How well does democracy promotion work? Perspectives and Strategies of Civil Society Actros in Georgia. 

Amid the ongoing political crisis in the Republic of Georgia, domestic civil society has been described as the last line of defense against autocratization and the unchecked power of the ruling party. Yet, what can civil society realistically do to counter authoritarian rule? And how can external democracy promotion support their efforts? These questions have resurfaced in the search for new explanations of civil society’s role in post-transition politics and regime change within post-communist hybrid regimes and beyond.

The European Union, as the most significant external promoter of democracy in Georgia, has rhetorically supported and funded Georgia’s civil society, functioning as a temporary “firewall” (Bernhard 2020) when democratic institutional accountability mechanisms falter. However, research on CSOs in EU candidate countries suggests that EU enlargement policies have generally strengthened civil society’s “procedural empowerment.” Nevertheless, “substantive empowerment”—the actual ability to influence domestic policy outcomes—remains limited (Wunsch 2018), leaving CSOs vulnerable to national governments' attacks on democratic institutions.

With this theoretical distinction in mind, we aim to assess civil society’s ability to leverage the EU accession process to resist autocratization or advance political liberalization. Drawing on original interview data with civil society stakeholders alongside official documents, we address the following questions: Do CSOs perceive the EU accession process as a framework for influencing political change? And how do these perceptions shape their strategies in utilizing the EU to achieve their objectives? This paper contributes to the understanding of substantive civil society empowerment in EU candidate states and feeds into the theory of “EU-usage” (Jacquot and Woll) by domestic CSOs.