Who Do Georgians Blame For Russia's War in Ukraine?

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

In the face of conflicting narratives about the causes of the war in Ukraine, most Georgians see Russia and Putin as responsible for the conflict, but a substantial minority lay the blame with the West. Since Russia invaded Ukraine slightly over a year ago, a war of words has erupted over who is to blame for the war, with the general consensus being that Russia needlessly invaded Ukraine.

In contrast to this consensus, the Russian government has spread propaganda blaming Ukraine for the war, accusing the country’s Jewish president of being a Nazi and stating that the country needed to be ‘de-Nazified’.

Against this backdrop, and in light of Georgia’s history with Russia, what does the Georgian public think?

Data from CRRC-Georgia and the National Democratic Institute’s regular polling in Georgia suggests that most blame Russia as a whole, but an increasing proportion of the public blames Vladimir Putin specifically for the war. And while the majority of the public report that the war is Russia or Putin’s fault, one in six Georgians report that some Western actor is at fault for the war, while one in twelve blame Ukraine.

The share of Georgians blaming Russia and Putin for the war shifted in the year following the war, with the share blaming Russia declining from 67% in March of 2022, to 54% in December of 2022. There was a simultaneous rise in the share blaming Putin specifically, from 11% in March 2022 to 25% in December of that year.

A smaller but substantial proportion of the public considers the West to be responsible for the war in Ukraine. While relatively small shares blame NATO (2-3%) and the European Union (2-4%), a relatively high percentage blame the US. One in eleven (9%) blamed the United States in March, which rose to and stayed at 15% in July and December respectively.

Similarly, relatively few Georgians blame Ukraine for the war. This share stood at 5% in March 2022, rose to 11% in July 2022, and then moved to between these shares at 8% as of December 2022.

The remainder of the public is either uncertain about who to blame for the war (14-17%) or names some other factor (2%).

 

It is important to note that respondents could name up to three responses. Therefore, the shares do not necessarily sum to 100% on the chart above. In the first wave of the survey, Vladimir Putin was not specifically asked about, but respondents still named him. In subsequent waves of the survey, Vladimir Putin was added as a response option.

In the most recent wave of the survey, 59% of the public named only Russia or Vladimir Putin as responsible for the war. One in nine (11%) suggested that only Western actors were at fault for the war. A further 7% named at least one Western actor and one Russian actor. The remainder were mostly either uncertain on how to respond (15%) or refused to answer (1%). Other respondents blamed Ukraine as well as some combination of Russian and Western actors.

Who blames who?

The data suggest that men, people belonging to ethnic minorities, and Georgian Dream supporters are more likely to consider the West (including the US, EU, and NATO) at least somewhat responsible for the war, than are women, ethnic Georgians, and those that do not support Georgian Dream.Ethnic Georgians, opposition supporters, those that claim they support no particular party, and people living in urban areas are more likely to blame Russia and/or Putin, compared to ethnic minorities, Georgian Dream supporters, and people in rural areas.

Ethnic Georgians, opposition supporters, those that claim they support no particular party, and people living in urban areas are more likely to blame Russia and/or Putin, compared to ethnic minorities, Georgian Dream supporters, and people in rural areas.

Men and Georgian Dream supporters are more likely to believe that Ukraine is at fault for the war than women and opposition supporters. 

 

Women, people with vocational education, those outside Tbilisi, poorer people, and people who support Georgian Dream are more likely than men, people with secondary education, those in Tbilisi, wealthier people, and those who support the opposition to be uncertain about the causes of the war.

 

The data do not suggest that any particular group is more or less likely to name at least one Russian actor and one Western actor for the war.

While Russia’s fault in the war is questioned by relatively few in Georgia, the data do show that some groups are more likely than others to believe that Western actors or Ukraine itself is partially or fully at fault. A substantial share also remains uncertain.


Note: The social and demographic breakdowns shown in the article above were generated from a regression analysis. The analysis had someone’s belief about who was at fault for the war as the dependent variable, including naming Russia/Putin or not, naming any Western institution or not, naming both a Western and a Russian actor or not, and naming Ukraine or not. The independent variables included age group (18-34, 35-54, 55+), sex (male or female), settlement type (Tbilisi, other urban, or rural), education level (secondary, vocational, tertiary), wealth (an index of durable goods owned by the respondents’ household), ethnicity (ethnic minority or ethnic Georgian), employment (working, unemployed, or outside the labor force), and party support (Georgian Dream, United National Movement, other opposition, refuse to answer/don’t know/no party). This article only reports on statistically significant differences between groups.

Is People’s Power designed to make Georgian Dream look good?

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

A CRRC Georgia study found that positioning Georgian Dream as more moderate than its spin-off group, People’s Power, increased support for the ruling party. 

A popular study suggests that when a person goes for a date, they will be more liked if they take a similar, but slightly less attractive companion with them. Likewise, political parties often look better for their voters when they position themselves against a similar, but less appealing opponent. 

This blog shows how the same principle works in Georgia, and how the ruling Georgian Dream party appears to be boosting its support by arguing with its ‘friendly rival’, the People’s Power movement.  

In summer 2022, three Georgian Dream MPs announced that they were leaving the ruling party to ‘speak more freely’; in practice, this meant criticising the West, including ‘personal attacks’ on the US ambassador, and suggesting that the West wanted to drag Georgia into war. 

More politicians later joined the three MPs, and established the Peoples’ Power movement. Its members remained in the parliamentary majority together with Georgian Dream, which raised questions as to whether People’s Power was a true opponent to Georgian Dream or just a satellite party, intended to advance the ruling party’s more radical policies and boost support amongst anti-Western groups within Georgia’s electorate. 

The latter suspicions have been further strengthened by the ambiguous reaction of Georgian Dream’s leadership to the radical anti-Western statements from their new, ostensible opponents. While Irakli Kobakhidze, the ruling party chair, largely endorsed what People’s Power were saying, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili spoke out against the statements, warning against potential damage to relations with the US. 

Even more tellingly, when the foreign agent law was tabled by People’s Power, Georgian dream’s leading figures were quick to express their support for the bill, despite its ostensibly separate roots. 

To investigate whether Georgian Dream could expect any benefit from its radical knock off party, CRRC-Georgia designed and carried out a survey experiment in November 2022. We randomly split a sample of 1,219 respondents into four groups.

The first, a control group of respondents, were told that politicians from People’s Power had criticised the US ambassador and suggested that the US wanted to drag Georgia into the war in Ukraine.

The second group were told both the above and that Irakli Kobakhidze had issued a note not denying the statement. 

The third group was told about People’s Power’s allegations, but added Irakli Gharibashvili’s comment that such statements would weaken Georgia’s relations with the US. 

The fourth group was informed about all three statements: the original anti-Western statement from People’s Power, Irakli Kobakhidze’s note which did not contradict the statement, and the opposing comment by Irakli Gharibashvili. 

Finally, all respondents were asked about whom they would vote for if elections were held tomorrow.

The data show that the comment that differentiated Georgian Dream from its supposed opponent was most beneficial to the ruling party. 

The Prime Minister’s disagreement with the statement increased Georgian Dream’s expected support by eight percentage points: 19% of respondents voted for Georgian Dream on hearing only the anti-Western statement, but on exposure to Gharibashvili’s counter-statement, support for the party reached 27%. 

Importantly, this share of the vote is in the population overall, rather than amongst those who would actually vote in an election, suggesting that the actual effect in an election could be much larger. 

It is noteworthy that only the counterstatement on its own had a statistically significant effect: neither agreeing with the statement nor hearing both agreement and disagreement changed support for the ruling party in a statistically significant manner. 

These findings are in line with similar studies from democracies and less democratic locales: radical spin-off parties tend to benefit the ruling party more than the party that splits off. 

In this study, on average only 3% said they would support People’s Power across all scenarios. However, the impact of the statement was significant for the ruling party when they decided to appear less radical in comparison. 

Notably, the experiment was conducted with a focus on the country’s Western orientation, which is a matter of national agreement: large majorities support Georgia joining the EU and NATO. It is not clear if the ruling party would still gain support from appearing to be the more attractive option in discussions of issues around which there is less consensus. 

While this could have been tested out with the foreign agent law, ostensibly attributable to People’s Power, the ruling party has resolutely put its weight behind the law since its introduction. Whether Georgian Dream returns to positioning itself as more moderate than its spin-off group remains to be seen.

Read in Georgian on On.ge.

Who believes Georgia will regain its territorial integrity?

Territorial integrity is frequently cited by Georgians as one of the most important national issues, but the relative salience of Georgia’s territorial conflicts has declined since the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. Evidence from the 2013 Caucasus Barometer suggests that there is a high level of uncertainty about when or if the conflicts will be resolved and that there is little public support for any type of settlement involving less than the full restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity (such as high levels of autonomy for Abkhazia or a confederation state).

Georgians are split in their expectations about whether the country’s territorial integrity will be restored: when asked in the March 2018 CRRC-Georgia/NDI survey whether they agree or disagree that Georgia’s territorial integrity will be restored in the next 15 years, 35% agreed and 38% disagreed (the rest didn’t know or refused to answer). What might explain this variation in attitudes towards the future of Georgia’s territorial integrity? To find out what predicts these attitudes, this blog uses multinomial logistic regression analyses and data from the March 2018 CRRC-Georgia/NDI survey.

Beliefs about whether territorial integrity will be restored are likely to be related to a more general optimistic or pessimistic outlook on Georgia’s prospects: it is plausible to assume that people who think the country is going in the right direction are more likely to agree that territorial integrity will be restored and vice versa. Evidence from the analysis supports this: a person who believes that Georgia is going in the right direction is more likely to agree that territorial integrity will be restored compared to someone who believes that Georgia is not changing at all, and a person who believes that Georgia is going in the wrong direction or not changing at all is more likely to disagree that territorial integrity will be restored.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the analysis also suggests that support for joining the European Union and NATO and a belief that US military assistance to Georgia has increased are good predictors of a belief that territorial integrity will be restored. Even controlling for a general attitude about the direction in which Georgia is going, respondents who approve of the government’s aim to join NATO and the EU and who believe that US military assistance has increased are more likely to say they agree that territorial integrity will be restored.

Support for joining the EU and NATO are highly correlated, so two separate models were run – one using a question on approval of NATO membership, and one using a question on approval of EU membership. In model 1, approval of joining NATO is positively associated with a belief that territorial integrity will be restored. Those who believe US military assistance has increased are also more likely to have this belief. In model 2, which includes the question on EU rather than NATO membership, we see a similar pattern: support for EU membership and a belief that US military assistance has increased are both positively associated with a belief that Georgia’s territorial integrity will be restored. The effect of NATO support on believing territorial integrity will be restored is stronger than the effect of EU support on this belief.





It should be noted that the absolute number of respondents who believe that US military assistance has increased is quite small (19%). Still, 50% of this group believe that Georgia’s territorial integrity will be restored. Another variable from a question relating to defence issues provides some further insights. In both models, a belief that Georgia’s defence capabilities have worsened is associated with being less likely to agree that territorial integrity will be restored compared to those who believe those capabilities have stayed the same. However, believing that Georgia’s defence capabilities have improved is not associated with agreeing that territorial integrity will be restored.

One possible interpretation of these findings is that attitudes about the prospects for territorial integrity are not about military capabilities per se, or about international alliances and Euro-Atlantic integration alone, but more specifically about external military support. While the association between support for EU membership and believing territorial integrity will be restored may cast doubt on this interpretation, there is some evidence from the same survey that people support EU membership not only because of the potential economic benefits, but also for the prospects of greater security and, albeit to a far lesser extent, as a way of helping restore territorial integrity. However, respondents were not asked how they thought territorial integrity would be restored (or what would prevent it from being restored), so it is not possible to draw such conclusions from this survey and further research is necessary to fully explain these attitudes.

Note: The analysis uses multinomial logistic regression. The dependent variable is belief in whether territorial integrity will be restored in 15 years (‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’, ‘Don’t Know’). The base category is ‘Don’t Know’. The tables show the predicted probabilities for the following independent variables (with base category in parentheses): political direction the country is going in (no change), EITHER approval/disapproval of the government’s goal to join the EU (don’t know) OR approval/disapproval of the government’s goal to join NATO (don’t know), if Georgian defence capabilities have improved/worsened (stayed the same), if US military assistance to Georgia has increased/decreased (stayed the same). The other independent variables are sex, age group, settlement type, ethnic minority domain, and party support. The following variables were recoded as dummy variables and tetrachoric correlation was used to test the extent to which pairs of variables were correlated with each other: approval/disapproval of NATO membership, approval/disapproval of EU membership, country direction, US military assistance, and Georgian defence capabilities. The relatively high correlation between support for NATO and EU membership meant that they were not used in the same regression. All other pairs are independent of each other. 

Replication code of the full analysis is available here. The data used are available here.  

Why NATO? The main reasons for approving and disapproving of the Government of Georgia’s stated goal of joining NATO

On 1st August, 2017, US Vice President Mike Pence reiterated the United States’ support for the Georgian government’s aim to become a NATO member at a joint press conference in Tbilisi with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. Membership in NATO has been a stated aim of successive Georgian governments since 1999. According to CRRC/NDI survey findings from February 2012 to June 2017, this aim enjoys popular support in Georgia. However, less is known about the reasons why people either approve or disapprove of Georgia’s goal of joining NATO. These reasons are explored in this blog post using CRRC/NDI survey data.

Data from the past five years shows a 60%-80% approval rate of Georgia joining NATO. While the share of those who either answered “Don’t know” or refused to answer this question has declined, the share of those who answered “Disapprove” has increased over this period.


Information on the reasons for approval or disapproval of Georgia’s membership in NATO was collected during the April 2017 CRRC/NDI survey. As the chart below shows, a hope for greater security was the main reason for approval, with 71% of the population mentioning it. Expecting improvement in the economic situation in Georgia was the second most frequent reason for approval, which 30% of the population mentioned.


Note: An open question was asked. Up to three responses were accepted. 

About a fifth (21%) of the population reported disapproving of Georgia joining NATO in April 2017. When asked to name up to three reasons for their disapproval, about half of those who disapprove reported doing so, because they believed it will cause conflict with Russia. 


Note: An open question was asked. Up to three responses were accepted. The margin of error is larger for these answers since a very small subsample answered this question. 

The majority of the population of Georgia consistently support the country joining NATO. Quite logically, hopes for increased security are named most often as the reason for support. The strength of approval suggests that the Georgian government has a strong mandate to continue pursuing NATO membership.

To explore the CRRC/NDI data presented in this blog post, please visit our online data analysis tool.

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.

Ethnic minorities, Georgians, and foreign policy orientation

Georgia’s prominent West-ward political orientation has been demonstrated numerous times, especially in the period following the 2004 Rose Revolution. The signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2014 emphasized once more the country’s willingness for closer cooperation with the EU. Georgia’s choice of strategic partners is stark when looking at the country’s neighborhood, with Azerbaijan moving one step forward and one backward in regard to partnership with the EU, Armenia flirting with both the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union, and Turkey a “forever-candidate” of the EU. Importantly, Russia considers Georgia’s EU and, especially, NATO aspirations a threat to its national security.

While Georgia’s closer ties with the EU represent the views and beliefs of a large majority of Georgian citizens, support for the Euro-Atlantic path is notably weaker among the country’s ethnic minority citizens than among the ethnic Georgian population. Hence, it is important to look at the micro dynamics of attitudes and perceptions within the population of Georgia and explore whether ethnic minorities in the country share the same attitudes as the ethnic majority population. CRRC-Georgia’s 2013 survey Knowledge and attitudes toward the EU in Georgia, funded by the Eurasia Partnership Foundation, offers the opportunity to engage in such an endeavor. Ten percent of all survey respondents were sampled from ethnic Azerbaijanis living in the Kvemo Kartli region and ethnic Armenians in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, and the data is representative of the opinions and attitudes of ethnic minorities. Notably, minorities in ‘ethnic enclaves’ are often different from ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis that live in other parts of Georgia and, in some ways, are better integrated into Georgian society. Throughout this blog post, we refer to the subsample of Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the noted ‘ethnic enclaves’ as “minorities,” and to the rest of the sample as “Georgians”.

While 83% of Georgians would vote for Georgia’s EU membership and 74% would vote for Georgia’s NATO membership if a referendum was to be held the day after the survey interview in 2013, only 38% and 31%, respectively of minorities would do the same. Notably, minorities’ non-response rate for these two questions was also much higher compared to Georgians. Thus, minorities are visibly less inclined to support Georgia’s membership in either the EU or NATO.

Opinions on potential allies that can best support Georgia are also different, with most Georgians (38%) choosing the EU, while most minorities (57%) choose Russia. Smaller, but almost equal shares of Georgians think that the USA and Russia (18% and 17%, respectively) can best support the country, and smaller shares of minorities (17% and 14%, respectively) think that the United States and the EU would be best. If choices of the EU and USA are jointly considered as an orientation towards the West, then 56% of Georgians see the West as the best supporter of Georgia, while the same share of minorities (57%) would see Russia in this role.

Minorities differ from Georgians in other respects as well. Asked about the three most important issues currently facing Georgia, the most visible differences in the opinions of Georgians and minorities regard relations with Russia and Georgia’s territorial integrity. While most citizens of Georgia, no matter their ethnicity, name employment (“jobs”) as the most pressing issue (indicated by 63% of the population), their opinions about the importance of other issues differ – the second most frequently mentioned issue for minorities is relations with Russia (indicated by 56% of minorities), while for Georgians it is territorial integrity (indicated by 39% of Georgians).

This blog post compared the views of ethnic minority populations living in the Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti regions of Georgia with the rest of the population in the country. Georgians and minorities have different views especially when it comes to Georgia’s membership in the EU and NATO, international actors that can currently best support Georgia, and partially in relation to the most pressing issues the country currently faces.

How do you think these differences in points of views are manifested or reflected in Georgia’s foreign or domestic policy choices? Join the conversation on the CRRC Georgia Facebook page or in the comments section below.

Go West? Perceptions of the West in the South Caucasus

The Croatian accession to the EU on July 1, 2013 has put discussions about EU-accession prospects for other countries in Eastern European and those in the South Caucasus back on the table. Aside from the high-level political debate about the future relationship between these countries and the EU, there is also an important social context that will partially determine their chances. This post examines the relationship between South Caucasus societies and those in the West (i.e. in the US and EU). The blog analyzes openness for doing business with certain people from the West, desire to affiliate with Western political or security organizations, and knowledge of English, as well as the desire for English to be a mandatory language taught in schools in the South Caucasus. These factors are attitudes compared with attitudes towards Russia. 

With regard to economic, political and security issues, there is substantial support for NATO and EU membership in Georgia (67% and 72% respectively say they support Georgian membership in these organizations). A significantly smaller percentage in Armenia and Azerbaijan supports EU membership (54% and 48%, respectively), and NATO membership (33% and 45%, respectively). Not surprisingly, these variables (support for EU and support for NATO) are positively correlated across the three countries (Pearson’s r is 0.47 for Armenia, 0.83 for Azerbaijan, and 0.76 for Georgia). 

Within the business realm, regional interests seem more similar. In general, people in the South Caucasus are interested in expanding their contacts with the West on an economic level. For example, more than 6 out of 10 Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians approve of doing business with Westerners such as Americans, English, and Greeks. At the same time, nearly 8 out of 10 people in all three countries approve of doing business with Russians.

Substantial regional differences can be seen with respect to which countries Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis perceive to be the biggest friend to their respective countries. The CB 2012 asked, “Which country is the biggest friend of your country?” as an open-ended question. A category for “EU countries” was created by collapsing any EU member state mentioned by respondents (e.g. Greece, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, as well as the terms “EU” and “Europe”). The identified groups of answer options were thus the “US”, “EU countries”, “Russia”, “other country in the South Caucasus” (Armenia, Azerbaijan, or Georgia), and “other countries” (e.g. Turkey, Ukraine, China, Israel, Moldova, Iran, Pakistan and Serbia). 

Among the South Caucasus countries, Georgia is the most westward looking with the US being perceived as the biggest friend of the country by 62% of the population. Armenians, on the contrary, are most likely to mention Russia as the biggest friend (86%), while the overwhelming majority of Azerbaijan’s (99%) perceive Turkey as their biggest friend. Interestingly, these results seem to confirm the hypotheses about the polarization of political influences in the South Caucasus region and the three countries being driven towards different directions: the US (Georgia), Russia (Armenia) and Turkey (Azerbaijan).

In addition to a desire to join Western organizations, conduct business with Westerners, and perceptions of inter-state friendship, attitudes towards learning English can be an indicator of the willingness to integrate with the West. Language enables direct communication with the West, and aids access to foreign resources such as media. As it turns out, the possibilities of such impact in case of English are quite limited. 60% of Armenians, 66% of Georgians and 77% of Azerbaijanis say they have no basic knowledge of English. Yet, many people throughout the region believe they have a good command of Russian (85% in Armenia, 71% in Georgia, and 38% in Azerbaijan). 

Bearing the low competency in English in mind, at least half of each population said they would like English to be a mandatory language in schools in 2010. However, data from 2010-2012 shows a slight decrease in support for English as a mandatory language for schools in Armenia and Georgia, and an increase in support for Russian being the language that students should learn.

Based on the results of these analyses, there is no overwhelming trajectory towards the West or East for the South Caucasus as a whole, and there are substantial differences between the countries that might become more meaningful in the future. There is openness towards the West, especially in terms of doing business, and a rather varying level of social approval for membership in NATO and the EU (significantly higher in Georgia). Yet, this support exists with a growing interest in Russian as a mandatory language in schools, as well as a perception of the importance of friendship between Georgia and the US, Russia and Armenia, and Turkey and Azerbaijan. These disparities draw the South Caucasus countries towards different directions and therefore the international context also has a substantial impact on the relations within the region.

For more information on Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians in the international context please see our online database.

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