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An undisclosed story of roses: church, state, and nation in contemporary Georgia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Tornike Metreveli
Tornike Metreveli*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
*
∗Email: tornike.metreveli@soz.unibe.ch
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Abstract

Since the Rose Revolution (2003), Georgia has encountered an unprecedented scale of institutional reforms concomitant with the rise of American and European involvement in the “democratization” process. Various scholars have suggested that Georgian nationalism developed from an ethno-cultural basis to a more civic/liberal orientation after the Rose Revolution. This paper analyzes Georgian nationalism under President Mikheil Saakashvili to demonstrate the significant divergence between political rhetoric on national identity, the selection of symbols, and state policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church versus state policy toward ethnic minorities. The aim of this article is to examine the at times conflicting conceptions of national identity as reflected in the public policies of Saakashvili's government since the Rose Revolution. It attempts to problematize the typologies of nationalism when applied to the Georgian context and suggests conceptualizing the state-driven nationalism of the post-Rose Revolution government as “hybrid nationalism” as opposed to civic or ethno-cultural.

Keywords

GeorgianationalismOrthodox ChurchRose Revolutionnational identity
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 694 - 712
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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