On May 30, Georgian citizens went to the polls to vote in local elections. At stake were issues well beyond the socio-economic problems debated during pre-election campaigning. Apart from being an ordeal for the ruling United National Movement, already strained by war and street protests, the local elections served as a critical test of the fairness of Georgia’s electoral framework and, ultimately, for the country’s prospects of overcoming political polarization. In the end, the ruling party came out of the elections strengthened. More importantly, initial signs indicate that Georgia may be revitalizing the democratic ideals espoused by the “rose revolutionaries”.

Abstract This article provides an overview of the extensive poverty in the South Caucasus. It provides measures of income, employment, resource consumption, material deprivation, and access to utilities and durable goods. Factors like the development of fossil fuel resources in Azerbaijan, the “democratization” of Georgia, and the presence of a large disaspora outside of Armenia have not improved the situation for these countries.

Reliance on informal kinship networks and circles of friends and acquaintances in every-day life is a common characteristic of post-communist societies in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Two decades after the end of Soviet rule in the Caucasus, the great majority of the South Caucasus’s residents continue to depend on informal networks as key sources of social capital, social security, civic association and primary means of support and assistance in different aspects of day-to-day life. Having examined the origins, composition and main operational principles of informal networks, this article argues that informal networks in the South Caucasus are not only the main sources of social support, but also are tightly entangled in the web of corruption and patron-client relations which are wide-spread throughout the region.

Over the past few years the South Caucasian states had to cope with diverse challenges. While Armenia felt the worst of the global financial crisis, Azerbaijan not only absorbed the economic shock unscathed, but also heavily invested abroad. Georgia, still bleeding after losing two takeaway regions, has seen the government change. And all three found themselves in the middle of colliding interests of regional and world powers. In this context, the report analyzes the latest economic and political developments in the region to properly evaluate how far and toward what direction each country of the South Caucasus have gone and will likely go in the near future.

Sites of memory, under the governance of the United National Movement (UNM), were transformed in their function through rehabilitation programs. Sites took on new functions as sites of reminder of the Rose Revolutionary government and what respondents sometimes described as UNM “terror tactics.” Decisions made in the aftermath of the 2012 parliamentary elections about rehabilitation programs, in turn, have again complicated the meaning and memories associated with sites of memory.