Soviet Legacy and Civil Society

Abstract

This chapter investigates the impact of the Soviet legacy on the nature of civil society in the Caucasus. The first part of this chapter analyses how the legacy of the communist public organisations affects the contemporary NGO sector; the second part of the chapter focuses on the impact of the Soviet private sphere upon informal post-communist networking. The chapter seeks to address three key questions: how and in which ways the civic legacy of the antecedent regime influences the post-Soviet civil sector in the Caucasus; how and why civic traditions survive and endure; how does the process of ‘civic continuity’ unfold there?