Happy holidays 2018

This year, CRRC-Georgia’s carried out a wide variety of research on Georgia as well as the South Caucasus. If you’re looking for a social science read or a new dataset to play with over the holidays, here’s a few from CRRC-Georgia from 2018.

1. Knowledge and Attitudes of the Population of Georgia towards the Judiciary

What does the public think of the judiciary? Have the reforms of the Georgian Dream government led to increased trust in the courts?  This report looks at the knowledge and attitudes of the population towards the judiciary and changes between 2014 and 2018. To read the full report (in Georgian), click here, and to read a briefer version in English, click here. To explore the data, click here.

2. Countering Violent Extremism in Georgia: A Needs Assessment

This year, CRRC-Georgia carried out a needs assessment of communities that have lost members to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The needs assessment asked two primary questions. 1) What distinguishes communities that have lost members to the conflict and have not that are otherwise similar? 2) What do people in communities that have lost members to the conflict want for their communities? To answer these questions, CRRC-Georgia used a matching algorithm to identify the most similar communities in the country to those that have lost members and carried out a survey in both types of communities. To see what we found, click here for the report and dataset.

3. Anti-western Propaganda Barometer

What’s the far right talking about in Georgia? LGBT people. Well, not only that, but really, they are talking a lot about LGBT people, according to the new dashboard CRRC-Georgia built in 2018 which provides weekly updates and analysis of what far right groups are talking about on Georgian language Facebook using a variety of machine learning tools. To explore the data, click here.

4. Elections, elections, elections

On Sunday December 16, Georgia’s first directly elected female president Salome Zourabouchvili was sworn into office after winning in a second round run-off. During the first round of elections, Senior Policy Analyst David Sichinava and Researcher Rati Shubladze built pollster.ge, which provided analysis similar to Nate Silver’s 538 in the lead up to the elections. One aspect of the campaign that was widely commented on was its negativity. For the second round, in an article for OC-Media, Koba Turmanidze explained the phenomenon by pointing out that it likely worked, at least for the opposition. On election night, Deputy Research Director Dustin Gilbreath gave his hot take on the elections to Euronews, and David Sichinava summed up the elections the following morning also on Euronews.

5. Citizen Participation in Policy Formulation at the Local Level

Have a decentralization wonk in your life? Well, this is the report for them. As Georgia continues towards devolving powers to local administrations, CRRC-Georgia prepared this report on citizens’ participation in local government in Georgia to help inform local government efforts to transition into a more empowered role in citizens’ lives. To read the report (in Georgian), click here.

From CRRC-Georgia, we wish you a happy holiday season, and Social Science in the South Caucasus will be back in January. To stay up to date with what’s happening at CRRC-Georgia, follow us on Facebook or sign up for our monthly newsletter Data Bites.

New Year twice, even if you don’t believe in Santa [Re-post]

[Note: This week, we are re-posting our New Year’s 2016 blog post. Happy New Year from the CRRC-Georgia team!]

December. Cold. Christmas decorations in the streets. New Year. Champagne. Satsivi and gozinaki. Presents. Santa Claus. December 25. Or January 7? Then New Year once again, but the old one. Resolutions for the New Year and the wish on New Year’s Eve that is bound to come true.

On December 1-13, 2016, CRRC-Georgia asked the population of Georgia about their New Year’s plans. Unsurprisingly, people mostly follow established traditions. A large majority (73%) plan to ring in the New Year at home. Nine per cent will meet it in a friend’s or a relative’s home. Meeting the New Year in the street or in a restaurant or a café is not yet common, and only one per cent of people in Georgia plan to do so. Another 15% had not decided in the first half of December where they would celebrate the New Year.

Since a large majority of people celebrate New Year’s Eve at home, holiday decorations are important. Only 4% of the population does not plan to have a Christmas tree. A large majority (76%) will have an artificial tree and about one tenth (13%) a natural tree. Almost two thirds (59%) also plan to have chichilaki.

Traditionally, one of the main components of New Year’s Eve celebrations is the feast. Of the dishes from the New Year’s table, over one third of Georgia’s adult population prefers satsivi, about a fourth gozinaki, and about one tenth fried piglet.

For many, New Year’s Eve is associated with presents. About two thirds (62%) of Georgia’s population plan to buy presents for family members. Some people used to believe or still believe that presents come from the Georgian version of Santa, tovlis babua. It appears that about one third of Georgia’s adult population believed in Santa through the age of 10. However, almost one fourth (24%) never believed in Santa. Despite this, the magic of New Year’s Eve is not lost on the majority. Two thirds of the population (66%) have made a wish on New Year’s Eve.

New Year’s Eve, with its feast, tree and fireworks, is celebrated twice in Georgia. An absolute majority of people (88%) say they celebrate the so called Old New Year on January 14 as well as the ‘regular’ one, on January 1. People also seem to be interested in the Chinese calendar and closely follow which animal is the symbol of the coming year. Last year, a majority (68%) planned to or already had bought a rooster souvenir for 2017, the year of the rooster.

Just as New Year is celebrated twice, so is Christmas. About two thirds of the population (64%) believe Christmas should be celebrated on January 7, when the Orthodox Church celebrates it. However, about one tenth of people (12%) say Christmas in Georgia should be celebrated on December 25. At the same time, not so small a share of the population (18%) says that Christmas, like New Year’s Eve, should be celebrated on both these days in Georgia.

New Year’s twice, even if you don’t believe in Santa

[This piece originally appeared in Georgian on Liberali, here]

December. Cold. Christmas decorations in the streets. New Year. Champagne. Satsivi and Gozinaki. Presents. Santa Claus. December 25. Or January 6? Then New Year’s once again, but the old one. 2017 resolutions and the wish on New Year’s Eve that is bound to come true.

What are the population of Georgia’s New Year’s plans? CRRC-Georgia asked on December 1-13 in a phone survey of adults in Georgia. Unsurprisingly, people in Georgia follow established traditions. A large majority (73%) plan to ring in the New Year at home. Nine per cent more will meet it in a friend’s or relative’s home. Meeting the New Year outside in the street or in a restaurant and café is not yet common, and only one per cent of Georgians plan to. Another 15% had not decided in the first half of December where they would celebrate the New Year.

Since a large majority of people celebrate New Year’s at home, holiday decorations are important. Only 4% of the population does not plan to have a Christmas tree. A large majority (76%) will have an artificial tree and about one tenth (13%) a natural tree. Meanwhile, 59% of people also plan to have Chichilaki at home.

Traditionally, one of the main components of New Year’s celebrations is the New Year’s feast. Of the dishes from the New Year’s table, over one third (38%) of Georgia’s adult population singles out Satsivi, about a fourth (24%) Gozinaki and about one tenth (9%) fried suckling pig as their favorite.

For many, New Year’s is associated with presents. About two thirds of Georgia’s population (62%) plan to buy presents for family members. Some people used to believe or still believe that presents come from Santa (Tovlis Babu). It appears that about one third of Georgia’s adult population believed in Santa through the age of 10. However, almost one fourth (24%) never believed in Santa. Despite this, the magic of New Year’s Eve is not lost on the majority. Two thirds of the Georgian population (66%) have made a wish on New Year’s.

New Year’s, with its feast, Christmas tree and fireworks, is celebrated twice in Georgia. An absolute majority of people (88%) say they celebrate the Old New Year as well as well as the new one. People also seem to be interested in the Chinese calendar and closely follow which animal is the symbol of the coming year. A majority of Georgians (68%) plan to or already have bought a rooster souvenir for 2017, the year of the rooster.

Just as New Year’s has two days, so too does Christmas – the latter is celebrated on different dates by different Christian churches. About two thirds of the Georgian population (64%) believes Christmas should be celebrated on January 7. However, about one tenth of people (12%) say Christmas in Georgia should be celebrated on December 25. At the same time, not so small a share of the Georgian population (18%) reports that Christmas, like New Year’s, should be celebrated on both days.

Having holidays twice is not so uncommon in Georgia after all.