Lincoln Mitchell In Georgia’s recent local elections, Kakha Kaladze won handily in his bid to become Tbilisi’s mayor. As the nominee of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Kaladze was the strong favorite in an election where the ultimate outcome was never really in doubt. Perhaps understandably, the international media has not paid much attention to… Read More

by Michael Cecire With November’s fifth Eastern Partnership (Eap) summit in Brussels looming, the once-ambitious EU platform looks to be taking a back-to-basics approach towards its eastern neighbors. Launched in 2009 as a mechanism of calibrating the European aspirations — latent or overt — of Armenia Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the EaP has… Read More

Lincoln Mitchell Over the last few years, the issue of Russian so-called “hybrid warfare” — and Moscow’s deft, if nefarious, use misinformation and media more generally — have been a central theme in global politics. This narrative found widespread traction in earnest with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and accelerating substantially with the ongoing… Read More

Shairbek Juraev On October 15, Kyrgyzstan is holding presidential elections. These elections are being widely hailed as particularly momentous for Kyrgyzstan (and Central Asia), where incumbent is observing term limits and standing down amid fierce competition from presidential hopefuls. In the days ahead of the vote, however, it remains uncertain whether the Kyrgyz president indeed… Read More