A new geopolitical stalemate: revisiting the EU's neighbourhood policy in Georgia

This article examines the EU's neighbourhood policy, focusing on the extent of its role in instigating democracy promotion and responding to the security challenges in Georgia. It argues that although the EU has a positive impact with its normative undertaking, it remains short of answering the geopolitical expectations of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. In Georgia, the EU's constraints arise from the interplay between internal (domestic) and external (strategic) factors that need to be addressed to resolve the persistent challenges related to the democracy-security nexus in the country. While internally the problems emanating from the challenges of the dominant political party system translated into the Georgian political elite's reluctance to implement necessary reforms, the external dynamics stem from the deteriorating strategic situation in the region and the EU's ambiguous positioning in responding to the security needs of the country.