Knowledge of visa-free requirements falls since launch of scheme

Georgian citizens have been able to travel visa free within the Schengen zone for approaching three years, the result of several years of complex dialogue and policy reform. Despite the elapsed time, and a major EU-funded public information campaign, the results of the 2019 Survey on Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union in Georgia (EU Survey) suggest that public knowledge of requirements for visa free travel have fallen since the scheme launched. Similarly, the same period has seen a large rise in the number of Georgian citizens being denied entry to EU countries, with Eurostat reporting over four thousand such cases in 2018 alone, up over a third since 2017.

For a Georgian citizen to enter the Schengen zone under the visa-free regime, the following documents are required:

• A biometric passport;
• Proof of financial means to cover expenses;
• A return ticket;
• Proof of address during stay (for example a hotel reservation).

Additionally, stays may not exceed 90 days in any 180-day period, and visitors under the visa free regime are not allowed to work.

In both the 2017 and 2019 waves of the EU survey, respondents were asked about their knowledge of requirements for documentation, length of stay, and right to work. The data suggest a marked decline in areas of knowledge asked about aside from the requirement for a biometric passport and the duration of stay. Falls were seen in awareness of the need for proof of address during the stay, proof of financial means to cover expenses, and a return ticket. In addition, there was a steep decline in knowledge of whether or not one can work during a stay.






To better understand who is more and less aware of the above requirements, a simple additive index describing an individual’s overall understanding of the EU requirements outlined above was developed. Correct responses to the above questions are counted as one point, resulting in knowledge scale from 0-6, with a score of zero representing no correct responses and six representing fully correct responses. Overall, across both waves, less than one percent of respondents answered all six questions correctly, with 13% answering none correctly. The average score on the index decreased from 2.6 in 2017 to 2.2 in 2019.

Scores on the index in 2019 are associated with the sex, age, ethnicity, employment status, education level, and internet use. After accounting for other factors, there is no significant differences in awareness between people living in Tbilisi, other urban areas, and rural areas. Younger people, men, people with tertiary education or higher, ethnic Georgians, the employed, and regular internet users are more likely to have better knowledge of the requirements for visa free travel on average, all else equal. By far the largest observed difference was for ethnic minorities, who are predicted to score one point lower on the knowledge index than ethnic Georgians.







This pattern is reflected in minorities reporting lower levels of awareness across all questions asked, except travel insurance. For example, 56% of ethnic minority respondents knew about the need for a biometric passport compared to 81% of Georgians survey – a 35 percentage point difference. Similarly large differences between Georgian and minority respondents were observed in correct responses relating to the right to work and financial requirements for entry, with minority respondents as a group respectively scoring 17 and 14 percentage points lower than their ethnic Georgian counterparts.






Although ethnic minorities are consistently less aware of visa free regulations, the overall decline in awareness appears to be driven by a fall among ethnic Georgian respondents. Between 2017 and 2019, there is a rise along some dimensions of knowledge of the requirements reported by ethnic minority groups. However correct responses from ethnic Georgian respondents have fallen in three of the six domains asked about.







While knowledge is lower among ethnic minorities, their knowledge has increased between waves of the survey along some dimensions. In contrast, awareness of the rules of visa free travel have been on the decline among the ethnic Georgian population.

With the available data, it is not possible to identify the source of the higher baseline (2017) scores for ethnic Georgian respondents vis-à-vis ethnic minorities, nor the driving factors behind their divergent changes over the past two years. This noted, this pattern would be consistent with the hypothesis that previous information campaigns may have been more effective in reaching ethnic Georgians than minority groups, and that public awareness has slipped as this issue has fallen from national headlines.

Substantial numbers of Georgian citizens have been denied entry to the EU since the introduction of visa-free travel, a process which generates significant financial costs and personal distress for the individuals concerned. In this context, it is concerning that the Georgian public’s knowledge of requirements for visa-free travel to Schengen zone countries has fallen since 2017 – suggesting a need for renewed messaging around the details of the scheme.

Furthermore, whilst there are some differences between knowledge across many demographic categories, ethnic minority groups display substantially lower knowledge than any other group. As such, for any renewed information campaign to be effective, it should take concrete steps to ensure the inclusion of ethnic minority groups.

Note: The data presented in the above blog post is available here. Replication code for the regression analysis is available here.

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.

Was the population informed about the constitutional reform in Georgia?

[Note: This blog first appeared in OC-Media. The article was written by Tsisana Khundadze, a Senior Researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in this article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia, the National Democratic Institute or any other related entity.]

After 10 months of discussions, the parliament of Georgia adopted amendments to the constitution of the country on September 29th and overrode the president’s veto on October 13th, 2017. The most widely discussed amendments are about rules for electing the president, self-governance principles, the definition of marriage, the sale of agricultural land to foreigners, the minimum age of judges and the country’s foreign policy  orientation. Because of the importance of the amendments, one would expect a high level of awareness among the population. However, despite the public meetings held and media coverage of the issue, according to the CRRC/NDI survey from June 2017, a majority of the population of Georgia was not aware of the constitutional reform process.

Survey fieldwork was conducted before the process of amending the constitution finished. Thus, people were asked whether they were aware or not that the State Constitutional Commission had adopted a Draft Revision of the Constitution. Thirty two percent of the population answered they were aware, while 60% stated that they were not. Of those who said they were aware, only 39% said they felt they had enough information about the proposed changes. Moreover, only 6% of people who were aware of the changes said they thought the changes fully reflected citizens’ opinions, and 47% said they partially reflected citizens’ opinions. A third (32%) said the proposed changes did not reflect people’s opinions at all.

People living in the capital were more informed compared to people living outside the capital. Notably, only 13% of people living in ethnic minority settlements reported being aware of the constitutional reform.


Younger people and those with lower levels of education were less aware of the the constitutional reform. Only 26% of people between the ages of 18 and 35 said they were aware. By comparison, 33% of people between the ages of 36 and 55 and 37% of those 56 and older said the same. Similarly, only 19% of people with secondary or lower education were aware of the changes, while 34% of people with secondary technical and 50% of people with tertiary education said they were aware.

Besides differences by age and the level of education, people naming different political parties as closest to them reported being aware of the process at different frequencies. Those who named Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia and Bakradze-Ugulava - European Georgia were more informed than people who said that the United National Movement (UNM) or Georgian Labor Party were closest to them. The UNM’s and Labour Party’s supporters were least aware of the process surrounding constitutional amendments.



Awareness of the constitutional reform was low even after public meetings were held to discuss the changes. Younger people, people with secondary or lower education and people living outside Tbilisi were less informed about the process compared to older people, people with tertiary education and people living in the capital. The low level of awareness is especially striking in ethnic minority settlements and among people who named the United National Movement as the party closest to them. As for attitudes towards the changes, a majority of those who were aware felt they did not have enough information about the process and thought that the draft constitution either partially reflected, or did not at all reflect citizens’ opinions.

The data used in this blog post and other survey data is available at our Online Data Analysis portal.

Awareness of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement in Georgia, one year on

The June 27, 2014 initialing of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement, a wide reaching, largely economic treaty, was marked with celebration in Tbilisi as the fruit of a long running diplomatic effort to tighten ties with the European Union over the course of three Georgian administrations. To date, 27 EU member states have ratified the Agreement. The EU has become a more important market for Georgian goods since the signing of the Agreement, with the share of total exports to the EU increasing from 21% in the first eight months of 2014 to 28% in the same months of 2015, according to Geostat data. Using the findings of the 2015 Knowledge and Attitudes towards the EU survey carried out by CRRC-Georgia for Eurasia Partnership Foundation, this post looks at public perceptions of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement one year on and, specifically, examines whether Georgia’s ethnic minority population’s awareness of the Agreement has increased since 2013, when a previous wave of the same survey was conducted. 

While in 2013, before the initialing of the Association Agreement, 19% of the population of Georgia reported having heard of the Agreement, today 63% report so. It should be noted, however, that this impressive increase is a measure of reported awareness and does not necessarily reflect the accuracy of information people have about the document. 

Characteristics of those aware of the Agreement fall along the lines to be expected. While half of those with secondary or lower education report having heard of the Agreement, the same is true for three quarters of those with tertiary education. People aged 36 to 55 years old are slightly more likely to report knowing about the Agreement. Interestingly, according to findings of other surveys, representatives of this age group tend to be the most informed about other issues as well, such as, NGOs. Representatives of the youngest and oldest age groups are equally aware of the Agreement (60% and 58%, respectively, report having heard of it). Finally, as is commonly found with other knowledge questions in Georgia, residents of the capital are most informed, with three quarters reporting awareness of the Agreement compared with slightly over half of the residents of other urban and rural settlements. Interestingly, men report having heard of the Association Agreement slightly more frequently than women (67% compared with 58%).

Considering that the previous, 2013 wave of the EU survey found a considerable discrepancy between awareness of the Association Agreement between Georgian speakers and ethnic minority populations, it is important to take a look at this issue in 2015. While reported awareness of the Association Agreement increased by roughly five times between 2013 and 2015 among the non-Georgian speaking, ethnic minority population (from 6% to 26%), this is still half the level of awareness of the Agreement that Georgian speakers report. 

Importantly, the non-Georgian speaking ethnic minority population who have not heard about the Association Agreement are more willing to get more information about the EU than are Georgian speakers who have not heard of the agreement. 

*Note: Only the answers of those who reported that they had not heard of the Agreement, responded that they did not know whether they had heard of the Agreement or refused to answer the question about the Association Agreement are presented in the chart above (74% of ethnic minorities and 34% of ethnic Georgians).

While the majority of the population of Georgia has heard of the Association Agreement with the European Union, slightly over a third of the population is still unaware of its existence. Lack of awareness is particularly acute among representatives of ethnic minorities, but considering that many of those who are unaware of the Agreement are interested in finding out more about the EU, both the Government of Georgia and the European Union could consider public information campaigns on the Association Agreement. As in the past, this is particularly important in ethnic minority settlements where knowledge of the EU and EU-Georgia Association Agreement is much lower than in the rest of Georgia.

To look into the subject more, take a look at the data using the CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool, here.

NGOs and the Georgian public's expectations

The so-called third sector which consists largely of non-governmental organizations is diverse in Georgia, with organizations focusing on issues ranging from LGBT rights to political party development. To what extent these issues match up with the “demand” of the population though is still an open question. This blog post provides a snapshot of which issues Georgians think NGOs actually address and compares it with what Georgians think NGOs should be doing more of. Ultimately this provides an approximation of the “perceived supply” and “perceived demand” for NGO services in Georgia from the population’s perspective.

In the 2014 Volunteering and civic participation survey funded by USAID and conducted by CRRC-Georgia, Georgians were asked, “In your opinion, what issues do the NGOs in Georgia address most frequently?” and “What issues would you like to see NGOs addressing more often?”  Georgians reported that NGOs most frequently address elections, healthcare and/or social assistance, minority rights, and media and freedom of speech. Significantly, the second most common response to the first question was “don’t know” (22%). This supports the findings in a previous blog post, according to which a large share of the Georgian public fails to correctly identify organizations as NGOs or non-NGOs.

In contrast, Georgians most often mention “increasing prices, poverty or unemployment” as  issues which, in their opinion, NGOs should address more often. They also think that NGOs should focus much more on healthcare/social assistance and education, even though they believe that NGOs already work on these issues to a certain extent.

Note: The results do not add up to 100% as respondents were allowed to select up to three answers to each question from a show card. 

The gap between what Georgians think NGOs should be doing more often and what they think NGOs actually do is apparent in a number of important areas. While the population most commonly believes that NGOs work on election issues, only 5% want them to work more in this field. The greatest gap between what Georgians think NGOs are doing and what they think they should be doing more of is on issues related to increasing prices, poverty or unemployment. While NGOs may not be the right agents to affect change on the economy, policy issues aside, this expectation coincides generally with what Georgians consistently report to be the greatest problems in the country – unemployment and poverty. Answers “Healthcare and social assistance” and “Education” come in next with the greatest gaps between what the population perceives NGOs are doing and what they think NGOs should be doing.

Note: Only gaps that are larger than 10% are shown. 

What accounts for these gaps? The fact that NGOs and their activities are frequently funded by donors rather than the general public in Georgia may explain some of the discrepancies. While donor priorities often coincide with what the population demands, this is not always the case and hence, NGOs may address particular issue(s) that donors believe to be important, but which the population may be unaware of or uninterested in.

A second factor which could contribute to these gaps is the communication strategies of NGOs. As noted in a prior blog post, a large share of the population is not well informed about NGOs. This likely implies that information on what NGOs are working on does not reach the general public. Hence, there may be a number of NGOs working on poverty, healthcare, or education, but compared to those working on elections and minority rights, their communications are less effective.

A third potential factor, which is closely related to the second, is the role of the mass media. The two issues which Georgians are most likely to think are covered by NGOs, elections and minority rights, consistently receive concentrated media attention, clustered around specific events. The 2012, 2013, and 2014 elections and the May 17, 2013 IDAHOT demonstration come to mind in this regard.

What other issues do you think are at play when thinking about what NGOs are working on and where their efforts should be directed? Join in the conversation on Facebook or in the comments section below.

In the know about NGOs in Georgia

The civil society sector in Georgia is populated by a wide diversity of actors from national chapters of well-known international NGOs like Transparency International – Georgia to local NGOs such as the Civil Society Institute. With this great diversity of voices in the sector, and in light of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s recent announcement that he intends to investigate the heads of a number of NGOs, it is interesting to look at the knowledge that the population of Georgia has about NGOs. This blog post looks at how well people can identify whether an organization is an NGO or not, based on CRRC-Georgia’s 2014 Survey on Volunteerism and Civic Participation, funded by USAID. In this survey, respondents were asked, “I will now name several organizations you may know. Please tell me which of these, in your opinion, is an NGO, and which is not,” and a list of 15 organizations, some NGOs, some state agencies, and some commercial enterprises, was read to them. Answer options for each organization included NGO, not an NGO, never heard [of the organization], don’t know, and refuse to answer.

One of the most prominent findings is that a large share of the Georgian population reports not knowing whether the majority of organizations asked about are NGOs or not. Of 2140 respondents, 151 responded “Don’t know” in respect to every organization, which, when weighted, corresponds to almost 6% of the population. For individual organizations, “Don’t know” responses varied from 11% (Parliament of Georgia) to 40% (Open Society Georgia Foundation).

Note: In the chart above, NGOs are marked with an asterisk (*).

The following chart shows the share of those who have correctly identified whether an organization was or was not an NGO. Unsurprisingly, 85% of the population is aware that the Parliament of Georgia is not an NGO, but still, 15% failed to provide a correct answer. The Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) was the second most correctly identified organization (also meaning that it is probably the most widely recognized NGO in Georgia). GYLA aside, other NGOs were correctly identified by between 30% (Identoba) and 47% (Liberty Institute) of the population. Georgians were least likely to know that USAID and British Petroleum are not NGOs.

This section of the survey had one trick question. The organization “Association of Unemployed People” does not actually exist in Georgia and was included in the list of 15 organizations to check how thoughtfully the respondents were answering the questions. The correct response in respect to this organization was “Never heard of,” and only 31% of Georgians responded so. About a third reported that it was either an NGO or not an NGO, and 36% responded “Don’t know,” a somewhat more correct answer.

Still, Georgians quite often know – and admit – that they do not know whether an organization is an NGO or not. In order to gain a better understanding of Georgians’ knowledge of NGOs, a scale was generated for this blog post based on the 15 questions discussed above. The scale ranges from -15 to 15, with -15 being an incorrect response to each of the 15 questions (equivalent to total absence of knowledge or totally inaccurate knowledge) and 15 being a correct response to every question (equivalent to very good knowledge). “Don’t know,” “Refuse to answer” and “Never heard of” responses were coded as 0, since respondents presumably were reporting accurately that they did not know or had never heard of an organization. In the case of the (non-existent) Association of Unemployed People mentioned above, the answer “never heard of” was coded as a correct response, while both “NGO” and “not an NGO” were coded as incorrect responses.

The results are positive in that, generally, while Georgians do not necessarily know a great deal about whether an organization is or is not an NGO, they do know that they don’t know this, and report accordingly. Overall, Georgians reported more correct answers than incorrect ones. The highest score on the scale was 15 (4 respondents in total) and the lowest was -8 (1 respondent), with an average score of 4.6. Approximately 4% of the population scored below 0 (meaning that their knowledge is extremely poor, even though they may think otherwise), 12% scored 0 (meaning that they report not knowing about NGOs, but are not necessarily misinformed), and 84% scored 1 or above.

Considering the above, the question who knows more and who knows less about NGOs comes to the fore. One difference that appears when looking at average scores is that those with some higher education know more about NGOs than those with either secondary technical education or secondary or lower education.

Note: The confidence intervals for the above averages are very small (with the upper and lower bounds varying from the average by <0.01), and hence are not displayed.

Age is another interesting characteristic which shows some difference between groups, although the differences by age are smaller than those by education. The most knowledgeable age group is those between the ages of 36 and 55 (average score 5.03), while the least knowledgeable age group includes those 56 years old and older (average score 4.05). The youngest age group (18-35 year olds) scores between the two, with an average score of 4.61.

This blog post has looked at knowledge of NGOs in the Georgian population. While many Georgians do not know if a large number of organizations are or are not NGOs, many also recognize this fact by saying that they have either never heard of or do not know if an institution is or is not an NGO. Moreover, more Georgians identified organizations correctly, rather than incorrectly. Those with at least some tertiary education score higher on average than those with secondary technical education, and those with secondary education or lower score the lowest.

To explore the data in greater depth, take a look at the 2014 Volunteerism and Civic Education survey on the Online Data Analysis tool.

Expectations and the EU Association Agreement

Today's blog post is published in collaboration with civil.ge.  One may also read the post on civil.ge here.

On June 27, 2014 Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine signed EU Association Agreements. In Georgia, the signing has been celebrated as a step towards Euro-Atlantic integration, and a number of events were held in Tbilisi to celebrate the signing. The Association Agreement (AA) itself is wide ranging with some portions pertaining to human rights and the main focus on economic cooperation between the EU and Georgia. While the agreement has been highly anticipated by certain groups within Georgian society, there has been controversy, particularly as the association agreement relates to the protection of minority rights. A recent article on Foreign Policy Magazine’s website, and an accompanying case study by the Legatum Institute, argue that skepticism towards the EU may pop up in Georgia, in part, due to the EU’s seeming lack of engagement with the country over time. However, this trend is not new as Adrian Brisku notes in his 2013 comparative history of Georgia and Albania, Bittersweet Europe. With this background in mind, this post looks at how Georgians perceived both the EU and the Association Agreement approximately one year before the signing of the agreement. The post will review knowledge of the Association Agreement in Georgia in 2013 by settlement type and ethnic composition, expectations for the agreement by age group, and trust in the EU over time.

According to the 2013 survey,  Knowledge and Attitudes toward the EU in Georgia which was a part of the Eurasia Partnership Foundation European Integration program, 20% of Georgian citizens reported that they had heard of the EU Association Agreement. Awareness of the association agreement was highest in the capital with 30% of Georgians reporting they had heard about the association agreement. In urban and rural settlements 17% and 16% of Georgians respectively reported that they had heard about the Association Agreement.

As the graph below demonstrates, Armenian and Azerbaijani minorities in Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti were much less likely to be aware of the Association Agreement compared to their fellow ethnic Georgian citizens. Low levels of awareness of the Association Agreement among ethnic minorities are likely due to low levels of knowledge of Georgian language in ethnic enclaves. These groups also have less access to media which is in the Georgian language. In addition, there is a lower level of internet usage reported by minorities in the aforementioned settlements (12% daily usage, 62% never using the internet), especially compared to ethnic Georgians in the capital (51% daily usage, 29% never using the internet). This is a likely barrier to access to information.

People who said they had heard about the Association Agreement were asked what they thought the agreement could bring to Georgia. Survey respondents were asked to select one answer from a list provided on a show card. Looking at the results of this question by age group shows an interesting trend. Half of young people (18 to 35) stated that the agreement would result in political closeness and tight economic integration with the EU - the stated purpose of the agreement. In contrast, those aged 35 to 55 were more likely to report EU membership for Georgia as a result of the agreement. This outcome is not ruled out by the agreement, and in some instances, the agreement has served as a stepping stone on the path to EU membership. However, it is not an explicit or likely near-term result of the signing. Notably, a number of countries which are highly unlikely to want or be considered for EU membership have signed Association Agreements, including Algeria and Chile among other countries.

The graph below shows trust in the EU over time in Georgia. In 2008 trust in the EU was at 64%, followed by a slight decrease in trust which remained stable from 2009 to 2012. Interestingly, in 2013, a decrease in the level of trust occurred with trust responses dropping 16 percentage points, distrust increasing by seven, and neither trust nor distrust increasing by eight percentage points. Thus, a more ambivalent attitude towards the EU appears to have emerged in 2012 and 2013.

Note: Respondents were asked “Please tell me how much do you trust or distrust the European Union?” In the graph above, ‘fully trust’ and ‘somewhat trust’ are combined to form “Trust” and ‘somewhat distrust’ and ‘fully distrust’ are combined into “Distrust”.

This post has shown that awareness of the Association Agreement in Georgia is lower among ethnic minorities than ethnic Georgians in Georgia, likely due to lack of access to Georgian-language media and knowledge of Georgian. It has further discussed expectations among different age groups for the agreement, showing that young adults in Georgia expect closer ties from the agreement, while 36-55 year olds are more likely to believe that the agreement will lead to EU membership. Finally, the post looked at trust in the European Union over time. While distrust has not increased, ambivalence does seem to be spreading among Georgians, particularly in 2013. To further explore issues related to international organizations and the EU in Georgia, and the South Caucasus more generally, we recommend exploring our datasets here or using our Online Data Analysis Tool here. Readers may also be interested in the blog, Can’t get no satisfaction. Who doesn’t want to join the EU? published in March 2014 on the CRRC blog.

CRRC Methods Conference: Advancing Methodological Innovations in the South Caucasus

On June 20, 2013 CRRC convened a conference on research methods in Tbilisi that brought together researchers from the South Caucasus and beyond to discuss methodological developments in the social sciences. The conference was attended by over 50 people and the program included 13 presentations of research projects carried out in the region and elsewhere, followed by discussions and Q&A sessions. Interdisciplinary approaches and broad methodological interests motivated a fruitful debate on previous and ongoing research projects -both qualitative and quantitative. Time was also devoted to discussing the policy-relevance of presented studies, as well as the next steps that need to be taken in order to promote high caliber research and to foster rigorous methodological training in the region. 

The keynote speech, delivered by Dr. Cynthia Buckley, highlighted the institutional context in which social research is being carried out and results are disseminated. This included a discussion of funding organizations, policy advisory bodies, academic and social research institutes, and the complex network of relations between them. The speech helped participants to focus on methodological advancements, as well as practical applications of the presented studies. 

The research projects presented at the conference included a wide range of topics, research designs and used qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method approaches. Several presentations used online and internet-based methods – a promising medium for research in the region since the share of internet users is consistently increasing in the South Caucasus.

The qualitative studies that were discussed highlighted social issues such as interethnic marriage in the South Caucasus, and Armenian diaspora in the region. The quantitative research projects that were presented primarily focused on policy-relevant issues, such as the work ethic in Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey, the prospect of compulsory healthcare insurance in Armenia, and time-based measures for paid and unpaid work, as well as labour force participation. Other areas of particular interest were business and the accuracy of economic performance estimations.

This 2013 conference begins a cycle of annual conferences that will address methodological challenges, data collection techniques, and developments in social science research carried out in the South Caucasus. 

For more information on the conference and this year’s presentations, please see the conference programme and draft papers available on the CRRC website. 

Data Initiative Snapshots | Reading

Books, of course, are essential to knowledge transmission, and for creating a broader conversation within a society. They may be hyped, but bestsellers such as Freakonomics or Wisdom of Crowds disseminate new ideas that enrich our understanding of the world. So it is interesting to follow up reading as an essential cultural practice. We asked the question in the Data Initiative 2007: did you read a book in the last six months? And here the results:
Armenia, clearly, reads most. It would be interesting to follow up reasons for this (and we will do a few crosstabs for future posts). One explanation for the prevalence of reading is that Russian is still very popular. If you just read in local language, the offerings are quickly exhausted and The Tipping Point is unlikely to be on your reading list anytime soon.

This is not just an arcane point: the societies still live in a sort of information vacuum, and breaking this will be essential to economic, social and political development.