The Determinants of Anti-Corruption Reform in the Republic of Georgia

Given its history of high levels of corruption, the progress that the Republic of Georgia has made in its anti-corruption reforms since the Rose Revolution of 2003 is especially noteworthy. This research project seeks to explain how the Georgian administration was able to effect successful anti-corruption reforms in the country, especially since similar reforms have faced difficulties elsewhere. Based on a year of fieldwork in Tbilisi as well as information from quantitative databases and newspaper accounts, Nasuti hypothesizes that the low level of internal cohesion and state capacity in Georgia prior to 2003 provided few institutional barriers that could work to block the anti-corruption reforms once a reform-minded government came to power. The project also distinguishes between petty and elite-level corruption in order to analyze the present and future trends for corruption in the country.

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Peter Nasuti, of University of Wisconsin-Madison, was a 2012 Regional Policy Symposium participant.