The role of cultural paradigms in Georgian foreign policy

Among the range of factors in the ‘global paradigms’ that underpin the cultural context for foreign policy with a brief theoretical discussion of the analytic utility of political culture and concludes that, despite its imprecision, the concept of political culture – central to some of the global paradigms that underpin the cultural context for foreign policy making – cannot be ignored in any analysis of Georgian foreign policy. Four such ‘global paradigms’ in Georgian political culture appear to affect or to have affected Georgian foreign policy making. They are religion, attitudes towards the ‘West’, pan-Caucasianism and anti-Russianism, as revealed by evidence from three recently written Georgian national security documents. Although the importance of culture in Georgian foreign policy decision making should not be overrated, it has an important place among Georgian political elites in defining their regional and international environment.