The politics of helping: Mobilizing support for internally displaced persons after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war

Abstract

Georgia has one of the largest shares of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, amounting to nearly 6 per cent of the population. A significant portion of Georgia’s IDPs are persons who were forced to flee their homes during a series of armed tensions in the 1990s, while the 2008 war with Russia created a new wave of displaced persons. The IDPs that were displaced as a result of the 1990s’ conflict received little governmental and societal help, while persons displaced as a consequence of the 2008 war received much greater assistance and attention. This article asks why and how attitudes and responses in Georgia have shifted in the past two decades towards internally displaced persons. In order to comprehend the reasons behind the increased mobilization in helping IDPs in 2008, I examine the political narrative of the 2008 war in Georgia. The questions of inclusion and exclusion, helping and marginalizing are most extensively addressed in the social and political psychology literature produced under the social identity tradition. I rely on self-categorization theory in arguing that the politics of helping cannot be taken for granted. Instead, help is actively mobilized through disputing and redrawing social and national category boundaries, norms, and interests. The findings of this article illustrate that the Georgian political elite was actively engaged in (re)constructing national category norms and boundaries throughout and in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 war, and subsequently encouraged the expression of solidarity and the extension of help towards both cohorts of the displaced population. I argue that while ethnic/cultural similarity is not enough in itself for mobilising help; the social construction of internally displaced persons as part of the national in-group triggers intensified support towards IDPs.