Rose Revolution in Georgia - Research Paper Example

Rose Revolution in Georgia Introduction Rose Revolution is a very interesting issue to discuss for historians and economists. The first question to answer is why it happened in Georgia. Experts state that the revolution started because the citizens of Georgia were not satisfied with the state of their economy. Corruption, obvious results of elections, economic decline are defined as the reasons of the revolution however this is not the answer to the question why the revolution started namely in Georgia. Many countries face the same problems, the problems of corruption, unjust elections, and poor economic conditions. These are usual problems, which will never come to the end due to human nature and they rarely lead to revolutions. Why did Georgia appear to be special? What influences were involved inside the country as well as outside it? What made the revolution possible? What role has the West played? What reforms did revolution bring? This paper will try to answer these questions as well as to provide the overview and the analysis of Rose Revolution. It is necessary to provide the real picture of Rose revolution in order to explain the fact that the revolution was held without force application. Events overview Rose revolution was not called “revolution” at the beginning because the event lacked violence. However, later it was recognized as a real revolution due to the fact the events still were wide-ranging as too many people gathered in order to get rid of the regime of Shevardnadze (Laverty, 2008). The dissatisfaction with his regime started in 2001, when the President implemented actions against Rustavi-2. This already caused unrest in masses and several opposition parties appeared as a result. The opposition was sure that the elections of 2005 will bring desired results, but the fraud that took place at parliamentary elections in 2003 predisposed further events. The group Kmara was the leading among the groups of opposition especially in opening the eyes of the youth on the existing regime and corruption. Before young Georgians paid little attention to politics. It was important to mobilize the youth and make them interested in political events (Mitchell, 2013). The party of Saakashvili was sure that it should keep rooting into the sphere of politics. It was very popular in provincial areas. Media provided the revolution with necessary support creating forums for critic and disproving the results of elections. Speaking about civil organizations, they did not play an important role in the revolution as they lacked the interest. Correspondingly, the revolution had little support from foreign actors, primarily because they were not well-informed and did not want to interfere with the change. Rose Revolution entered the history as the event that did not involve any violence. Really, the demonstrations were not put down with the help of security forces as they did not want to support the repressive regime. This was due to the efforts of Kmara, which tried to convince everybody in the importance of change. Kandelaki states: “there was no violence because the various security forces chose not to respond to public demonstrations with force. Three main factors drove their decision: 1) The security forces were accustomed to responding to democratic pressures and not defending autocratic rule; 2) a divided ruling party could not speak with one voice; 3) opposition groups, including Kmara, made strong efforts to build sympathy for their cause while downplaying the threat posed by political change” (Kandelaki,2006). Lack of violence There was much controversy around the issue how the revolution should be called. Straight after the event was over some critics preferred to call it “coup” that means the successful step directed at the expelling the current government. Those who still described the event as “revolution” used quotation marks. Experts agreed on what term should be used only a year later, when the revolution took place also in Ukraine. Democratic moods of the 20th century provoked the negative attitude towards revolutions as towards the events, which inevitably involve violence (Walker, 2009). According to democrats, the change of political regime in the country should be rather called “transition”. “As a result, an entire academic discipline of "transitology" developed, inspired by democratic consolidations in Latin America and southern Europe. A new debate ensued over whether the paradigm of democratic transitions could be extended to the regime transformations taking place in Eastern Europe. In the end, the word transition prevailed, although in most Eastern European countries the changes did include the definitive defeat of one side and the involvement of the masses” (Kandelaki, 2006). The events, which took place in Ukraine in 2004, helped define events in Georgia as revolution since it became evident that in the modern world the revolution may not and should not include the elements of violence. Rose Revolution managed to demobilize masses and change the power within very short terms (Republic of Georgia Desperate for Reform; Rose Revolution Wilts under Anti-Democratic Crackdown 2011). In Georgia masses rose against corruption and the government that was not able to improve the economic situation in the country. More and more citizens were involved in corruption and the situations should have been regulated urgently. Thus Georgians came to the squire in November 2003 (Helbig, 2008). There were many implications for Rose Revolution as well as many factors, which stimulated its start (Groo and Khanna, 2006). Among them are “the incumbent regimes systemic weakness, its history of liberal policies, the National Movement partys success in radicalizing politics and broadening political participation, civic education efforts by civil society members during recent years, free media, and the radical, nonpartisan, nonviolent Kmara” (Kandelaki, 2006). Rose Revolution represents a first change of political regime in Georgia that did not involve violence. This brought a new hope for democratic regime in the country that was considered to be very far from democracy. People hope for “a new wave of democratization” as it was called by Mikheil Saakashvili (Kandelaki, 2006). The changes caused by Rose Revolution Now Georgia is considered to be rather prosperous state and this is due to the changes caused by the Rose Revolution. As it was mentioned above, before the events took place, the economy in the state was in the stage of overwhelming recession. Actually, it was a typical situation for the states of the former Soviet Union (Lyon, 2007). When Soviet states gained independence most of them appeared in a very difficult economic situation characterized by a very high level of unemployment and economic downfall. The unprepared and sudden transition to market economy was happening on the background of the production decrease and terrible hyperinflation. According to many scholars, the main problem of independent Georgia was the presence of social patterns of the former Soviet Union that made the transition to market economy more difficult. Besides the absence of civil and property rights and hard structural hierarchy, corruption played its devastating role in the country (Welt, 2009). Eduard Shevardnaze, who came to power in 1995 made some positive changes mainly directed on the problem of state budget deficit, but still could not change the patterned taken from Soviet Union mainly because did not want to deal with the problem of corruption. It seemed that he was satisfied by state of things, but there was no opposition to open the eyes of people on what was happening in reality. A former minister of USSR, Shevardnaze was supporting the interests of the group of elite that was formed during Soviet times. The presence of old ruling group prevented the economy from growth causing dissatisfaction with young politicians, who gained important knowledge and adapted modern political ideas from Europe and the USA. The influence of new political ideas helped opposition to overthrow the old power. When Mikheil Saakashvili became a President of Georgia, his administration implemented a great number of positive economic reforms at once. The first efforts were applied to corruption decrease as it represented the main threat to Georgian economy. “The entire staff of the notoriously corrupt traffic police (…) was fired and a much slammer, better paid, more honest organization was created in its place” (De Waal, 2011). Simultaneously, this helped to decrease budget deficit as many representatives of old elite were arrested and, according to De Wall, “most of them agreed to plea bargains in which they offered millions of dollars to the state budget in return for their freedom” (De Waal, 2011). These reforms brought brilliant results: Georgian economy started to improve by large rates. Saakashvili even stated: “Georgia is the world champion in economic reforms. No other country and no other government in the world has done as much as the Georgian government did to improve doing of business and for creating opportunities” (Civil Georgia, 2010). Conclusion Rose Revolution was important for all the people from the former Soviet Union, who want healthy democratic regime to be established. After the Soviet Union was collapsed, the countries, which wanted to gain independence most of all, faced many difficulties connected with inequality and democratic regime establishment. It is especially related to the Caucasus, where it appears to be very difficult for democratic regime to be established due to its cultural peculiarities. It should be noticed that Georgia did not receive such strong political support from western countries as Ukraine received a year later. This is explained by the fact that Ukraine is more democratic country and thus it has more weight in Europe (Wertsch, 2005). However, Georgia proved by the Rose Revolution that it is able to change the power democratically and without violence that usually leads to civil war in the countries where there is no democracy. The support provided by western states was rather indirect as western example provided young Georgian politicians with the new knowledge and political ideas, thus making them able to gain influence among masses and overthrow the old administration. Notwithstanding that Georgia underwent many positive changes, the country still can’t be called democratic in the full sense. The stress made on the economic reforms prevented the government from paying enough attention to the changes, which should be directed on political regime of Georgia (Republic of Georgia Desperate for Reform; Rose Revolution Wilts under Anti-Democratic Crackdown 2011). As a result, now Georgia represents the country with hybrid regime that has many elements of democracy but at the same time media is still under serious control and many decisions are still made in shadow. The government has to consider the country’s policies in order to establish full-fledged democratic regime and to set up political conditions for further economic improvement. References Brown, F. Back to the Future? Newsweek International, 35, 2003. Brown, F. Another Peoples Revolt; First Came the Rose Revolution in Georgia, Then the Orange Revolution in Kiev. Is It Now Time for Tulips? Newsweek International, 20, 2003 Clemons, S., & Hood, L.Comments & Responses. The National Interest, (88), 2007 Cornell, S. E., & Nilsson, N. Georgian Politics since the August 2008 War. Demokratizatsiya, 17(3), 251, 2009 De Waal, T.Georgia’s Choices. Charting a Future in Uncertain Times. Washington: Carnegie Endowment, 2011 Civil Georgia. Saakashvili on Three Pillars of Georgia’s Economy. Civil.ge [online] 8 November, 2010. Fenger, M. The Diffusion of Revolutions: Comparing Recent Regime Turnovers in Five Post-Communist Countries. Demokratizatsiya, 15(1), 2010. 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