Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11048852
AutoresChristofer Berglund (0000-0002-9923-0775, Uppsala University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen44
Número4
Páginas522-542
Fecha de publicación2016-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/00905992.2016.1142519
OpenAlexW2357957992
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas21

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment ( n = 792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe

Ancient history · Armenian · Georgian · Government (linguistics · Inclusion (mineral · Linguistics · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics