Decision-Making and Georgia's Perpetual Revolution: The Case of IDP Housing

Observers tend to enthuse about Georgia’s leadership or damn it, but such black-and-white views do little to explain what is really going on in the country. Examining the government’s recent efforts to provide housing to those internally displaced by the August 2008 conflict with Russia sheds light not only on the housing program itself, but on contemporary Georgian politics in general. In particular, four traits characteristic of the ruling United National Movement’s revolutionary governance are brought into focus: informal decision-making, fluid roles, heroic action, and vanguard politics.