Change and Continuity in the Foreign Policies of Small States: Elite Perceptions and Georgia’s Foreign Policy Towards Russia

Abstract

The 2012 parliamentary elections witnessed Georgia’s first peaceful post-independence transfer of power. Under Bidzina Ivanishvili, the government formed by the Georgian Dream Coalition significantly softened the harsh anti-Russia rhetoric of Saakashvili’s ‘National Movement’, launching a policy aimed at normalising relations with Russia. Such a shift of a steady, almost decade-long counter-Russian foreign policy resists explanation by structural theories on small states located in relatively stable external environments. Mapping discursive changes and employing a constructivist framework, we argue that distinct foreign policy visions are reflections of the differences between the identities of the two leadership camps.