Civic Movement or Business Party: The Formation and Political Development of the Georgian Dream

The political party Georgian Dream currently dominates domestic politics by winning both legislative elections organized since its formation. The emergence of this political party is somewhat of a paradox. On the one hand, it claims to have emerged from the civic movement with the same name, established in 2011. On the other hand, its creator is a billionaire businessman and the campaign conducted during the 2012 indicates a type of organization that resembles the model of business parties. In essence, it is the contrast between a bottom-up formation in which people play the vital role against a top-down approach in which the resources of the founder play the determinant role. This paper seeks to understand which of the two sources can better explain the formation and development of this political party. Our analysis uses process-tracing and combines secondary accounts of the party history with qualitative content analysis of party documents (statutes, manifestos) between 2011 and 2018.