PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Determinants of Assistance to Ukrainian and Syrian Refugees | New Voices on Eurasia with Volha Charnysh (Feb. 16)

    View
  • Conflicts in the North Caucasus Since 1991 | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

    View
  • Pro-Kremlin Propaganda’s Failure in Ukraine | New Voices on Eurasia with Aaron Erlich (Jan. 19)

    View
  • Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Georgia: A Success Story in Fighting Coronavirus? (Part 3 of 3)

  • June 19, 2020
  • Andrey Makarychev

(PONARS Eurasia Commentary) By Giorgi Beridze, University of Tartu/Tbilisi State University, Alla Leukavets, University of Tartu/Belarusian State University, and Andrey Makarychev, University of Tartu. This is the third installment in: “From a State of Exception to Policy Legitimation: The Politics of COVID-19 in Russia, Belarus, and Georgia.”


One of the questions the current COVID-19 debate left understudied is how different governments publicly legitimize their crisis management policies. Among post-Soviet countries, this issue is of particular importance for political regimes that are preparing for elections (Belarus and Georgia) or a constitutional referendum (“people’s vote” in Russia) either during the pandemic or immediately after it. In this short policy series, we look at how political elites in these three countries transform and normalize their policies from “states of exception” (a situation of emergency) to public mobilization for supporting and legitimizing their anti-pandemic strategies.

We build our analysis upon two concepts—sovereignty and governance—that are key for understanding political dynamics on the national level. Our general assumption is that in most post-Soviet countries, there is a profound gap between the two in the sense that sovereignty is overwhelmingly understood as an issue of possessing the power to rule. At the same time, governance is reduced to the technical administration of the everyday routine. This gap, by and large, corresponds to the well-articulated conceptual distinction between political and managerial dimensions of power, and keeping the two as far from each other as possible appears to be one of the strategies used by different regimes, mostly by illiberal ones. The idea behind this separation is to fend off the bearers of sovereignty from the responsibility for possible managerial risks and failures, and thus to create a politically sterile space of utmost convenience and safety for sovereignty holders.

However, the COVID-19 crisis has undermined this comfort zone and reconnected sovereignty with governance, since in the context of the post-emergency developments, each instance of public legitimation of political authorities (through elections or plebiscite) inevitably becomes a form of a “people’s vote” on the effectiveness of crisis management. This is because the pandemic threat, perhaps temporarily, devalues the importance of ideological or institutional arguments and puts in the center of (bio)political agendas issues of health, care, and protection of human lives and bodies.


Part 3 of 3: Georgia

A Success Story in Fighting Coronavirus?

Despite being ineffective in governing the country, Georgian Dream, the current ruling party, has so far managed to win every major election against the opposition.

Georgian Dream came to power in 2012 following years of protests against the former government of Mikhail Saakashvili and his party United National Movement (UNM). Saakashvili’s party was criticized for its crackdowns on social movements, mismanagement of the prison system, and widespread elite corruption. Acting in response to this, the new government led by the Georgian Dream coalition and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili took on reforms such as the liberalization of the prison system. Still, it did not manage to tackle economic problems such as enormous inflation and external debt, both of which have substantially increased over time. 

During the recent 2018 presidential election, however, various social protests against the ruling party escalated. Although Georgian Dream narrowly escaped the defeat beating the opposition candidate Grogol Vashadze, its control was substantially weakened, and, since 2018, the government has struggled to maintain its hold on power.

In particular, summer 2019 featured an increased amount of social protests. One of them concerned a demonstration in the Pankisi Gorge in the north-east of Georgia, and another one took place on Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue. The latter event was a protest against the visit of Sergey Gavrilov, a member of the Russian Duma, to the Georgian parliament. To appease the protesters, Georgian Dream proposed electoral reform, i.e., changing parliamentary elections to fully proportional, which, ultimately, was not realized due to insufficient support from the members of the parliament.

This reform was partly implemented by the end of 2019 as a result of further social protests and involvement from the West. According to the proposed changes, the upcoming 2020 parliamentary elections in Georgia are going to be held based on a mixed system. Most of the seats will be distributed through a proportional voting system, whereas 30 seats will be distributed based on the majoritarian system, which was in force before the reform.

Popular support of opposition parties in Georgia is still not very high. According to recent opinion polls (NDI):

  • 37% of respondents do not support any political party;

  • 21% support the ruling party;  

  • 15% are in favor of the main opposition party, United National Movement;

  • 4% support European Georgia;

  • 3% support The Alliance of Patriots;

  • 8% support other smaller parties;

  • 6% refuse to answer; and

  • 6% remain undecided.

The coronavirus pandemic can pose both challenges and opportunities for the ruling party. The government is aware of many existing risks, including the medical infrastructure problems, and, therefore, opted for harsh restrictive measures from the very beginning of the pandemic.

Since the first case of coronavirus infection in Georgia, the government announced special measures, shutting down borders with neighbors and controlling all the Georgian citizens returning from abroad. It also introduced various additional restrictions, including the prohibition of leaving houses after 9 pm. Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia created a crisis group, which includes several officials from the medical sphere, and he established a daily communication line with the population. He also refused to attend Easter services and, in spite of the criticism from the church, called on worshipers to stay at home.

As a result of these crisis management strategies, the death toll in Georgia remained low, and the country became a success story in fighting the coronavirus. Apparently, Georgia has the best “result” in Europe with, at time of writing, 12 people dying, 783 cases confirmed, and 605 recovered.

These numbers can contribute to increasing the popularity of the ruling party in advance of elections. However, the economic consequences of the crisis, including among other things its effect on the tourism industry that is vital for the economic performance of the country and the general income of the population, can still hurt the ruling party’s chances of staying in power.

To mitigate the economic consequences of the crisis and win the popular vote, the government applied several strategies. First, it offered financial assistance to those who have lost their jobs. Second, it negotiated agreements with the banks to postpone loan dues, targeting, in particular, the unemployed segment of the population. Finally, the leader of the ruling party Ivanishvili donated 100 Million Georgian Lari ($30 Million) to the coronavirus anti-crisis foundation, which managed to collect 124 million Georgian Lari in total to deal with the consequences of the pandemic.

As a result of these crisis management strategies, the popularity of the ruling party has increased, and, at the moment, it has the highest chances to win in the upcoming parliamentary elections. However, the economic consequences of the pandemic introduce a certain degree of uncertainty for the success of Georgian Dream. This weakness can be exploited by the opposition parties which might ally to strengthen their chances to oppose the ruling party in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, COVID-19 poses a particularly strong challenge to regimes heavily investing in the symbolic and performative dimensions of national sovereignty, and keeping the issues of governance at some distance from the supreme leader. Both Vladimir Putin and Aliaksandr Lukashenka personify this model that became particularly vulnerable in times of pandemic. The two regimes, in Russia and Belarus, are symbolically competing with each other in the realm of memory politics, which partly explains Putin’s decision to hold a military parade on June 24 after Lukashenka hosted a Victory Day ceremony on May 9. This was done in spite of the growing numbers of infected persons across the country, lucidly illustrating the gap between the imageries of power and sovereignty, on the one hand, and the practicalities of governance, on the other.

Against this backdrop, Georgia looks less concerned about sacralizing its national identity and more about investing in properly managing the state of emergency and opening the country as soon as possible for international tourism. It remains to be seen how these distinctions between the three countries will impact public voting.


Part 1 of 3: Russia | The domination of the pandemic creates a risky environment for the July plebiscite.

Part 2 of 3: Belarus | COVID-19 as a trigger of democratization?

Part 3 of 3: Georgia | A success story in fighting Coronavirus? 

► Commentary (PDF)

 

Related Topics
  • Belarus
  • Beridze
  • Coronavirus
  • Georgia
  • Leukavets
  • Makarychev
  • Russia
Previous Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Healthcare Reform, Demographic Trends, and COVID-19 In Russia: A Conversation With Professor Judyth Twigg

  • June 17, 2020
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Global and Diffuse Risks in the Eastern Partnership Countries

  • June 19, 2020
  • Kornely Kakachia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Determinants of Assistance to Ukrainian and Syrian Refugees | New Voices on Eurasia with Volha Charnysh (Feb. 16)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 30, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Conflicts in the North Caucasus Since 1991 | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

  • Jean-François Ratelle
  • January 27, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 24, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Pro-Kremlin Propaganda’s Failure in Ukraine | New Voices on Eurasia with Aaron Erlich (Jan. 19)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 17, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens students daily and forces teachers to improvise

  • Kristina Hook
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.