The People, the Fear, and the Exhaustion Machine: How Populist Elites in Georgia and Serbia Rule by Chaos

In recent elections, during political crises, in every speech and briefing held after violently shutting down protests—there it is: “We are here for the People!” The same slogan, the same self-proclaimed defenders of the nation, culture, and traditions standing together against “the elite”, “foreign agents”, “global war parties”, “free masons”, “deep state”, and another imaginary enemy (Müller, 2017). The irony is that the loudest anti-elite voices are almost always the ruling elite. This political show has become so repetitive in Georgia and Serbia that it’s almost boring. Sadly, it often seems to be working. The same elite manages to sell themselves as the righteous voice of the “People” while they control the state, a major part of the media, money, and almost every level of power.

Even though it looks like these slogans are trying to convince people, nobody cares if the population believes it. The real function of the “People” rhetoric is not about ideology but about slowly dismantling other political alternatives and leaving only one option standing. In several post-Soviet countries, including Georgia and Serbia, right-wing populist elites turned politics into an exhaustion machine—a permanent state of slow chaos, outrage and fear, where the majority cannot think about the real problems and organise properly. People might eventually stop caring and resisting.  In the game of chaos, only one rule is absolute—the house always wins.

Despite having different histories, geographical locations, cultural traumas, and traditions, both Georgia and Serbia are “partially free” hybrid regimes, according to Freedom House (2024), and both continue to pursue, at least on paper, EU integration. In both, the elite is employing the same populist rhetoric.

Never-ending fear: Us and Them

Populist leaders often employ the same playbook. One has to divide the world into “Us” and “Them” (Müller, 2017). “Us” refers to the pure, hard-working, patriotic, and long-suffering people. “Them” means the West, corrupt elites, foreign agents, liberals, minorities, the opposition, the media, etc. The list is long, flexible, adjustable and growing according to the context and socio-political setting. This is not just rhetoric; it is more of a storytelling system known as the “Populist Logic” (Müller, 2017). Populists do not argue about policies; they claim they represent the only true and moral people. It is impossible to identify the exact characteristics of the “People” because populists often change who is included and who is left out for political reasons.

For this logic to work in practice, populist elites use the “Politics of Fear” (Wodak 2020). The working strategy is simple and cyclical: Inventing a threat, → Dramatizing the crisis, → Presenting themselves as the only saviour,  → Repeating until the public is too exhausted (Wodak, 2020).

Similarly, concrete threats have continuously changed in Serbia and Georgia, but the main structure remains unchanged. Threats usually come from Western institutions, NGOs, the media, civil society, and opposition parties. Still, the key idea is that “The people are under attack”, and only the ruling elite can save them.

The Hidden Pattern: Exhaustion as a Strategy

Here, the real game begins, where it is clearer that the point is not persuasion but something darker. Georgian and Serbian political elites have perfected a model that does not aim to convince or inspire people. The main aim is to exhaust and turn politics into a hostile, chaotic, emotionally draining process where no real debate is possible and no alternative can breathe freely.

In Georgia, this exhaustion machine is not fueled only by fear and division but by something even more insidious: strategic slowness. The ruling Georgian Dream Party did not dismantle democratic norms overnight. They first started by demonizing NGOs in 2020 after the elections, blaming them for planning a revolution and “Maidan” in Georgia. Then came vague and persistent criticism of the EU and the West. In the past two years, government officials have sent direct insults and disrespectful messages towards EU politicians. Finally, this peaked when concrete legislative actions targeted NGOs, opposition political parties, and the media. In addition, after the 2024 elections, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that EU accession negotiations were suspended until the end of 2028, which caused mass non-stop protests in the streets.

Although Serbia has a similar populistic script, the elite has used a slightly different but equally effective strategy–controlled hyperactivity. When Georgian populists govern by slow chaos and quietly normalizing democratic erosion, Serbian populist elites use speed and crisis overload (Bieber, 2018). President Aleksandar Vučić and his supporting satellite parties transformed the Serbian political arena into a permanent state of emergency. There, we do not encounter carefully drip-feeding authoritarian measures stretched over the years; instead, the ruling elite has created institutional whiplash, where no single scandal, crisis or attack on democracy has time to dominate the public conversation. When the SNS (Serbian Progressive Party) came to power over ten years ago, they quickly eroded media pluralism by launching smear campaigns against media and opposition figures (Bieber, 2018). Kosovo, NATO and internal “traitors” became threats. Surprise constitutional reforms and referenda are called regularly, where the main idea is not to change policy but to put “enemies” off balance and society in a state of mobilisation. Strategically calculated ambivalence gives the elite the opportunity to manoeuvre better; it has, at times, romanticized historical ties with Russia. Most importantly, the recent political tension is a textbook example of controlled hyperactivity: when there are mass protests and criticism of authoritarian practices in Serbia, the government answers with escalating tensions over Kosovo, vague promises of reforms and new elections. The last one seems to be hopeful news, but the general idea is to exhaust the opposition forces and society.

The Real Danger – When You Stop Caring

The danger of this political model for the democratic opposition is that it is not immediately visible. It slowly creates an environment so toxic and exhausting that citizens disengage altogether. This later turns into “emotional governance” (Kinnvall, 2024), a system where public discourse is completely hijacked by fear, resentment and moral absolutism.

The irony is that the louder the ruling elites shout about the “People”, the less power the people actually have. The ruling elite do not always need to persuade, and they do not need to win hearts and minds. They only need to make politics unbearable enough that no one can play the game.

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