Civil society in authoritarian regimes: government policy towards NGOs and NGOs responses in Georgia in 1994-2012

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The research is dedicated to analyse the relationship between the civil society groups and the two authoritarian regimes in Georgia. Throughout the world the role of third sector has always been actively discussed. Many country cases such as the Ukraine, Poland and Serbia have a lot of research dedicated to the analysis of the relationship of civil society groups and authoritarian systems. However, in case of Georgia there has not been done such kind of research and for this reason my research paper will provide a new findings and create a fundamental basis for comparative analysis of Georgian case with other countries. The research used qualitative method of semi-structured interviews with 9 key-informants. The empirical findings are divided into two major parts as the period of research is from 1994 to 2012. First part of the findings is dedicated on analysing the relationship between civil society groups and the Shevardnadze government. The second part is dedicated to the Saakashvili government, which succeeded previous regime in 2003. The findings show that the relationship between the civil society groups and the two authoritarian regimes was hostile. Civil society groups in forms of NGOs were major opposition power against both authoritarian regimes. Regardless of numerous attempts from both regimes to limit the power, the NGOs were very strong and managed to challenge the authoritarian regimes resulting in peaceful power transition in both cases. Opposing aims and goals of state and NGOs made it impossible for the two sides of the conflict to avoid hostile relations and establish more cooperative relationship.