Perceptions of professionalism, corruption, and nepotism in local government

Professionalism, honesty, and fair competition are important in any institution. Yet, incidents involving corruption, nepotism and/or a lack of professionalism are sometimes reported in the Georgian media when the work of local government bodies is covered. How does the public perceive local government? This blog post describes data from the June 2017 CRRC/NDI survey, which show that a majority of people in Georgia thought that there were problems with nepotism and a lack of professionalism in local government. Moreover, roughly half of the population thought that their local government also faces a problem with corruption.

These assessments vary across different settlement types. The population of Tbilisi and other urban settlements was most likely to think that their local government faces all three problems. A majority of people from rural and ethnic minority settlements agreed that there was a lack of professionalism in their local government, but fewer agreed that there were problems with nepotism and corruption. Notably, as with many other survey questions, a high share of the population of ethnic minority settlements answered “Don’t know”.



People’s perceptions also vary by their level of education. People with higher levels of education agreed more often that their local government has issues with nepotism, professionalism, and corruption.



Note: Answer options to the question “What is the highest level of education you have achieved to date?” were recoded. Answer options “Did not obtain a nine-year certificate”, “Nine-year certificate”, and “Secondary school certificate” were combined into “Secondary or lower”. Answer options “Bachelor’s degree/5-year diploma” and “Any degree above Bachelor’s” were combined into “Higher than secondary”. 

In June 2017, a majority of the population of Georgia agreed that their local government had issues with professionalism and nepotism. Corruption was less often reported to be a problem, though 1/3 of the public (and almost half of the population of Tbilisi) agreed with the statement that there was corruption in their local government.

To explore the data in this blog post more extensively, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.