Overview

Georgia’s Journey Towards Democracy: Civil-Military Relations and National Security Decision Making in a Former Soviet Republic examines Georgia’s path toward democracy from its independence in 1991 to the present time, emphasizing the role of civil-military relations in that journey. The research offers a historical review of the political events that impacted the country’s uneven movement to democracy and the personalities who steered the country forward. Using Samuel P. Huntington’s concept of an authoritarian transition that is unique to modernizing states, and especially with the former Soviet republics, the research concludes that Georgia remains in its authoritarian transition, but also raises the issue that this transition may have been further derailed by state capture. This study is important for donor states to understand the historical and cultural traditions that affect the effectiveness of their assistance to Georgia. Georgia’s Journey Towards Democracy concludes with several recommendations to assist Georgia to advance toward becoming a united liberal democracy and the necessity to free its civil-military relations from partisan politics and state capture.

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9781666947960

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Reviews

This impressive, granular, and well written work offers a clear lens on the historical, national security and political landscape of Georgia’s path towards a liberal democracy. -- Dennis Robbins

This impressive, granular, and well written work offers a clear lens on the historical, national security and political landscape of Georgia’s path towards a liberal democracy. -- Dennis Robbins Based on classical theory of Samuel Huntington on Civil-military Relations and having the first-hand experience of years-long work with post-Soviet republic of Georgia’s security establishment, Ronald Mangum explains why the US security assistance to new democracies frequently fail. The key for understanding such failures and adjusting future American democracy promotion world-wide strategy accordingly, as seen by the author of this book, is the following: 1. Better appreciation of historical nuances of the recipient nations is needed; 2. Donors should pay more attention to the fact that reforms of the recipients' national security systems, which play a crucial role in state-building, may look nice on paper, but be hostages of partisan politics in reality. In a way, the book tells the sad story of how the US model of national security decision making was taken by Georgians but converted into something more resembling their Soviet past. -- David Darchiashvili, Ilia State University In this powerful new study Ronald Magnum combines his deep professional experience with rigorous primary research to build a comprehensive analysis of national security decision making in Georgia and to draw broader conclusions about civil military relations in post-Soviet states. This pioneering work will set the standard for future research on these topics. -- Steven Metz, author of ""Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy"" and former faculty member at the US Army War College, United States Army War College

Author Information

Ronald Scott Mangum is retired United States Army Brigadier General whose final command was the joint-theater level Special Operations Command Korea, SOCKOR.

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