It has become something of a truism that among the Euro-Atlantic aspirants, Georgia is the “leader of the pack” in terms of political and civil reforms. That truism has the benefit of being true; after all, Georgia’s problematic but largely functioning democracy makes it something of an “island” of democracy in a region—and, increasingly, in a world—in which authoritarianism is increasingly the norm. Rebecca Harms, a German MEP, rather un-controversially noted as much during an inter-parliamentary conference in Ukraine, leading to obligatory coverage in the Georgian media.

Her comments came at an interesting moment for Georgia, as Rustaveli Avenue’s broad boulevards were being filled with protesters in front of the “old parliament” (the legal parliament remains in Kutaisi, though even the “new” parliament’s locus of activity—and in many respects its soul—remains in the building opposite the neo-Moorish Opera House in Tbilisi). Harms’ comments were hardly a sidestepping of Tbilisi’s roiling protests, as she specifically cited them in her remarks. But for the protesters gathering in central Tbilisi, and for more than a few other observers, Harms’ metaphor—which suggests a finish line—contains a bit of cruelty, given the elongated and wayward geography of Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic road to nowhere. Indeed, what good is being the leader of a convoy to oblivion?

Nowhere Man

Georgia’s most recent round of protests, sparked by perceived judicial corruption in the Khorava Street case of two murdered teenagers, claimed its most high-profile scalp with the resignation of Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. While Kvirikashvili’s resignation was a key demand of protesters, his nominal popularity likely only played a minor role in his departure; after all, Kvirikashvili imminent departure has become something of a staple of Georgian political gossip since early 2017. With Ivanishvili recently regaining the official reins over the ruling Georgian Dream party he founded in 2011, Kvirikashvili’s transition went from the stuff of rumor to a question of time and circumstance. Amid protests, concerns over socio-economic indicators, and fuelling public discontent, Kvirikashvili was sent on his way.

It’s not yet clear who will take his place, but Kvirikashvili’s dismissal is yet another disquieting datapoint in an accelerating curve of worrying developments in Georgia. Though cast as a villain in recent protests, Kvirikashvili had brought a certain steadying influence and professionalism to government, which reassured investors and diplomatic partners alike. Yet, his reputation for independence—a reasonable factor in his departure—often put him at odds with a sprawling governmental apparatus with myriad interests and patrons. If anything, Kvirikashvili’s cardinal sin was his inability to more fully marshal control over the many flailing arms of Georgia’s government, which often found him rushing to catch up with events, and not the other way around.

Some of this may be attributable to Kvirikashvili’s failings as a manager, but the now ex-premier was arrayed against deep-set problems that are essentially structural and well-preceded his accession to leadership. If there is one unifying thread between the Khorava Street murders, the Bassiani nightclub police raids, the 2017 abduction and forcible repatriation of Afgan Mukhtarli, and the Chatayev shootout (and subsequent Pankisi operation), it’s not Kvirikashvili, but evidence that the Georgian security services continue to operate all too autonomously, with their own rules and reporting lines.

While various reforms during the Shevardnadze period, the early Saakashvili era, and the Georgian Dream’s early tenure variously chipped away at the security services’ deeply-embedded Okhrana-KGB cultural roots, reform inertia under each government saw progress stagnate and, in some cases, reverse course. While Georgia’s security services have objectively made much progress since independence in both professionalism and competence, they have typically lagged behind Georgia’s “civil” ministries even during the best of times. With the Georgian government riddled with reform fatigue, and little in the way of exogenous incentives to pull things along, a government-wide reversion to the mean is underway—and doubly so for the traditionally less accountable security ministries.

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

It’s unlikely that Ms. Harms, the German MEP, could have known what her formulation of Georgia’s political development elicits, being so freighted with the baggage of domestic reform inertia and seeming Euro-Atlantic apathy. If the fires of reform within Georgia are sputtering —an unfortunate but potentially inevitable result without some powerful impetus—its coals demand re-stoking somehow. Certainly, Georgian civil society and voters can and should provide increased pressure in this regard, but Georgia’s elite-driven politics and the nature of electoral dynamics fundamentally limits their impact (at least until party internal governance matures and/or more interests are represented in Georgia’s parliament).

This leaves international actors uniquely positioned to motivate reform processes in the country, given their access and potential for leverage with Georgian decision-makers. However, as Euro-Atlantic conditionality has come to be seen locally as having reached its functional frontiers, at least with regards to Georgia for the foreseeable future, international (and particularly Euro-Atlantic) leverage is self-immobilized, with few mechanisms to either incentivize reforms or to even properly maintain what progress may have been previously achieved. Without the prospect of robust conditionality, the Euro-Atlantic West is extremely limited in its ability to meaningfully influence affairs on the ground.

Yet, if the blinkering of the Euro-Atlantic pathway reveals a decline in Western ambition and leadership, the lack of any kind of capable alternative suggests a crisis in Western policy creativity. Georgia’s interest in the European Union and NATO is not merely a desire for free movement or security guarantees (with its Association Agreement-DCFTA-Visa Liberalization pacts already providing much of the former, and the knowledge that NATO membership only begets another variety of security anxiety), but an expression of civilizational identity on one hand, and a desire for “prosperous normalcy” on the other. Could an alternative pathway be fashioned to accommodate these desires? If so, conditionality might see a chance at a comeback, and with it the hopes that Georgia’s cycle of reform and malignant stagnation is finally undone.