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Abstract
Since the 2003 revolution that brought to power President Mikheil Saakashvili, the post-Soviet Republic of Georgia has implemented a major programme of police reforms, including the mass dismissal of corrupt officers, the restructuring of police agencies, and significant changes in recruitment, training, and compensation. The reforms have eliminated many forms of corruption and have transformed what was a criminalised and dysfunctional police force into the most disciplined and service-oriented law enforcement agency in the post-Soviet region. The paper describes the scope and nature of these police reforms, analyses their effectiveness, and explains their origins. The Saakashvili government implemented police reforms as part of a broader agenda of reversing the decay of the Georgian state in the post-Soviet period and reasserting its control of the national territory and its effective independence from Georgia's neighbour, Russia. Police reforms in Georgia were also the product of a revolutionary moment in which the new government could take extraordinary measures to reshape the police. In part because the Georgian government remains domestically and internationally embattled, the reformed police have become closely associated with the Saakashvili presidency. Georgia therefore suggests that we need to rethink the different ways that democracy and state building contribute to successful police reforms.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank George Nikoladze for extensive help in coordinating my visits to Georgia; Eugene Slonimerov and Gregory Yerashotis for research assistance; and Aleksandr Bolkvadze, Shota Utiashvili, and Gela Kvashilava of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs for facilitating my visit to the MIA headquarters in Tbilisi and MIA field offices.
Notes
1. In only one interview, the conversation was conducted in Georgian and simultaneously translated by an interpreter.
2. Interviews were conducted with the informed consent of the respondents, pursuant to the ethical protocols on the use of human subjects in force at the author's university.
3. Ajara was subsequently reintegrated into Georgia following Saakashvili's rise to power, discussed below. Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain under separatist control. Following the August 2008 Russo-Georgian war, Russia and a handful of other states have recognised their independence, while Georgia and nearly all other governments do not.
4. One respondent recalled that a motorist driving from Tbilisi to the country's main Black Sea port at Batumi could expect to be held up by the police “30 times”. Interview with Nadar Ladaria.
5. Interview with Aleksandr Bolkvadze.
6. Interview with Ramishvili.
7. Interview with Shota Utiashvili.
8. Other authoritarian regimes in the region (such as Armenia) managed to withstand much larger protests because they kept effective control over the police (Way and Levitsky Citation2006, p. 400). In contrast, Shevardnadze's weak control over the police made his government vulnerable to opposition challenges. Thus, the same mechanism that he used to govern – leaving the top MIA brass to run their forces as they saw fit – in the end led to the downfall of his regime.
9. Similar large purges have taken place in Colombia and El Salvador (Fruehling Citation2009, pp. 36, 40).
10. Interview with Ramishvili.
11. Interview with Utiashvili.
12. Government agencies based solely around private gain tend not to generate strong loyalty or cohesiveness among their staff (Levitsky and Way Citation2010). Also, given Saakashvili's decisive victory, the initial overwhelming public support for his anti-corruption measures, and public anger at the dismissed police themselves, they may have judged that active opposition was unlikely to succeed.
13. Interview with Bolkvadze.
14. Bolkvadze also drew attention to the undesirability of such duties being carried out by military personnel.
15. All customs and immigration transactions are now recorded by video, and the footage can be viewed from the Ministry in Tbilisi. According to the supervisor of the post, the Patrol Police signalled their new policies to travellers by distributing flyers announcing (in many languages) that bribery would no longer be tolerated. Despite this warning, several travellers were prosecuted for attempted bribery. Interview with Merabi Cincadze.
16. Interview with Levan Tsutskiridze. In 2006, Tsutskiridze worked for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as one of the managers of the project that led to the creation of the CRA
17. Interview with Bolkvadze.
18. Interview with Bolkvadze.
19. In what is presumably a symbolic break with the Russian-Soviet inheritance, Georgian police uniforms now resemble North American ones. Uniforms and stations are also marked with the word “police” in Georgian and English, but not in Russian.
20. For comparison, this was still significantly higher than the 0.5% who answered affirmatively to the same question in Switzerland.
21. On the other hand, citizens’ views of police helpfulness were considerably more negative when the respondent had actually approached the police as a victim of crime. This finding is consistent with other European countries, although the disparity is more marked in Georgia.
22. According to Eka Gigauri, Executive Director of Transparency International Georgia, which has sometimes criticised the Saakashvili government, “If we compare the results of the 2010 survey to results from 2004, we see that citizens’ trust in institutions such as the police, the military, parliament, political parties, the media, the church, NGOs and the private sector has increased. However, political parties and the judiciary remain the institutions that are perceived as most corrupt”; available online at http://www.transparency.ge/en/post/gcb2010.
23. Ramishvili of the libertarian NGO, the Liberty Center, argues that transparency and streamlining are essential in attracting FDI into Georgia, since outside investors will never tolerate administrative barriers there that they might overlook in more mature economies. As he put it, “In some areas [of economic regulation] we need to be more Catholic than the Pope”.
24. Even the Russian press, not known for sympathy for Georgia, has noted that Georgia's record on reducing corruption contrasts with Russia's continuing deterioration under Vladimir Putin's rule (Surnacheva Citation2009).
25. Interview with Giorgi Grigalashvili.
26. Interview with Western Diplomat. (This source requested anonymity.)
27. Interview with Neighbourhood Police Officer. This source was in his early 30s at the time of the interview and began his service with the police shortly before the Rose Revolution. He could thus evaluate changes in the police since the reforms.
28. Interview with Khatia Dekanoidze; interview with Neighbourhood Police Officer.
29. Interview with Khatia Dekanoidze.
30. Interview with Stiina Rajala.
31. Interview with Alexandre Kukhianidze.
32. See http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=21012. Tugushi noted during interview that some demonstrators claimed to have been beaten by people in civilian clothing, who may have been working for the government, if not in the police.
33. Thus, Ladaria cited the need to avoid giving any “pretext” for a coup to pro-Russian forces, or to give fodder for criticism of Georgia by “leftist European politicians”.
34. Interview with Kukhianidze.
35. Interview with Erekle Urushadze and Nina Khatiskatsi. The direct quotation is from Urushadze.
36. Available at http://transparency.ge/en/blog/pmestia-questions-remain-after-incidents-involving-opposition-activistsp; accessed 21 June 2011.
37. The Court found that the investigation was inadequate and that important evidence was not collected, and ordered the government to pay financial compensation to the parents; see http://echr.coe.int/echr/en/hudoc
38. Ramishvili did note that there have been important moves to decentralise authority over local police operations. According to him, most responsibility for ordinary crime prevention duties is now delegated to regional police departments, with the central ministry in Tbilisi retaining direct control over specialised units, such as constitutional security, special operations (organised crime and narcotics), and an analytical department. He added that the local chief now has responsibility for personnel and budget decisions. He argues that full decentralisation of the police is not possible in current Georgian conditions, because of the newness and lack of experience of local government institutions.
39. Interview with Alexandre Kukhianidze.
40. Interview with Baramidze. He noted that reform of the Border Police and improved immigration and customs procedures have demonstrated the effectiveness of Georgian law enforcement, leading western European governments to facilitate visa applications by Georgian citizens.
41. Interview with Western diplomat.
42. Interview with Western diplomat.
43. One could even argue that the policy of promoting FDI has a direct link to Georgia's foreign policy goals: by encouraging Western investment, Georgia can free itself from dependence on the Russian market.
44. Interview with Baramidze.
45. Interview with Utiashvili.
46. Interview with Utiashvili.
47. The Ministry of State Security was the sister ministry of the MIA, responsible for security intelligence. According to one respondent, Shevardnadze's minister of internal affairs, Targamadze, was also heavily influenced by Russia, and is now a Russian citizen and resides in Berlin. Interview with Ladaria.
48. Civil Georgia, July 26, 2010; http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=22548. Of course, even if this claim is correct, many, if not most, participants in the anti-government demonstrations probably participated spontaneously and were motivated by their own concerns rather than Russian patronage.
49. Interview with Dartsimelia. However, he also observed that comparable police reforms were not pursued in Georgia's neighbours, Armenia and Azerbaijan, perhaps because of their governments’ dependence on Russia, and oil wealth, respectively, a cogent observation which could be explored in future research on police in the Caucasus region.
50. Interview with Baramidze.
52. For example, many Canadian officers believe promotion to middle-management positions involves connections and favouritism (Hogan et al. Citation2011).
53. Interview with Baramidze.
54. Interview with Tugushi.
55. Personal communication to author, Toronto, 5 May 2012.