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The Security Risks of State Capture: Georgia’s Cautionary Tale

State capture is widely studied within democratic backsliding processes, yet its security implications remain insufficiently explored. By subordinating national interests to elite survival, captured governance weakens institutional resilience, distorts strategic decision-making and undermines security-sector effectiveness. State capture is, as such, an endogenous security threat. Once a frontrunner of democratic reform in the EU’s Eastern Partnership, Georgia has experienced sustained autocratisation. Through patronage and the monopolisation of state resources, a personalised system of rule has subordinated institutions, including the security sector, to partisan interests – privileging loyalty over competence, hollowing out oversight and fragmenting coordination. In a country exposed to Russian military and hybrid pressure, institutional erosion carries strategic consequences. The Georgian case underscores the centrality of governance to security. Systems that are accountable, pluralistic and socially cohesive are structurally better equipped to absorb shocks and sustain security over time. Consequently, good governance emerges as a structural quality of national security.