Constructing the Capital City : the politics of urban development and image making in Eurasia's hybrid regimes

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CONSTRUCTING THE CAPITAL CITY:

The Politics of Urban Development and Image Making in Eurasia’s Hybrid Regimes

By

Suzanne Harris-Brandts

Honours Bachelor of Architectural Studies, University of Waterloo (2007)

Master of Architecture, University of Waterloo (2012)

Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban and Regional Studies

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

May 2020

© 2020 Suzanne Harris-Brandts. All Rights Reserved

The author hereby grants to MIT the permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of the thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter

created.

Author

________________________________________________________________________

Suzanne Harris-Brandts Department of Urban Studies and Planning

04 May 2020

Certified by

____________________________________________________________________

Dissertation Supervisor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning

Accepted by

____________________________________________________________________

Chair, PhD Committee, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Associate Professor of Transportation and City Planning

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CONSTRUCTING THE CAPITAL CITY:

The Politics of Urban Development and Image Making in Eurasia’s Hybrid Regimes

by

Suzanne Harris-Brandts

Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on 04 May 2020 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Urban and Regional Studies

ABSTRACT

The late 20th century saw significant geopolitical shifts as empires disintegrated and socialist unions collapsed. The result was not only a rise in independent states but the emergence of a distinct form of governance known as the “hybrid regime.” In Eurasia, twelve such regimes surfaced. Having undergone dramatic politico-economic change, many turned toward capital city building. This dissertation investigates the utility of constructing the capital to such regimes, synthesizing theory from architecture, urban planning, political science, and political geography. It asks: How do incumbent parties in hybrid regimes retain power through urban development and image-making? What effects are there on the built environment and the long-term trajectories of these countries?

To answer these questions, I conducted an in-depth analysis of the two Eurasian capitals most heavily mired in hybrid regime politics: Tbilisi, Georgia, and Skopje, North Macedonia. Both underwent dramatic state and nation-building after socialism’s collapse in the 1990s. They represent the widest array of incumbent party tactics used to increase party authority through urban development and are therefore useful cases to study. In Tbilisi, I foreground initiatives by the United National Movement (UNM) government of President Mikheil Saakashvili (2004-2013). In Skopje, the emphasis is on the Skopje 2014 campaign instigated by the VMRO-DPMNE government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski (2006-2016).

Using qualitative mixed-methods (semi-structured interviews, focus groups, site observations, document and media analysis), the findings show that urban development and its correlated image-making are often extensively manipulated to entrench incumbent party authority. Although these campaigns promised national pride, economic growth, and improved living conditions, they resulted in geopolitical tensions, subnational discord, charges of corruption, and far-reaching legal manipulations. Patronage networks, informal institutions, and populist ideology supported the power of the ruling elite at the detriment of developing the country. The built environment impacts were equally concerning, resulting in dysfunctional cityscapes that were over-saturated with contentious monuments and poorly constructed buildings. The research findings thus underscore the highly politicized processes of constructing capitals in hybrid regimes, offering insight into how civil society and international donors might work to hold incumbent parties accountable.

Committee:

Lawrence J. Vale, Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Dissertation Supervisor (DUSP, MIT) Brent D. Ryan, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy (DUSP, MIT)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All dissertations are personal and intellectual journeys. Mine was made possible thanks to the tremendous support that I received from my advisor, committee, fellow scholars, friends, family, and funding agencies. To them all, I am incredibly indebted and grateful.

I am incredibly thankful to my always generous and seemingly indefatigable advisor, Lawrence J. Vale, who has gone above and beyond in his role supporting my growth as a scholar and educator. Before we even met, Larry’s work on architecture, power, and national identity inspired me to pursue my own through a Ph.D. His unique capacity to synthesize ideas across disciplines and to identify the many ways design interfaces with politics was demonstrated in his incisive and much-valued feedback on my work. Over the years, Larry has helped to shape my skills not only through careful guidance and mentorship but direct example, putting his students first and demonstrating the true joy of learning. It has been a pleasure to teach alongside him and to share ideas related to capitals and urban design-politics. As I transition to becoming a professor myself, I know that I will often look back on all that he has taught me, reminding myself just of how precious it is to come across such an outstanding scholar, educator, and mentor.

I also sincerely thank my committee members, Alexander C. Diener and Brent D. Ryan, for their guidance, critical insight, and valuable feedback at all stages of my doctoral degree. I am thankful to Alex for always offering up his unique insights on Eurasia and political geography. Since the first day that we met at an AAG conference, he has done much to ensure that I make new connections with likeminded scholars. In addition to useful written feedback, I appreciate his ongoing words of encouragement, as well as his generosity, volunteering his time as an outside committee member. I thank Brent for his insightful comments related to urban governance and post-socialist urban planning policies. I am deeply grateful for the unique opportunity he provided me with to experience Ukraine in all its urban complexities, alongside him and his students in 2018.

From the early days of my first travel to Eurasia, I have been met with the utmost generosity of friends, locals, and fellow scholars alike. None of this research would have been possible without this support. Thank-you to Paul Manning for first opening my eyes to the importance of urban issues in Georgia so many years ago—through his work, but also connections to like-minded scholars in Batumi and Tbilisi. I have been privileged to share my ideas with many local experts over the years and have enjoyed all our exchanges immensely. In particular, thank-you to: John Horan, Nino Iniashvili, Tamta Khalvashi, Ognen Marina, Maggie Osdoby-Katz, Lela Rekhviashvili, Joseph Salukvadze, Vladimer Shioshvili, Valdet Tairi, Angela Wheeler, and Irakli Zhvania.

To my wonderful, thought-provoking, intelligent, and patient husband, Dato Sichinava: thank-you for always supporting me in every possible way: intellectually, emotionally, and financially. Words cannot describe all that I have learned from you over the years and the many ways in which you continue to inspire me. You are my love, my life, and my intellectual partner in crime. I cannot wait to set down roots together and to be with you for eternity.

To my long-time research collaborator across distant seas, Dato Gogishvili, with whom I have spent countless hours discussing all things urban—and whose ideas are often so seamlessly intertwined with my own that we can no longer distinguish them from one another: thank-you for sharing my research passions and constantly entertaining my many nagging questions. Beyond learning a tremendous amount from you, my spirit has benefitted greatly from our ongoing discussions in any number of unpredictable settings, from atop a 7-star hotel in Tbilisi to a lowly park bench in Sumgayit. I look forward to the long list of our future collaborations.

I am deeply grateful to have gone through this journey with two of my dearest friends and roommates, Julia Smachylo and Ieke de Vries. We promised each other that in five years we would look back on our Ph.D.

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lives and see everything fondly. I can now say without a doubt that this is the case and that I have the two of them to thank for helping make it this way. Thank you for being my honorary sisters and for making me tea or having a glass of wine with me when nothing else seemed to be the right fix.

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT has been an incredibly supportive and intellectually stimulating environment for me to undertake a doctoral degree. Few places boast the same culture of peer encouragement, faculty humbleness, and mentorship dedication. I am appreciative to all those who have contributed to my intellectual development during my time on campus, including the faculty who mentored me while I was involved in departmental activities: Alan Berger, Jason Jackson, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Brent Ryan, and Larry Vale. Thank-you also to Delia Wendel, and James L. Wescoat for providing feedback on my general exams and colloquium, and to Sandra Wellford and Ellen Rushman for assisting with the administrative aspects of my degree.

I have been incredibly lucky to have such stellar Ph.D. colleagues and fellow graduate students at SA+P. My friendships have spanned multiple programs and cohorts, deeply enriching my experience at MIT. I am especially grateful for having got the chance to know: Asmaa El Gammal, Dorothy Tang, Colleen Chiu-Shee, Hannah Teicher, Elise Harrington, Nick Kelly, Eman Lasheen, Shenhao Wang, Isa Cruxen, Yonah Freemark, Rida Qadri, Ali Khodr, Garine Boghossian, Christianna Bonin, Ammar Ahmed, Joey Swedlin, Annie Hudson, Chaewon Ahn, and Zach Lamb, who helped me navigate this degree. I extend this gratitude to my other friends in Somerville, Cambridge, and Toronto, including Lola Sheppard, who has consistently served as a strong female role model and career mentor.

Different portions of my dissertation research were made possible through the generous financial support of research grants. At MIT, these included: The Lynne Sagalyn and Gary Hack Dissertation Fellowship (2019); The Lloyd and Nadine Rodwin Fellowship (2018); SPURS/DUSP Collaboration Award (2018); The Center for International Studies Summer Fellowship (2017); The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture Travel Grant (2016); and The Horowitz Fellowship (2015). I would also like to thank the MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center for my Public Service Fellowship (2018), and the MIT Office for Graduate Education for my first year Presidential Fellowship (2015-16). All contributed significantly to my intellectual development. I am further appreciative to have been supported by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in the form of a Doctoral Research Award (2020) and as a team member on an Insight Grant (2016) led by Professor Paul Manning. The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Dissertation Grant (2019) provided a crucial form of field research support in the final year of my dissertation, enabling me the rare opportunity to be fully immersed in my case study cities.

Finally, my warmest thanks to my family who has stood by my side throughout almost two decades of higher education, always taking the time to congratulate me on milestones, no matter how minor. Thank you for your encouragement as I moved from country to country and degree to degree, missing birthdays, family events, and major holidays. I offer my heartfelt appreciation for always providing me with a comfortable place to rest my head while back in town, and for hosting me indefinitely when the world became overwhelmed with COVID-19 uncertainty. I look forward to us all being closer together again. This dissertation is dedicated to the steadfast and passionate urban activists of Eurasia that continue to use their unique skills as designers, planners, geographers, and others, not for personal profit, but to improve society. I hope that my dissertation can shine a bit of light on the vital role of urban activism in fostering inclusivity and equality.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: OVERVIEW

The Politics of Capital City Development ... 17

Hybrid Regime Governance in Eurasian Countries ... 20

Eurasian Studies ... 22

Dissertation Structure and Themes ... 23

2 METHODOLOGY ... 24

Case Selection Rationale ... 24

Unit of Analysis, ‘N of 2 Plus Some,’ and Embedded Cases ... 30

Data and Analytical Methods ... 32

Semi-Structured Interviews ... 32

Focus Group Discussions ... 33

Site and Participant Observations ... 34

Document, Media and Discourse Analysis ... 34

Research Duration and Case Study Exposure ... 35

Defining the Key Components of Capital City Campaigns ... 37

Research Reliability and Limitations ... 37

3 COMPETING AGENDAS IN THE CAPITAL CITY ... 39

Extra-national Actors and Agendas ... 40

Subnational Actors and Agendas ... 42

Individual Actors and Agendas ... 43

4 THE 20th _{CENTURY’S HYBRID REGIMES ... 45}

Defining Hybrid Regimes ... 45

Eurasia’s Hybrid Regimes ... 49

The Power Retention Techniques of Eurasia’s Hybrid Regimes ... 53

The Characteristic Traits of Georgia’s Hybrid Regimes (1991-2020) ... 61

The Characteristic Traits of [North] Macedonia’s Hybrid Regimes (1991-2020) ... 71

5 SIMILARITIES AND DIVERGENCES FROM THE SOCIALIST ERA ... 82

Similarities: Undertaking State Building During Politico-Economic Transition ... 82

Similarities: Exploiting Transition to Bolster the Regime’s Authority ... 84

Similarities: Pervasive Political Practices, Patronage Networks, and Informal Institutions ... 86

Similarities: The Propagandistic Power of Urban Development ... 87

Similarities: Strongman Figures ... 90

Divergences: International Accountability ... 90

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PART II: FINDINGS

6 CAPITAL CITY URBAN DEVELOPMENT UNDER GEORGIA’S HYBRID REGIMES ... 93

Tbilisi’s Post-Independence Urban Development ... 93

Tbilisi’s UNM Government Capital City Campaigns ... 104

Physical Transparency in Lieu of State Transparency ... 106

The Transparency Narrative Challenged ... 115

A New Transparent Palace for Justice ... 120

Rike Park ... 123

New Life for Old Tbilisi ... 131

The Spectacle of Renovating Tbilisi’s Old City ... 139

Façade Politics ... 141

The Gift of ‘New Georgia’ ... 145

Conclusion ... 148

7 CAPITAL CITY URBAN DEVELOPMENT UNDER NORTH MACEDONIA’S HYBRID REGIMES ... 150

Skopje’s Yugoslav Era Development ... 150

Rebuilding the Capital City Post-Earthquake ... 155

Skopje’s Post-Yugoslav Independence ... 158

Growing Statuary ... 161

The Second Rise of VMRO-DPMNE (2006) ... 164

Announcing the Skopje 2014 campaign ... 164

Wiretappings ... 167

New Detailed Urban Plans to Serve the VMRO-DPMNE Party ... 168

Skopje’s VMRO-DPMNE Capital City Campaigns ... 171

The Old Macedonian National Theatre and Museum of the Macedonian Struggle ... 173

Growing Construction Across the City ... 177

Staging the Vardar River Corridor ... 181

Macedonia Square ... 193

Local-National Governmental Power Struggles ... 208

Findings of the Centar Municipality Audit ... 210

A Misled, Disenchanted, Defensive, and Polarized Public ... 213

SDSM Returns ... 219

Conclusion ... 223

PART III: SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONS

9 CONCLUSION ... 244

Works Cited ... 256

Appendix A: List of Conducted Interviews ... 291

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Regime status by Eurasian country since independence

Table 2.2 Urban development and image-making index score by hybrid regime country Table 2.3 Breakdown of focus group discussions conducted

Table 2.4 Summary of field research visits and durations

Table 4.1 Comparing democratic, competitive authoritarian, and closed regimes Table 4.2 Periods of hybrid regime governance in Georgia and their characteristics

Table 4.3 Periods of hybrid regime governance in North Macedonia and their characteristics Table 10.1 A summary of the changed Detailed Urban Plans in Skopje

LIST OF FIGURES

*All Images by Author Unless Otherwise Noted Figure 1.1 Location map of Tbilisi, Georgia

Figure 1.2 Location map of Skopje, North Macedonia

Figure 2.1 The nine Eurasian states to have spent the majority of their post-independence time as hybrid regimes

Figure 4.1 Map of 35 competitive authoritarian hybrid regimes (in 1998) identified by Levitsky and Way Figure 4.2 Eurasian hybrid regimes in 1990; 2008; and 2020

Figure 6.1 Deteriorating cultural heritage in Tbilisi’s Old City Figure 6.2 Deteriorating cultural heritage in Tbilisi’s Old City Figure 6.3 An example of vernacular architecture in Tbilisi’s Old City Figure 6.4 At-risk cultural heritage in Tbilisi’s Old City

Figure 6.5 Earthquake damaged buildings in Tbilisi

Figure 6.6 The 1983 public podium known as ‘Andropov’s Ears’ [Georgian Archives] Figure 6.7 The demolition of ‘Andropov’s Ears’ in April 2005 [by Tilmann Meyer- Faje] Figure 6.8 A new transparent police station in Tbilisi

Figure 6.9 A new transparent police station in Tbilisi, illuminated at night

Figure 6.10 Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) offices by Italian architects Michele De Lucchi, Freyrie & Pestalozza

Figure 6.11 Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tbilisi by MUA Architects

Figure 6.12 A New transparent police station consumes green space in Kikvidze Park Figure 6.13 A New transparent police station consumes green space in Kikvidze Park

Figure 6.14 Diagram of the demolished buildings to make space for the new transparent Old Tbilisi division police station on Tabukashvili Street in Tbilisi

Figure 6.15 The new transparent Old Tbilisi division police station on Tabukashvili Street in Tbilisi Figure 6.16 Tbilisi Public Service Hall by Studio Fuksas

Figure 6.17 Redeveloped Rike Park in Tbilisi, including the symbol of the rose

Figure 6.18 Concrete paving stones in Rike Park with the rose symbol, linking to the Rose Revolution, and by proxy UNM Party

Figure 6.19 Rike Park development, including the demolished existing restaurants

Figure 6.20 Statue of American President Ronald Reagan in Rike Park with the quote: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Figure 6.21 Aerial view of Tbilisi’s Old City

Figure 6.22 Construction for the ‘New Life for Old Tbilisi’ campaign Figure 6.23 The post-renovation sanitized image of Tbilisi’s Old City

Figure 6.24 The renovated façades of Aghmashenabeli Ave. in Tbilisi with added floors and dormers Figure 6.25 The government-produced ‘New Life for Old Tbilisi’ book showcasing the UNM-led

redevelopment with before and after pictures [book by Tbilisi City Hall]

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Figure 6.27 Rike Park’s incomplete music and concert hall buildings designed by Masimillo Fuksas Figure 6.28 Examples of Rike Park’s attention in international design publications

Figure 6.29 Rike Park’s Peace Bridge, often illuminated with the Council of Europe/EU Flag Figure 6.30 The ‘New Georgia’ guide delivered to Georgian households by the UNM Government Figure 6.31 The ‘New Georgia’ guide, page 20

Figure 6.32 Alternate versions of the ‘New Georgia’ guide from 2013 Figure 7.1 Skopje’s Čaršija or Bazaar District

Figure 7.2 Map of Skopje’s Čaršija or Bazaar District

Figure 7.3 a) Skopje site plan of 1914; b) Figure‑ground of the block structure of the central city area of the regulatory plan by Dimitrije Leko of 1914; c) Josif Mihailović’s 1929 regulatory plan, Source: Jasna Stefanovska (Stefanovska & Koželj, 2012)

Figure 7.4 Skopje’s devastating 1963 earthquake (UNDP, 1970, p. 56)

Figure 7.5 Skopje’s train station, partially destroyed by the 1963 Earthquake (UNDP, 1970, p. 17) Figure 7.6 Skopje’s partially destroyed train station kept as a monument today

Figure 7.7 Skopje’s neoclassical Ristić Palace, which survived the earthquake and became an icon of Skopje

Figure 7.8 Skopje’s Regional Plan approved in 1964 (UNDP, 1970, p. 102)

Figure 7.9 Kenzo Tange’s proposed master plan [Kenzo Tange Architects (*Thank-you to L. J. Vale for this source)]

Figure 7.10 The ring of mid-rise modernist housing from Kenzo Tange’s master plan Figure 7.11 The Sun of Vergina Flag (left) and its replacement (right)

Figure 7.12 Skopje’s Millennium Cross

Figure 7.13 Skopje’s Statue of Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu (Skanderbeg)

Figure 7.14 Still image from the Skopje 2014 video announcement, showcasing the monument to Karposh in 360°

Figure 7.15 Still image from the Skopje 2014 video announcement, showcasing how new buildings along the riverfront corridor acting as an obfuscating screen for Yugoslav-era buildings

Figure 7.16 Still images from the Skopje 2014 video announcement, showing residents casually going about their day

Figure 7.17 The 1997 Detailed Urban Plan (DUP) for Skopje’s Core (Mal Ring) Figure 7.18 The 2012 Detailed Urban Plan (DUP) for Skopje’s Core (Mal Ring) Figure 7.19 The reconstructed Macedonian National Theatre

Figure 7.20 The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle

Figure 7.21 The new glass domes on the parliament building, as depicted in the Skopje 2014 announcement video (top) and reality (bottom)

Figure 7.22 Skopje 2014 projects (re-claddings, new buildings, fountains, bridges, statues, monuments) adjacent to the Vardar River corridor and hiding Yugoslav era projects

Figure 7.23 A new neo-baroque project as a part of Skopje 2014 (right) blocks the sightlines of a Yugoslav era building (left)

Figure 7.24 Before (top – image rašo- wikimedia commons) and after (bottom) images of the Macedonian Government House, transformed through a neo-baroque design

Figure 7.25 The new three-part building housing the state archives, archaeological museum, and the constitutional court

Figure 7.26 The Bridge of Civilizations, housing statues and connecting across the Vardar River Figure 7.27 The Art Bridge, housing 29 statues and connecting across the Vardar River

Figure 7.28 The contentious statue of Serbian Tsar Dušan on the Bridge of Civilizations [Balkan Insight] Figure 7.29 The proposed panoramic wheel bridge in Skopje [Image: Build.mk]

Figure 7.30 The partially completed panoramic wheel bridge in Skopje Figure 7.31 A permanently moored galleon/ship on the Vardar River

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Figure 7.33 The Warrior on a Horse/ Alexander the Great Statue going up in Macedonia Square [AFP/Reuters]

Figure 7.34 The completed Warrior on a Horse statue and fountain

Figure 7.35 The proposed orthodox cathedral on Macedonia Square, as shown in the Skopje 2014 video Figure 7.36 Plan of Macedonia Square, showing the proposed location of the new cathedral (orange)

and GTC shopping centre (blue), which covers the original namesake church, St. Konstantine and Elena

Figure 7.37 Original Officer’s Club building on Macedonia Square [State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia]

Figure 7.38 Original Burmali Mosque on Macedonia Square [State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia]

Figure 7.39 Poster for public gathering against the cathedral on Macedonia Square by First Archi Brigade

Figure 7.40 The relocated St. Konstantine and Elena Cathedral

Figure 7.41 Proposed design for the ‘Spanish Steps’ development on Macedonia Square [MKD.mk] Figure 7.42 The partially completed Officer’s House project on Macedonia Square

Figure 7.43 The Officer’s Club reconstruction (right), featured in the Skopje 2014 promotional video Figure 7.44 The Triumphal Arch ‘Porta Macedonia’

Figure 7.45 The antiquization of façades in the core of Skopje

Figure 7.46 Skopje’s landscape of dismembered historical figures, oversized lions and horses, and muddy puddles, as fountains and monuments were erected [Balkan Insight]

Figure 7.47 Skopje’s colorful revolution (Vanco Dzambaski)

Figure 7.48 The highly contested statue of Andon Lazovjanev Kjoseto in front of the Supreme Court building [Prizma]

Figure 7.49 The tree “symbolizing human rights,” replacing the statue of Andon Lazovjanev Kjoseto in front of the Supreme Court building

Figure 7.50 The partially-complete City Hall Building on the north shore of the Vardar River

Figure 9.1 A monument to former President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, erected secretively by the political party The Union of Tito's Left Forces (Macedonian: Сојуз на Титови леви сили, Sojuz na Titovi levi sili)

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PART I: OVERVIEW

Chapter 01: Introduction

The transformation of city spaces in the service of politics has a long, globally spanning history. As important epicenters of industry and commerce, hubs for the accumulation of resources and wealth, and agglomerations of state power, capital cities are quintessential examples. The dramatic reconstruction of capitals to accommodate politically-charged built form is most often associated with past autocratic regimes: Napoleon III in Paris, Mussolini in Rome, Hitler in Berlin, Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, and the Yongle Emperor in Beijing. Yet, alongside the re-designs of such capitals in the 18th-20th centuries was the creation, vast expansion, and physical improvement of many others through comprehensive state planning initiatives, often resulting in dramatically different city functions and appearances (Christie et al., 2016; Hall, 2000; Therborn, 2017; Vale, 2008). Today, capital city urban development continues to support political agendas and does so under a variety of polities. The global geography of capitals has changed dramatically since the mid-20th century as a result of disintegrating empires and failed socialist unions leading today to the creation of dozens of new countries, each with a distinct capital city (Gordon, 2006; Vale, 2006).

In Eurasia, the late 20th century’s surge of new capitals was especially pronounced. From 1989-1992, out of six socialist states and the three socialist federations of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union emerged twenty-seven newly governed countries.1In their capitals, new governments were tasked with framing national identity relative to both complicated pasts and a rapidly globalizing future. The significant geopolitical shifts that had brought an end to state socialism further meant that these countries were emerging in a distinctly capitalist world order and relative to a “third wave” of global democracy (Huntington, 1991, 1993). Capital city development thus came to incorporate a whole host of new state and nation-building complexities.

One challenge was that establishing democratic governance was not as straightforward as initially envisioned. It caused great scholarly debate regarding effective institutionalization and the lingering impacts of historical legacies (for example, see: Elgie, 1998; Epstein et al., 2006; Geddes, 1999; Huntington, 1993; Merkel, 2004). Simply constructing new buildings to host democratic institutions

1 _{The twenty-seven new countries were: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Belarus,}

Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan. In addition to these were then added two more: Montenegro in 2006 and Kosovo in 2008.

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seemed much easier than ensuring their legitimacy. As debates about the correct path toward democracy deepened, they included disagreements about the nature of democracy itself and the metrics of democratic performance in different global contexts (Brownlee, 2007; Carothers, 2002; Morlino, 2012; O’Donnell & Schmitter, 2013). Additional lines of inquiry focused on why autocratic practices coexisted with democratic ones in certain countries. Scholars critical of dominant western paradigms of democratization argued for a distinct governance category of “hybrid” regime (part-democratic/part-autocratic) (Diamond, 2002; Levitsky & Way, 2010; Schedler, 2002). Since many Eurasian “hybrid regimes” were also transitioning from socialist-era command economies to neoliberal capitalist structures, they further demonstrated degrees of economic hybridity; government officials were known for their ‘revolving door’ approaches to jobs between the public and private sectors and many of these states’ most profitable industries were owned by individuals that (if not directly involved in politics) retained close relationships with the incumbent party. With dozens of these newly independent Eurasian states qualifying as hybrid regimes, it appeared that, “although the end of the Cold War triggered a wave of democratization, it also triggered a wave of hybridization” (Levitsky & Way, 2010, p. 20).

In this dissertation, I argue that with the recognition of new hybrid regimes across Eurasia should come greater recognition for their unique approaches to capital city development, often used to bolster the authority of the incumbent party while paying lip service to democracy. The manipulation of city space for political gain is not the same in all contexts and a state’s governance structure can have distinct impacts on the way cities take form. Specific regimes also utilize the processes of construction for their benefit through different strategies. For example, under autocratic regimes, the ruling elite hold extensive power in decisions regarding state-building. They can undertake capital city development in a manner that best supports the elite’s ruling capacity and promotes their economic goals. The absence of transparent state spending, the ease with which ruling regimes can stifle opposition, and the use of state resources to support the elite mean that capital city development (as well as its underlying objectives) is distinct in authoritarian contexts. By contrast, in democracies, ongoing state-building is mostly kept in check by the structures of the democratic state—even despite localized corruption risks and power abuses. Under democracy, the transformation of capitals through urban development and image-making holds less utility for any one incumbent party because there is enough distinction between government organs and the particular political party currently in power. Although urban development projects can garner general support toward re-election in democracies, the projects remain subject to opposition party scrutiny and are open to international and civil society critiques. The allocation of state resources and the granting of project approval must undergo multiple stages of democratic control.

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Hybrid regimes should be understood as possessing various combinations of these democratic and autocratic tendencies, as well as their own distinct attributes. These attributes can be understood best by examining closely what and how hybrid regimes build in capital cities. As is further outlined in chapter four, under hybrid regimes, capital city development must fulfill several simultaneous and at times contradictory goals. For example, public spaces and state institutions need to communicate the transparency of a democracy while still reinforcing the power of the ruling elite. These efforts result in conflicting government targets, but also generate unique impacts on the physical environments of capitals. In the capitals of Eurasia’s hybrid regimes, the politics of nation and state-building are often expressed through built form. The use of urban development and image-making for political gain by incumbent parties is also a highly volatile process. In this context, how political parties undertake capital city development has implications for both effective internal governance and state socio-political stability, influencing the future trajectory of such countries.

If, today, it is widely acknowledged that: hybrid regimes are unique state political structures; that they have proliferated globally; and that they are too persistent to be aberrations of democracy, then it becomes important to investigate their internal functions further. Since capital city campaigns are a product of the ruling regime inasmuch as they are embodiments of national character, it is useful to consider their distinct utility to hybrid regimes. Existing research on the new capitals of Eurasia has foregrounded the use of built form for ideologically-laden nation-building (to name a few: Czaplicka et al., 2009; Diener & Hagen, 2013, 2016; Dmitrieva & Kliems, 2010; Hamilton et al., 2005; Janev, 2010; Kolsto, 2018; Tsenkova & Nedovic-Budic, 2006). This is because when the new governments came to power in the 1990s, many of the proposed capital city changes were framed as nationalistic. Existing scholarship, however, has largely overlooked the utility of such nationalistic urban development to entrenching the power of ruling parties. While I do not refute that nation-building has played a role in the transformation of Eurasia’s capitals, I want to instead foreground an analysis that considers how nationalist rhetoric, too, may be subject to incumbent party manipulation in efforts toward better securing their authority.2 My focus on specific political party actions and the party benefits of urban development is important to avoid taking at face value what may simply be strategic rhetoric. Although these government-led campaigns promised national pride, better economic performance, and improved living conditions, in reality, they have largely resulted in subnational discord, charges of corruption, and large-scale legal manipulations to benefit the ruling party. Patronage networks,

2 _{This argument is in line with that of other scholars such as Gagnon (2006), Gordy (2010) and Bieber (2019, p. 3),}

that “the Balkan wars cannot be explained by primordial nationalist hatreds, but the selfish use and abuse by political and intellectual elites to advance their own power, influence, and wealth.” Similar arguments have been made in the post-Soviet context.

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informal institutions, and populist ideology developed through these campaigns likewise supported the power of the ruling elite, rather than the broader development goals of the country.

Bringing together scholarship on urban design and the built environment with that on hybrid regimes, my dissertation is an investigation into city-building and image-making in Eurasia’s capitals. It explores how the techniques of power retention used by incumbent parties (like: informal institutions, patronage networks, media restrictions, and ideological campaigns; see chapter four for further details) are usefully established through capital city urban development, with the ruling government often deploying such campaigns to reinforce their own power. It analyzes project sites and development policies in two Eurasian capitals: Tbilisi, Georgia, and Skopje, North Macedonia. Both underwent dramatic state-led physical and ideological transformations after independence that drew on state and nation-building goals while bolstering the power of their ruling regimes. More than their neighboring Eurasian states, incumbent parties here turned to urban development in the capital to solidify their power. These two cities, therefore, represent a wide array of tactics used to increase incumbent party authority though city building in hybrid regimes. Accordingly, they serve as strong cases for more in-depth analysis (see chapter two for case selection).

Tbilisi, Georgia

Figure 1.1 Location map of Tbilisi, Georgia

Becoming an independent post-Soviet country in 1991, Georgia initially experienced much politico-economic instability. After a decade under two highly corrupt hybrid regimes (1991-1992; 1992-2003), between 2004 and 2013, the UNM political party led by President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power through the promise of democratic reform. The party announced multiple campaigns for urban development

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to reflect these reforms, including constructing new government buildings and public spaces, as well as refurbishing Tbilisi’s deteriorating Old City. Concurrent image-making campaigns showcased these projects to the public and aimed to ideologically re-orient Georgia away from a socialist past and Russia, toward new geopolitical alignments with the West. In promotion of democracy, the re-designed public buildings were said to reframe the way society interacted with their government. Yet, democratic reforms were short-lived and like its political predecessors, the UNM government became accused of authoritarian tendencies (Bolkvadze, 2016; Ghia Nodia et al., 2017; Timm, 2012; Wheatley, 2010). Despite pushing a narrative of newfound democracy, changes to the capital took place in the absence of transparent state spending, public consultations, and due legal process. The UNM government relied heavily on patronage networks and used much of Tbilisi’s physical transformation to increase its own party’s popularity. In reaction to the magnitude and fast pace of urban changes, the capital became an arena for civic protest and the UNM faced multiple allegations of corruption and abuse of authority (Esadze, 2007; Light, 2012; Shelley et al., 2007). The party met these allegations with further crackdowns on civil liberties and media restrictions.

Skopje, North Macedonia

Figure 1.2 Location map of Skopje, North Macedonia

In Skopje, North Macedonia, after roughly a decade of post-Yugoslavian instability (1991-2005), between 2006-2016, the VMRO-DPMNE party came to power and developed its extensive Skopje 2014 campaign for the transformation of the city’s Centar Municipality. Twenty-five new state facilities, including for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Constitutional Courts, State Archives, City Hall, and various museums, were introduced. At the same time, the existing Parliament and Government Buildings

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received extensive façade transformations. Over eighty monuments, bridges, sculptures, and fountains were created as part of the initiative. The majority took on a neo-baroque aesthetic intended to mask the city’s Yugoslavian modernist and Ottoman-era appearance. These projects became the public face of deeper government policy changes, including the fostering of Macedonian ethnonationalism and a retreat from regional alliances with Europe and neighboring Balkan states. Crucially, Skopje 2014 did much to support the power of the VMRO-DPMNE party under Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski—both financially and in terms of increased voter base. As in Tbilisi, the rapid transformation of the capital caused much public discord and protest, led by those who opposed VMRO-DPMNE’s projects and sought to re-direct the capital’s changing identity.

In efforts toward better understanding the relationships between capital city development and incumbent party power within Eurasia’s hybrid regimes, my dissertation involves a detailed analysis of these two cases. Chapter two on methodology describes the case selection process at greater length. While Tbilisi and Skopje are focal points, I use them as a means of drawing greater attention to the politics of capital city development underway across Eurasian countries governed by hybrid regimes. Similar developments have taken place, or are in the process of taking place in Belgrade (Serbia), Tirana (Albania), and Kyiv (Ukraine), and to a lesser extent, the region’s other hybrid regimes. Skopje and Tbilisi also share urban development characteristics with post-socialist countries that have moved further toward authoritarianism, like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Moving away from the dominant framing of capital city development in Eurasia as an expression of nation-building, I draw attention to the illiberal practices of particular ruling political parties, as well as to how such parties strategically utilize national ideology in the spaces of the capital to entrench their party’s authority.

Although urban development and image-making are instrumental in supporting incumbent parties in hybrid regimes, it is important to recognize that the trajectories of such campaigns are not determined solely by incumbent parties. The complicated interactions between elites and society, the impacts of popular mobilization, the structures of institutions, as well as connections between politics and the economy, among other factors, all play roles. Ordinary people and oppositional groups, too, guide the outcomes of capital city campaigns, despite Eurasian countries having traditionally weak civil societies. The agendas of extra-national and sub-extra-national actors, as well as individual powerful agents both within and outside of the ruling elite, together produce the resulting built environments of capitals. Along with the actions of prominent political figures, therefore, organized sub-national groups, including those for minority rights and social justice, play strategic roles in challenging incumbent parties. These tensions are expressed in the debates over capital city design and identity, as well as those pressing for greater accountability and transparency.

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Because of the complex array of actors and agents influencing the development of capitals, additional care has been taken in this dissertation to challenge the apparent lines between state and citizen, government and ruling party, and to probe at the role civil society plays in hybrid regimes (See chapter three).

Research Questions

Urban development and image-making in capital cities are frequently framed as tools allowing states to enter global competition as economically stronger and socially more coherent. But it is not guaranteed that such initiatives will create wealthier and more cohesive societies. They may equally support the informal institutions and illiberal practices of the incumbent party, ultimately dividing society.

My dissertation thus asks: How do incumbent parties in hybrid regimes achieve their goals through built environment manipulations and their correlated image-making campaigns? To answer this question, I first discuss the defining characteristics of hybrid regimes. I then unpack the nature of capital city urban development and image-making in Eurasian hybrid regimes, as exemplified through the cases of Tbilisi and Skopje. As a part of this second process, I ask specifically:

[1] What are the primary ways capital city urban development and image-making empower incumbent parties in hybrid regimes?

[2] How do different actors at the extra-national, sub-national, and individual levels influence the outcome of such campaigns?

[3] Are there any physical, spatial, or aesthetic trends of hybrid regime city building?

[4] In what ways do capital city campaigns bolster or threaten state stability? What long-term effects are there on the trajectories of these countries?

By analyzing the goals and methods of regime pursuits, I aim to clarify what it means to function as a hybrid regime in practice. Since it is acknowledged that there is an inherent instability to hybrid regimes (Huntington, 1991; Levitsky & Way, 2010), I seek to examine how urban development and image-making tie into that instability, either facilitating greater incumbent party control or bolstering oppositional support.

17 Theoretical Foundations

The concepts addressed by this dissertation can be linked to three primary areas of scholarship, each useful for framing the politics of capital city development under hybrid regimes. First, is work from the disciplines of architecture, urban studies, and political geography, looking at the built environments of capital cities, including discussions on state image-making projects. This literature considers how power and national identity is communicated through built form and primarily uses case studies of different capitol complexes and government buildings to demonstrate the relationship. The second body of literature is that coming from political science on hybrid regimes. This work debates the defining characteristics of hybrid regimes and tends to foreground the pervasive challenges they face in their efforts toward democratization. While crucial to understanding the technologies of government utilized by incumbent parties, such work has fallen short in terms of spatializing its theories and looks less at concrete examples of how hybrid regimes operate than at how they may move closer toward or further away from democracy. Finally, is literature that looks at state-building, national identity, and geopolitics in Eurasia since the 1990s. Stemming from history, Eurasian area studies, and post-socialist studies, this work foregrounds politico-economic and socio-cultural changes tied to the collapse of socialism and scrutinizes the continued role of historical legacies. Understanding the processes of physical and ideological construction that take place in capital cities relative to each of these bodies of literature is crucial to gaining better insights into how their development is supporting hybrid regimes.

The politics of capital city development

The second body of scholarship is work considering the politics of urban development, particularly in capital cities. It links to research on both the design of capitals and their role in the production of national symbolism. In particular, it contributes to critical scholarship on: the socio-political roles of architecture and urban design; the economic benefits of capital city development; design’s image circulation for political purposes; and the acquisition of power by ruling parties through control over the built environment.

The second half of the 20th _{century saw a rise in scholarship on capitals as dozens of new states gained} global recognition. By the turn of the 21st century, the total number of capitals had increased fourfold (Gordon, 2006; Vale, 2006). Their broader geography had also radically changed. As Vale (2006, p. 15) notes: “[m]ore than three-quarters of the cities that served as capitals when the century closed were not the capitals of independent states when the century began.” State-led architectural and urban design projects were often used to transform such locations into contemporary capitals, taking the form of both deliberately planned new capitals and altered existing cities. In all such locations, power shifts following independence

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caused great upheavals to collective identity. With these areas having abruptly—and at times violently— gone from imposing outside control to more localized self-governance, new government buildings were constructed to foreground independence and denigrate (or appropriate) imperial and colonial legacies. Produced by a triumphant post-independence elite, the new (or transformed) capitals embodied the ideological preferences of their sponsoring politicians (Vale, 2008).

In Eurasia, while state-building approaches varied from country to country, in each, capital city development has coincided with efforts by the ruling elite to establish a new sense of collective identity. More often than not, ethno-nationalist rhetoric has found its way into such processes. New capital city development also came at a time when these countries were establishing their regional positions. In Eurasia, this was relative to Russia, Turkey, China, and Europe. But, it has also involved governments working to position their states internationally within a global neoliberal economy. Capital city development thus came to represent the deeper socio-political aspirations of governments aiming to define their state identities domestically and abroad.

To make sense of the role that capital city urban development plays in state politics, it is necessary first to comprehend the many functions that capitals play in states and how design both reflects and embodies these functions. Capital cities hold important positions in the development trajectories of countries, performing not only as seats of government power but as locales for socio-cultural exchange and economic production. The urban design of the capital must, therefore, take into consideration social, political, and economic forces. In existing capitals or cities turned into capitals, their historic legacy further needs to be taken into account. Vale (2008, pp. 15–16) draws attention to the significance of historical legacy in capital cities, differentiating between “cities that have evolved into capitals and cities that have been expressly designed to serve this function.” Acknowledging that over the course of history, some cities may have acted as capitals more than once, he identifies three kinds of modern capital: evolved capitals, evolved capitals renewed, and designed capitals (ibid. pp.18).

Of the Eurasian states to gain independence after the collapse of socialism, all fall into the former two categories, having evolved from existing cities.3 During the socialist period, the majority of these cities were internal republic capitals and/or important regional epicenters. Belgrade and Moscow simultaneously acted as the capitals of greater Yugoslavia and the USSR, respectively. Of Eurasia’s twelve post-independence hybrid regimes, their capitals all had longstanding histories with ties not only to the socialist

3 _{Astana (now Nur-Sultan), Kazakhstan is a near example of the latter, created when the capital was relocated from}

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era but to earlier imperial periods under Russian, Ottoman, and Serbian control. The historical legacies of these cities are important because they impact the approaches to capital city development undertaken today. Selectively drawing from the past and erasing periods of history has been a popular technique to promote hybrid regime incumbent parties, and has often occurred through changes to built form. Manipulating history through the restructuring of city space has worked to primarily improve popular support, yet it has also created much societal discord. The pervasive legacies of the past and clashes over what commemorates history can, therefore, be both an asset and a threat to hybrid regime incumbent parties.

Since the government plays a strong role in manipulating the economy in hybrid regimes, it is important to also consider the economic aspects of their capital city campaigns. Politicians have been able to attract public support for their projects by arguing that they will benefit local residents through new investment, increased tourism, and better leisure and entertainment offerings. Whether or not these projects equitably deliver on such promises is another thing. Outside actors, too, impact the way the economy factors into capital city development. Foreign aid, trade relations, and illicit crime networks are all tied to how capital city development takes place in hybrid regimes. Because of this, seemingly sincere desires by an incumbent party to communicate state power and national character in the capital may be linked to concurrent issues of foreign investment attraction and extra-national politico-economic alignment. In this sense, the development challenges facing the capitals of Eurasia align with those of other rapidly transforming cities worldwide: all changing to survive in an increasingly globalizing and free-market society.

The primary objective of this dissertation is to show how the physical transformation of capital cities by incumbent parties within hybrid regimes is done for political gain. There are a number of important existing works demonstrating this process in Eurasia’s authoritarian states. Forest and Johnson (2002), for example, look at competition among political elites in Moscow for control over the messages within key remaining Soviet-era monuments and memorials. They show how, “[b]y co-opting, contesting, ignoring, or removing certain types of monuments through both physical transformations and ‘commemorative maintenance,’ Russian political elites engaged in a symbolic dialogue with each other and with the public in an attempt to gain prestige, legitimacy, and influence” (2002, p. 1). Looking at Astana, Kazakhstan, Fauve (2015b, p. 385) demonstrates that “not only do authoritarian rulers of newly independent states such as Kazakhstan wish to build monumental pieces as a demonstration of power and sovereignty but also, these monuments are instrumental of the interpersonal patron/client relationships among the elite.” These authors’ findings corroborate what scholars such as Denison (2009), Fauve (2015b), Forest & Johnson (2002), Koch (2010) show in authoritarian Central Asian states, that seemingly ‘national’ city-making is not an expression of a unified national identity, but the outcome of internal politics between elites. They underscore what Vale

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(1992, p. 54) asserted decades earlier, that “national identity, whether taken in architecture or any other terms, becomes increasingly artificial and subject to the dictates of those in power.”

To date, scholarly work on the politics of urban development in Eurasia has focused on a select list of Central and Eastern European countries, or has foregrounded the dramatic state-building initiatives of the authoritarian regimes of Central Asia. The work of Diener and Hagen (2013), Andrusz et al. (2011), Stanilov (2007), and Kolsto (2018) are rare examples of broader, cross-regional assessments. Smaller-scale comparisons have categorized the changes to Eurasia’s capitals in other ways, including relative to countries that are members of the EU or headed toward EU integration, and those remaining within the Russian sphere of influence (Graney, 2019; Hamilton et al., 2005; Tosics, 2005).

There have also been differentiations between the capitals of multi-ethnic states (like Kazakhstan) and those with strong titular majorities (like Armenia). Central Asia’s spectacle-rich capitals have garnered the majority of the attention. Foregrounded in this literature is how the elite of such countries rely on urban form to buttress their power. The construction of Astana as the purpose-built capital of Kazakhstan in the late 1990s has been especially of interest (e.g.: Anacker, 2004; Fauve, 2015a, 2015b; Koch, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2018; Köppen, 2013; Laszczkowski, 2011, 2016; Vale, 2008). Research has also looked at Uzbekistan (Adams, 2010; Adams & Rustemova, 2009; Bell, 1999), Turkmenistan (Denison, 2009) and Tajikistan (Menga, 2015), showing the range of state-building approaches underway across Central Asia’s authoritarian regimes. Koch’s (2018) book The Geopolitics of Spectacle: Space, Synecdoche, and the New Capitals of Asia is a larger pan-regional account covering both former Soviet countries and other parts of Asia, critically assessing the spatial logics of capital city development in resource-rich authoritarian regimes.

Collectively, this work has done much to clarify the relationships between state power, architecture, and urban design. Still, the primary framing of these analyses has been either historic or centered on the behavior of Eurasia’s autocratic regimes, leaving much unexplained about the politics of capital city development under hybrid regimes.

Hybrid regime governance in Eurasian countries

In the early 1990s, of the dozens of global hybrid regimes, one-third belonged to former socialist Eurasia. Political scientists Levitsky and Way (2010) have established one of the most comprehensive frameworks for categorizing such regimes. They provide clear details as to what hybrid regimes looked like in Eurasia in the two decades following post-socialist independence (1990-2008) and describe what constituted their

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mix of democratic deficiencies and autocratic tendencies. While expansive in their research, Levitsky and Way emphasize the democratic trajectory of these countries and the impact of outside state influences on democratization rather than internal regime behaviors or the utility of urban development in capital cities. Their work also chronologically falls short of capturing crucial developments to have taken place since 2008.

Dozens of other scholars have also contributed to the debate on hybrid regimes—in Eurasia and elsewhere—and have worked to clarify the concept. Chapter three discusses this literature at greater length. In addition to the work of Levitsky and Way, I draw specific attention to that of political scientist Henry Hale (2008, 2010, 2011, 2014), who probes more directly at the internal practices of incumbent parties in hybrid regimes, foregrounding the case of Russia. As with Levitsky and Way, Hale’s work, too, could benefit from more in-depth spatial analysis. Taken collectively, the primary literature on hybrid regimes developed mainly from within political science tends to focus not on specific, tangible regime outputs (such as capital city projects), but on more abstract definitional attributes (how democratic is the regime, in what ways?).

Current hybrid regime scholarship is thus mostly preoccupied with deciding the degree to which such governments should be categorized as ‘democratic’ or ‘authoritarian’ with little attention paid to their actual ‘politics in practice’ (Morlino, 2009). This means that there is a well-developed body of literature arguing that hybrid regimes rely on such things as: leveraging state resources, establishing informal institutions, limiting civil liberties, and developing party support rhetoric, but very little showing how this is done in concrete terms. This is especially the case when it comes to the physical aspects of how hybrid regimes build. The processes of capital city development under such regimes—and of physical state-building more broadly—remain overwhelmingly absent. With regards to state image-making, some of the research delves into the details of how hybrid regimes manipulate popular media (for example, on Kazakhstan’s soft authoritarianism, see: Schatz, 2008). This rarely discusses the precise media content, however, or the use of propagandistic city-focused imagery. The result has been disconnections between the extensive analyses of democratic trajectories for Eurasia’s hybrid regimes in political science and the case analyses of capital city changes coming from other disciplines. The work of Günay & Dzihic (2016), Pojani (2015, 2018), Angelovska (2014a), while case-specific, is exceptional in this regard in that it acknowledges the utility of urban development to hybrid regimes.

Concerning Georgia and North Macedonia, there exists a foundation of literature looking at how the first post-independence governments operated as hybrid regimes. This work is discussed at length in Chapter

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three. Mirroring the broader trend in hybrid regime literature, it largely overlooks spatial patterns and the role of capital city urban development.

Eurasian studies

Since the collapse of state socialism across Eurasia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, an increasing body of work has explored national identity, state-building and regional geopolitics, particularly concerning Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Central Asia. As the range of edited volumes on nationalism and state-building in the region since 2000 alone attests (such as: Cummings, 2013; Czaplicka et al., 2009; Diener & Hagen, 2016; Isaacs & Polese, 2016; Polese et al., 2017; Simons & Westerlund, 2016), the ways new state identities are being communicated are vast and all-encompassing, representing everything from official language policies (B. Anderson, 1983; Storm, 2016; Ventsel, 2016; Wigglesworth-Baker, 2016), health policies (Bougdaeva, 2016), education reforms (Amsler, 2013), and spectacle-rich celebrations (Adams, 2010; Adams & Rustemova, 2009; Koch, 2018; Militz, 2016).

With parts of Eurasia having transitioned from various types of foreign-imposed rule (Imperial Russian, Ottoman, and Yugoslav/Soviet) in past centuries, it is undeniable that this region has social, cultural and political commonalities. How these legacies manifest under different states today, however, has been a topic of concerted debate in academia, particularly since the 1990s. The history of Eurasia under state socialism was marked by instability: rapid industrialization, urbanization, collectivization, and (in Soviet controlled areas) the terror of Stalin, which all resulted in overwhelming population flows. Decades of expanding and contracting borders and economic crises linked to protracted periods of war, as well as the restructuring of almost every area of people’s lives through social engineering, structural violence, and politico-economic reform also left profound legacies. Having survived this instability, the emerging independent states were then confronted with the traumas of political-economic disintegration at the end of the 1980s. The tremendous experiments with socialism that had impacted so many lives were followed next by new experiments in capitalism and democratic reform, carrying forward the instability of the region.

As scholars debate the continued relevance of the term ‘post-socialist’ in CEE and FSU countries three decades after the collapse of state socialism (Enyedi, 1996; Antony French & Hamilton, 1979; Pickvance, 2011; Sheppard, 2000; Szelényi, 1996; Tosics, 2005; Tsenkova & Nedovic-Budic, 2006), their discussions raise important questions about the uniqueness (or not) of urban development and image-making taking place in Eurasia. The strong globalizing nature of 21st century means that local initiatives are always anchored to the international circulation of people, power, policies, and money. Cities compete with one another the world over, not just regionally. Still, this dissertation will argue that local particularities

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continue to hold importance. Understanding how the physical and ideological construction of capital cities comes together under different regime structures can provide greater insight into the broader debate on the continued relevance or not of seeing the Eurasian post-socialist sphere as distinct in its socio-political forms.

Dissertation structure and themes

This dissertation is structured around three parts, each comprised of multiple chapters. The first part (chapters 1-5) serves as a broader contextual framing for understanding the work’s theoretical, social, political, and geographic context. Chapter two describes the methodological approach, including a discussion of the research design, case selection, and details of data collection. In efforts to better understand the multiple actors influencing capital city development for political gain, chapter three borrows from Vale (1992, 2008) to lay out what constitutes primary stakeholders at the ‘extra-national,’ ‘subnational,’ and ‘individual’ scales. Chapter four looks specifically at the hybrid regime concept as it has emerged in political science literature since the late 20th and early 21st century. It provides the core theoretical framing and geographic context of the dissertation. This is followed by a discussion in chapter five on the similarities and differences between socialist and contemporary times.

The second part (chapters 6-7), conveys the core empirical findings and theoretical arguments for the cases of Tbilisi, Georgia, and Skopje, North Macedonia. Chapters six and seven narrow in on a few primary urban development campaigns in each of these cities, situating the empirical findings relative to the previously discussed theoretical frames. The final chapters (chapters 8-9) offer a synthesis of the research findings and provide overall conclusions. Tying together all parts of the dissertation, they reconsider the core research question of how urban development and image-making support the incumbent parties of hybrid regimes. These final chapters also consider the inherent instability of hybrid regimes, arguing that the use of the capital to entrench ruling power is a volatile and detrimental process, despite being popular with incumbent parties.

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Chapter 02: Methodology

This dissertation is a qualitative mixed-methods project exploring the capital city urban development and image-making initiatives of two all-encompassing case studies: Skopje, North Macedonia, and Tbilisi, Georgia. The main objectives are: first, to comprehend how urban development and image-making in Eurasian capitals governed by hybrid regimes are utilized by incumbent parties. And, second to assess the distinct social, spatial, and political impacts of such processes. In doing so, the work steps away from abstract hybrid regime categorizations common to political science and evaluates more concrete, on-the-ground manifestations in urban design and planning. An all-encompassing case study approach was chosen due to its ability to capture the broadest range of incumbent party techniques for power retention. The two selected cases expose just how extensive such manipulations can become and what their compounding effects on politics, the economy, and social cohesion might be. They, therefore, raise awareness about the abuses of power that can take place under such regimes and serve as cautionary tales of the risks and challenges that arise when incumbent parties manipulate city spaces.

Case selection rationale

Of the hybrid regimes to have come out of the collapse of state socialism in Eurasia since the 1990s, some have taken to capital city urban development and image-making more extensively than others. To determine which regimes have relied most heavily on such tactics for case selection purposes, I have produced a multi-variable index (Table 2.2). To determine which countries to include within the index, I first considered those that were governed by hybrid regimes for the majority of their time since independence; from 1990-2018, the latter being the official start date of this dissertation’s field research. Table 2.1 lists the regime history of Eurasian states as a part of this selection process.

25 Table 2.1 Regime status by Eurasian country4

COUNTRY (capital) REGIME STATUS (1990)

REGIME STATUS (2008)

REGIME STATUS (2018)

Albania (Tirana) Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Armenia (Yerevan) Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Azerbaijan (Baku) Authoritarian Authoritarian Authoritarian

Belarus (Minsk) Hybrid Regime Authoritarian Authoritarian

Bosnia & Herzegovina

(Sarajevo)

Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Bulgaria (Sofia) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Croatia (Zagreb) Hybrid Regime Democracy Democracy

Czech Republic (Prague) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Estonia (Tallinn) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Germany (Berlin) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Georgia (Tbilisi) Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Hungary (Budapest) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Kazakhstan (Astana) Authoritarian Authoritarian Authoritarian

Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek) Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Latvia (Riga) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Lithuania (Vilnius) Democracy Democracy Democracy

[North] Macedonia

(Skopje)

Hybrid Regime Democracy Hybrid Regime

Moldova (Chișinău) Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime Hybrid Regime

Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Montenegro (Podgorica) Hybrid Regime Democracy Democracy

Poland (Warsaw) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Romania (Bucharest) Hybrid Regime Democracy Democracy

Russia (Moscow) Hybrid Regime Authoritarian Authoritarian

Serbia (Belgrade) Hybrid Regime Democracy Hybrid Regime

Slovakia (Bratislava) Hybrid Regime Democracy Democracy

Slovenia (Ljubljana) Democracy Democracy Democracy

Tajikistan (Dushanbe) Authoritarian Authoritarian Authoritarian

Turkmenistan (Ashgabat) Authoritarian Authoritarian Authoritarian

Ukraine (Kyiv) Hybrid Regime Democracy Hybrid Regime

Uzbekistan (Tashkent) Authoritarian Authoritarian Authoritarian

*Kosovo has been omitted, as it did not gain independence until 2008.

4 _{Note that in May 2020, Montenegro and Hungary had transitioned to hybrid regimes, according to Freedom House’s}