Author

  • Nino Gozalishvili is a PhD candidate at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna pursuing Nationalism Studies and Comparative History joint doctoral program. Her research areas include post-Socialist political transformations and the processes of Europeanization and democratization in Central and Eastern Europe; contemporary history of nationalism and national-populism in CEE with sub-regional focus on South-Caucasus.Nino holds an MA degree in Nationalism Studies from CEU and BA in International Relations from Tbilisi State University (TSU). She was also a visiting student at the University of Warsaw and at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).Nino now serves as a teaching assistant at CEU and is an accepted research fellow at Center for Eastern European Studies(CEES), University of Zurich. Her undercurrent research project deals with the internationalization of right-wing populist discourses in Europe and evolvement of national-populism in post-Communist Georgia. In addition, She has been affiliated with the NGOs focused on tackling disinformation and extremism as well as with research centres in Hungary, Georgia and Poland.

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24/04/2020 Nino Gozalishvili

“Every Cloud has its Silver Lining” – How is the Far Right Deploying the Coronavirus Outbreak in Georgia?

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Author

  • Nino Gozalishvili is a PhD candidate at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna pursuing Nationalism Studies and Comparative History joint doctoral program. Her research areas include post-Socialist political transformations and the processes of Europeanization and democratization in Central and Eastern Europe; contemporary history of nationalism and national-populism in CEE with sub-regional focus on South-Caucasus.Nino holds an MA degree in Nationalism Studies from CEU and BA in International Relations from Tbilisi State University (TSU). She was also a visiting student at the University of Warsaw and at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).Nino now serves as a teaching assistant at CEU and is an accepted research fellow at Center for Eastern European Studies(CEES), University of Zurich. Her undercurrent research project deals with the internationalization of right-wing populist discourses in Europe and evolvement of national-populism in post-Communist Georgia. In addition, She has been affiliated with the NGOs focused on tackling disinformation and extremism as well as with research centres in Hungary, Georgia and Poland.

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Publish Date:
2020-04-24 06:50:39
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The outbreak of COVID-19 has dominated global social and political discourses; including the discourse of far right actors. In their responses to phenomena such as (political) crises and the degree of socioeconomic integration – far right actors demonstrate a leverage to frame the pandemic and utilize exclusionary right-wing policy proposals. Globally, populist far right groups use, “a crisis of public knowledge,” in order to gain recognition and public legitimacy.[1]  In Georgia this is no exception as far right groups, represented more on social but also on political scenes, have chosen to frame the pandemic using their own terms. As such, a national-populist discourse has reemerged in Georgia related to the discussion about the COVID-19 outbreak.

Considering such a backdrop, this memo analyzes the different ways through which the far right in Georgia conceptualizes the current global health emergency and, in doing so, how it reinforces polarizing narratives within the overarching national-populist discourse. The interpretation of the current global health emergency is framed and inserted into the earlier anti-immigration, anti-pluralist, (ultra)conservative and Eurosceptic discourses. Moreover, the memo looks at the degree of coherence among different actors’ narratives which fall under the term “far right” in the Georgian context.

[1] Brubaker, Rogers. “Why Populism?,” Theory and Society 46, no. 5 (November 1, 2017): 378, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-017-9301-7.

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Nino Gozalishvili

Nino Gozalishvili is a PhD candidate at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna pursuing Nationalism Studies and Comparative History joint doctoral program. Her research areas include post-Socialist political transformations and the processes of Europeanization and democratization in Central and Eastern Europe; contemporary history of nationalism and national-populism in CEE with sub-regional focus on South-Caucasus.Nino holds an MA degree in Nationalism Studies from CEU and BA in International Relations from Tbilisi State University (TSU). She was also a visiting student at the University of Warsaw and at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).Nino now serves as a teaching assistant at CEU and is an accepted research fellow at Center for Eastern European Studies(CEES), University of Zurich. Her undercurrent research project deals with the internationalization of right-wing populist discourses in Europe and evolvement of national-populism in post-Communist Georgia. In addition, She has been affiliated with the NGOs focused on tackling disinformation and extremism as well as with research centres in Hungary, Georgia and Poland.