The Ilia Chavchavadze Center for European Studies and Civic Education announces Essay Competition – Happy Nation: Quo Vadis?

After the restoration of independence on April 9, 1991, Georgia has faced multiple challenges: several wars with Russia, ethnic cleansing, occupation, organized crime, systemic corruption... Despite fundamental changes which occurred after the Rose Revolution, for the last few years the Russian influence has been growing, public institutions are becoming weaker, democracy is backsliding, economic growth has decreased, national currency has devalued significantly, social conditions have deteriorated, and nihilism has been gaining root, causing on more and more citizens leaving the country.

The Essay Competition aims at analyzing the development of independent Georgia from 1991 until today in a critical manner, identifying major challenges from historical-geopolitical perspective and proposing specific formulas and opinions for solving problems facing the Georgian Society. The participants are encouraged to seek out historical parallels, identify the interests of outsider actors and the role of their local allies, demonstrate recurring challenges and propose specific recommendations, which could become a basis for the policy discussions in the future.

Task: Participants have the possibility to identify specific problems relating to the topics discussed above in retrospective way and offer practical solutions to those problems. The essay shall contain not only critical analysis and argumentative skills of the participants, but also focus on solving the problems and portray opinions on the future development of the matter.  

Topics:
• Foreign relations and security
• Economic policy
• Justice System
• Mass Media
• Culture, Health and Social Policy
• Education
• Western values and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic Choice

 Competition terms:

• Anyone can participate in the project: Essays written by persons younger than 30 will be considered for the competition and the Essays written by the persons older than 30 will be published on our portal.
• Participants should send their Essays to: chavchavadzecenter@gmail.com
• In the Subject field of the e-mail, please indicate: “Essay Competition”.
• Please include a short biography (one paragraph) and contact information of the author.
• please limit the length to no more than 1,000 words.
• In case of Plagiarism, the Essay will be disqualified.

The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2020.

The winners of the Competition will be announced by the jury of the Chavchavadze Center no later than May 5, 2020. The winning authors will be invited to attend the Conference organized by Chavchavadze Center, on May 22-23, where they will be awarded by Chavchavadze Center.

The project is supported by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung South Caucasus.