In May of 2024, thousands of Georgians filled the streets of the capital city, Tbilisi, chanting for the country to abandon “Kremlin-style” law, as police fired water cannons and arrested protestors across the capital. The demonstrations were in response to a newly reintroduced “foreign agents law”, a piece of legislation labeling any civil society group or media outlet that received more than 20% of its funding from abroad sources as serving foreign interests. The return of this bill, formerly having mass public rejection in 2023, was not an isolated government misstep. Instead, it reflects a clear shift by the ruling Georgian Dream party toward a competitive authoritarian model, one that hides erosive intentions behind a facade of democratic language.

This law exemplifies Ozan Varol’s stealth authoritarianism, or the use of legal frameworks to consolidate power while maintaining the promise of legitimacy to their citizens. This bill is intended to act as a possible transparency mechanism for protecting against foreign interference, yet it lacks reasoning. Instead, it functions as a strategic legal tool to shrink civic space ahead of Georgia’s national elections, weaken horizontal accountability between government and citizens, and ultimately shift Georgia’s political trajectory. While mass mobilization has challenged the action, the constraints on civil society reveal the fragility of this law and Georgia’s broader democratic institutions.

The law itself is simple: NGOs, media outlets, and civil society organizations with foreign funding must register as agents of foreign interest and comply with strict obligations to report. The Georgian Dream party cites the phrase “serving the interests of a foreign power” as being similar to US and EU versions of foreign policy. Yet, it is in reality nearly identical to Russia’s 2012 foreign agents’ law, which has been used to systematically dismantle independent organizations, harass journalists, propagandize domestic media, and remove electoral oversight.

Stealth authoritarianism functions through laws that appear administrative but have political benefits to a seizing executive or party. Georgia’s bill expands state discretion to conduct financial audits, impose fines, and even shut down noncompliant groups if needed. When actors like journalists, election observers, and anti-corruption NGOs are targets of legislation, the law is clearly targeting democratic accountability. Varol’s framework suggests that laws like these weaponize neutral, legal language to eliminate political constraints without overtly abolishing elections or opposition.

The Georgian government claims it is promoting transparency, but transparency does not require stigmatizing civic groups or requiring inspection powers that can be selectively deployed. Especially in a pre-election environment, these provisions can directly benefit the incumbent ruling party over the executive or legislature.

Georgia is defined as a hybrid regime and acts neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian across policy and treatment of citizens. Elections are competitive, but uneven, as the ruling party has maintained long control over judicial courts, agencies, and media oversight bodies. The introduction of the foreign agent’s law is an example of competitive authoritarianism, where elections occur but the “playing field” is structurally tipped to favor incumbents.

Unlike in other countries that may have had unbiased courts to provide resistance against executive aggrandizement (when an elected leader expands power beyond institutional democratic protections), Georgia’s courts have not been strong resistors. The Georgia Dream party has had a decade of influence over judicial appointments, disciplinary bodies, and constitutional oversight mechanisms. When civilians lose the ability to rely on courts, monitor elections, or see corruption, and when courts lack independence, executive aggrandizement becomes easier to advance without scrutiny.

The clearest sign of authoritarian intent is around the wording of the bill’s 2024 reintroduction. Georgian Dream leaders describe foreign-funded NGOs as “Western agents” intended on destabilizing the country or dragging Georgia into war with Russia. This framing is intentionally biased by political elites to identify an enemy to increase public willingness to support other erosive policies.

By labeling groups as serving foreign powers, rather than simply receiving funding, the government reframes actors that provide core democratic oversight as threats to national security. However, the major force resisting this backsliding in Georgia has been the targets of this rhetoric themselves — civil society. The 2024 and earlier 2023 protests drew crowds and sustained pressure on the Georgia Dream party, supporting the theory that strong civil societies can deter democratic defection by raising the political costs of corruption.

Civil society alone cannot counter a ruling party that is willing to sacrifice its international legitimacy. Georgia’s foreign agents’ law is a part of a broader regional pattern of Russian influence, following countries like Hungary and Kazakhstan. Varol highlights how authoritarian regimes learn from each other, especially when similar geographic or political criteria are shared, by transferring effective legal tools that target opposition.

The international stakes are high for Georgia, being a European Union candidate state. The EU has denounced the law, saying it is incompatible with its standards for democracy, yet Georgia Dream appears more comfortable aligning with Russian standards and risking democratic accountability through European integration.

The law, overall, is not about transparency for citizens; it is a law that benefits its makers regarding power. By weaponizing legal language, exploiting institutional weaknesses, and reframing civil society as a foreign threat, the ruling party is increasingly showing signs of stealth authoritarianism.

While Georgia’s civil protests show a commitment to democracy, mobilization alone cannot replace the horizontal, institutional accountability the country lacks. Without strong courts, competitive media, or real electoral oversight, the corrosion will be harder to reverse with protests alone.

Georgia is at an inflection point in its hybrid status; whether it remains a struggling democracy or an upcoming authoritarian regime is up to civil resistance outlasting the government’s silencing efforts. It is also up to whether international pressure can impose consequences on a ruling party that seems comfortable with walking away from the broader European norm.