In May-June, 2021 GIP will be hosting the 6th edition of its traditional annual Democracy Conference #GEODEM2021. Due to the pandemic, the conference will be conducted online presenting 3 different thematic panels.
Each of the panels under #GEODEM2021 will be held via the online platform ZOOM and participants are asked to register in advance.
The conference will kick off on May 27th with the first panel focusing on the following topic: Substandard Election Conduct in Georgia: An Incurable Feature or Soluble Problem?
Amid approaching the local elections of 2021, immaturity and unpredictability continue to be major characteristics of the Georgian politics. Despite the hopes that Georgia would reaffirm its commitment to the path towards a consolidated liberal democracy, the 2020 parliamentary elections and the subsequent political crisis, once again, revealed a recurring plague of Georgia’s democratization efforts, that is, failure to conduct uncontested democratic elections that would resolve rather than fuel political tensions. As a result, Georgian politics, on the verge of the 30th anniversary of independence, is still afflicted by unacceptance of the election results by opposition parties, misusing administrative resources for political ends, uneven political playing field, and mistrusted electoral institutions. To address these issues and the ways through which the country’s political system can overcome these deficiencies, the first panel of GEODEM2021 will address the following questions:
- Why does Georgia keep failing at registering free, fair and competitive elections that would channel political rivalry to the legislature?
- How does political culture influence the conduct of elections in Georgia?
- What institutional changes can be made to ensure the appropriate democratic quality of the next elections?
- What are the sources of political distrust between ruling regimes and opposition in Georgia?
- How should it be ensured that rivaling parties accept results of elections?
The first panel will be moderated by Prof. Ghia Nodia, Ilia State University
Opening Remarks:
- 17:00 Kornely Kakachia, Director, Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP)
Speakers
- 17:10 Julie George, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Queens College
- 17:20 Ketevan Bolkvadze, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden
- 17:30 Levan Tsutskiridze, Executive Director, Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy (EECMD)
- 17:40 Jaba Devdariani, Founder, Civil.ge
- 17:50 Q&A
To attend the first panel of the conference on May 27th please register here >>
The second panel will take place in June and will revolve around the issue of Polling Wars in Georgia: How to Ensure Trust?
A sequence of these online events will climax in the final panel during the same month (June) with the main theme Populist Nationalism and Euroscepticism: Imagined or Real Threat for Associated Countries?
Stay-tuned for more information about GEODEM2021 and the upcoming panels! GIP will share the details shortly.
GIP’s annual Democracy Conference is organized with the financial support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
