The National Identity of Georgia and Its Impact on the Country's Foreign Policy

The aim of the bachelor's thesis is to determine whether there has been a shift in the national identity of Georgia from February 2021 to February 2023 that would be reflected in the discourse of political elites and whether this potential shift has influenced the country's foreign policy. To achieve this goal, the author poses two corresponding research questions: whether there has been a change in national identity in the last two years as presented by political elites, and if so, whether this change has been reflected in foreign policy. In the context of qualitative research, a total of 39 speeches by four foreign policy actors in Georgia are thoroughly analyzed using the NVivo program: Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, President Salome Zourabichvili, and two Foreign Ministers, David Zalkaliani and Ilia Darchiashvili. Subsequently, it is verified whether shifts in national identity are also evident in two key government documents dealing with foreign policy. Based on content qualitative analyses, the author concludes that there has been a certain shift in national identity. However, this shift is not yet fully discernible in foreign policy documents, as the fundamental concepts of foreign policy were formulated before the onset of the war. The influence of the national identity of elites on foreign policy, however, was unequivocally observable during the analysis of the speeches themselves.