Abstract
In this paper, we analyze one of the most recent civil society movements in Georgia, the Shame Movement. We choose this movement as it enables us to discuss some of the aspects of Georgia’s 30 years of post-socialist transformation from today’s perspective. Our key thesis is that the movement has been reinforcing the hegemonic neoliberal order in Georgia. To develop this argument, we apply the political economy perspective of Gramscian analyses of the state and civil society and speak from the position of Georgia’s newly emerging left-wing academic criticism. From that standpoint, this is one of the very first attempts to evaluate Georgia’s post-socialist state-society-economy relations. We hope that this attempt will be followed by further explorations of the emancipatory potential of civil society in Georgia.
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Notes
- 1.
Former ruling party during the years of 2003–2012, the “United National Movement” (UNM) and their proxy “European Georgia (EG)”.
- 2.
In “Prison Notebooks” the concept appears as “integral state” (Gramsci 1999: 210, 540).
- 3.
The clear example of this in Georgian case is that in 2017, the largest non-governmental organizations that declare themselves ideologically neutral (i.e. Transparency International Georgia, or International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy), have united against the removal of the “Economic Liberty Act” from the constitution. The Act constitutionally defined that Parliament had no right to increase taxes. Any tax increase would require a referendum. However, progressive taxation could not become the subject of a referendum.
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Khelaia, N., Chivadze, T. (2022). The Shame Movement in the Context of Georgia’s 30 years of Transformation: A Gramscian Analysis of Civil Society. In: Gagyi, A., Slačálek, O. (eds) The Political Economy of Eastern Europe 30 years into the ‘Transition’. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78915-2_10
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