By Jesse Tatum and Vazha Burduli
From environmental catastrophe to violence, our world currently faces serious challenges with long-term consequences. In this context, what do people in the Caucasus consider to be the most acute problems?
Regarding the greatest threats to the world today, the spread of nuclear weapons and poverty are foremost on the minds of people in the South Caucasus, according to the 2009 CB.
The CB asked respondents to choose from a list of six dangers which one they believe poses the greatest threat to the world. In Georgia and Azerbaijan, the spread of nuclear weapons topped the list, with 44 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, in Armenia, poverty was chosen first, with 35 percent, just edging out the threat of the spread of nuclear weapons. Curiously, more people in Azerbaijan seemed to worry about AIDS and infectious diseases -- something still to look into.
The 47-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which also asks people which threats currently pose the greatest risk to our world, found that pollution and environmental problems are increasingly taking over the top spots as the most pressing world dangers. (Note that CRRC's question was phrased slightly differently, and offered another option.)
Compared with the Global Attitude Survey's results, people in the South Caucasus are less concerned with pollution and environmental problems than in other parts of the world, especially Sweden, Canada and East Asia (China, S. Korea and Japan).
The amount of data available between the two surveys is extensive indeed. We hope you will check out Pew's report, and then compare other figures with our CB in order to see where South Caucasian's world views fit into the international context. In the future, we plan to post more comparisons of this sort.
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