Georgia’s national brand in the European Union – is it possible “to sell the nation”?

In the era of globalization, the product development and marketing strategy (that were the domain of international corporations and small, private companies) are being taken over by the public sector. This exchange of roles causes that the state enters the branding space. It creates an offer involving goods and services of nongovernmental organizations, domestic enterprises, and government itself, and as a result creates a strong brand, called the state brand.
The brand of the state consists of three equal elements: national brand, country brand, and political brand. The aim of the article is to present the construction of one of the components of a state brand, the national brand. The Author tries to answer the question whether Georgia adequately develops its national brand, can it “sell the nation” to the European Union? The article was made as part of the “Georgia’s political brand” project conducted in Tbilisi, Georgia. The project was financed by the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw as the “DSM 2017” project. It was made in cooperation with Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. During the project the Author created the series of articles about Georgia’s state branding: about the political brand, the country brand, the above national brand, and generally about the studies of state branding (the basic terminology).

From the perspective of structural realism, the category of international risk can be defined as a possibility of a sudden and unexpected change which may lead to negative outcomes. The aim of the article is to analyze and show international risk factors present in the Caspian Sea region. In the context of various variables of geostrategic character, the region seems prone to potential threats. The research applied the method of the analysis of strategic narratives, which made it possible to distinguish the most important risk factors in the context of the policy followed by global and regional superpowers: 1) political factors and international strategy; 2) extracting energy resources and the geopolitics of pipelines; 3) frozen territorial and ethnic conflicts; 4) economic factors; 5) military factors. The results show that for the majority of players the lack of stability is beneficial and they do not strive to solve the contentious issues at all costs.