Politicizing water development and protection in Georgia

The 2020–2021 protest against the building of the Namakhvani hydroelectric dam illustrates the complexity of water development in Georgia. The Georgian government has argued that water development was, and is, necessary for energy security, while a diverse group of protesters opposed it on environmental and cultural grounds. This conflict presents an intriguing puzzle: what features of water development and water protection make water politically salient to the Georgian population? This paper uses a novel 2024 survey, which offers a snapshot of how political views relate to water in Georgia. I find that security is the most impactful variable when considering whether the government is doing enough to protect rivers. In logistic regression models, when survey questions frame water as a security feature, there is a higher likelihood that respondents believe that the government is doing enough to protect rivers. This research indicates that the security narrative used for water development resonates with those surveyed, despite highly publicized contentious dam projects. As dam-building continues throughout Georgia and the Caucasus, these findings provide an explanation for how and under which conditions water can become politically salient.