From Regional Leader to Uncertain Future: Georgia’s Corruption Outlook

Corruption remains a critical issue for governance and democracy around the globe. Corruption undermines trust in public institutions and damages policy-making, ultimately hindering good governance and undermining the public good (Rose-Ackerman and Palifka 2016). Recent reports claim that corruption is growing in scale and complexity, with more than two-thirds of countries now scoring below the mid-point on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International 2025b).

Georgia has been a regional leader in anti-corruption efforts (World Bank 2012). In the 2000s, the country managed to move away from being a ‘failed state’ and became a state with low corruption rates (Kupatadze 2014). Although favoritism and stifled market competition remained significant problems, petty corruption was nearly eliminated in the country (Kupatadze 2016). Georgia continues to lead in the region in terms of corruption rates. In 2025, Georgia’s score on the Corruption Perceptions Index remained higher than that of any other country in the Black Sea and Caspian regions (Transparency International 2025a).

The recent Georgia Governance Index (GGI) demonstrates a significant decline in Georgia’s effective governance, with fighting corruption being the most deteriorating component (Georgian Institute of Politics 2025). The GGI measures effective governance using eight indicators, two of which focus on fighting against bureaucratic corruption and political corruption. These two indicators experienced a drop of more than 10 points on a 0-100 scale. These findings paint a concerning picture of worsening corruption and governance in the country.

This policy memo aims to complement the GGI and analyze corruption trends in Georgia using multiple data sources, including international assessments, expert evaluations, and public opinion surveys. The main goal of the memo is to provide a clearer picture of corruption dynamics in the country. The findings highlight growing concerns over steadily worsening corruption trends in Georgia. Data signaling worsening corruption trends, coupled with the recent explicit decline in the quality of democratic governance in the country, paint an increasingly bleak picture for anti-corruption efforts in Georgia.

Policy Memo #80 | March 2025

The publication was produced with the support of the Netherlands Fund for Regional Partnerships MATRA for regional cooperation in the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Georgian Institute of Politics and the Netherlands Fund for Regional Partnerships MATRA for regional cooperation in the Eastern Partnership (EaP).