Georgia’s Parliamentary Election and Its Implications for the West

Georgia’s parliamentary election on October 26 is expected to be the country’s most consequential in recent memory. The Quincy Institute recently released a policy brief, The West and Georgia’s Crisis, that seeks to unpack the nuance behind the Georgian political imbroglio and challenge the conventional wisdom on Georgia in the U.S and Europe. With the Ukraine war on Georgia’s doorstep, the ruling Georgian Dream party appears to be seeking to walk a tightrope between Georgia’s pining for European Union membership and the state’s interest in balancing relations with all centers of power, including Russia. Meanwhile, the diffuse, yet staunchly pro-Western, opposition has sought to frame this election as a binary choice between a pro-European or pro-Russian future as they accuse the Georgian Dream of pushing the country into Moscow’s authoritarian embrace.

To discuss the results of Georgia’s election and subsequent developments in the country, the Quincy Institute hosted a conversation featuring Emil Avdaliani, professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia, Almut Rochowanski, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute with decades of experience working with civil society in Georgia and across the former Soviet Union, and Beka Natsvlishvili, director of the Institute for a Fair Economy and a former member of the Georgian parliament. Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasian Program at the Quincy Institute, and Artin DerSimonian, junior research fellow in the Eurasia Program, co-moderated the discussion.

Panelists

Emil Avdaliani

Emil Avdaliani is a professor of international relations at European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the silk roads and world powers' interests in the Middle East and the Caucasus. Avdaliani is the author of "New World Order and Small Regions: The Case of South Caucasus."

Almut Rochowanski

Almut Rochowanski is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and an independent activist. For the past 20 years she has collaborated with grassroots civil society organizations in Russia, especially in the North Caucasus, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Belarus. In the course of this work, much of it centered on women’s rights and feminist peace, she has engaged in refugee protection and asylum cases in the U.S. and Europe; grant–writing, grant–making, grant proposal review and advising grant–makers; organizing local and regional conferences and workshops for activists; mentoring young activists; strategic human rights litigation; and advocacy with policy-makers in the U.S., Europe, E.U. institutions and U.N. institutions.

Beka Natsvlishvili

Beka Natsvlishvili is a director of the Institute for a Fair Economy. He is also the Georgian team lead for a platform economy research project in collaboration with the University of Oxford. His teaching experience includes lectures on political economy, globalization, and political sociology at the Georgian-American University, and previous engagements at Caucasus University and the University of Georgia. Beka previously served as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Chair of the Committee for European Integration, and as a Member of the Tbilisi Municipal Council, where he chaired the land legalization commission. With over two decades of academic and professional experience, he holds a Master of Arts (Magister Artium) from Wilhelm University of Münster and has extensive expertise in political economy, trade unions, and social research.

Artin Dersimonian

Artin DerSimonian is a junior research fellow in the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He earned a Masters of Science in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies from the University of Glasgow in 2022.

Anatol Lieven

Dr. Anatol Lieven is the director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London. From 1985 to 1998, Lieven worked as a journalist in South Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and covered the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and the southern Caucasus. Lieven is the author of several books, including "Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power?" and "Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry."