Author

  • Dr. Salome Minesashvili is a policy analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP). She holds PhD in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin, MSc in International Political Theory from the University of Edinburgh and MSc in Transformation in the South Caucasus from Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. She has worked in multiple research projects on the topics of foreign policy analysis, identity politics, soft power politics, EU-Eastern Neighbourhood relations, and transformation processes in the former Soviet Union.

    View all posts
04/05/2017 Salome Minesashvili

The Georgian Orthodox Church as a Civil Actor: Challenges and Capabilities

Publish Date:
04-05-2017

Religious organizations as civil actors with social capital can play significant roles in social reform processes, examples of which being the African Church in South Africa and representatives of the Catholic Church in Latin America. The Importance of churches as civil actors increases in those countries where the process of democratic transition is in progress and in which the civil sector is weak and disorganized. The church, in contrast to the civil sector, has surpluses of reputation, organizational skills, and autonomy. Those are precisely the qualities that characterize the Georgian Orthodox Church. It not only has a number of advantages compared to other civil sector actors but also actively takes part in ongoing processes in society and state. This policy brief overviews the activities of the Georgian Orthodox Church as a civil actor, its challenges and potential in the ongoing process of democratization, its role in the context of pluralistic civil sector and its relations with other public actors.

, , , , ,

Salome Minesashvili

Dr. Salome Minesashvili is a policy analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP). She holds PhD in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin, MSc in International Political Theory from the University of Edinburgh and MSc in Transformation in the South Caucasus from Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. She has worked in multiple research projects on the topics of foreign policy analysis, identity politics, soft power politics, EU-Eastern Neighbourhood relations, and transformation processes in the former Soviet Union.