An Alternative Reading of Georgia’s Foreign Influence Law

(Photo by DerFuchs via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

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Earlier this Spring, newsrooms from Washington to Paris and beyond spotlighted public demonstrations in Georgia. Massive protests began in April over the country’s now-passed “foreign interference” law, which will require non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media outlets that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register with the country’s Ministry of Justice as “organizations serving the interests of a foreign power.”

Georgian lawmakers pushed the law through only a year after introducing a similar-style bill into the country’s parliament, which was also met with public opposition. Officials in the United States and Europe appear near unanimous in their resistance to the so-called “Russian law,” which they say replicates a similar law used by the Kremlin to crack down on domestic opposition. While many protesters share their concerns, others in Georgia and abroad have pointed to a biased perception of the bill and the protests it triggered. 

While Spheres of Influence previously reported on the protests following the 2023 iteration of this law, Georgia faces a consequential election year, warranting an alternative perspective on the “foreign influence” debate. Writers have frequently compared Georgia’s “foreign influence” bill to Russia’s, but few have questioned the problems with this comparison, which minimizes Georgia’s nuanced politics. Critics also overlook the overstated role of international NGOs in Georgia’s political sphere and the challenges foreign funding poses to the country’s self-determination and democracy. To learn more about this, we spoke with Sopo Japaradiz and Revaz Karanadze, labour organizers from the Georgian Solidarity Network, and Almut Rochowanski, a feminist activist and former NGO employee in the Caucasus.

The “NGOization” of Georgia

Rochowanski landed her first job in Georgia’s NGO sector in the early 2000s. “It was my graduate student internship,” she tells me, “and frankly, I was really excited.” But early on, she says, an impression started to creep into her work. “This ‘isn’t quite right’ [feeling],” she tells me, “it keeps coming again and again and again.” Eventually, she realized the lack of accountability towards international NGOs delivering public services. One day, it dawned on her that the “entire branch of how [NGOs] do foreign affairs or international relations with countries is extremely unfair and unjust.”

Revaz Karanadze, a labour organizer with the Georgian Solidarity Network union, calls this period the “NGOization” of Georgia’s public services, where “the NGO class came in and took over.” He tells me how they have built “their sort of upper middle class,” inaccessible to ordinary Georgians. According to Karanadze, a massive imbalance of wealth exists between Georgia’s NGO workforce and other sectors of the country’s economy. Recent research shows that Georgia faces persistent poverty and income inequality.

Karanadze’s Solidarity Network colleague Sopo Japaridze described the NGO sphere as “a free market kind of competition within the basic service provider world.” Japaridze writes on how the free market ideologies of neoliberalism helped dismantle healthcare in the South Caucasus nation. The way NGOs often subscribe to these ideas poses risks for further breakdown in public services across Georgian society, such as healthcare and education. 

“Americans are the pioneers of foreign agent laws.”

“Americans are the pioneers of foreign agent laws,” Japaridze reminds me, pointing to the US’s 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act as the precursor of most modern foreign influence laws. This topic is especially important in Georgia, with Rochowanski emphasizing how the vast majority of civil society organizations in Georgia are foreign-funded to a high percentage. 

When other countries try to point the finger at Georgia, Rochowanski says, “This is like Switzerland saying, ‘Look at me – I don’t have laws regulating tsunamis.’” A June 2020 report found that over 95% of the funding for Civil Society Organizations in Georgia came from abroad, causing a major concern for “their financial stability and sustainability,” as the report highlights.

Japaridze and Rochowanski stress that “this law won’t restore Georgians’ sovereignty — not in any meaningful sense of re-empowering citizens and re-politicizing policymaking.” “Sovereignty,” Rochowanski tells me, “means that the people who have power over you, you can hold them accountable. And you can’t do that with foreigners by definition, with foreign money, you can’t hold them accountable.” 

Rochowanski says the nuanced question of sovereignty is missing in the coverage of Georgia’s new law. Labelling it the “Russia bill” “fits the very shallow sort of geopolitical framework that we now need to have about everything. You know, everything is either pro-Russian or pro-us. And that erases local politics completely.” Erasing the nuance of Georgia’s politics, in other words, denies the country its own political choice and destiny.

“When you ask Georgians which party represents your interests, the answer is none.”

All three interviewees agree that the law would have little effect on most ordinary citizens. While many critics have claimed this Russian-style law is a step towards authoritarianism, others have pointed out more worrying, yet much less reported legal developments that more closely resemble Russia’s crackdown on civil liberties. 

“One of the things we know,” Rochowanski tells me, “is that when you ask Georgians ‘What are your greatest concerns?’ The highest ranking problems are not freedom or democracy… And it certainly isn’t the NGO law… It’s joblessness, unemployment, poverty, labour migration, the economic situation.” Revaz Karanadze of Solidarity Network says, “When you talk to the people, like our union members… they never care about this law.” And while the protests in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, built up an ‘anti-Russian law’ sentiment, Karanadze highlights a rude awakening among Georgian youth in response to the law. 

Looking ahead, Georgia faces a precarious election later this year, with the recent protests likely to affect how the ruling Georgian Dream party fares. Another well-documented phenomenon, Rochowanski tells me, is a deep dissatisfaction with the political party options in Georgia. For example, the leading Georgia Dream party only called on support from 31% of Georgians, according to a March 2023 poll conducted before the recent protests.

“On the whole,” Rochowanski tells me, “the largest block of the population says [that] no party represents my interests.” Looking further ahead, Rochowanski says a large economic shift is more necessary than a political one to escape the current reliance on foreign-funded services. “We have to think about how we can degrowth to where it’s not traumatic and disruptive and harmful.”

All Eyes on October

With national elections on the horizon, Georgia’s “foreign influence” law has thrown the country into the global spotlight. Mainstream media coverage has shown the country in a narrow framing of the Russian vs. Western alliance, but a closer look at the forces behind Georgia’s “foreign influence” law reveals a deeper issue at stake. Persistent economic inequalities in the country call for a broader debate on the ethics of foreign-funded NGO work, mainly through the problems they pose to the country’s self-determination and democratic accountability.

Georgia’s October 2024 elections will arrive amid widespread cynicism towards political parties, and their results will undoubtedly reflect the country’s more urgent concerns of economic inequality and job insecurity. Suppose North American and European newsrooms are still focusing on the South Caucasus region by the Fall. In that case, their reporting should give more nuance to Georgia’s political arena and move beyond the tired paradigm of Cold War rivals vying for influence.

Edited by Qiu Guan