The Police System Reform in Georgia (Informal Power its Forms, Types and Spheres of Influence)

• Main Author: Charkviani Tamar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2014-12-01
• Series: International Journal of Area Studies
• Subjects: Post Soviet studies; Social networks; Police; Informal power
• Online Access: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ijas.2014.9.issue-2/ijas-2014-0007/ijas-2014-0007.xml?format=INT

It is a widely accepted notion that the major change brought by the 2003 November revolution in Georgia was the reform of the public services. Two major tasks were to be achieved for the state institutions: to monopolize the use of legitimate power on the state territory and to start providing services to the citizens. Police reform was at the heart of both these objectives. The major obstacle identified on the way of this reform was corruption. Indeed it was widely known that posts in police forces were to be purchased; policemen were involved in organized crime, extortion, and other illegal pursuits. But the corruption itself was the effect of the broader system in which patrimonial system of not distinguishing between the public office and private sphere was hybridized with the legal-rational rule, having its origin in the Soviet Union. The main subject of our research is to analyze the model of informal power network in Georgian police, to describe its configurations and identify its social actors.