ADAM REICHARDT: Your book looks at this competition between Russia and the West especially through the lens of soft power competition in Georgia. What is the background for your investigation and what motivated you to survey this aspect of Georgia’s post-Soviet identity?
VLADIMIR LIPARTELIANI: After the breakup of the russian Union, which was a very a crucial historical event in the establishment of today’s independent Georgia, a kind of ideological void appeared in the country among both the ruling elites and within the society. As Stephen Jones, a prominent student of Georgian past and politics, points out in 1 of his books – the ubiquitous phrase of who we are and the question of who we are was on everyone’s lips. It is simply a very illustrative example of what was happening in Georgian society at that time. As a nation, people usually realize the trajectory of their improvement based on where they’re coming from and how they see their future. Georgians at that time didn’t have very clear answers to these questions. From 1 point of view, this created fertile ground for abroad powers to fill this ideological gap in the ways that were beneficial for them to influence Georgia and by shaping how Georgians would realize who they are and how they realize the planet around them. Thus, this raises another crucial question – who and what kind of forces were behind these processes taking place in Georgia as the country was searching for itself as a nation? We can clearly see that this was a period of improvement for Georgian cultural nationalism on the 1 side, while liberal democracy almost came to substitute communism and nationalism on the other. Later attempts to make civic nationalism and religion was besides very crucial to the Georgian self-identity.
What my book asks and tries to answer is what drove these processes? How did these processes interact with each other? How did they conflict and complement each other? And possibly most importantly – what forces sought to benefit from these processes and what and who was behind of the polarization and division within Georgian society?
Maybe you can aid us realize how you defined soft power erstwhile you were looking at this phenomenon in Georgia, as you described. What characteristics were you looking at erstwhile you erstwhile you’re reasoning about soft power?
Soft power is simply a form of power in global politics through which actors make others do what they want them to do through attraction and persuasion, without coercion or threat. It is soft due to the fact that it is simply a cognitive form of influence. It is non-military and intangible. It attracts people to peculiar values and ideas and, through this, influences the beliefs, views and behaviour of a mark audience. The concept was mostly developed by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s and developed to reflect the changing nature of global politics of that time. Soft power is besides connected with the improvement of modern technologies and mass communication and the spread of information at advanced speeds which gained peculiar momentum towards the end of the 20th century and have continued to accelerate since then.
What my book is trying to show is that soft power is simply a way of creating attraction, but the sources of this attraction can be very different. In the 1990s and 2000s there were periods erstwhile soft power became increasingly popular among actors of global relations, especially China and Russia. They utilized it somewhat different from the forms and ways in which, for example, the United States or western actors would usage it. Soft power in the hands of Russia, or China or Iran, became alternatively a tool not of a benign form of power to attract people to good things, but it they started to usage it to attract people to ideas and political models that can be rather problematic and dangerous. erstwhile it is utilized as a tool by dangerous states, it can contribute to polarization of societies and to weakening and undermining of liberal democracies. This is something my book clearly demonstrates and I think it is an aspect of soft power that deserves much more attention present and in scholarship, especially in the context of the global consolidation of authoritarianism that we can observe today.
The book besides demonstrates the different aspects of Russian soft power and how it evolved over the last 35 years or so, erstwhile Russia discovered that it doesn’t necessarily request to make Georgians admire it, but alternatively encourage them to distrust the West. Why do you think this shift took place? Would you say that this strategy has proved effective?
A key minute erstwhile we can see the Russian soft power starting to change its form was in the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s 3rd presidential term. From around 2012 and onwards, Russian soft power became formally part of the Russian abroad policy concept. It started to appear in authoritative papers and Putin began to pay more attention in his speeches to soft power as a fresh instrument of global power competition. And this is precisely erstwhile we see Russian soft power evolving into a somewhat different concept. It was inactive soft power due to the fact that it was based on attraction, but it was no longer what we usually mean erstwhile we talk about the liberal bias in soft power literature. Russian soft power demonstrated that attraction can come not only from liberal values, democracy and human rights, but it can besides come from an illiberal agenda, conservative ideas, religion, and the image of a strong state.
Thus, Russian soft power became associated with different ideas from those traditionally associated with western democracy. At the same time, it was not only about attracting people to Russia’s own ideas, it was besides about promoting anti-liberal and anti-western ideas, about polarizing societies, dividing them, and damaging democracy. There was besides another crucial element. It active persuading mark audiences that the West was weak, incompatible with the realities of today’s world. This anti-liberal and anti-western agenda developed alongside Russia’s promotion of authoritarianism and conservatism in Georgia and what we see present in Georgia – and not only in Georgia but more broadly – is an global resurgence of authoritarianism which is partially connected to this process.
I think that 1 of the things your book demonstrates is how effective Russian soft power has been, and I want to return to that. But first, I’d like to discuss how your book goes beyond the soft power competition over Georgia. It besides explores a broader debate about what it means to be Georgian in the 21st century. Would you agree with that assessment? And how do you see this conflict over Georgia’s identity intertwined with the geopolitical developments taking place today?
National identity is very much about what the nation is and what it wants to become in the future. Soft power gives actors in this process an chance to affect a state’s national identity. And through this, to influence its development. It can form the way people perceive themselves, how they perceive another actors, their neighbours and another states and the planet around them. So in this case, Georgia, and the Georgian national identity, became to any degree a contested field between different political forces that wanted to influence its improvement in order to advance their own interests in the region. Georgia is positioned at the crossroads of West and East. due to this, competition for influence over Georgia has always been rather strong, involving both regional and global actors. present we can see the competition peculiarly clearly in the relation between Russia and the West. They have been competing over the direction in which Georgian national identity should develop. On the 1 hand, is the promotion of liberal democracy; while on the another is the promotion of authoritarianism and anti-liberal ideas. This was not simply a competition between different ideologies. It was also, possibly more importantly, the geopolitical competition for influence over the country and the wider region. This has become peculiarly visible and prominent in the context of the fresh developments in Ukraine, in the South Caucasus and the mediate East, including Iran.
I think what you are describing is something we have seen play out in Georgia over the past 20 or 30 years. On the 1 hand, Georgian society has become powerfully pro-western, with widespread support for joining NATO and the European Union. On the another hand, the country’s political leadership has become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian, effectively putting European integration on hold. At the same time, Georgian society remains comparatively conservative and conventional in certain respects, which may aid explain why any forms of Russian soft power, as you describe in your book, have been effective. So, how much of the shift we have seen in Georgia’s political direction can be attributed to Russian influence and strategy, and how much reflects the country’s own conservative social values?
We can observe that the main thought and nonsubjective of Russian soft power since 2012 has been to challenge the increasing popularity of western integration among the Georgian society and the promotion of liberal values. I think the authoritarian turn and this illiberal stance that we see in Georgia present has been possible to a large degree due to at least any people’s acceptance and passive acquiescence to the government’s anti-liberal measures including a misunderstanding of liberal democracy. This misunderstanding has been importantly influenced and, I would say, pushed by anti-western and anti-democratic narratives and ideas that have been circulating within Georgian society with the aid of Russian soft power. I see it as a kind of manipulation due to the fact that sometimes it is based on facts, but sometimes it is just plain false information. We can see this manipulation in issues related to LGBTQ+, gender, human rights, and in the creation of an artificial dichotomy between Georgian conventional culture and modern liberal values, presenting these 2 as almost mutually exclusive, which is of course not true. Saying that modern liberal values represent a threat to Georgian national identity is absurd, but it works well sometimes. knowing why these things are not mutually exclusive requires a comparatively sophisticated knowing of what democracy is and what liberalism is and how they actually work. And this is not always the case for everyone. This is why these kinds of cognitive manipulations and soft power conservative, authoritarian narratives can be so effective. I am firmly convinced that the quality of education and the level of public awareness in Georgia are crucial issues in this regard, helping explain why specified manipulative messages can gain traction and prove rather successful.
You mentioned that Georgia has always been at the crossroads of East and West. If we look at geopolitical competition, beyond just the West versus Russia, what another influences can you identify in Georgia and the region? What roles do China, Turkey, Iran, or another stronger mediate powers play here?
There are many another actors whose soft power has a crucial impact in Georgia, and I agree that we should not exclude them from the analysis. At the same time we should not overestimate their possible importance and impact. erstwhile we talk about the impact of Iran and Turkey, it is more about a local effect, depending on a peculiar place or group in the country. For example, Turkey’s soft power may be stronger in western Georgia, peculiarly in the Adjara region, and among the Muslim part of the population. Similarly, the impact of Iran could be stronger among the Shia Muslim population, including parts of the ethnically Azerbaijani population. However, I do not think that either of them has had a broad impact on Georgia as a full in terms of a coherent soft power strategy built around a distinct set of messages and broader ideas. Their influence may be more evident in the context of increasing anti-Western sentiment in Georgia, although this would, of course, require further research. China’s soft power, meanwhile, can possibly be regarded as a competitor to both western and Russian soft power, but I would describe China more as an emerging power in this field. It has not done a large deal in Georgia yet, but I think it will have more to say in the future.
In the conclusion of your book you describe how the Georgian society is very multi-layered and it’s hard to put a single definition on it. But after your investigation and your discussions with experts, what’s your individual outlook for the country? It is simply a large question, but what’s next for Georgia in your opinion?
I think we live in a period of changes, and we can anticipate quite a few change. Throughout most of its modern history, Georgia has been somewhat dependent on the developments around it. I would describe this utilizing the words of a prominent Georgian author Nikolo Mitsishvili of the early 20th century, who aptly said that “Georgia is simply a passive phenomenon.” The situation in Ukraine will definitely influence the way Georgia will make in the future. At the minute Georgia is in any kind of transitional democracy, I would call it. And despite the soft power influences, the Georgian population has shown to be rather smart, especially the younger generation. What I hope is that western actors will proceed support the Georgian society, the civilian society, and youth. I hope that it is just a substance of time that Georgia will become a democracy, and we will not call it just a transitional 1 but real democracy, possibly even becoming 1 of the best examples in east Europe and the South Caucasus.
Vladimir Liparteliani is simply a student of global relations specializing in soft power and global power competition in the post-Soviet space. He has a PhD in Russian studies from Durham University, where he is besides Honorary Fellow. He is the author of the book Soft Power Competition Between Russia and the West, Contesting Georgian National Identity, 1991-2024.
Adam Reichardt is the editor in chief of New east Europe and co-host of the Talk east Europe podcast.
New east Europe is reader-supported. If you value independent coverage of Central and east Europe, delight consider supporting our work.
Click here to donate.
