ABSTRACT
Ukraine and Georgia are two countries that illustrate the effects of Western democracy promotion in the domestic contestation against a backdrop of a powerful illiberal actor. They shed a new light on the role of external actors in shaping political developments in target countries. The influence of both democracy promoters and illiberal regional powers (“democracy challengers”) is interwoven because their respective actions interact with each other while contending with diverse and shifting domestic contexts. Our article examines the effects of Russia’s counteracting strategies on democratization processes in Georgia and Ukraine, in light of the intricate set of relations between the democracy-promotion policies pursued by
∗Corresponding author. Email: k.wolczuk@bham.ac.uk
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