The State of Georgian Democracy: Interview with Professor Charles Fairbanks

Interview by Joseph Larsen, GIP Analyst

“The greatest difficulty of attaining democracy in Georgia is the weakness of political parties.”

Professor Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr.  has been living in Tbilisi since 2006, where he is professor of Soviet and post-Soviet systems at Ilia State University. Fairbanks is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and previously served as a research professor of international relations and the director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He served as a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State and a member of the department’s policy planning staff. Fairbanks has also taught on the political science faculty of both Yale University and the University of Toronto.