It’s the economy stupid: An experiment on Georgian support for the European Union

Georgians are enthusiastic in supporting the country’s accession to the European Union. Since 2012, when the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and CRRC-Georgia started tracking attitudes, three quarters of Georgians approved of the government’s goal of joining the EU, on average. What motivates Georgians to support the Union, or alternatively, to abandon support? A survey experiment included in the latest CRRC/NDI poll suggests potential economic burdens have a modest yet significant effect on support for membership. Results do not support the common belief that a potential military threat from Russia dampens Georgians’ support for the EU.

Over the years, a utilitarian hypothesis for public support of the European Union has gained traction: the potential economic gains associated with EU membership explain popular attitudes in Western Europe as well as in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain. At first glance, economic factors are key for Georgian support for the EU. When prompted on reasons for approving the country’s EU membership, Georgians most frequently pick the opportunity to improve Georgia’s economy. In contrast to support, security appears to be the main reason why people oppose EU membership. 

Although these findings are suggestive, people’s stated reasons often hide other potential causes. Moreover, less is known about whether potential economic and security trade-offs have a compounding effect on decision making to approve EU membership. In the April 2019 CRRC/NDI poll, CRRC carried out a survey experiment to learn more about these issues. Respondents were randomly presented four vignettes describing potential economic benefits and losses of EU membership. To assess whether a potential security threat might cancel out or exacerbate the effects of more utilitarian statements, two out of the four vignettes included an additional sentence on a potential security threat from Russia.

After hearing vignettes, respondents were asked their voting intentions on a hypothetical EU membership referendum (see figure above). The results suggest that a potential economic loss (“increasing prices”) increases the probability of voting against EU membership. The effect is rather small – presenting the statement on the potential economic burden of EU membership increases the probability of voting against EU membership by five percentage points. These findings might be explained through the concept loss aversion. According to this idea, humans are more likely to act to avoid losses rather than working for a gain or pleasure. Thus, not surprisingly, Georgians are more concerned with potential losses associated with EU membership than its benefits. Although a plausible cause, a further experiment testing whether people react to the idea that joining the European Union could decrease prices would better pinpoint whether loss aversion is at work or not in this case.

Importantly, none of the other treatments including the combination of the Russian threat and increasing prices changed attitudes. It is hard to crack the mechanism why a doubly negative statement does not affect respondents’ feelings, when one of the statements alone does. One speculative explanation suggests that potential benefits associated with the European Union overpowers or cancels out the effects of ominous Russian threat as the latter is almost ever-present in the country’s life. Nontheless, more research is needed in order to test whether this is a plausible explanation.

  

What do these findings tell us? Null results suggest that many Georgians have attitudes towards the country’s foreign policy goals that are not easily swayed. Positive attitudes are relatively prone to change even when communicating potential economic and security threats. Importantly, among other utilitarian factors economic costs have the highest potential to move Georgians against integration in the European Union among the lines of argumentation tested. 

To explore the data in the blog above, visit caucasusbarometer.org. Replication code for the analysis used in this blog is available here. A full presentation of the results of the recent CRRC/NDI poll is available here.

Safer transport options for passengers: Recommendations

In the previous blog posts in this series (see here, here, here, and here), we reported the design and results of a randomized control trial on minibus safety in Georgia. In this blog post, we provide recommendations for the Government of Georgia based on the results of the experiment. First, we recommend that the Government:

• Create an anonymous minibus monitoring program

Telling minibus drivers that they are being monitored for safe driving and may be punished for safety-violations may lead to safer, less distracted driving. The results of the experiment suggest such a program would likely be effective. This suggests that the government has an opportunity to implement a small program, which could have an important impact on making minibus driving safer and reduce the number of accidents related to dangerous driving. If the government does in fact implement such a program, we recommend that the program:

• Fine unsafe minibus drivers

While our experiment could not test the impact of a potential fine for unsafe driving, the behavioral economics literature suggests that individuals are roughly twice as likely to avoid losses as they are to seek out gains. Given that losses have stronger effects, this is also likely to ensure that there actually is an overall effect of the program. Importantly, this may offset costs associated with the program.

• Publicize the program in the lead up to implementation

Minibus drivers should be made aware of the program. If they do not know that they could be monitored, the program will be slower to encourage safe driving.

• Select routes for monitoring randomly on a daily basis

This would help prevent drivers from driving artificially safely in order to avoid a fine on a trip when they believe a monitor to be present based on prior information.

• Use few monitors, and change them regularly

The success of such a monitoring program relies on monitors being able to maintain their anonymity. In a country like Georgia, with a small population and dense social networks, maintaining monitor anonymity will be challenging. Hence, the government should consider drawing monitors from one of the civil service agencies with a relatively large staff. The Ministry of Internal Affairs Patrol Police Department would likely be an ideal institution given that patrol police officers are already aware of road safety legislation, and there are a sufficiently large number of officers who could participate in the program on a rolling basis.

The above recommendations are likely to help improve the safety of marshutka driving in Georgia. With less distracted and dangerous driving on Georgia’s roads, the high level of accidents, injuries, and fatalities on roadways are likely to decline. Ultimately, such a policy is likely to lead to safer transport options for passengers.

Safer transport options for passengers: Series introduction

Complaints about minibus (marshutka) driving are common in Georgia. From excessive speeds, to erratic and distracted driving, minibus travel in Georgia is often less than safe and comfortable. But could a small change make an important difference in passenger safety and comfort? At CRRC-Georgia, we wanted to find out. Hence, CRRC-Georgia together with the Fund Partnership for Road Safety carried out the Safer Transit Options for Passengers (STOP) project within the East-West Management Institute’s (EWMI) Advancing CSO Capacities and Engaging Society for Sustainability (ACCESS) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Within the project, we carried out a randomized control trial, which tested whether a small incentive – a gas voucher for safe driving – and telling minibus drivers that they would be monitored could improve marshutka driving. In the coming weeks, we will report the results of the randomized control trial and institutional analysis carried out within the project. In today’s post, we provide some background on road safety in Georgia.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Georgia has among the highest death rates on roadways in the wider European space.* The problem also appears to be getting worse: official figures from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia show an increasing number of deaths on Georgian roadways. From 2013 to 2016, deaths increased from 514 to 602, a 17% increase. In 2016, 6,939 accidents took place, resulting in 602 fatalities and 9,951 injuries. At a per capita rate, this amounts to approximately 162 fatalities per million citizens, over three times the EU average in 2015, the latest year in which data is available.

While estimates do not exist for Georgia for how many accidents are caused by distracted and other dangerous driving practices, they are very likely contribute to the high fatality rates on the roads in Georgia. In the study we carried out, 96% of minibus drivers in the control group observations engaged in some form of dangerous or distracted driving.

When it comes to distracted driving, studies from other contexts suggest that a distracted driver’s chances of being in an accident are four times higher. Cell phone use is associated with increased incidence of accidents among both novice and experienced drivers. Cell phones aside, other distractions such as smoking can increase the risk of traffic accidents. Importantly, commercial vehicle drivers are no exception, with increased risk of accident associated with distracted driving among commercial drivers as well.

While we know that distracted and other dangerous driving practices among Georgia’s minibus drivers are both common and likely to be leading to fatalities in Georgia, feasible and effective policies are needed to reduce the scale of traffic accidents on Georgia's roadways. In the coming posts, we put forward a number of evidence based policy recommendations that could help do just that.

*Note: This blog post previously erroneously stated that Georgia had among the worst traffic death rates in the world, based on another article. After checking a primary data source, this statistic likely refers to the fact that Georgia has among the highest death rate in wider Europe.