The battle for Georgia’s national identity

ADAM REICHARDT: Your book looks at this competition between Russia and the West especially through the lens of soft power competition in Georgia. What is the background for your research and what motivated you to study this aspect of Georgia's post-Soviet identity?

 

VLADIMIR LIPARTELIANI: After the breakup of the Soviet Union, which was a very a crucial historical event in the establishment of today's independent Georgia, a kind of ideological void appeared in the country among both the ruling elites and within the society. As Stephen Jones, a prominent scholar of Georgian history and politics, points out in one of his books – the ubiquitous phrase of who we are and the question of who we are was on everyone's lips. It is a very illustrative example of what was happening in Georgian society at that time. As a nation, people usually understand the trajectory of their development based on where they're coming from and how they see their future. Georgians at that time didn't have very clear answers to these questions. From one point of view, this created fertile ground for foreign powers to fill this ideological gap in the ways that were beneficial for them to influence Georgia and by shaping how Georgians would understand who they are and how they understand the world around them. Thus, this raises another important question – who and what kind of forces were behind these processes taking place in Georgia as the country was searching for itself as a nation? We can clearly see that this was a period of development for Georgian ethnic nationalism on the one side, while liberal democracy almost came to substitute communism and nationalism on the other. Later attempts to develop civic nationalism and religion was also very important to the Georgian self-identity.

 

What my book asks and tries to answer is what drove these processes? How did these processes interact with each other? How did they conflict and complement each other? And perhaps most importantly – what forces sought to benefit from these processes and what and who was behind of the polarization and division within Georgian society?

 

Maybe you can help us understand how you defined soft power when you were looking at this phenomenon in Georgia, as you described. What characteristics were you looking at when you when you're thinking about soft power?

 

Soft power is a form of power in international politics through which actors make others do what they want them to do through attraction and persuasion, without coercion or threat. It is soft because it is a cognitive form of influence. It is non-military and intangible. It attracts people to particular values and ideas and, through this, influences the beliefs, views and behaviour of a target audience. The concept was largely developed by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s and developed to reflect the changing nature of international politics of that time. Soft power is also connected with the development of modern technologies and mass communication and the spread of information at high speeds which gained particular momentum towards the end of the 20th century and have continued to accelerate since then.

 

What my book is trying to demonstrate is that soft power is a way of creating attraction, but the sources of this attraction can be very different. In the 1990s and 2000s there were periods when soft power became increasingly popular among actors of international relations, especially China and Russia. They used it slightly different from the forms and ways in which, for example, the United States or western actors would use it. Soft power in the hands of Russia, or China or Iran, became rather a tool not of a benign form of power to attract people to good things, but it they started to use it to attract people to ideas and political models that can be quite problematic and dangerous. When it is used as a tool by dangerous states, it can contribute to polarization of societies and to weakening and undermining of liberal democracies. This is something my book clearly demonstrates and I think it is an aspect of soft power that deserves much more attention today and in scholarship, especially in the context of the international consolidation of authoritarianism that we can observe today.

 

The book also demonstrates the different aspects of Russian soft power and how it evolved over the last 35 years or so, when Russia discovered that it doesn't necessarily need to make Georgians admire it, but instead encourage them to distrust the West. Why do you think this shift took place? Would you say that this strategy has proved effective?

 

A key moment when we can see the Russian soft power starting to change its shape was in the beginning of Vladimir Putin's third presidential term. From around 2012 and onwards, Russian soft power became formally part of the Russian foreign policy concept. It started to appear in official documents and Putin began to pay more attention in his speeches to soft power as a new instrument of international power competition. And this is exactly when we see Russian soft power evolving into a slightly different concept. It was still soft power because it was based on attraction, but it was no longer what we usually mean when we talk about the liberal bias in soft power literature. Russian soft power demonstrated that attraction can come not only from liberal values, democracy and human rights, but it can also come from an illiberal agenda, conservative ideas, religion, and the image of a strong state.

 

Thus, Russian soft power became associated with different ideas from those traditionally associated with western democracy. At the same time, it was not only about attracting people to Russia's own ideas, it was also about promoting anti-liberal and anti-western ideas, about polarizing societies, dividing them, and damaging democracy. There was also another important element. It involved persuading target audiences that the West was weak, incompatible with the realities of today's world. This anti-liberal and anti-western agenda developed alongside Russia's promotion of authoritarianism and conservatism in Georgia and what we see today in Georgia – and not only in Georgia but more broadly – is an international resurgence of authoritarianism which is partly connected to this process.

I think that one of the things your book demonstrates is how effective Russian soft power has been, and I want to return to that. But first, I’d like to discuss how your book goes beyond the soft power competition over Georgia. It also explores a broader debate about what it means to be Georgian in the 21st century. Would you agree with that assessment? And how do you see this struggle over Georgia’s identity intertwined with the geopolitical developments taking place today?

 

National identity is very much about what the nation is and what it wants to become in the future. Soft power gives actors in this process an opportunity to affect a state’s national identity. And through this, to influence its development. It can shape the way people perceive themselves, how they perceive other actors, their neighbours and other states and the world around them. So in this case, Georgia, and the Georgian national identity, became to some extent a contested field between different political forces that wanted to influence its development in order to promote their own interests in the region. Georgia is positioned at the crossroads of West and East. Because of this, competition for influence over Georgia has always been quite strong, involving both regional and global actors. Today we can see the competition particularly clearly in the relationship between Russia and the West. They have been competing over the direction in which Georgian national identity should develop. On the one hand, is the promotion of liberal democracy; while on the other is the promotion of authoritarianism and anti-liberal ideas. This was not simply a competition between different ideologies. It was also, perhaps more importantly, the geopolitical competition for influence over the country and the wider region. This has become particularly visible and prominent in the context of the recent developments in Ukraine, in the South Caucasus and the Middle East, including Iran.

 

I think what you are describing is something we have seen play out in Georgia over the past 20 or 30 years. On the one hand, Georgian society has become strongly pro-western, with widespread support for joining NATO and the European Union. On the other hand, the country's political leadership has become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian, effectively putting European integration on hold. At the same time, Georgian society remains relatively conservative and traditional in certain respects, which may help explain why some forms of Russian soft power, as you describe in your book, have been effective. So, how much of the shift we have seen in Georgia's political direction can be attributed to Russian influence and strategy, and how much reflects the country's own conservative social values?

 

We can observe that the main idea and objective of Russian soft power since 2012 has been to challenge the growing popularity of western integration among the Georgian society and the promotion of liberal values. I think the authoritarian turn and this illiberal stance that we see in Georgia today has been possible to a large extent due to at least some people's acceptance and passive acquiescence to the government's anti-liberal measures including a misunderstanding of liberal democracy. This misunderstanding has been significantly influenced and, I would say, pushed by anti-western and anti-democratic narratives and ideas that have been circulating within Georgian society with the help of Russian soft power. I see it as a kind of manipulation because sometimes it is based on facts, but sometimes it is just plain false information. We can see this manipulation in issues related to LGBTQ+, gender, human rights, and in the creation of an artificial dichotomy between Georgian traditional culture and modern liberal values, presenting these two as almost mutually exclusive, which is of course not true. Saying that modern liberal values represent a threat to Georgian national identity is absurd, but it works well sometimes. Understanding why these things are not mutually exclusive requires a relatively sophisticated understanding of what democracy is and what liberalism is and how they actually work. And this is not always the case for everyone. This is why these kinds of cognitive manipulations and soft power conservative, authoritarian narratives can be so effective. I am firmly convinced that the quality of education and the level of public awareness in Georgia are crucial issues in this regard, helping explain why such manipulative messages can gain traction and prove quite successful.

 

You mentioned that Georgia has always been at the crossroads of East and West. If we look at geopolitical competition, beyond just the West versus Russia, what other influences can you identify in Georgia and the region? What roles do China, Turkey, Iran, or other stronger middle powers play here?

 

There are many other actors whose soft power has a significant impact in Georgia, and I agree that we should not exclude them from the analysis. At the same time we should not overestimate their possible significance and impact. When we talk about the impact of Iran and Turkey, it is more about a local effect, depending on a particular place or group in the country. For example, Turkey's soft power may be stronger in western Georgia, particularly in the Adjara region, and among the Muslim part of the population. Similarly, the impact of Iran could be stronger among the Shia Muslim population, including parts of the ethnically Azerbaijani population. However, I do not think that either of them has had a broad impact on Georgia as a whole in terms of a coherent soft power strategy built around a distinct set of messages and broader ideas. Their influence may be more evident in the context of growing anti-Western sentiment in Georgia, although this would, of course, require further research. China's soft power, meanwhile, can perhaps be regarded as a competitor to both western and Russian soft power, but I would describe China more as an emerging power in this field. It has not done a great deal in Georgia yet, but I think it will have more to say in the future.

 

In the conclusion of your book you describe how the Georgian society is very multi-layered and it's difficult to put a single definition on it. But after your research and your discussions with experts, what's your personal outlook for the country? It is a big question, but what's next for Georgia in your opinion?

 

I think we live in a period of changes, and we can expect a lot of change. Throughout most of its modern history, Georgia has been somewhat dependent on the developments around it. I would describe this using the words of a prominent Georgian writer Nikolo Mitsishvili of the early 20th century, who aptly said that “Georgia is a passive phenomenon.” The situation in Ukraine will definitely influence the way Georgia will develop in the future. At the moment Georgia is in some sort of transitional democracy, I would call it. And despite the soft power influences, the Georgian population has shown to be quite smart, especially the younger generation. What I hope is that western actors will continue support the Georgian society, the civil society, and youth. I hope that it is just a matter of time that Georgia will become a democracy, and we will not call it just a transitional one but real democracy, maybe even becoming one of the best examples in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus.

Vladimir Liparteliani is a scholar of international relations specializing in soft power and international power competition in the post-Soviet space. He has a PhD in Russian studies from Durham University, where he is also Honorary Fellow. He is the author of the book Soft Power Competition Between Russia and the West, Contesting Georgian National Identity, 1991-2024.

Adam Reichardt is the editor in chief of New Eastern Europe and co-host of the Talk Eastern Europe podcast.