CC BY
31
Atlantists are concentrating on their main aim: to prevent Russia’s domination in Central Eurasia and the resource-rich Caspian region as its part. This put the region on a par with the Balkans and the Middle East, two geopolitical centers of the turn of the 21st century, and intensified the rivalry not only between Russia and the United States (NATO), but also between Turkey and Iran, two regional powers.
The problem of moving the Caspian resources to the world markets (which has acquired special importance in the last decade) has been commented on as follows: “The geography which geopolitical thought is dealing with is not physical geography of landmass and seas; it is a geography of communications ofworld trade and world war. History has taught us that trade communications at the world crossing points may acquire military and strategic importance: trade routes turn into war paths.”41 This makes the strategically important oil and gas pipelines and transportation routes stretching in all directions from the Caspian region (especially to the West and the East) the “geopolitical and geoeco-nomic weapons” of the 21st century.
On the whole, the accelerating geostrategic rivalry over one of the most desirable “geopolitical and geoeconomic prizes” of the 21st century—the Caspian region—might change the geopolitical landscape of the Greater Middle East.
41 V. Maksimenko, “Central Asia and the Caucasus: Geopolitical Entity Explained,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 3, 2000, p. 61.
Paata LEIASHVILI
D.Sc. (Econ.), Professor, Economic Theory Chair, the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
ALGORITHMS OF DEMOCRATIZATION IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY (A CASE STUDY OF GEORGIA)
Abstract
The author relies on Georgia’s experience to demonstrate the specifics of-the democratic changes in the post-totalitarian countries and concludes that
a combination of democratic and authoritarian administrative methods is inevitable at the early stages of democratic changes.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The Soviet Union’s disintegration created newly independent states, all of them being in an identical position from the legal point of view. Over the course of time, however, after nearly twenty
years of democratic processes of different intensity, they began to look fairly different. We should not exclude national specifics, their previous experience of independent development, the geopolitical situation, etc. On the other hand, the logic of democratization does not depend on the above.
Democratization goes on slowly, there being no clear idea about its logic: in such cases, the underestimated risks put an end to the democratic changes. This has already happened in some countries.
Compared with other Soviet successor-states, democratization in Georgia is occurring more or less successfully, albeit painfully: the friends and foes of democracy are locked in a political struggle caused by the country’s geostrategic specifics. Indeed, the interests of the leading actors of world politics are intertwined in the country to an extent that makes Georgia a laboratory in which the democratization algorithm of totalitarian society and its “focal” and potentially hazardous points can be studied in the minutest detail.
If the government and society fail to recognize the risks, Georgia might join the ranks of the “failed states” which missed the turn on the road of progress, democracy, and economic revival.
Shaping Democratic Values
An analysis of the democratization algorithms should begin at the beginning, which means that we should, first and foremost, trace the evolution of political awareness in post-totalitarian Georgia. The law as a regulator of social relations is effective when it is obeyed by all; otherwise it degenerates into a formality.
As such, it becomes an instrument of lawlessness manipulated by those who usurp the right to decide when to apply it and against whom (and vice versa—when and against whom it should never be applied). Formal law disadvantages the law-abiding population.
Indeed, while keeping some people within certain limits, the law places no restraints on others. Unable to realize his aim, the law-abiding individual is driven to lawbreaking. This creates a situation in which lawbreaking becomes inevitable.
In this context, the law-abiding majority is forced to break the law for the simple reason that this has become the rule. In other words, everyone forces each other to do what nobody wants to do. At first, it looks as if society is manipulated by an “invisible hand”; the fog gradually dissipates to reveal the truth.
It becomes clear that even though everyone breaks the law, not all of them have the “right” to do this: this right belongs to those with power, the right connections, high posts, money, and patrons in the corridors of power. To acquire this, one must know the unwritten laws and abide by them even though they are unfair and immoral—but efficient. The majority diligently studies them and lives by them rather than by the legal norms.
This means that society lives by unfair, immoral, and frequently cruel unwritten laws accepted as the real regulators of social relations. Some people being able to do what others cannot creates a gap between the rich and the poor. Injustice breeds social tension, conflicts, and instability.
A very narrow social group with the financial and administrative resource monopolizes power; it imposes unwritten behavior norms adjusted to its interests on the rest of the nation. Bit by bit this group establishes its dictatorship: it controls TV; encroaches on freedom of speech and manipulates public opinion; staffs the courts of justice to be able to decide how the laws are used; controls the legislature to be able to impose its laws on society; and, most important, controls the election campaigns and supervises elections (“those who count the votes always win”).
The nation stops being a source of power: this function is usurped by those who falsify the election results, that is, the people at the top. This creates a vicious circle: by falsifying the election results, the authorities endow themselves with power and use their powers to do this. The ruling elite no
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
longer depends on the will of the nation and no longer pays attention to its interests. It develops interests of its own: power and the concomitant privileges.
This leads to a conflict of interests: either the people replace the ruling elite or it “reforms” the people. The former leads to a regime change; the latter to a situation in which the people will be subjugated by the repressive state machine; they will be intimidated into submission and taught to love a “strong hand.” The future depends on the extent to which the nation is freedom-loving; what sort of power it is prepared to accept and what will be rejected.
In authoritarian societies, everyone violates the law, which means that they are all lawbreakers. Those who rebel against the regime will be punished; the same fate awaits those prepared to violate the unwritten laws, to speak openly about what everyone knows but keeps mum about, and to go against the bans the ruling regime imposes on people. Gradually the nation develops into a frightened and suppressed society. People fear not so much the law as the powers that be which have assumed the right to do what others are not allowed. This creates a society based on arbitrary rule and submission.
Morality inevitably degenerates; certain social groups no longer feel themselves part of the whole; they are alienated from society. Universal values and behavior norms are rejected; society becomes anomical, something which Emile Durkheim wrote about in his time: “Those actions are most blameworthy, are so often excused by success that the boundary between the permissible and the prohibited, between what is just and what is unjust, is no longer fixed in any way, but seems capable of being shifted by individual in an almost arbitrary fashion.”1
Widespread lawlessness stirs up protest and the desire to restore law and order. Society is aware of the fact that freedom and justness are possible where the law reigns supreme and where social relations are regulated by laws adjusted to public interests rather than by unwritten behavior norms imposed on the nation. This means that the people should elect those who will write such laws and ensure them. In other words, society gradually realizes that it needs democracy; this awareness, however, does not reach all social strata simultaneously.
Different social groups look differently at the democratic values, while society is moving away from the authoritarian to the democratic regime; this explains the wide gap between what different groups think about democratization.
Part of society (mostly the urban intellectuals) proves ready to embrace the democratic values, while other groups associate law and order, social protection, and justice with an authoritarian regime. The politically indifferent, and probably the largest, social groups are more concerned with the standard of living rather than with their country’s political course. Post-Soviet political reformers (in Georgia as well as elsewhere) have failed to take this into account.
The Algorithms of Democratization
In some of the Soviet successor-states, democratic reforms followed the logic of the economic changes, which means that Western laws and institutions were merely planted in post-Soviet soil irrespective of whether society was ready to accept them or not. This was a “shock therapy” of sorts rather than the much needed gradual changes (so-called gradualism). The ignored local specifics took revenge by producing numerous problems.
The newly planted and deeply rooted (Western) democracies deal with different problems. In the West, the government has to keep the democratic system functioning; the new democracies have to create a democratic system; it cannot be borrowed from the West in the form of laws.
1 E. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, The Free Press, New York, p. xxxii.
Setting up a democratic system and keeping the already functioning system alive are two different tasks; they call for different laws, different degrees of concentration of power, and a different format of redistribution of the rights and duties between the government and society.
Democratic societies demonstrate a highly developed law awareness; their law-abidance is based on the feeling of civic duty and the behavior stereotypes inculcated during the education process. Democratic institutions take shape through evolution and interaction with the formation of democratic awareness.
The countries that are still moving toward democracy cannot boast a high level of law awareness; the Western laws and institutions do not work in such countries and, therefore, should not be applied there to ensure more or less efficient management of social relations. On the other hand, when fear and coercion, rather than civic duty, are used as the main instruments of law abidance, the government needs more powers and a larger repressive machine to cope with the tasks at hand. This explains why merely borrowing Western laws in the post-totalitarian republics is fraught with numerous problems.
In extreme situations, people are prone to lawbreaking, which means that the scope of lawbreak-ing in democratic and transition countries differs greatly. In Georgia, for example, at the early stages of the reforms, lawbreaking was extensive in the form of tax evasion, non-payment of gas and electricity bills, embezzlement of state property, illegal appropriation of land, crimes, etc. Today, the scope of the above is much smaller.
It stands to reason that centralization of the government, the administrative methods used, and the powers of the law-enforcement structures cannot be the same in a country where 5 to 10 percent of the population breaks the law and in one where 80 to 90 percent are lawbreakers. The same democratic laws and institutions function differently depending on how developed civic awareness is in a society and on what behavior stereotypes, moral norms, and traditions function there.
The government can offer wider democratic rights, but it cannot imbibe society with a greater awareness of its responsibility. The latter depends on the level of civic self-awareness, which is inadequately developed in a society that is still reforming itself.
This is where the collision between civil rights and obligations emerges. It is relatively easy to broaden or contract these rights; it is much harder to develop civil responsibility and respect for the law. This requires time and adequate conditions.
Civil responsibility and democratic awareness require power-regulated democratic rights, which means that democratic awareness requires a democratic environment in the form of laws, freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, free elections, etc.
A society deprived of democratic rights will never learn democracy; it will never develop democratic awareness and the corresponding skills. Excessive rights at variance with the level of civil responsibility end in a hazardous contradiction between an abundance of rights and scarce responsibility. We all know that this creates anarchy and leads to dictatorship, which means that efficient democratic reforms call for carefully measured democratic rights that the government should issue bit by bit to match the developing democratic awareness and responsibility.
As soon as the government discovers that at any given stage of the reforms “excessive” democracy is contraindicated and might undermine the reforms, it becomes aware of this reality and the ensuing risks. When civil rights outstrip democratic awareness, the government becomes aware that it is losing its grip on the processes and its possibilities. This happens not only because society (and the government) lacks adequate democratic experience, but also because anti-democratic forces, which are still strong in transition societies, exploit the democratic mechanisms for their undemocratic purposes.
In these conditions, democracy should be limited to a certain extent; executive power should become more concentrated; and personal loyalty should become the main criteria of personnel policy. This is typical of authoritarian regimes. In the transition countries, the ruling regime has to combine democratic and authoritarian methods, which means that the political convictions of people at the helm (either democrats or confirmed authoritarians) become doubly important.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
In fact, to score their aims, democrats need authoritarianism in the same way as authoritarians need democracy. When the latter are in power, limited democracy helps preserve the authoritarian regime; the former, on the other hand, rely on elements of authoritarianism to preserve democracy.
Authoritarians look at democracy as a means of coming to power, with an authoritarian regime being their final aim. They demand wider rights (freedom of speech, free elections, and independent courts) to change the regime. When in power, they will encroach on democratic rights to remain in power. This is their logic of a power struggle.
This explains what, at first glance, looks paradoxical: once in power, many of the authoritarian regimes that came to power in a democratic way kill off democracy. This is one of the risks of democratic laws functioning in a society with undemocratic awareness.
In the case of the democrats, the situation is different: they treat the authoritarian methods as a means, while democracy remains their aim. They had to rely on authoritarian methods until the democratic process reached the point of no return, which means that the authoritarians and the democrats alike have to rely on authoritarian methods in the political struggle.2 This explains the so-called proWestern authoritarianism in Georgia and Ukraine, which looks like a contradiction in terms. The terms, indeed, are mutually exclusive. We should bear in mind, however, that the ruling elite is proWestern because it is moving toward democracy. At the same time, it is authoritarian because not infrequently it has to rely on authoritarian measures to keep at bay the forces ready to question the country’s pro-Western orientation and the related democratic values. At the early stage of democratic development, the danger is real.
Today, the media and political techniques can shape public opinion, which means that having assumed control over the media, the government can tailor public opinion accordingly. In other words, a society that is led in the desired direction retains the illusion of its freedom and remains convinced that it is acting independently.
In a transition state, a democratic government might feel that control of the media is advisable. In the conditions of hardly developed civic awareness, criticism of political rivals degenerates into abuses. What is even more important is the fact that slander and aggressive slogans are liberally used to the delight of a great part of the scared and embittered post-totalitarian society. The election results bear witness to this, which largely explains why democrats are not alien to manipulating public opinion.
The leeway, however, is narrow: the larger part of society is fairly adaptable, but there are limits beyond which authoritarianism cannot be accepted. Likewise, democratic rights and freedoms have their limits, beyond which they might develop into anarchy and force the democratic government to (temporarily) trim democracy. These are the two extremes between which the political pendulum swings. In the final analysis, both are determined by the extent to which public awareness is developed and to which the political elite is aware of its responsibility.
At a certain stage of democratic changes, public awareness might reach a point beyond which the authoritarians stand no chance. At the same time, there is the danger of a puppet government coming to power through democratic procedures to serve the interests of another state. Today, the danger is real: pro-Russian authoritarians might come to power in Georgia amid the economic and psychological turmoil caused by poverty and the war; on the other hand, the democratic procedures provide a chance of channeling the nation’s discontent against the people at the top. Much depends on who will win: authoritarianism or democracy might be established for a long time to come; people might vote for Russia’s diktat or for independence. The ruling elite of a transition state, motivated by political expediency (which is never declared), might be tempted to falsify the election results.
The West, from which the transition state borrows its laws, is free from such temptations. The danger of authoritarian rule is minimal in any of the Western countries for the simple reason that the
: By a quirk of fate, the authoritarians accuse the democrats of using authoritarian methods.
level of democratic awareness is more or less the same in all social groups. Society has reached a consensus on democratic values. Generally speaking, in the West, the voters have to choose between the good and the better—not between good and evil. Democracy, independence, and freedom of speech are well-rooted; consent on these issues goes back into history. Indeed, America is not very much concerned with whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican; for a new democracy, however, the political makeup of the people in power is a question of life or death.
In extreme conditions, political and intellectual elites come to the fore since the voters a priori are not absolutely free in their choice even if the elections are absolutely honest and transparent. I have written above that the nation is living under the psychological pressure of the war, poverty, and social vulnerability, which means that false hopes of a better life might prevail over the national interests associated with the country’s future.3 In all transition states, the indifferent, poor, and barely educated part of the nation easily enticed by election demagogy about high pensions, low taxes, and free health care presents the greatest problem.
In these conditions, the government might be reluctant to let the people choose the country’s geopolitical orientation, an issue of vital importance. The people at the top might be tempted to manipulate the media and falsify the election results.
Democratization in Georgia
In Georgia, it is more or less widely believed that the people in power are responsible for the problems created by democratization and that the problems will disappear once those in power are replaced with others. This is a gross oversimplification.
The reformers have obviously failed to take account of certain objective factors for the simple reason that in Georgia changes in regime have so far never followed a democratic procedure and been accompanied by violence. At first, the nation pins its hopes on the new president who has the absolute majority on his side; later, after discovering that he failed to justify its hopes, the majority joins the opposition. This has been happening in the country’s recent history again and again.
It should be said that the three presidents fulfilled their historical missions:
(1) Zviad Gamsakhurdia awakened national self-awareness. It was under him that Georgia became independent and regained its status as an entity of world history;
(2) under Eduard Shevardnadze Georgia joined international organizations and acquired the foundations of state structures, elements of a market economy, and democratic institutions;
(3) under Mikhail Saakashvili Georgia accomplished systemic shifts without which its further development would have been unthinkable.
In other words, the three presidents, having fulfilled their missions, became stumbling blocks on the road to progress. The opposition closed ranks; confrontation increased; and an undemocratic regime change followed.4
A casual observer might imagine that every political entity wants to accelerate democratic changes and make them more consistent and politically less complicated. Their efforts, however, make the democratic reforms erratic and inconsistent, regularly interrupted by political crises and violent regime changes. The impression is even created that there is an anonymous force at play which forces the Georgians to do what they did not intend to do in the first place. Why?
3 The current problems will be resolved relatively promptly while the development vector will remain for a long time to come.
4 In case of Mikhail Saakashvili no regime change has occurred so far, but political tension in Georgia is very tangible.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
From the very first days of independence, the democratic changes in Georgia have been unfolding amid negative circumstances. Here is a list of the problems (some of them have been resolved, others are still pending): the war with Russia; occupation of a fifth of the country’s territory; the civil war; the paralyzed economy; the empty state coffers; the destroyed electric power system; dire poverty; systemic corruption; crime; massive tax evasion; terrorist acts and political assassinations.
No democratic government in any democratic country could remain devoted to democratic governance if placed in a similar quandary; it would have been forced to use harsher laws and establish a harsher regime. In the absence of such laws, they will be adopted to add legitimacy to a regime that has to govern in emergency circumstances.
For these reasons, the three Georgian presidents had to centralize power. Their political pragmatism suggested that they should assume responsibility for this by violating the law in order to redistribute the rights and obligations among the branches of power and the top officials and invest the defense and security structures with extraordinary powers. They placed themselves above the law and, driven by the logic of the objective processes, concentrated power in their own hands. In view of the fact that they did this in violation of the law, their governance became an ugly form of authoritarianism rather than a regime adequate to the emergency situation.
Indeed, democratic methods were useless against the authoritarian regime in Adjaria. The regime supported (for different reasons) by the population’s majority could not be removed otherwise. No democratic laws could defeat the systemic corruption in society, most of which was potentially corrupt because the law was violated by those who were expected to defend it.
In this legal environment, any physical or juridical entity (the state structures included) had to break the law because everyone else was doing the same. This kind of society cannot be reformed with the help of laws borrowed from the West and admonitions to follow them. In these conditions, nothing could be done without a centralized government that relied on authoritarian methods, but this was one of the bricks of democracy. On the other hand, these methods cannot be legitimized since they can be used just as successfully to build up an authoritarian regime.
In an undemocratic environment massive lawbreaking is inevitable (this is true of the people in power) because otherwise the desired aims will never be achieved. For this reason, the government can accuse any physical or legal person of lawbreaking; and society, in turn, can accuse the ruling elite of the same. Much depends on the nation’s “tolerance threshold” and on when its confidence in the government becomes exhausted.
When the rights and obligations of any of the top people are determined by the supreme ruler rather than by the law, these rights are easily abused for the simple reason that total control is impossible. The domino effect spreads the violations of the law initiated by the supreme ruler throughout all the power structures; the defense and security structures present special hazards. Indeed, when real power is handled by the supreme ruler rather than the law, personal loyalty and trust become the main criteria of personnel policy.
In any case, members of the ruling team use their special powers to address the tasks at hand; many of them succumb to the temptation to use them in their personal interests. This can be done because the supreme ruler is physically unable to keep everyone under his personal control. Society, in turn, is very ambiguous about the government: some of its members believe that the people at the top are concerned about the state’s interests; others are convinced that they are pursuing their own aims. In fact, there is probably a combination of both.
When the tasks which called for the special powers of structures and officials are resolved, the special powers are no longer needed. Deprived of them and in the absence of any other experience, these structures will be unable to function efficiently (and they will find it hard to renounce their special powers).
This means that the ruling elite resorts to methods of “limited authoritarianism” to address the tasks of state importance; at the same time, it becomes authoritarian to a certain extent. It paves the
way to democracy, which creates new tasks to be addressed. In the new conditions, the government loses its former efficiency for the simple reason that it lacks the necessary skills. At the same time, the number of blunders and breaches of the law committed by the government makes it unacceptable to a large part of society and the opposition. The resultant political crisis calls for radical changes.
Today the ruling elite of Georgia has two options. It should either (1) become even more authoritarian to suppress the protests and tighten its grip on the unfolding processes (which can hardly be done in a society with a much higher level of democratic awareness), or (2) move away from “limited authoritarianism” toward wider democratic rights (freedom of speech, elections, etc.) which, amid the massive discontent, might threaten the government itself. The choice will clarify the true aims of the top crust in Georgia—either democracy or staying in power.5
Today, the government is accused, from all sides, of suppressing democracy, but obviously the protest rallies and the corresponding publications in the media signify that we are living in a democratic society. Where there is no democracy, there is no protest not only because protest can only be demonstrated in democratic societies, but also because the very need for democracy only develops when and where there is democracy. In authoritarian countries, society never develops this need, which explains why nobody protests against suppressions of democracy.
It should be said that the criticism of the Georgian leaders is partly justified: democracy is being encroached upon in the country and many other things go on that are inadmissible in a democratic society. Indeed, the very fact that there is talk about falsified presidential elections, dispersal of the November rally, the very much discussed cases of Zhvania, Girgvliani, and Robakidze, corruption, etc. can be described as negative. There is a bright side to the above: these are isolated incidents rather than repeated abuses typical of the previous regime (total falsification of elections, numerous acts of terror and political assassinations, the huge scope of crime, total corruption, etc.). The fact that the present rulers of Georgia deposed the previous regime, within which no progress was possible, and opened the road to democracy and democratic awareness, as well as realized the need for its further development, should be described as positive.
C o n c l u s i o n
The powers that be cannot be more democratic than the level of public awareness in the country. In its absence, the ruling class is unable to rely on democratic methods. At the same time, this makes it impossible to develop democratic awareness. It means that concerted efforts are needed to gradually overcome authoritarian consciousness and build democracy. Without this, the gap between society and the government will widen making conflict and another revolution inevitable. History will repeat itself: society will elect a new government by an absolute majority and then depose it by an equally large majority.
In post-Soviet Georgia, the government was necessarily centralized and developed into authoritarianism. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Mikhail Saakashvili came to power to build a Western democracy; none of them planned to become an authoritarian leader. Very soon, however, they had to rely on authoritarian methods not so much because of personal choice, but because society was not democratic enough.
Political pragmatism suggested that the undemocratic society should be ruled by adequate methods. Over the course of time, the government became partly authoritarian merely because it had no opportunity to acquire different skills. In the final analysis, it is society that pushes the authorities toward partial authoritarianism; after a while it begins criticizing its leaders and even overthrows them.
5 The latest events demonstrated that the second alternative was preferred.
Today, the government is more criticized than ever before for suppressing democracy in Georgia. This means that either it will be democratically replaced with a more democratic government or the people in power will resort to radical measures to widen democratic freedoms in order to adjust them to social expectations. In any case, this shows that despite the numerous problems the democratic process in Georgia is moving ahead.
Stanislav CHERNIAVSKIY
D.Sc. (Hist.), Director of the Post-Soviet Research Center, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russian Federation).
RUSSIA AND AZERBAIJAN: THE SPECIAL FEATURES AND MAIN VECTORS OF INTERSTATE COOPERATION IN THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD
Abstract
This article takes a retrospective look at the development of Russian-Azerbai-jani relations and at the special features of their current state. The main obstacles preventing the establishment of bilateral relations include the consequences of the collapse of the union-wide economy, the events in Chechnia, the search for a new route for exporting Caspian oil, and the
Armenian factor. The author is of the opinion that both the Russian political leadership and the country’s business community understand the importance of a genuine strategic partnership with Azerbaijan. He also believes that this year we should expect significant progress in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem and in the talks on the Caspian’s legal status.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Russian-Azerbaijani relations today are an important component of the multilayered structure of the world community. Despite the seemingly regional nature of cooperation between the two countries, it is having a considerable influence on the resolution of not only energy, but also military-political security issues at the global level. Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, each of which is distinguished by a high level of instability, are geographically close to Azerbaijan. This determines the special role Russian-Azerbaijani cooperation is called upon to play in resolving their problems.
