Fluid party politics and the challenge for democracy assistance in Georgia

Party politics in Georgia since independence has suffered from a complete lack of institutionalization, reflected most visibly in the high rate of turnover of parties. Furthermore, Georgia’s elusive party system has been affected by regime changes and by abuses of executive authority. This article highlights the dilemmas inherent to studying fluid party systems such as that of Georgia and identifies a number of underlying reasons for the lack of party system institutionalization. Over the course of a brief overview of international political party assistance in Georgia, it is argued that party assistance by western actors has not been responsive to the structural problems of party and party system development.