insults’ (RFE/RL 2008). The August War and aid package On August 7th 2008, Georgia’s ‘frozen conflict’ with the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia exploded into full-blown war. The Georgian government’s bombardment of South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali killed hundreds of civilians and triggered a brief but bloody war. Russian forces pushed back Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and then proceeded to block Georgia’s access to the Black Sea and invade and seize undisputed Georgian territory. French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a ceasefire on August 12th, yet Russian troops remained within undisputed Georgian territory until late August and maintained buffer zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia until October. Two months after the end of formal hostilities, a group of 38 countries and 15 international organisations pledged $4.5 billion in aid to Georgia. The United States

was the largest single donor, pledging $1 billion, $720 of which was scheduled for 2008. The Bush administration immediately transferred $250 million in direct budget support to the Georgian government (Civil Georgia 2008a). The US Congress authorised an additional $50m towards ‘security assistance’ in Georgia (Congress Report 2008: 34). The European Commission offered €500 million (Civil Georgia 2008b). The IMF approved a $750 million standby program (Civil Georgia 2008b). The way the donor conference and the deal it produced was conducted directly contravened the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness signed by all OECD donor nations in 2005.5 The conference itself was conducted ‘behind closed doors’ and the contents of the Joint Needs Assessment report overseen by the World Bank remained secret ‘at the request of the Georgian government’ (Civil Georgia 2008c). The deal involved the production of long-term budgetary plans, yet the Georgian Parliament was ‘systematically frozen out of the…process’ (TI Georgia 2008c: 10). Whilst a US government spokesman emphasised his government’s focus on ‘ongoing humanitarian assistance, first and foremost’, Transparency International Georgia (2008d) calculated that the $70 million earmarked for humanitarian aid constituted less than 15 percent of the total support package. Furthermore, it argued that ‘[t]he only detailed figure to have been made public to date is that 150 million dollars of the package…will be provided through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)’ – an organisation established by Congress to ‘enable U.S. businesses to invest and compete in emerging market countries around the world’. Since direct budgetary support is completely fungible, the amount pledged in this form and a lack of transparency over the ultimate destination of aid transfers has raised real concerns. The strong showing of international support for the Georgian government that followed the war contrasted with the growing pressure it faced at home. As war broke out, all opposition figures rallied behind the government in a display of national unity. After the conclusion of hostilities, however, the opposition was quick to challenge the actions of Saakashvili and his ministers, accusing them of leading the country into a catastrophic and avoidable war and of ‘jeopardiz[ing] Georgian statehood and its development as a free state’ (Civil Georgia 2009b). A string of senior military figures and former political allies resigned in the wake of the war, alleging recklessness and interference on the part of the President. 5

See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/63/43911948.pdf for details of the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action.

Economic reforms The economic context of all these post-revolutionary political developments is crucial to address. The new government’s vision for Georgian economic development was to attract foreign investment by creating a liberal utopia for international capital. While tax and business laws were radically overhauled and simplified, the postrevolutionary government saw no need to alter existing laws regulating privatisation! Neither did it believe in regulating economic competition. All competition legislation was virtually entirely dismantled. Consequently, whilst petty corruption was widely eradicated, ‘elite corruption’, embodied in the ‘strong relationship between the corporate world and the government’, remained unchecked (TI Georgia 2009: 4-5). One would expect the sacred protection of property rights to be the priority of any libertarian government. Yet, the rights extended to overseas investors have not been consistently provided to Georgia’s own citizens. TI Georgia (2007a) has documented three waves of state confiscations and demolitions of private property between 2004 and 2007, all carried out with no regard for legal process, all justified in the name of punishing the corrupt, and all undertaken to make way for major new construction projects. The government’s strategy produced rapid results. Foreign investment rose five-fold from $340 million in 2003 to over $1.6 billion in 2007. Revenue from privatisations burgeoned from just $38 million in 2004 to almost $300 million in 2006. Over the same period, growth rates rose dramatically, reaching 12.7 percent by 2007. The new government received wide international acclaim. In 2006 and 2007, the World Bank (2008) rated Georgia among the top two reforming countries in the world. In spite of international praise, the government’s economic reforms have helped only a small minority of Georgians. The influx of foreign aid and investment did fuel economic growth, but it also generated inflation. The country’s Consumer Price Index rose at an average annual rate of 8.4 percent between 2004 and 2007, hitting 11 percent in 2007. Unemployment in Georgia actually rose from 11.5 percent in 2003 to consistently over 13 percent in the three years between 2005 and 2007. The share of national income held by the poorest quintile fell from 6 percent in 2000 to 5.4 percent

in 2007.6 As Georgia’s government enjoyed international praise, economic life had worsened in real terms for the vast majority of its citizens. Aiding competitive authoritarianism By strengthening state institutions, weakening non-state institutions, and attacking political opponents, Georgia’s revolutionary government succeeded in building a new, stronger Georgian state, competitive authoritarian regime and dominant-party system. Western governments and organisations played a significant role in these achievements in various ways. Bilateral and multilateral aid Western financial support for Georgia’s new government was swift to arrive after the Revolution. Alongside renewed commitments to energy and security cooperation, the Bush administration immediately incorporated Georgia into its new Millennium Challenge Fund and pledged almost $300 million of development aid (CRS 2008: 31). Georgia was also immediately admitted into the EU’s European Neighbourhood Programme (ENP) and, in June 2004, the European Commission announced a doubling of the total aid budget for Georgia to €125 million for the period 2004-6 (Youngs 2006: 74, 2008: 3). Over the next two years, Western donors extended over $1 billion in loans and grants to Georgia (Papava 2006: 662). The support has continued in more recent years with post-war pledges from Western donors that greatly exceeded even the hopes and requests of the Georgian government. From civil society aid to government support On the ground, the Rose Revolution prompted Western donors to shift resources away from supporting Georgia’s civil society and media towards aiding the new ‘democratic’ government directly. ‘[T]he current Saakashvili government is, in many Georgians’ minds, the embodiment of democracy’, argued USAID (2007: A1), four years after the Revolution! USAID’s post-revolutionary priorities in Georgia were to ‘train the staff of the Offices of the President and Prime Minister in communications and outreach’, to ‘assist the judiciary with structural reforms’, and to ‘implement a parliamentary strengthening project that responds to the priorities of the government 6

Georgian Department of Statistics (http://www.geostat.ge/index.php?action=page&p_id=146&lang=eng) accessed 30th April 2010.

of Georgia’ (USAID in Mitchell 2008: 129).7 Even where USAID did continue to support non-state organisations, ‘almost all these programs work[ed] with branches of the government as the point of entry, rather than with independent civic or media actors’ (ibid: 129). In many ways, the change in strategy was the obvious and natural one. Since the former NGO elite now populated the highest levels of government and since they had worked with Western donors and NGOs for many years, the mediating structures of civil society between donors and the government were no longer needed. Thus, the provision of direct technical assistance seemed a more effective response to Georgian regime change. ‘Good governance seemed to become more urgent than democracy’ for Western donors (Muskhelishvili and Jorjoliani 2009: 694). Just as in the arena of party politics, the new government drove a divisive faultline between those NGOs that had supported the Revolution and those that had not. Western aid donors and NGOs seem to have supported this move by mostly funding those pro-Revolution, pro-government NGOs.8 The move aroused anger on the part of those excluded NGOs and the view arose that pro-government NGOs had become ‘instrumentalized…in the service of ‘outside’ interests’ and that ‘former civic activists now in public office [had been] gasorosebuli (Soros-ized)’ (Broers 2005: 343). The most visible and radical representation of such feelings were protests outside the OSGF office in 2005. In the media sphere, the new government was aided in its repressive attempts by the American aid strategy. Mitchell (2008: 130) cites Bob Evans who headed the American NGO charged with implementing USAID’s biggest media program in Georgia. Evans recalls how: ‘[w]e were told many times to fully support the new regime and not point out the shortcomings of the new government…Behind the scenes we were hearing that they didn’t need a media program because Georgia “had already had its revolution.”’ USAID terminated its media programme in Georgia in 2005. By withdrawing funding from the independent media sector and ignoring the repressive actions of the Georgian government, Western governments were complicit in creating the environment of government control and repression and self-censorship 7

Emphasis added. Though this level of specificity of funding data is unavailable, this assertion is based on in-depth and wide-ranging interviews with donors, international and Georgian NGOs. 8

that characterises Georgia’s media today. Their actions ‘sent a signal to the Saakashvili administration that everything is A-OK in our view’ (Anable 2006: 33). Unconditional support Internationally, the timing of Georgia’s ‘revolution’ could not have been more opportune for the country’s new pro-Western leaders. ‘At a time of growing international concerns about the U.S.-led invasion and the state of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, post-revolution Georgia offered a rare and successful model of sudden democratic transformation’ (Cooley & Mitchell 2008: 29). It was a model that the Bush administration sought to attribute to its own democracy promotion policies. As ‘personal friendships blossomed’, the bilateral relationship between Georgia and the US transformed from one between two states to one ‘between two regimes’ and even between two friends (Cooley 2008: 342; Cooley & Mitchell 2008: 29). Both sides benefited. US financial and technical assistance directly supported the Saakashvili administration. Personally, Mikheil Saakashvili was treated to ‘the same lavish treatment from the State Department and the media [that Shevardnadze had previously enjoyed]’ (Areshidze 2007: 303). In return, not only did Saakashvili implement the kind of economic reforms that the Bush administration wanted to see, he committed Georgian troops to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even renamed the highway linking the airport to Tbilisi after the American President. In short, ‘Georgia became one of Washington’s most supportive allies and invaluable success stories’ (Cooley 2008: 342). European attitudes towards the new government were more circumspect and characteristically split within the Union. The extensive commercial and energy interests that linked France and Germany with Russia meant that these two governments were far less effusive in their support for the new administration than others (Cooley 2008: 343). For the EU itself, the regime change created an opportunity for Georgia to inject new life into the long-term process of institutional harmonisation. Georgia’s incorporation into the ENP led to the establishment of various committees charged with implementing this ‘Action Plan’ of institutional reform (ENP 2004; TI Georgia 2007b). The slow, institutional approach frustrated the impatient Georgian revolutionaries who asked their European counterparts if they might implement the first ENP five year plan in just three years (Cooley 2008: 343).

American reaction to the August 2008 conflict with Russia was unambiguously proGeorgian. The Bush administration adopted the position that ‘small, democratic Georgia was invaded by an aggressive, hostile, or “revanchist” Russia, and that the U.S. needed to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity’ (Mitchell 2008: 151). Cooley and Mitchell (2009: 27) argue that the excessively personal ties between Washington and Tbilisi meant that the US administration failed to use its power to restrain the Georgian government from seeking a military solution to their territorial dilemmas and to guide it towards a less hardline position. American support for Georgia’s ‘territorial integrity’ has also had damaging consequences for political stability in Georgia since it has allowed Georgia’s leaders to exploit the presence of an enemy within Georgian territory to attack political opponents, divert attention from economic and social problems, and blame all of Georgia’s woes on Moscow. Many commentators opined that the subsequent Obama administration has signalled a ‘colored reset’ for Georgian-American relations, indicating that ‘institutions are more important than individuals’ and that Washington has no favourites (Civil Georgia 2009c). In reality, however, practices (and, indeed, personnel) are ‘strikingly similar to that of the Bush White House’ (Lenzi & Mitchell 2009): ‘Unfortunately, like its predecessor, the Obama administration often blurs and confuses the terms “friend” and “democracy” with regard to Georgia. This undermines the development of democracy in the former Soviet Union and beyond because few people view Georgian democracy as a serious proposition’ (Lenzi & Mitchell 2009).

Reinforcing the two authors’ contentions, new US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon delivered an unequivocal message to Georgians and the wider world: ‘we stand by its territorial integrity and we stand by its democracy’ (Georgian Times 2009). International regime legitimation Western governments and international organisations have also aided Georgia’s leaders in building a competitive authoritarian regime by providing the regime with both economic and political legitimacy. In the political sphere, those international organisations charged with monitoring democracy, particularly the OECD election

monitoring missions, have had their statements and reports (ab)used both by Western governments and Georgia’s leaders alike to legitimate the Georgian government. Georgia’s leaders themselves recognise that their ‘ultimate [political] test’ is ‘the assessment of the international community’: ‘In the recent bi-elections the opposition claimed that it was the worst case of fraud ever, but after a couple of days they shut up because the election observers said it was the cleanest election in Georgia’s history’ (Bokeria in Welton 2007: 40).

Economically, President Saakashvili has consistently used the league tables compiled by Western international organisations as evidence for Georgian economic development. High rankings on the World Banks’ Ease of Doing Business Index and Forbes’ Tax Misery & Reform Index have been cited to prove that ‘the Georgian government has created equal opportunities and chances for everyone and by doing so it had fulfilled key promises of the Rose Revolution’ (Civil Georgia 2009d). The Georgian government has exploited Western praise and legitimation to defuse domestic discontent. Consequently, the events of recent years have shown that ‘regime legitimation may serve as a much more important political instrument in the hands of foreign actors than [project based] democracy promotion’ in sustaining competitive authoritarian regimes (Muskhelishvili & Jorjoliani 2009: 698). Biased diplomacy The role played by Western diplomats in Georgian elections gave credence to opposition claims that ‘the West’ wanted stability over democracy in Georgia. After the presidential election of January 2008, opposition leaders reluctantly agreed to cease protests in return for Western promises of support for free and fair parliamentary elections in May. After the excesses of May’s elections were greeted by muted criticisms by Western governments, opposition leaders and supporters felt an acute sense of betrayal. An anti-Western element was again evident in the demonstrations after the parliamentary elections. Behind the scenes, Western diplomats admitted that democracy came second to stability in their political preferences. According to several diplomats, there was no one within the opposition that Western governments could trust and work with.9 One 9

Based on anonymous interviews with diplomats from Western governments.

senior opposition figure expressed regret that ‘we, as an alliance, couldn’t show our potential foreign partners that we could rule this country without catastrophic consequences, that the foreign policy direction wouldn’t change’.10 In other words, Western governments were not convinced that their strategic and commercial interests would continue to be served by any new government. Damaging democracy as political system and political norm By turning a blind eye to the government’s authoritarian practices, Western foreign policy-makers and diplomats have provoked an anti-Western resentment amongst much of the non-parliamentary opposition, whilst at the same time instilling a sense of impunity within the government. Government spokesman Giga Bokeria’s statement above, for example, reveals a confidence that even fraudulent elections will be signed off by the ‘international community’. Perhaps the most profound consequence of Western actions in Georgia may have been the rejection of inter-party dialogue as a political institution by more radical elements of the opposition and a broader disaffection with more ‘democratic’ processes of governance as evidenced by the angry statements of moderate opposition leaders and the anti-Western element of recent demonstrations (Papava 2006; Muskhelishvili & Jorjoliani 2009). ‘It is all the more frustrating that all the misdeeds of this government have been perpetrated in the name of meeting Western standards for democratic reform. That approach has undermined the Georgian population's faith in the West…It should be up to the Georgian people to choose its preferred leaders at the ballot box, however, when the possibility of bringing about democratic change through free and fair elections is ruled out and Georgia is disqualified from the list of "electoral democracies," our only remaining alternative is street demonstrations’ (Burjanadze 2009).

Common themes of interviews with representatives of oppositional NGOs and political parties were feelings of anger towards ‘the West’ and of disillusionment with democracy as a viable political system in Georgia. Interviewees described what they saw as the hypocrisy of Western governments motivated by strategic and commercial 10

Anonymous interview, July 11th 2008.

objectives. In particular, they highlighted Georgia’s relevance both as a transit for Caspian oil and gas and as a strategic state bordering Russia, Turkey, and close to Iran. Most alarmingly, interviewees highlighted a growing cynicism towards ‘the West’ and ‘democracy’ within Georgian society. ‘Georgians are beginning to have anti-European, anti-US tendencies. It’s never happened before. Now people are saying ‘they [the West] don’t want democracy, they’re not interested in how we’re going to live. They just need stability in Georgia to protect their pipeline and they’re not concerned with anything else. They’ve got double standards in US and Europe and they only want democracy for themselves… A lot of people became convinced that you can’t change things through elections, that my vote stands for virtually nothing. That was the very, very worst thing that could have happened. Let it be Saakashvili, let it be his government. That you can deal with. But the fact that people lost hope in elections…and see democracy as something bad…’11 ‘The tragedy is that people are losing faith…faith in their leader is understandable, but they’ve lost the vital faith in elections as the route to achieving anything good. Already democracy is not seen as the best possible system’.12

The fact that the declared objective of Western foreign policy and aid in Georgia is the promotion of democracy explains why this perceived hypocrisy is generating popular cynicism and disillusionment with democracy as both political system and political norm. Whether the charges against Western governments and NGOs are fair or not, Bermeo (2003: 228) rightly reminds us that ‘perceptions are more important than objective realities as determinants of individual behaviour’. Therefore, the consequences of these perceptions of hypocrisy and betrayal seem to be the damaging of democracy in both a normative and functional sense and of the standing of America, ‘the West’, and the international community in Georgia. Aiding competitive authoritarianism and neo-liberal state building A combination of foreign policy, diplomacy, and aid strategies served to support the building of a neo-liberal state, a new competitive authoritarian regime, and dominant11 12

Interview with international NGO representative, July 9th 2008. Interview with opposition party representative, July 11th 2008.

party system in Georgia after the Rose Revolution. As Western governments have continued to praise the Saakashvili administration and as Georgia has continued to climb the international league tables of corruption and economic freedom, ordinary Georgians have suffered from growing unemployment and inflation and from arbitrary and draconian legal punishment and imprisonment, and have witnessed the emasculation of the independent media and the consolidation of a new dominant ruling party. What Western multilateral organisations have called ‘development’ and ‘democracy’ has been, for Georgians themselves, growing inequality and authoritarianism. Understanding Western democracy promotion in Georgia and beyond How can we best understand why Western governments, multilateral organisations, and NGOs have aided the building of a neo-liberal state and a competitive authoritarian regime rather than promoting democracy in Georgia and why they have praised successive governments for delivering authoritarianism and growing economic inequality rather than democratisation and development? Here, I offer three answers to this question: (1)Unprincipled foreign policy and ‘political democracy promotion’ Hobsbawm (2005) rightly reminds us that ‘…the logic and methods of state action are not those of universal rights. All established states put their own interests first.’ Thus, Western democracy promotion is characterised worldwide by its unprincipled and inconsistent implementation.13 In Georgia and elsewhere, Western governments’ foreign policy, diplomatic, and aid interventions remained shaped by a desire for a stability that serves their own commercial and strategic interests and objectives – a stability, 30 years on from the Kirkpatrick doctrine, still seen as best guaranteed by a friendly autocrat. Autocrats can be confused for or portrayed as democrats. On the ground, ‘political democracy promotion’ constitutes the strategy of promoting individuals over institutions that remains integral to American democracy promotion in particular. Carothers (2009: 14) rejects as too simplistic the belief that American democracy promotion organisations always adopt the political approach. Instead, he argues that: 13

See, for example, Olsen 1998; Carothers 1999, 2004; Burnell 2000; Wedel 2001; Dunning 2004; Crawford 2005; Schmidt & Braizat 2006; Youngs ed 2008; Bermeo 2009; Presnall 2009.

‘[w]hether USAID tilts in a particular country toward a developmental or political approach depends considerably on the overall US relationship with the government of that country. Roughly speaking, the more positive the overall relationship, the more developmental the approach usually is; the more negative the relationship, the more political the approach.’

This assertion does not seem to be borne out by the case of Georgia. There could rarely have been a closer relationship between USAID representatives, other American democracy promotion organisations, and Georgia’s post-Revolution leaders. Yet, the American approach to democracy promotion has been consistently highly political ever since independence. Eduard Shevardnadze was hailed as a democrat for many years until American aid donors and organisations could not sustain the image any longer. When they finally gave up on Shevardnadze, they attacked him personally for all of Georgia’s woes as vehemently as they had once praised him for the country’s gains. They then switched allegiances and once more identified and supported Georgia’s new ‘democrats’ – the NGO elite and the political leaders of the Young Reformers. The personalisation of democracy and democratisation has continued more recently with talk of American support first for Nino Burjanadze and, more recently, Irakli Alasania.14 ‘All too often, the "democratic bureaucrats" in Tbilisi have learned how to talk so much "like" democrats that our western friends do not recognise - or prefer not to recognise - how undemocratic they truly are’ (Japaridze 2009: 5).

It is crucial to note here that the strategy transcends three American adminstrations. It is ascribed to the key organisational players in American democracy promotion, namely the State Department, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the NDI. Thus, one answer to this question is that Western support for successive authoritarian leaders and their regimes in Georgia has been driven by the desire to secure a stability that will serve the strategic and commercial interests of Western governments and corporations. Georgian autocrats have been portrayed as democrats both because of a 14

Based on interviews with senior diplomatic figures.

naïve, yet genuine, belief in their democratic qualities particularly by aid donors desperate for a success story to prove the merits of their actions and because of the need to legitimise supported Georgian rulers and regimes internationally and domestically. (2) Democracy promoters’ anti-democratic demands ‘There is more than enough room’, argues Carothers (2009: 18), for both the political and developmental approaches to democracy promotion. He enthuses over the ‘strategic diversification’ that these differing approaches represent. Yet, I find that the developmental approach to democracy promotion also serves to promote individuals over institutions, thereby helping to centralise power in state institutions rather than making decision-making processes more participatory and decentralised. Carothers does seem correct in ascribing the ‘dominance of the developmental approach’ to European democracy promoters. The strategy of the EU in particular in Georgia has been dominated by ‘a focus on technocratic governance work, especially capacity building for state institutions’ (Carothers 2009: 15). Yet, more than any sense of ‘equality and justice’ or a longer-term perspective on political development, the European approach is characterised, in Georgia at least, more by its apoliticism. In Georgia, European aid donors and democracy promotion organisations have tended to ‘steer clear of activities that might be seen as politically confrontational or even “too political”’ (ibid: 9). Yet, even this technocratic approach to democracy promotion leads to the promotion of individuals over institutions. For effective results, foreign experts and consultants need to cultivate close working relationships with likeminded and influential individuals within governments and bureaucracies. Consider, for example, a programme sponsored by the European Commission and Council of Europe to ‘strengthen local and regional democracy’, human rights, and the rule of law in Georgia. The programme required ‘professionals charged with incorporating European standards into legislation and practice’ (EC/CofE 2003: 5). Consequently, ‘target groups’ from within ‘influential intellectual and professional networks’ in Georgia were ‘carefully selected’ (ibid: 5). In short, successful technical interventions also require the successful socialisation of selected influential individuals into ‘mainstream European practices’ (ibid: 5). European technocratic democracy promoters have found Georgia’s radical liberal modernisers willing to cooperate. Yet, the effect on democracy and human rights in

Georgia of such an approach has been negligible so far. Europeans remain mostly unwilling to cross from the technical side to the political side of the democracy promotion line. When they do, their efforts are easily rebuffed by Georgia’s government. What is true for European technical assistance is true for American technical assistance. Perversely enough, ‘democracy promotion’ technocrats prefer working within the order and predictability of highly centralised governmental structures than accommodating the messy deliberation that comes with more horizontal, democratic decision-making processes. Consider, for example, a project sponsored by USAID entitled ‘Support to the new Government of Georgia’ (DAI 2006). The project was implemented by private company Development Alternatives Inc and was designed to improve the effectiveness of the government’s day-to-day operations. The project’s staff worked within the State Chancellery. There is no mention of the word ‘democracy’ beyond the report’s first page. The focus instead is on technical reforms and public relations. The basis for securing strong institutional reforms is seen by the report’s

writers

as

dependent

on

winning

over

‘potentially

positive

collaborators/supporters within the decision-making body of the Government’ (DAI 2006: 13). Ironically, technocratic reforms supposedly designed to depersonalise bureaucratic institutions are themselves dependent on getting ‘the right Georgian’ in the right position of authority (ibid: 14). These examples reveals that the goals of American and European technocratic democracy promoters alike seem less than compatible with any genuine process of democratisation. What Western technical experts and consultants desire instead is the presence of a small clique of technocrats ready and willing to implement the universally applicable neo-liberal vision of good economic and political governance. Muskhelishvili and Jorjoliani (2009: 694) are right to argue that ‘democratic norms of governance were undermined first of all by the ideological – neoliberal and even libertarian – stances which underpinned the new reformist strategies, making the representative capacity of the political system less important’. The ideological and technical affinities shared between these two groups have benefitted the Georgian ruling elite. Thus, a second answer to these questions is that Western support for competitive authoritarianism in Georgia derives from the technocratic practices and demands of Western democracy promotion donors and providers.

(3) Economic globalisation and consensual hegemony An understanding of globalisation as ‘the successful expansion on a world scale of particular localisms of social, economic, and political organisation, which are neoliberal and capitalist in character’ leads to a conceptualisation of the Western aid apparatus as the driver of peripheral capitalist integration (Guttal 2007: 259). This is clearly the form of globalisation that Georgia’s revolutionary modernisers have pushed through. The result has been an exacerbation of economic and social inequality and the establishment of a social faultline between those older sections of society who, according to the vanguard elite, are tarnished by the corrupt Soviet past and cannot function in a modern, liberal society and those clean, computer-literate, mostly English-speaking young men and women for whom the future belongs: ‘One could already say that the main social rift in Georgia is between those who can take advantage of the benefits of globalization and those who are harmed by policies inspired by global blueprints’ (CIPDD 2006: 83).

Only those able to gain employment in sectors attractive to foreign capital or in the development industry have benefitted. Beyond these sectors, unemployment and underemployment is rife and many households remain reliant on remittances from émigrés. The government’s claim that liberalisation has given equal economic opportunity to all is disingenuous. Property rights, free enterprise, and fair competition are the preserve only of foreign investors and the politically connected. Robinson (1996) has argued persuasively that the ‘democracy promotion’ strategy constitutes ‘an attempt at political engineering, at tinkering with the political mechanisms of social control, while simultaneously leaving the socioeconomic basis of political instability intact, and even aggravating that basis through the liberation of capital from any constraints to its operation’. Such a description resonates with the Georgian case. Political instability in Georgian society has grown as neo-liberal economic and social reforms have indeed exacerbated economic and social inequality. At the same time, by ignoring and supporting the authoritarian and corrupt practices of successive Georgian governments, and by even calling them ‘democratic’, Western governments and organisations have given credence to Robinson’s (1996: 63) argument that ‘when US policymakers and organic

intellectuals speak of “promoting democracy,” they…mean the suppression of popular democracy, in theory and in practice’. Further, as discussed above, the Georgian case also offers evidence for the power of international regime legitimation. As Robinson (1996: 314) argues, ‘in the era of the transnationalization of political systems, each nation requires for its survival that its internal political system be legitimized in the international arena’. The praise that Georgia’s revolutionary leaders have enjoyed for their economic reforms also lends credence to Robinson’s assertion that the actual goal of the Western aid apparatus is the integration of peripheral economies into the global liberal capitalist system. Here the task of state managers is to attract foreign investors - the number one goal of the current Georgian government. Georgia’s leaders equate the country’s economic development with the ease with which foreign investors can do business in Georgia. Thus, a third answer to the questions posed lies here: If we understand these goals as the actual objectives of Western donors and provides of ‘development’ and ‘democracy promotion’, we can understand why Georgia’s revolutionary government has earned the praise it has. Conclusion: a crisis of legitimacy Democracy can only truly be promoted if governments can commit to principled foreign policies in which democracy is prioritised over all other interests. At the current level of political development of Western nations, this is not a realistic prospect. Consequently, our focus as social scientists should be on the damage that unprincipled democracy promotion does to the Western export model of ‘democracy’ both as international norm and functioning political system in targeted societies and worldwide. In terms of aid interventions, both the political and developmental approaches to democracy promotion are underpinned by a top-down institutionalist and ultimately flawed conceptualisation of democratisation. Once operationalised, both require the installation of like-minded technocrats at the heart of government to do their bidding. Consequently, both approaches lead to a centralisation rather than democratisation of power. Though it might exist in theory, there is no tension in practice between neoliberal state building on the one hand and democracy promotion in its current form on the other. Both serve the ‘good governance’ economic and political agenda by

seeking to centralise and concentrate the power of neo-liberal reformers at the apex of the state. With the development industry as the driver of peripheral state integration into the global liberal economy and democracy promotion as a strategy designed to soften the blow of liberalisation or even to establish hegemony by consensus, in theory, all ‘good’ things -

neo-liberal state building, economic reforms, and democracy

promotion – do indeed go together. In practice, however, neo-liberal reforms exacerbate inequality and even poverty and Western democracy promotion offers a ‘low-intensity democracy’ where even egregious violations can be ignored. The combination is serving to damage Western-style liberal ‘democracy’ both as normative ideal and functioning political system in Georgia and beyond. Indeed, the ‘democracy’ model promoted by Western governments is now being rejected by societies throughout the world. In the post-communist world, deep societal discontent has brought ‘the liberal era that began in Central Europe in 1989…to an end’ (Krastev 2007: 56). In Latin America, the shift towards novel forms of social democracy and socialism and the concomitant rejection of US intervention in the continent has been dramatic. Ultimately, actions speak louder than words and to survive democratic regimes in particular must earn domestic legitimacy through economic performance. The inability of the Western model of ‘development’ and ‘democracy’ to produce economic benefits enjoyed by even the majority of citizens in peripheral states is generating a growing crisis of legitimacy for this model and the organisations that promote it.

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