The State and Ethnic Minorities: The Case of Georgia

Abstract:This article analyzes interethnic relations in post-Soviet Georgia seen from the perspective of political stability and peaceful democratic consolidation. Approaching the question through theories of conflict management in divided societies, the paper traces the degree of state accommodation of minorities under Gamsakhurdia, Shevardnadze, Saakashvili and Georgian Dream. This article argues that the ethnonationalistic, centralizing, majoritarian, and arbitrary approaches employed in various degrees and intensities by the state contributed to the escalation of ethnoterritorial conflicts, political instability, and insufficient accommodation of minorities in post-Soviet Georgia.