Complementing existing research on the security challenges of Eastern Europe, which often focuses on information manipulation, economic coercion, or military pressure, this study highlights the issue of instrumentalisation of security narratives by ruling elites. It examines how government frames civil society organisations (CSOs) as vectors of foreign agendas, portraying them as existential threats to sovereignty and national identity, and conditions that enable or constrain audience acceptance of these frames. The analysis draws on social media posts of Georgian high-level officials (2023-2025) and in-depth interviews with experts and civil society organisations and is guided by the Copenhagen School’s securitisation theory. Legal frameworks and public discourse are used to delegitimise or marginalise CSOs, while civil society actors resist by mobilising counter-securitising narratives that depict the government as undermining Georgia’s democracy and European trajectory. The case illustrates how securitisation in hybrid political environments is a socially constructed and politically leveraged process, in which threat constructions are continuously challenged, appropriated, and redirected by competing actors. Situated within broader processes of democratic resilience and Europeanisation, the study shows how foreign interference and hybrid threat narratives are strategically deployed to contest legitimacy and authority, thereby weakening national security from within and challenging the stability of Europe.
Bibilashvili et al. (Wed,) studied this question.