Recent elections in Georgia and the US show that elections alone are poor indicators of democracy, and need to be supplemented with other methods of economic and political empowerment.
Georgia’s signing of the Association Agreement with the EU has been welcomed by the country’s people and its elite, but it will likely not be the panacea they hope.
Kakha Bendukidze died in November 2014 at the age of 58. Bendukidze directed the whirlwind of economic reform that characterised Georgia from 2004 to 2008-2009.
Since the break-up of the USSR, the South Caucasus has trodden a chequered path, both political and economic. Is democracy really what the people want? Or just what Western donors and investors think they should have? Stephen F Jones reflects
