They can neither be sufficiently described in categories of weakness and failure deducted from western standards, nor without reservation be labeled as pre-modern or traditional. From a comparative point of view nationalism is normally treated as a functional precondition of successful transformation. The failure of reform in post-socialist Georgia seems to contradict this thesis. We have to ask whether the social movements, that dominated the political scene in Georgia in the late 80ies and early 90ies, may be really characterized as nationalistic, a label that implies a notion of an abstract community. In trying to respond to these and other challenges, posed by empirical research as well as by theoretically guided frameworks of comparison the workshop attempts to reconstruct the establishment of a specific type of statehood in Georgia as mode of adaptation to the conditions of modernity, that was significantly shaped by historically evolved traditional patterns and structures, which were however transformed in reaction to externally induced changes.
Special interest is given to empirical work and archive studies.
Reconstruction of the process of forming a post-socialist order in Georgia. Analysis of the way Georgian institutions are functioning today.