Georgia: Between Democracy and Autocracy

This essay argues that Georgia long functioned as a hybrid regime—combining democratic freedoms with dominant-power politics—but has recently shifted toward fuller autocracy under Georgian Dream and Bidzina Ivanishvili. Earlier hybridity was produced by the tension between a personalist, power-concentrating state and a resilient civil society committed to liberal democracy and Western integration. The decisive break came after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when the government adopted anti-Western rhetoric, attacked civil society, and weakened electoral competition. Although democratic resistance persists through sustained protest, Georgia’s future remains uncertain.