Uncertain Democracy. Lincoln A. Mitchell
the effort of so many others, culminated in the peaceful Revolution of Roses.6
Rohrabacher added: “Why do they [Georgians] like us now? Because yes, we are taking care of business in Georgia, because we are supporting the democratic elements and the more that our country supports the good guys around the world who want democracy, want their people to live in freedom and to have mutual respect for other people’s rights, the more we are going to live in a more peaceful world.”
Strong ties between Saakashvili, Zhvania, and important figures throughout the U.S. foreign policy community had certainly existed for years, but the U.S. role was, in fact, relatively ambiguous. Shevardnadze, largely on the strength of his stature in the West, his role in winding down the Cold War, and his warm personal relations with many in Washington, Berlin, Brussels, London, Strasbourg, and other European capitals, had succeeded well into 2003 in maintaining not only Western support, but the perception that he was a reformer. From the time Shevardnadze took over as president of Georgia in 1993 until his resignation in 2003, he was seen almost as much as an engine for democratization in Georgia as the obstacle to change he had become by the end of his term. Accordingly, Georgia received substantial democracy assistance as well as other funds during these years to help reform Shevardnadze’s government and move it more toward democracy. Between fiscal years 2001 and 2003, Georgia was given $268.8 million in U.S. support—more than any other former Soviet republic other than Russia and Ukraine, each of which has more than ten times the population of Georgia.7
There is ample evidence that by 2003 the United States wanted Shevardnadze to move Georgia in a more democratic direction, with a special focus on the parliamentary elections scheduled for November of that year. Money for various kinds of election support was increased, and high-level visitors—including former secretary of state James Baker, former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili, and Senator John McCain—came to Georgia to urge Shevardnadze to conduct fair elections. But there is virtually no concrete evidence that the U.S. sought his overthrow. Moreover, in March 2003 Shevardnadze was one of a small number of world leaders to join the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” in Iraq. Given how difficult it was for the Bush administration to recruit countries to join the “coalition of the willing,” we can be reasonably certain the administration would not have done anything to remove a pro-war government from power.
The U.S. role, the unwillingness of the international community to see Shevardnadze as an obstacle to democracy, and the impact of years of previous democracy assistance form an important battery of questions with regard to Georgia before Saakashvili. The post-Rose Revolution period also raises questions that are central to democracy promotion policy more generally. These concern the depth of U.S. commitment to helping the development of strong, enduring democracy, the ability of democracy promotion tactics to consolidate democratic gains once the breakthrough has occurred, and the viability of democracy in the post-Soviet space.
Why Georgia?
Georgia is an unusual case study of American democracy assistance, but it is a valuable one because it involves many of the key questions at the core of such assistance. Moreover, because the discussion, especially in the popular media, is increasingly dominated by Iraq—a democracy assistance project that is exceptional in many ways—it is important to look beyond Iraq to examine those issues that have bearing on democracy assistance more broadly.
American policy toward Georgia both before and after the Rose Revolution requires special emphasis. Aspects of democracy assistance and other forms of aid from the United States, beginning in the 1990s, played a role. For example, Saakashvili was a former Muskie Fellow at Columbia University, and other civic and political leaders of the Rose Revolution had been trained in the U.S. as well. Saakashvili, Zhvania, and Burjanadze had worked intensively with the party institutes from the U.S. (in the case of Saakashvili and Zhvania, for years preceding 2003). Georgia’s vibrant civil society was largely funded by democracy assistance money from not only the U.S., but also the EU, individual European countries, and George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI).8 Indeed, the parallel vote tabulation and exit poll that played a key role in persuading the Georgian people that the November 2003 election had been stolen were funded almost entirely by OSI or the U.S. government and supported by American and European expertise.
There is, however, another side to this story. Even as Georgia became a major recipient of democracy assistance, Georgian democracy deteriorated after an initial burst of optimism around Shevardnadze and his party, the Citizens’ Union of Georgia (CUG), in the mid-1990s. In spite of years of assistance, by early 2003 many viewed Georgia as a failure of democracy assistance and a virtually failed state. The government had only grown more corrupt and elections more fraudulent. The reformers who surrounded Shevardnadze early in his term, most notably Saakashvili and Zhvania, had left government and were relatively ineffectual in the opposition. The failure of the economy to grow did not help the situation either. The Rose Revolution was, in reality, a surprise to many foreign observers, raising questions about the extent of causality between the millions of dollars of democracy assistance and the democratic breakthrough of late 2003 and how successful these programs actually were.
Later U.S. policy toward Georgia raises a different set of questions and issues about democracy assistance more generally. As discussed above, the United States responded to the Rose Revolution with enthusiasm and support. In the months following those dramatic events, Washington did whatever it could to support the new government. This included increasing assistance for infrastructure and energy and renewing discussions on security cooperation, along with making Georgia one of the countries of the Millennium Challenge Corporation program, which seeks to provide substantial U.S. assistance to countries that have met a series of criteria demonstrating a commitment to reform and democracy.
Yet consolidating the democratic gains of the Rose Revolution has been a difficult task for Georgia. Positive developments in areas like fair elections, fighting corruption, and education reform have been offset by problems regarding separation of the governing party and the state, media freedom, concentration of too much power in the hands of the president, and the crackdown on demonstrators and the state of emergency declared after large street demonstrations in November 2007. The U.S. response to these issues has led to skepticism about how sincere U.S. commitment to true democracy in Georgia really is. This speaks to a very serious issue for democracy promotion, one raised by many of its critics.
Shortly after the Rose Revolution, the United States began to offer unambiguous political support to the new government. It was as if the U.S. government viewed the Rose Revolution not just as a pivotal moment in Georgia’s democratic and political development, but as a line that, when crossed, transformed Georgia from a kleptocratic, weak, semidemocratic regime into a consolidated democracy in a period of weeks. Washington reduced democracy assistance to civil society and the media because the government of Georgia was now viewed as the engine of democratization. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, this continued despite evidence that the pace of democratization began to slow dramatically after Saakashvili was elected president in January 2004.
Thus, U.S. policy after the Rose Revolution in Georgia leads one to ask just what kind of democracy the U.S. seeks to help nurture in the politically developing world and how strong the commitment is to strengthening democracy as opposed to simply nurturing and supporting friendly governments. Other less dramatic but equally important questions about democracy assistance after a democratic breakthrough that are relevant not only to Georgia include how to encourage democratic consolidation after a breakthrough and to institutionalize barriers between state and party, particularly in a post-Soviet state.
It remains true that if democracy cannot be consolidated in Georgia, it is not clear where it can be consolidated. As difficult as the challenges are, the outlook in Georgia still looks brighter than in most of the rest of the nondemocratic world. As I argue in this work, the country enjoys numerous advantages that are not shared with most other democratizing countries. First, Georgia is a strongly pro-Western and pro-American country. Both leaders and people see the United States and Europe as the models for political development. Because of this orientation, ideas from the West and American and European support