Georgians increasingly feel mistreated by the government

Note: This article first appeared on the Caucasus Data Blog, a joint effort of CRRC Georgia and OC Media. It was written by Eto Gagunashvili, a Researcher at CRRC-Georgia, The views presented in the article are of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia, or any related entity.

Recent CRRC Georgia data suggests that people in Georgia’s age and foreign policy preferences affect how they feel the government is treating them.

The public’s perception of the fairness of the government’s actions is critical to governance and may reflect the quality of democracy in a country. Today, Georgians tend to feel like their country is no longer a democracy, while the public feels that people like them are not being treated fairly by the government.

According to data CRRC Georgia collected for the Europe Foundation since 2009 through a survey on Georgian attitudes towards the EU, the share of Georgians who disagree with the opinion that people like them are being treated unfairly by the government has increased from 46% in 2009 to 60% in 2021. 

Today, twice as many people think that the government treats people like them unfairly as those who feel otherwise.

In the 2021 data, older people (55+) were more likely to agree with the opinion that in Georgia, people like them are treated fairly by the government than younger people (18–35). Other social and demographic variables were not statistically associated with whether or not someone thinks the government treats someone like them more or less fairly.

People’s perceptions of how democratic Georgia is, which country can best support Georgia currently, and support for EU membership are correlated with people’s views of whether people like them are treated fairly by the government. 

People who report that they would vote against EU membership were 18 percentage points more likely to agree that the government treats them fairly than those who report that they would vote for EU membership.

People who report that the USA can currently give the best support to Georgia were 18 percentage points less likely to agree with the statement that people are treated fairly by the government compared to people who report that Russia can best support Georgia.

People who think that Georgia is not a democracy yet, but is developing in that direction or think that Georgia is a democratic country with room for improvement were 13 and 25 percentage points more likely to agree that they are treated fairly than people who think that Georgia might become a democracy in the future, but it is not developing in that direction now. 

With the perception that Georgia’s democracy is backsliding, so too comes the public perception that the government is increasingly not treating people like them fairly. However, older people and people who think Russia can best support Georgia were more satisfied with how the government treats them. 

Note: The above data analysis is based on logistic regression models which included the following variables: age group (18-34, 35-54, 55+), sex (male or female), education (Secondary or lower; Secondary technical; Higher; type of settlement (capital, urban, rural); who can currently best support Georgia (EU, USA, Russia), how democratic Georgia is (Georgia might become a democracy in the future, but it is not developing in that direction now; Georgia is not a democracy yet, but it is developing in that direction; Georgia is a democratic country, but there is still room for improvement); Agree/disagree with the statement: "I am Georgian, and therefore I am European”); Would vote for or against EU membership? (For EU membership; Against EU membership; Would not vote at all).

The optimism of pro-EU Georgians

Note: This article first appeared on the Caucasus Data Blog, a joint effort of CRRC Georgia and OC Media. It was written by Julia-Maria Xavier, an International Fellow at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in the article are of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia, Europe Foundation, or any related entity.

The  2021 CRRC and Europe Foundation Knowledge of and Attitudes toward the EU in Georgia also shows that a strong majority of the Georgian population supports the country joining the European Union.

The survey asked respondents whether they would vote for membership in the European Union if a referendum were held tomorrow. Overall, 77% reported they would vote for membership, 8% that they would not, and 6% that they would not vote. A further 9% reported that they were uncertain and 1% refused to answer.

To measure optimism about the future, people were asked whether the situation in Georgia would never improve or whether, eventually, everything would be fine. In total, 18% reported that things will never improve, while 77% reported that eventually everything will be fine and 5% either did not know or refused to answer.

The data shows that people who would vote for EU membership are more hopeful about the future of Georgia. People who would vote for membership in the European Union were nine percentage points more likely to be optimistic about the country’s future than people who reported that they would vote against EU membership. People who reported that they would not vote were the most pessimistic, being a full 28 percentage points less likely to report optimism for the country’s future. 

People who were employed were nine percentage points more likely to have a positive outlook than people who were not working. There were no meaningful differences in support between men and women, people residing in different settlement types, or in different age groups, controlling for other factors.

The reverse is also true: people who are optimistic about the country’s future would be more likely to vote for EU membership. People who are optimistic about the country’s future are 10 percentage points more likely to report that they would vote for the country’s membership in the European Union, controlling for other factors.

Ethnicity also predicts voting intentions. Ethnic Georgians are 21 percentage points more likely to support joining the EU than ethnic minorities. 

Employment status also predicts voting intentions, with employed people being 12 percentage points more likely to report that they would vote for EU membership. 

There were no meaningful differences in support between men and women, people residing in different settlement types, or in different age groups, controlling for other factors. 

While the data shows that Georgians who would vote for EU membership are more optimistic about the country’s future more broadly, whether those hopes will be dashed awaits a decision on whether Georgia receives EU candidacy status later this month.

Note: The above analysis is based on logistic regression models that include age (18-35, 35-54, 55+), settlement type (capital, urban, rural), sex, employment, optimism about the future, ethnicity (ethnic Georgian, ethnic minority). Willingness to vote for the European Union and optimism about the future were assessed in separate models, which also included these controls. The data this article is based on is available here.

How does Georgia’s democracy compare with countries granted EU candidacy?

Note: This article first appeared on the Caucasus Data Blog, a joint effort of CRRC Georgia and OC Media. It was written by Givi Silagadze, a researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in the article are of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia, or any related entity.

The government’s decision to bring forward their application was spurred by Ukraine’s application several days prior as well as mounting pressure from Georgian society.

Despite the extraordinary circumstances, some argue that full integration could take decades unless standards for accession to the EU are lowered.  

Countries aspiring to become EU members must meet several demanding criteria to be considered eligible for membership, known as the Copenhagen criteria. These can be categorised into three groups: (1) political criteria largely relating to democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, (2) economic criteria, and (3) administrative and institutional capacity. 

Georgia, alongside Ukraine and Moldova, is now waiting for the EU to either grant them candidate status or reject their application, which would be a major blow for Georgia’s EU aspirations. 

According to data from Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy, all of the countries that became EU member states during the last two decades had a higher level of democracy when they were granted candidate status than Georgia does in 2022. 

However, Georgia has higher democracy scores than other countries granted candidate status which have not yet become EU member states. 

Georgia vs countries that became EU members in the last two decades

Freedom House scores suggest that all the countries that became EU members over the last two decades were more democratic during their application than Georgia in 2022 when applying for EU membership. 

This observation holds for the moment these countries were granted candidate status and negotiations for accession were opened up until they officially became EU member states.

Click to enlarge.

Data from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem) suggest a slightly different picture. 

According to V-Dem’s electoral democracy index, Georgia’s democracy in 2022 is similar to the level of electoral democracy of Bulgaria and Romania when they were granted candidate status as well as when they became members of the EU in 2007. 

Click to enlarge.

Moreover, Romania’s scores on the electoral democracy index when the EU opened accession negotiations with the country as well as when it became a full-fledged member of the union were slightly worse than Georgia’s scores on the same index in 2022. 

The V-Dem dataset also contains a more demanding democracy index, known as the liberal democracy index. This index shows a similar picture. Romania is the only country that became a member of the EU in the 21st century that had lower scores on the liberal democracy index when the EU opened accession negotiations with it than Georgia in 2022.

Click to enlarge.

Georgia vs countries granted candidate status yet to join the EU 

According to Freedom House, some of the countries that were offered the EU candidate status but are yet to become full-fledged members had comparable levels of democracy with Georgia during the period when the EU granted them candidacy. 

Albania and North Macedonia had only slightly better scores (10 for both) than Georgia in 2022 (9) when they were officially considered candidate countries.

As for Turkey’s democracy, it had lower Freedom House scores in 1999 when granted candidate status (7) than Georgia in 2022 (9). However, accession negotiations with Turkey were conditioned on improvements in its democracy score, and negotiations did not start until its Freedom House score improved to 10 out of 14.

Click to enlarge.

Data from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem) present a different portrait. According to V-Dem’s electoral democracy index, the level of Georgia is more democratic in 2022 than five other countries when they were given candidate status. 

Click to enlarge.

Similarly, the Liberal Democracy Index suggests that Georgia’s democracy in 2022 is stronger than that of Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Turkey when they were given candidate status. 

As for Serbia, its scores on the index when it was granted candidate status in 2012 were the same as Georgia’s in 2022.

Click to enlarge.

Even though the quality of Georgia’s democracy lags behind EU member states, international democracy indexes suggest that Georgia is as democratic, sometimes more so, than other current candidates when they were granted candidacy status.

Who thinks the EU is a threat to Georgian culture?

[Note: This article was originally published in partnership with OC-Media, and is available here.]

If a referendum were held tomorrow, 71% of Georgians would vote for the country to join the European Union according to CRRC Georgia and Europe Foundation’s 2019 survey on Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union in Georgia (EU Survey). 

Clearly, a large share of the public supports the country’s integration into European structures. Still, over a quarter of Georgians are against the country joining the EU.

One reason that is often talked about in this regard is that some suggest the European Union poses a threat to Georgia’s culture and traditions. Further analysis of the EU survey suggests that this sentiment has been on the rise over the last ten years, and is associated with lower levels of support for Georgia joining the EU.

This suggests that if the Government of Georgia and EU want to build a greater societal consensus on the country’s Western integration, demonstrating that the EU is not a threat to Georgian culture and traditions matters.

Respondents to the EU survey have been asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement that the EU threatens Georgian traditions since the survey started in 2009. The share who disagree with this statement has changed relatively little over the years: 48% disagreed with the statement in 2009 and 46% did in 2019. The only exception was in 2015 when there was a 9 percentage point dip in disagreement and 15 percentage point increase in agreement with the statement.

While disagreement with the idea has been stable, uncertainty has declined and agreement with the idea that the EU poses a threat to Georgian traditions has been on the rise. 

In 2009, 28% of the public responded don’t know or refused to answer the question. Only 12% did in 2019. In 2009, only 23% of the public thought that the EU posed a threat to Georgian traditions. In contrast, 42% did in 2019. The decline in uncertainty and rising threat perception suggests that many people’s attitudes have formed in recent years.




Note: On the above chart, the agree category is composed of response options ‘agree’ and ‘agree more than disagree’. The disagree category is composed of response options ‘disagree’ and ‘disagree more than agree’.

Further analysis of the 2019 wave of the survey suggests that a number of groups are more likely to think that the EU represents a threat. Men, people in rural areas, those with vocational education, and ethnic Georgians are all significantly more likely to think the EU is a threat to Georgian tradition.

In contrast, age was not a significant predictor of whether or not someone perceived the EU as a threat, all else equal.



Although the perception that the EU is a threat to Georgian tradition is on the rise, most people who perceive it as threat still support Georgia’s potential membership in the European Union (65%). This compares to 76% of people who support EU membership and do not perceive the EU as a threat to Georgian culture.

A further analysis testing for an association between the perceived threat to culture and whether or not someone would vote for EU membership suggests that, controlling for the above demographic factors, perceiving the EU as a threat is associated with a 15 percentage point lower chance of reporting that one would vote for EU membership if an election were held tomorrow.

The data shows that the public is increasingly worried that the EU is a threat to Georgian culture. It also suggests that efforts at assuaging fears related to threats to tradition should focus on people in rural areas, people with vocational education, and ethnic Georgians.

While the perception of the EU as a threat to Georgian culture is present, most who perceive this threat still would support the country’s membership in the EU.

Nonetheless, attitudes change, and if relevant actors want to ensure that Georgian society maintains its pro-Western orientation, demonstrating that the EU is not a threat should be a priority.

Note: The second chart in this blog is based on a logistic regression analysis. The analysis compared individuals who agreed with the statement to all other individuals in the sample, except those who refused to answer the question. The analysis included age group, sex, settlement type, ethnicity, and education level. The data used in the above analysis can be found here. The replication code for the above analysis can be found here.

Dustin Gilbreath is the Deputy Research Director at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent the views of CRRC-Georgia or any related entity.

Georgia’s imagined tolerance

[Note: This article was originally published in collaboration with OC-Media.]

Hate crime regularly makes the news in Georgia. The recent murder of Vitali Safarov, the harassment of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which has put the country in the European Court of Human Rights, and the 2013 riots on the International Day Against Homophobia all come to mind.

Yet, Georgians also pride themselves on examples of tolerance in the country’s history. This contradiction — pride in tolerance despite an apparent lack of it in many cases — is reflected in data CRRC-Georgia recently collected for the Council of Europe.

To understand attitudes towards different minority groups, the survey asked respondents whether they would approve of someone like them doing business with 24 different minority groups. Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and people of ethnicities not traditionally associated with Europe or the Caucasus were generally less approved of than peoples from Europe and the Caucasus.

People with disabilities were the most approved of minority group.

The groups people approve of least were also the groups the public thinks are most likely to be the victims of hate crime and the targets of hate speech.

When asked how often specific groups are the victims of hate crime and the target of hate speech, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses topped the list.  When asked, who do you think is the target of hate speech most often in Georgia, LGBT people were named more often than any other group. The same is true of hate crime.

While these perceptions likely reflect the situation surrounding hate crime and hate speech to a reasonable degree, they are also likely mistaken to a certain extent.

For example, the vast majority of the public (91%) reports positive attitudes towards people with disabilities. In line with this pattern, only 2% of the public reported that people with disabilities are often the targets of hate speech and 2% the victims of hate crime.

Yet, as a person with a disability interviewed within the study stated, ‘Hate speech is part of our everyday life. Ingrained. Firmly established.’

It is not possible to generalise from a single interview, yet a gap between minority and majority perspectives on the challenges minorities face are not present only when it comes to people with disabilities.

The survey asked what the most significant issues a variety of groups faced were. While 41% of men reported that women faced no issues 28% of women did.  29% of ethnic Georgians reported that ethnic minorities faced no issues compared with 10% of ethnic Armenians and 12% of ethnic Azeris. 44% of Orthodox Christians reported that religious minorities faced no issues compared with 17% of Muslims and 20% of non-Orthodox Christians.

How the question was asked is important here. Respondents were provided with a list of potential responses and allowed to name other issues. However, that they face no issues was not part of that list, meaning that people actively reported the above groups face no significant issues rather than selecting one of the options from the list. If they face no issues was part of the list, a larger share of the public likely would have selected the option.

There are many plausible causes of the gap between minority and majority perceptions. A lack of contact between groups is one potential source. While this survey did not ask about contact with different minority groups, previous surveys show that those who are in touch with minorities often have more positive attitudes towards them (e.g. with LGBT people and with migrants).

A second potential cause is the portrayal of minorities in the media, which frequently contains hate speech.

No matter the precise reasons for intolerance in Georgia, these potential causes also suggest potential solutions.

First, increasing contact between minority and majority groups has the potential to decrease the animus people express towards minorities. Second, the media could remove hate speech from its discourse. Further, they could take the positive step of providing more detailed coverage of the problems minorities face in Georgia, thus directly informing the public.

Finally, highlighting the contradiction between Georgians’ pride in tolerance and the hate crime which takes place in Georgia all too often has the potential to encourage the public to question their own views.

Dustin Gilbreath is the Deputy Research Director of CRRC-Georgia. 

The views presented in this article do not necessarily represent the views of CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in this article do not represent the views of the Council of Europe or any related entity.

The data used in this article are available here.

Changes in public opinion between 2011 and 2017

A lot changed in Georgia between 2011 and 2017, including the government. New promises and new regulations have been made and new priorities set by politicians. A visa free regime with the Schengen zone countries came into force. An ultranationalist ‘Georgian March’ was organized. A Georgian priest was charged with conspiracy to murder the Secretary of the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, the most trusted institution in Georgia. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it does raise questions about whether and how public opinion has changed against the backdrop of these and other events.

Using data from five waves of CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017) and four waves of EF/CRRC’s Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the EU in Georgia survey (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017), this blog post highlights five of the many important changes in public opinion between 2011 and 2017. We do not, however, attempt to explain or link these changes to specific events, leaving the interpretation to the reader.

CRRC’s time-series data show that:

1. Between 2011 and 2017, Georgia’s population became more aware of their rights and powers as citizens. There is an 11 percentage point increase in the share of those who think that people like themselves have the right to openly say what they think, while the share of people who think that it is important for a good citizen to be critical towards the government increased by 14 percentage points. Moreover, the share of those who agree with the statement that “People should participate in protest actions against the government, as this shows the government that the people are in charge” doubled since 2011, reaching 62% in 2017. 

2. People in Georgia acknowledged the importance of volunteering and started practicing it. The share of people who think that it is important for a good citizen to do volunteer work meeting the needs of the community without expecting any compensation increased by 38 percentage points since 2011. The share of those who report having volunteering experience themselves increased as well, although less impressively.

3. People became less trustful of other people, and of major social and political institutions. The share of people who report trusting parliament and executive and local government decreased by more than 10 percentage points in each of these cases. Distrust is on the rise not only towards government institutions, but also towards businesses and religious institutions. The share of people who report trusting banks decreased by 20 percentage points and the share of people who report trusting the religious institutions to which they belong decreased by 18 percentage points. People report less trust towards each other as well: the share of those who think that one can't be too careful in dealing with people increased by 19 percentage points.

4. Georgia’s population became less optimistic about domestic politics and more doubtful about Georgia’s prospects for EU integration. Compared to 2011, there is a 25 percentage point drop in the share of people reporting that Georgia’s domestic politics is going in the right direction, and less people now report trusting the EU. Moreover, the share of people who think that the EU threatens Georgian traditions increased from 29% to 41%. Considering the high importance people attach to respect of traditions, which has remained unchanged in Georgia during these years, this trend once again indicates decreased support for the EU in Georgia.

5. People’ assessments of their economic situation and health became worse, but they report being slightly happier overall. The share of people who report having personal debts increased by 12 percentage points, while the share of those who rate their overall health as good decreased by 10 percentage points. At the same time, the share of people who report that, overall, they are happy increased by 10 percentage points during the last seven years.

We’ve highlighted only some of the many changes in the public opinion between 2011 and 2017. To explore the data more, try CRRC’s online data analysis tool and the datasets available from caucasusbarometer.org, and share what you find with us.

Who in Georgia wants to study abroad?

Studying abroad can offer students the opportunity to learn new languages, travel, experience different cultures, and form relationships in addition to studying. The Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union survey (EU Survey) implemented by CRRC-Georgia for Europe Foundation provides information about what share of the population in Georgia would like to go abroad to study, and the demographic characteristics of those who would like to.

Overall, almost a quarter of Georgia’s population (24%) reports a willingness to study abroad. Their median age is 29, and in this blog post we focus only on people who are between 18 and 58 years old, i.e. twice the median age. For the population in this age group, the share of those who report a willingness to study abroad increases to 33%. Most often, they name the US as the country where they would like to study.


Notably, slightly more females (37%) report being interested in going overseas to study than do males (30%). Of those who already hold a bachelor’s degree, 48% would like to go abroad to study, while of those who hold a master’s or higher degree, 39% want to study abroad.


Note: Options ‘Primary education’, ‘Incomplete secondary education’, ‘Completed secondary education’, ‘Secondary technical education’, and ‘Incomplete tertiary education’ were grouped into the category ‘Secondary education or lower’. Options ‘MA’ and ‘PhD student/PhD’ were grouped into the category ‘Master’s degree or higher.’ 

A willingness to go abroad to study is most common in the capital and least common in settlements with a large ethnic minority population. Notably, there is not much difference between the shares of people willing to study abroad in urban settlements outside Tbilisi and in rural settlements with a predominantly Georgian population.


Surprisingly, quite a large share of those who want to go abroad to study report no basic knowledge of English (37%). Thirty percent report they have intermediate and 15% - advanced knowledge of the language. This finding leads to some questions about whether those who report a willingness to study abroad would actually be able to do so. Notably, half of those who say they would like to study in the United States or the United Kingdom report either no basic knowledge or a beginner’s level of English.

This suggests the need for more focused efforts in the field of teaching foreign languages, and especially English.

To explore the data further, try CRRC’s online data analysis tool.

One in six in Georgia think the country is a member of the EU

[Note: This article was co-published with OC-Media and written by Dustin Gilbreath, a Policy Analyst at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent the views of CRRC-Georgia or any related entity.]

Recent years have seen Georgia’s ties to the European Union grow, with the Association Agreement, including the preferential trade regime it introduced known as the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area signed in 2014 and the granting of visa liberalisation for citizens of Georgia in 2017.

Both represent significant steps towards integration with the EU for Georgia. As part of reaching these milestones, Georgian legislation is being harmonised with the EU’s in a number of fields. The country, however, is currently neither a member of the EU nor even a candidate for membership.

Recent steps towards closer EU integration may have lead some in Georgia to mistakenly believe the country is an EU member. Sixteen percent of the population of Georgia reported in May 2017 that the country was a member of the European Union, and a further 10% answered ‘don’t know’, according to the fifth wave of the Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union survey (EU survey), which CRRC-Georgia carried out for the Europe Foundation.

By comparison, in 2015 only 5% of the population thought Georgia was a member and 12% reported not knowing. While the data show no notable changes over time for people of different age groups (2015, 2017), the answers provided by men and women, as well as those provided by ethnic Georgians, did change between 2015 and 2017.

The increase in thinking the country is a member of the EU is mainly among the ethnic Georgian population. While in 2015 the ethnic minority population reported that Georgia was a member of the EU slightly more often than the rest of the population, in 2017 ethnic Georgians reported that Georgia was an EU member at the same rate as the ethnic minority population. The share of the ethnic minority population who reported that they didn’t know whether Georgia was or was not a member of the European Union increased by 11 percentage points between 2015 and 2017.


Ethnicity aside, it also appears that women were more likely to be mistaken about Georgia’s EU membership than men in 2017. While only 6% of women thought that Georgia was a member of the EU in 2015, 22% did in 2017. By comparison, 5% of men thought that Georgia was an EU member state in 2015 and 10% reported so in 2017. This increase has no clear explanation and requires further research.


This misperception suggests that clearer communications are needed about Georgia’s relationship with the EU, and Georgia’s status in the EU integration process.

The data used in this article is available from CRRC-Georgia’s Online Data Analysis Tool.

Visa liberalization: Which groups in Georgia are expected to benefit most from it?

The introduction of visa free travel to the Schengen zone countries for Georgian citizens was one of the most prominent news stories in Georgia in 2017. It was also highly publicized and presented by the country’s government as a significant achievement on the way to European integration. Do people in Georgia agree with this assessment? And which groups of the population does the public think will actually benefit from the opportunity? CRRC’s 2017 Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey results shed some light on these questions.

In Fall 2017, 40% of the population reported not personally knowing any Georgian citizen who had traveled to the Schengen zone countries visa-free in the six months since visa liberation came into force on March 28, 2017. Another 40% reported knowing such people or traveling themselves. Since the question addressed a rather short period of time (six months), the latter 40% can be considered a rather large share. Unsurprisingly, this share increases to 59% in the capital. While 20% answered “Don’t know” at the national level, only 7% did so in the capital, compared with 27% in other urban settlements and 23% in rural settlements. Quite unexpectedly, whether a person knows or does not know those who have benefited from visa liberalization does not seem to be explained by reported assessments of household’s economic situation.

CB also asked which groups of the population will benefit most from visa-free travel to the Schengen zone countries. No answer options were provided during the survey. The respondents could come up with up to two answers. According to 10%, everyone will benefit from visa liberalization, while 3% reported that no one will.

Interestingly, in a number of cases these expectations are quite different for people who personally know beneficiaries of visa-free travel or have benefited themselves, and for people who do not know those who have benefited from visa liberalization. The differences are especially prominent with students, potential short-term visitors, and the unemployed. Those who personally know beneficiaries of visa-free travel or have traveled themselves believe more that students, potential short-term visitors, and the unemployed will benefit from visa liberalization. Those who personally do not know any beneficiaries of visa-free travel have a rather pessimistic view, reporting that rich people, politicians and high level officials will benefit most from visa liberalization. Notably, they also answer "Don't know" more often.




These findings suggest that a lack of exposure to people who have actually benefited from visa liberalization may lead to a more pessimistic view of visa liberalization’s potential for citizens of Georgia. In contrast, personally knowing those who have traveled visa free appears to be connected to the belief that it’s not just the rich and powerful who will benefit from the chance to travel to most of the EU countries visa free.

To have a closer look at CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer data, visit our Online Data Analysis portal after February 1, 2018.

The perceived importance of history and civic engagement: Recent MYPLACE publication

In 2011-2015, CRRC-Georgia was involved in an EC-funded project MYPLACE: Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement. Sixteen academic partners from 14 countries (see the map below) investigated the forms and causes of young people’s civic (dis)engagement across Europe. 

Palgrave recently published one of the outputs of the MYPLACE project in a volume titled Understanding Youth Participation Across Europe: From Survey to Ethnography. MYPLACE project leaders Hilary Pilkington, Gary Pollock and Renata Franc edited the volume. The chapter ‘History in Danger and Youth Civic Engagement: Perceptions and Practice in Telavi, Georgia’ discusses perceptions about history, and the forms of ‘practicing history’ in one of the MYPLACE research locations in Georgia, Telavi and was written by CRRC staff members, Tamar Khoshtaria, Mariam Kobaladze and Tinatin Zurabishvili. 

The article shows that there is, on the one hand, vast empirical data demonstrating that the population of Georgia, including young people, report history and traditions are very important for them. There is, on the other hand, evidence that this ‘importance’ hardly goes beyond words, and even the most simple and passive forms of engagement in historical activities, such as visiting museums, are not actually practiced. 

The chapter tries to explain this discrepancy, largely focusing on a controversial architectural ‘rehabilitation project’ in the historical center of Telavi, initiated in spring, 2012. For part of the population, young people included, this project led to perceptions of the historical monuments as endangered due to architectural mismanagement. The respondents often felt that, as a result of the reconstruction works, the history of the town was getting ‘damaged,’ or lost. Moreover, forgetting history was often seen as an indicator of the nation’s downfall. But did such perceptions lead to increased civic engagement? 

No, they did not. This led the authors to conclude that this was “a missed opportunity from the point of view of potentially stimulating civic engagement. <…> [T]he young respondents report disengagement from politics and negative attitudes towards politicians and political activities even when they report being unhappy with the changes that take place in the society” (p. 311). 

Thorough investigation of the reasons for such disengagement deserve further research. In the meantime, readers interested in the chapter can find the book here.

Visa liberalization: Expectations in Georgia

In March, 2017, after nearly five years of negotiations, a visa liberalization agreement with the Schengen zone countries came into force for Georgian citizens. Even though political elites generally perceive this achievement as a step forward for Georgia, the public’s attitudes and expectations about visa liberalization are not solely positive. Using CRRC/NDI April 2017 survey data, this blog post presents some assessments of the EU-Georgia visa liberalization.

Nine in ten people in Georgia report having heard about visa liberalization with the Schengen zone countries for Georgian citizens, however, not everyone feels they have enough information about the rules of visa free travel. Importantly, roughly 4 in 10 people disagree with the view that visa free travel will benefit them or people like them.


 


Note: For these two questions, the sample was split equally: half of the respondents were asked the question “Do you agree or disagree that visa free travel will benefit people like you?”, while the other half was asked the question “Do you agree or disagree that visa free travel will benefit you?” 

A number of specific statements about visa liberalization were also assessed during the survey. Overall, attitudes are rather mixed. There is a widespread belief that visa liberalization will not have any negative consequences for the Georgian economy. Approximately 2/3 of the population think it will increase emigration from Georgia. Probably most importantly, 78% think that ordinary people will not be able to afford traveling in the EU, even though visas are not required.

 

To conclude, expectations of the visa liberalization are not uniformly positive in Georgia. To explore the CRRC/NDI survey findings, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis portal.

Georgia: Disapproval Rising for NATO Membership

[Note: This piece was originally published on Eurasianet. Dustin Gilbreath is a policy analyst at CRRC-Georgia. Rati Shubladze is a researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of either CRRC-Georgia or the National Democratic Institute.]

NATO recently recognized Georgia’s contributions to peacekeeping missions from Afghanistan to Kosovo by holding a session of the alliance’s parliamentary assembly in Tbilisi in late May. The occasion reinforced the hopes of Georgian leaders that their country can one day soon gain admission to NATO. However, polling in the lead up to NATO’s parliamentary assembly also sheds light on a trend that could potentially hinder its membership bid.

Public support in Georgia for the country’s NATO membership bid remains strong. A recent survey CRRC-Georgia carried out for the National Democratic Institute shows that 68 percent of Georgians support the government’s goal of joining the alliance. If Georgia were a NATO member, this would be the third highest level of support of any member state polled in a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Yet, CRRC and NDI’s data also shows that disapproval with the prospect of membership is rising. Back in 2012, roughly a quarter of the public was uncertain over whether the country should join NATO; since 2015, however, only about one in 10 have reported uncertainty. Over the same period, disapproval of NATO membership doubled from about one in 10 Georgians to roughly one in five.

This trend has at least two potential explanations.

First, people who used to report that they are not sure about membership might have always been opposed to the Alliance. Rather than telling interviewers this, they felt social pressure not to say so, because they perceived NATO support to be popular in Georgia. This phenomenon, being shy about reporting unpopular opinions to survey interviewers, is common, and is known as social desirability bias.

If this explanation is correct, then the shift from uncertainty in response to disapproval is a sign of a trend in Georgian society and its foreign policy discourse: anti-Euro Atlantic views are more widely accepted or at least perceived to be more socially acceptable than in years past. Over the past couple of years, politicians have expressed less confrontational views towards Russia, at least when compared with the virulently anti-Russian rhetoric of former president Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement, which lost its parliamentary majority in 2012. This change in discourse might contribute to the trend, making it more widely acceptable to express views that are not pro-Western. While beyond the scope of this article, Russian propaganda too could be playing some role.

A second possible explanation is that a significant number of those who were previously undecided are now making up their minds: no longer sitting on the fence, they have decided that the actual or potential costs of NATO membership are too great, or the chance of NATO membership too low, to make the required sacrifices.

Georgia is a small country and, even in absolute terms, it contributed more soldiers to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan than any other non-member state. This contribution has not come without a cost: over 30 Georgian soldiers have died in Afghanistan and hundreds have been wounded.

The potential for NATO membership to incite Russia’s ire weighs heavily in the minds of those who disapprove. When those who reported opposing Georgia’s NATO bid were asked why they disapprove, the most common response was that it will cause conflict with Russia.

Despite Georgia’s sacrifices, membership in the Alliance seems distant to a majority of Georgians. Since the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration, which stated that Georgia and Ukraine would someday become members of the Alliance, a Membership Action Plan – a first step towards membership – has proven elusive. This is reflected in public opinion about when Georgia will join NATO: 16 percent think the country will never join, and an additional 38 percent are uncertain if or when the country will be offered membership. A majority of those who are uncertain about a membership date favor Georgia’s NATO bid.

Even though disapproval of Georgia’s NATO bid may be rising, the head of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has suggested that Georgia is more prepared for membership than even some member states. Notably, Georgian military expenditure has consistently exceeded 2 percent of GDP, the level required of NATO members, despite the fact that only five member states meet this spending target. On top of this, a full 80 percent of those polled think that military spending should either stay the same or increase.

If the Alliance is dedicated to its 2008 Bucharest commitments, it should make its intentions clear to the Georgian public. The lack of a clear signal from the Alliance seems likely to only keep stoking uncertainty and disapproval of members among the Georgian public.

The Georgian public's perceptions of the EU’s and Russia’s influence on the country

Numerous news reports in 2015 focused on foreign influence in Georgia (for instance, see the Financial Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, the BBC, Foreign Affairs for some of the stories related to Russian influence), but how does the Georgian public see the situation? This blog post takes a look at how much influence the Georgian public think two foreign powers, the EU and Russia, have on Georgia compared with how much influence they think these powers should have, using August 2015 National Democratic Institute (NDI) and CRRC-Georgia survey findings.

The Georgian public thinks that Russia has more influence on Georgia than it should have. Forty-nine percent of Georgians assess Russia’s political influence on Georgia as somewhat or very high, while only six percent thinks it should be so. Sixty-eight percent think Russia’s political influence on Georgia should be low or that they should have no influence at all. When it comes to cultural influence, the mismatch is smaller although the pattern remains similar – 43% of Georgians assess Russia’s cultural influence as low  or none, while 58% think that it should be low  or none. When it comes to economic influence, 30% of Georgians assess Russia’s influence on Georgia as somewhat or very high, while only 12% think it should be so.

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In comparison with Russia, the influence that the Georgian public thinks the EU should have in Georgia is closer to influence Georgians think it does have, but there is still a mismatch, especially when it comes to assessments of political influence.

The share of Georgians who think that Russian influence on Georgia has increased since 2012 is higher than the share of those who think that EU influence has increased in the same period (44% and 17%, respectively).

When it comes to foreign influence on Georgia, Georgians clearly think that Russia has much more political, economic, and cultural influence than it should have. The assessments are much more similar in case of the EU. Notably, more Georgians perceive Russian influence as having increased since 2012 than those who think the EU’s influence has increased.

Want to explore the data in more depth? Take a look here, using our online data analysis tool.

No, Putin is not winning Georgia away from Europe. Here are the facts.

[Editor's Note: This post was originally published on the Washington Post's Monkey Cage on Monday, December 21, 2015. The original post is available here. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia or any of the sponsors of the survey which this article is based on. The data on which this article is based is available here.]

By Dustin Gilbreath

Last Friday, after years of diplomatic wrangling over the course of two administrations, the Republic of Georgia received a report from the EU green lighting visa free travel within the European Union in the near future. Yet, media accounts from earlier this year suggested that Georgia was undergoing a “Russian turn”.

That appeared to be true last May, when an NDI-CRRC public opinion poll declared that 31 percent of Georgians favored ECU membership. Have voters in the Republic of Georgia suddenly begun to prefer an affiliation with the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union over their existing affiliation with the European Union?

If true, it would be shocking. Since its independence in 1991, Georgia has favored Europe overwhelmingly. Polling has found levels of support for the EU that Brussels could only dream of elsewhere in Europe, and serious ongoing problems between Georgia and Russia would naturally strengthen those pro-Europe leanings.

Certainly, many observers have taken that poll number to heart. Nearly a dozen publications and organizations—such as the Financial Times, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, the BBC, Foreign Affairs, Carnegie Endowment, and Brookings Institution—have cited the number. It even seems to have influenced a Roll Call op-ed, the first sentence of which cited “recent news accounts” on Georgia and Ukraine. Almost every news account on Georgia at the time cited the number.

But that number hasn’t changed since 2013, when the Caucasus Barometer examined support for Georgian Customs Union membership. Moreover, the number by itself is misleading. The data show far fewer Georgians are consistently pro-Russian. ”The Russian turn” has been overstated.

Two Unions, Four preferences

In August, Georgians were asked whether they approve of the Georgian government’s goal of joining the EU and whether Georgia should join the Eurasian Customs Union. Twice as many Georgians prefer the EU to the Eurasian Union, 61% to 31%. This has been largely consistent over time, although support for the EU has had its ups and downs with a slight decline in recent years. Nonetheless, support for the Eurasian Customs Union has never been more than half the level of support for the EU.

Georgians fall into four consistent groups about union membership. Here’s the largest one: 39% say they would vote for the EU and against the Customs Union (marked in the graph below as pro-EU). Only 15 percent would vote for the Customs Union and against the EU. The joiners, 12 percent, support membership in both unions. And the isolationists, 5 percent, would vote against both unions. Another 11 percent don’t know how they feel about either union, and 17 percent had responses that didn’t really have a clear interpretation.

Why would any Georgians support economic union with the nation’s former oppressor, Russia?

To read on, please visit the Washington Post's Monkey Cage:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/12/21/no-putin-is-not-winning-georgias-loyalty-away-from-europe-here-are-the-facts/

A Tangled Path to Europe: A review of Bittersweet Europe

This week's blog post was originally published on Friday, August 29th on New Eastern Europe. The original version may be viewed here.

Review of Bittersweet Europe. Albanian and Georgian Discourses on Europe, 1878-2008. By: Adrian Brisku. Publisher: Berghahn Books, August 2013.

Since independence, Georgia has been on what has often looked like a quixotic quest towards joining the EU. Multiple wars, a resurgent Russia, breakaway territories and a consistently difficult economic situation which has gone through hyper-inflation and has had consistently high unemployment and underemployment over the last 25 years must, at the minimum, make prospects for EU integration seem distant at best to many in Brussels. Yet, with the recent signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union on June 27th 2014, Georgia is closer to its European dreams than ever. Remembering that the EuroMaiden protests, which were the match to the powder keg igniting the Ukraine Crisis, were set off by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych’s failure to sign an association agreement that would have brought Ukraine closer to Europe and considering the historical ambivalence among elites in Albania and Georgia towards Europe over the course of the last 130 years, there could not be a more important time for academics, policymakers and journalists working on the Eurasian region to read Adrian Brisku’s Bittersweet Europe.

Brisku skillfully disentangles the often competing webs of discourse on Europe coming out of Georgia over the past 130 years. The book simultaneously decentres Caucasus watchers’ purview through placing Georgian discourse on Europe in a comparative perspective with Albania’s conversations on Europe over the same period. Furthermore, by implanting the conversation in broader pan-European historical frames, the author provides valuable insight into how Georgia’s relationship to Europe has been conditioned historically.

Since the Russian imperial period, discourse on Europe has been mixed, but one of the most important points of contention in Georgia has been whether the country would “look West” on its own or look north to Russia in order to look West to what Brisku describes as the “triadic Europe.” The triadic Europe which Brisku refers to is Europe “as geopolitically important; as a torchbearer of progress; and as the symbol of civilisation and high culture”. This distinction is valuable in that it lends an understanding to the often confounding claims of Europeanness from Georgian elites due to its ambiguous geographical location on the crossroads of Europe and Asia and the sometimes questionable reasoning behind such claims by providing the polysemous meaning of Europe in Georgia.

In diametric contrast to nationalist leaders today, the Georgian “Father of the Nation” and canonized Saint in the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia Chavchavadze, believed that Georgia should and would move towards Europe, but through its relationship with Russia, as Georgia was a part of the Tsarist Empire at the time. In opposition to this, Noe Zhordania, another aristocrat but one who had studied in France during his first term in exile from Georgia, developing an inclination towards French Socialism in the process, and the eventual first and only president of the independent, Menshevik, Georgian Republic of 1918-1921, thought that Georgia’s relationship to Europe should not be mediated through the Russian space. The contentions surrounding Europe and Georgia as a part of Europe would not end here though.

With the First World War and the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia, the discourse shifted. As the socialist state was supposed to be the vanguard of progressivism in the world, Georgia, as part of the Soviet Union, was meant to be in a position to help the working classes of Europe towards the progress represented by socialism. Much like how Karl Marx had flipped Georg W.F. Hegel on his head in philosophy, who and what represented progress had been spun around in the Georgian discourse.

Georgia has had a pro-European policy since independence, with short exceptions, and Brisku traces this shift back to the 1975 signing of the Helsinki Accords. In Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, through co-founding the Georgian Helsinki Group, began the discursive shift towards relations with Europe directly instead of through the mediation of the Soviet state. In doing so, he set the stage for changes to come. From this point onward, with one exception, and especially after independence, a pro-European discourse emanated from Georgia.

In a strange twist of irony, the exception to Georgia’s pro-EU discourse came from the same person who re-ignited it, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. This though, was not the dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia which founded the Helsinki Group in Tbilisi nor the man who led the anti-Soviet movement in Georgia to the Soviet Union’s collapse, but the Zviad Gamsakhurdia who was elected the first head of state of Georgia after independence. His rule was characterised by strong nationalist tendencies which alienated the country’s ethnic minorities leading to the de facto loss of control of South Ossetia for Georgia. From human rights advocate and dissident to human rights violator, Zviad Gamsakhurdia in his turn moved away from Europe due to European criticism of his human rights abuses.

The persistent question which has dominated and lay beneath the surface of the discourses on Europe in both Georgia and Albania is “Are we European?” From this underlying question, Brisku highlights the ethnocentric euro-centrism that emerged in both contexts from anxieties and insecurities and the overcompensation resulting from this question. In both contexts, prominent thinkers and politicians ended up emphasising the countries’ ancient histories and numerous invasions in order to justify their Europeanness in contrast to cultural and confessional differences compared to predominant conceptions of what it conventionally meant to be European. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s third post-Soviet elected head of state stated in European Parliament that"since the time when Prometheus was chained to our mountains and the Argonauts came to our country in search of the Golden Fleece ... we are an ancient European nation." Hyperbole not intended.

Further contributing to these anxieties and adding to the reader’s understanding of how they emerged, the book tracks how European powers have interacted with the two countries historically. Being small countries, the feeling that interaction, and more importantly the frequent lack thereof, was based on Europe’s interests have contributed to anxieties in both nations.

The book concludes that the political and intellectual elite in Georgia and Albania have historically been “ambivalent” about their relationship to Europe. Today, in Georgia, we can see this ambivalence quite strongly. When it comes to policy, Georgian support for closer ties to the EU is unquestionable. The ruling Georgian Dream Coalition and the opposition United National Movement disagree on what seems to be just about everything, but the one thing that neither side has wavered from is their dedication to further Euro-Atlantic integration. Moreover, according to the study, “Knowledge and Attitudes towards the EU in Georgia: Changes and Trends 2009 – 2013” conducted by CRRC-Georgia for the Eurasia Partnership Foundation in 2013, 83 per cent of Georgians reported that they would vote to join the EU tomorrow if a referendum were to be held, with support consistently near these levels in recent years. At the popular and elite level, support for closer integration with Europe is clear.

Despite this clear policy direction, opposition to the recently passed anti-discrimination law, which was required for the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU, highlights that many Georgians still oppose or potentially misunderstand some features commonly associated with Europe, specifically the defence of sexual minority rights. Controversy surrounded the bill as a number of priests claimed that the bill would lead to the legalisation of gay marriage in Georgia (it wouldn’t and hasn’t), something the population of the country would largely be against. Moreover, the passing of the law at certain times was opposed by the Patriarch Illia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church, who is widely considered to be the most trusted person in Georgia. In this way, aspects of the cultural Europe, which Brisku identifies early on, are those which many Georgians today are still ambivalent about.

Overall, Bittersweet Europe offers a masterful juxtaposition of Georgian and Albanian discourses towards Europe in addition to the accompanying insecurities over Europe and Europeanness in both countries. This in conjunction to the decentring effect gained through the added context leads the reader to a better understanding of Georgia’s history and relationship to Europe - something needed now more than ever.