Foreign influence and the erosion of sovereignty are all good, as long as it’s us doing it.

Almut Rochowanski, Jacobin:

Under the ruling Georgian Dream party, Georgia might have excelled at adopting the technocratic reforms prescribed by its Western partners, but the latter nevertheless tried to squeeze Georgian Dream out of power. First partially, via a power-sharing scheme devised by the EU; then, after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, increasingly urgently; and finally, before elections in October 2024, openly so. Throughout, Western governments kept funding a powerful and vocal group of partisan NGOs that variously called for sanctioning, ousting, or toppling the government. So in spring 2023, the Georgian government first introduced a law that would oblige foreign-funded NGOs to disclose their finances. After a year of intermittent, large-scale protests, it was adopted.

Once the Georgian government started to push back against the foreign hold on the country’s NGOs, media, policymaking, and politics, it faced shrill accusations of secret pacts with Russia and being under Vladimir Putin’s influence — never mind the lack of evidence.

This double standard is barely ever acknowledged and never questioned, since according to a tacit consensus, the West is in the influence game only because we want what’s best for Georgia and would never seek any advantage from “protecting Georgian democracy” and promoting “reforms” (shorthand for a wide range of legal and political changes favored by foreign partners instead of the electorate). Foreign influence and the erosion of sovereignty are all good, as long as it’s us doing it.