Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Caucasus Data: Tolerance towards Others

The CRRC Data Initiative (DI) gives people an opportunity to do interesting cross-country comparisons of the South Caucasus (SC) people’s attitude toward their neighbors. This subject is quite sensitive and complex when thinking of the fact that the SC stands out for its sequence of ethnic conflicts.

According to the DI, Armenians prioritize doing business with other nations, which is followed by being friends with other nations and the last point is getting married to foreigner. As the chart shows below, 34% of Armenians approve of doing business with Azerbaijanis, 43% - with Turks, 94% - with Russians. As for friendship, Armenians show particular willingness in being friends with Russians (almost 94%), and also, with Americans (84%) and Greeks (83%). You can check the data for Armenians’ attitude toward other nations like Georgians and Iranians as well.

In contrast to Armenians, Georgians’ attitudes differ – they place friendship the highest, 94% of Georgians supports friendship with Russians, 87% supports friendship with Abkhazians; it would be very interesting to know Abkhazians' attitude towards Georgians. Georgians’ attitude toward Ossetians is the same as with Abkhazians (Friendship - 87%, Business - 82%, and Marriage – 42%).

Attitudes are less mercantile than in Armenia: business comes after friendship, but also with high perc
entages. Marriage outside one's people generally is not so popular, although still more than half of the population in
Georgia and Armenia support marriage between Georgians and Russians and Armenians and Russians; a fourth of Azerbaijanis support marriage with Russians as well. Despite Georgia’s spats with Russia, Georgians appears to maintain strong positive feelings to the people. Marrying Americans is less popular, by comparison.


For Azerbaijanis, there is no clear difference in preferences for friendship and business. Mostly approval rates tally closely, although they obviously vary between nations. Overall, Azerbaijanis are reluctant to engage with Armenians (1% for all three variables), which cannot be said about Armenians’ attitude towards Azerbaijanis. That may be the logic of grievance, but note that the same cannot be said for Georgians’ attitude toward Abkhazians: Georgians lost the war but approval of friendship, business, marriage remain high. We would like to hear what you think might explain the stark contrasts.

Moreover, Azerbaijanis, similarly to Armenians and Georgians, are positively disposed toward Russians. In order to see whether religion variable controls Azerbaijanis’ attitude toward marrying Russians, we cross tabbed both variables: the data showed that only 6% of Muslim Azerbaijanis who attend religious services ‘every day’ support marring Russians. You might be interested to come up with your own hypothesis on Georgians marring Abkhaz or Turks.

For more details on the topic and/or for other interesting data, check out the DI dataset here. (Also with special thanks to Katy Pearce for suggesting us to look into this.)

2 comments:

Katy said...

ARMENIANS APPROVAL
GREEKS YES NO JEWS YES NO AMERICANS YES NO
FRIENDS 83.3% 16.7% FRIENDS 63.9% 26.1% FRIENDS 84.6% 15.4%
BUSINESS 83.9% 16.1% BUSINESS 65.3% 34.7% BUSINESS 87.7% 12.3%
MARRIAGE 41.6% 58.5% MARRIAGE 26.3% 73.7% MARRIAGE 43.2% 56.8%

RUSSIANS YES NO TURKS YES NO IRANIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 93.7% 6.3% FRIENDS 27.1% 72.9% FRIENDS 44.9% 55.1%
BUSINESS 94.4% 5.6% BUSINESS 43.3% 56.7% BUSINESS 60.2% 39.8%
MARRIAGE 56.1% 43.9% MARRIAGE 5.5% 94.5% MARRIAGE 10.7% 89.3%





AZERBAIJANIS YES NO GEORGIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 24.1% 75.9% FRIENDS 65.4% 34.6%
BUSINESS 33.5% 66.5% BUSINESS 68.2% 31.8%
MARRIAGE 4.8% 95.2% MARRIAGE 28.3% 71.7%

AZERBAIJANIS APPROVAL
GREEKS YES NO JEWS YES NO AMERICANS YES NO
FRIENDS 58.9% 41.1% FRIENDS 58.9% 40.2% FRIENDS 72.6% 27.4%
BUSINESS 59.1% 40.9% BUSINESS 63.5% 36.5% BUSINESS 76% 24%
MARRIAGE 12.4% 87.6% MARRIAGE 15.5% 84.5% MARRIAGE 17.9% 82.1%

RUSSIANS YES NO TURKS YES NO IRANIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 80.6% 6.3% FRIENDS 95% 5% FRIENDS 71.5% 28.5%
BUSINESS 82.1% 17.9% BUSINESS 93.9% 6.1% BUSINESS 69.1% 30.9%
MARRIAGE 24.5% 75.5% MARRIAGE 63% 37% MARRIAGE 38.1% 61.9%





ARMENIANS YES NO GEORGIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 1.1% 98.9% FRIENDS 77.8% 22.2%
BUSINESS 1.2% 98.9% BUSINESS 75.1% 24.9%
MARRIAGE 0.8% 99.2% MARRIAGE 21.2% 78.8%

GEORGIANS APPROVAL
GREEKS YES NO JEWS YES NO AMERICANS YES NO
FRIENDS 91.4% 8.6% FRIENDS 83.8% 16.2% FRIENDS 87.6% 12.4%
BUSINESS 87.9% 12.1% BUSINESS 81.5% 18.5% BUSINESS 87.3% 12.7%
MARRIAGE 47.3% 52.7% MARRIAGE 25.7% 74.3% MARRIAGE 37.9% 62.1%

RUSSIANS YES NO TURKS YES NO IRANIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 93.9% 6.1% FRIENDS 76.9% 23.1% FRIENDS 75.6% 24.4%
BUSINESS 92.2% 7.8% BUSINESS 76.1% 23.9% BUSINESS 74.6% 25.4%
MARRIAGE 54.2% 45.8% MARRIAGE 16.8% 83.2% MARRIAGE 15.9% 84.1%





ARMENIANS YES NO AZERBAIJANIS YES NO
FRIENDS 83.5% 16.5% FRIENDS 81.4% 18.6%
BUSINESS 79.5% 20.5% BUSINESS 81% 19%
MARRIAGE 33.3% 66.7% MARRIAGE 21.8% 78.2%

ABKHAZIANS YES NO OSSETIANS YES NO
FRIENDS 87.2% 12.8% FRIENDS 87.1% 22.2%
BUSINESS 82.5% 17.5% BUSINESS 82.5% 17.5%
MARRIAGE 42.5% 57.5% MARRIAGE 42.3% 57.7%

Comparative statistically significant differences between the 3 countries:
GREEKS Mean differences JEWS Mean differences AMERICANS Mean differences
FRIENDS Georgia, .08*** more than Armenia,
Armenia,.24*** more than Azerbaijan FRIENDS Georgia, .20*** more than Armenia,
Armenia .04, (not significant) more than Azerbaijan FRIENDS Georgia, .03 (not significant) more than Armenia,
Armenia, .12*** more than Azerbaijan
BUSINESS Georgia, .04*** more than Armenia,
Armenia, .25*** more than Azerbaijan BUSINESS Georgia, .16*** more than Armenia,
Armenia, .02 (not significant) more than Azerbaijan BUSINESS Georgia and Armenia equal, and Armenia, .12*** more than Azerbaijan,
Georgia, .11*** more than Azerbaijan
MARRIAGE Georgia, .06*** more than Armenia,
Armenia, .29*** more than Azerbaijan MARRIAGE Armenia, .01 (not significant) more than Georgia,
Armenia, .11*** more than Azerbaijan MARRIAGE Armenia, .05* more than Georgia,
Georgia, .20*** more than Azerbaijan

RUSSIANS Mean differences TURKS Mean differences IRANIANS Mean differences
FRIENDS Georgia and Armenia equal, and Armenia, .13*** more than Azerbaijan,
Georgia, .13*** more than Azerbaijan FRIENDS Azerbaijan, .18*** more than Georgia,
Georgia, .50*** more than Armenia FRIENDS Georgia, .04** more than Azerbaijan,
Azerbaijan, .27*** more than Armenia
BUSINESS Armenia, .02 (not significant) more than Georgia,
Georgia, .10*** more than Azerbaijan BUSINESS Azerbaijan, .18*** more than Georgia,
Georgia, .33*** more than Armenia BUSINESS Georgia, .05*** more than Azerbaijan,
Azerbaijan, .09*** more than Armenia
MARRIAGE Armenia, .02 (not significant) more than Georgia,
Georgia, .30*** more than Azerbaijan MARRIAGE Azerbaijan, .67*** more than Georgia,
Georgia, .11*** more than Armenia MARRIAGE Azerbaijan, .22*** more than Georgia,
Georgia, .05*** more than Armenia

ARMENIANS Mean differences AZERBAIJANIS Mean differences GEORGIANS Mean differences
FRIENDS Georgia, .82*** more than Azerbaijan FRIENDS Georgia, .57*** more than Armenia FRIENDS Azerbaijan, .12*** more than Armenia
BUSINESS Georgia, .78*** more than Azerbaijan BUSINESS Georgia, .47*** more than Armenia BUSINESS Azerbaijan, .07*** more than Armenia
MARRIAGE Georgia, .32*** more than Azerbaijan MARRIAGE Georgia, .17*** more than Armenia MARRIAGE Armenia, .07*** more than Azerbaijan
* p<.05; ** p<.01, *** p<.001
A one-way ANOVA was run to determine if there were any significant differences between the 3 countries for each nationality and relationship. Significant differences were found for all (F-values available).

urajerk said...
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