Shortfalls of deliberative democracy in Georgia: the analysis of the General Assembly of a Settlement

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the reasons for citizens’ refusal to participate in public deliberation through the Georgian mechanism of the General Assembly of a Settlement (GAofS) in the remote communities of Georgia. This paper draws on the existing academic literature on effective deliberation processes and reasons behind the public’s disengagement from them to explain Georgian public’s withdrawal from the deliberation processes. By applying the analytical framework on effective deliberation and logic of non-participation, this article uses the case study approach and qualitative research methods to show how façade deliberation processes cause public disenchantment with engagement in local decision-making processes and reinforce the public image of civic participation mechanisms as pointless efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Public deliberation
• deliberative democracy
• public participation
• mini-publics
• refuse to participate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It is worth noting that the public deliberation through the GAofS within the framework of the state rural support program takes place only in rural communities of Georgia.

2 Researchers of the present policy report have attended and explored General Assemblies of Settlements in various municipalities of Georgia, within the framework of another research project which is not publicly available.

3 The exact number of the participants was not available because not all the attendees signed the attendance sheet before leaving the meeting.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tengiz Sultanishvili

Tengiz Sultanishvili is a Director of Community Engagement in the USAID Local Governance Program Georgia and a senior researcher at the PMC Research, Tbilisi, Georgia. With over five years of experience, he has been striving to engage civil society for better social and economic development impact. He researches citizen engagement in the local decision-making process at the regional level of Georgia. Tengiz enjoys building communities’ capacity to hold subnational governments more accountable towards citizens.