External Influence and Democratization: The Revenge of Geopolitics

Issue Date October 2014
Volume 25
Issue 4
Page Numbers 139-150
file Print
arrow-down-thin Download from Project MUSE
external View Citation

Discussion of democracy promotion is usually isolated from that of geopolitics. It is seen as an affair between democratic countries on the one hand and governments or civil societies of autocratic and semi-autocratic states on the other. The recent crisis in Ukraine has demonstrated the inseparability of democracy promotion and power politics, especially in faultline regions where democratic and autocratic states and political cultures compete for influence. While a political choice in favor of democratic world and organizations like the European Union does not guarantee democratic consolidation, it positively correlates with the level of political freedom within a given country.

About the Author

Ghia Nodia is director of the International School for Political Science and professor of political science at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. He is also chairman of the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development. For five months in 2016–17, he was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C.

View all work by Ghia Nodia