The paper focuses on studying the liberal-democratic values in the general education of Georgia. Based on the social interaction approach of political socialization, the article assesses pupils’ and teachers’ positions towards the liberal and democratic principles and values that have been declared policy goals of Georgia since 2004. Using DAP (Democracy-Autocracy Preference), DPE (Democratic Performance Evolution), and initially tested Lib-Dem (Liberal-Democratic) scales, 297 students and 121 teachers were surveyed. Results show that teachers demonstrate more liberal-democratic positions than pupils. Also, girls tend to be less supportive of authoritarian governments and share more liberal approaches than boys. A similar trend is observed comparing students from private and public schools. The type of school correlates to teachers’ results in supporting liberal and democratic positions. However, the more liberal-democratic positions the respondents share, the more likely they believe that “Georgian” and “Liberal” are incompatible. Also, respondents who see Georgia as a democratic country and are more proud to be members of Georgian society share less liberal and democratic principles and vice versa. The study shows how liberal and democratic declared and policy ideas are supported among respondents and what it means to Georgia and its education system. Based on the results and discussion, new research questions are articulated dealing with gender, the generation gap, and the importance of the type of school that needs to be examined more carefully using the social interaction approach and qualitative methods and techniques, as well.

Abstract:In the process of ensuring successful and full integration, one of the main obstacles is the lack of knowledge of the state language by ethnic minorities. Despite the fact that Georgia has achieved some success in building a democratic state, democratic institutions are still weak in the country. Having weak democratic institutions makes it very difficult to transform diverse religious and ethnic groups into one civil unit. A lack of trust towards political institutions on the one hand, and the weakness of these institutions on the other, leads to the mutual alienation and isolation of different segments of society. The Georgian government, unlike the Baltic States and Ukraine, by way of teaching Georgian to its minorities, set increasing their civic integration and activity in civic spaces as a goal. How successful the steps taken in this regard were is another question.

In this article, we discuss two different directions about the Georgian nationalism of the 19th century: first we consider, thetrinity of language, homeland, faith – maybe one of the best classical formulations of nationalist project. And second, in the process of creation of the nation, in the course of research of the Georgian nation-building of that period, we can not avoid the role of printed media. Georgian intellectuals published their opinions on general internal problems or foreign policy processes and all the most important ideas expressed by them were widespread by the printed media. Under strict censorship, discussing foreign policy processes was an indirect way to disclose the attitudes of Georgian intellectuals to the building Georgian nation, restoration of state, territorial integrity and independence, as well as to the colonial politics in generall. “Let’s be self-sufficient” is a phrase best describing the main purpose of Georgian intellectuals. However, it is noteworthy that the creators of that time Georgian nationalismprimarily sought to gain autonomy within the Russian Empire, while full political independence was due to the reality a far and difficult goal. Generally, Georgian nationalism developed during that period was clearly mild and was far from ethno-cultural discrimination that is o”en characteristic for nationalism.

The article is dedicated to analyse the politics of so called "historical memory" during the state-building and nation-building process in post-socialist Georgia After the Rose Revolution 2003, the new government that aimed at building the "new Georgia," implementing radical changes in many key spheres, including institutions, readdressing the totalitarian past, faced number of problematic manifestations in political and cultural life in this post-Soviet country. The "politics of memory" became one of the key factors of reconstructing of "new, democratic, western Georgia". This process can be evaluated as leading toward state nationalism. Analyzing the politics of memory, symbolism is the most notable attitude and that is why former President Mikheil Saakashvili used commemorative ceremonies continuously. The authors argue in favour of approach, that the so called "memory politics" is the integral part of one's legitimacy building, but at the same time, it can be used as tool for reconsidering of Polity's future and mobilization of population under the "citizenship" umbrella towards the strong loyalty to the actual and future state-building.

Unlike some European countries, the involvement of radical right-wing forces in Georgian politics and the support of a certain part of the society for them is a relatively new phenomenon in Georgia’s politics. This has resulted in a growing interest in the study of the topic among Georgian academic circles. However, the defining and applying the concepts of radicalism and extremism regarding Georgian right-wing forces are different. By comparing the major approaches to the concepts of right-wing radicalism and extremism this paper aims to critically review and analyze perceptions from Georgian academia.