How think tanks can support the COVID-19 response through survey data

[Note: This article was originally published at On Think Tanks. It was written by CRRC Georgia's deputy research director, Dustin Gilbreath. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia or any related entity.]

COVID-19 is likely to be the largest challenge the world has faced since the Second World War. In the last two weeks, unemployment claims in the US have exceeded the highest number recorded during the great recession. And the virus is expanding at an exponential rate. While some governments have responded in a generally effective manner (for example Georgia), many have been laggards in their response.

Just as think tanks played a critical role in the aftermath of the Second World War, they too can play a role in supporting governments through and after the present crisis. Providing accurate, timely, and actionable quantitative research is one such way that think tanks could provide immediate support to response efforts. While John Hopkins University is mapping COVID-19 data to enable an understanding of the virus’s spread, there is a clear need for data on a wide array of other issues.

Here I run through some of the main challenges and areas in which governments will need data to inform their response, and share a research proposal concept note, in the hope that it will support other think tanks to develop their own proposals and work towards better-informed solutions faster.

Social measures to contain the virus

At present, the main challenge facing the world is containing the virus. While this is a medical phenomenon, it is also clearly a social one. Indeed, social distancing and self-isolation are the key strategies being promoted at the moment. For these to be effective, however, compliance is critical. Public opinion polls have the potential to not only estimate levels of awareness of important practices, but also which groups are more or less likely to comply with them. With this public opinion data, government efforts can be more targeted at encouraging social distancing and isolation among different groups.

Economic consequences
The economic downturn is the second major issue the world faces. With all but essential businesses shutting down in many countries, and lower consumer demand across a wide range of sectors even if businesses remain open, the world is clearly headed for recession. But how many people have lost jobs? And in which sectors? Which regions have been hardest hit? Again, public opinion polls can provide estimates for all of these.

Governments traditionally rely on large samples of face to face interviews for economic statistics. This means that economic data is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future. In its place, telephone surveys have the potential to provide a reasonably accurate understanding of how many people are out of work or facing issues around food security, among other economic issues.

Cross-cutting issues
Aside from containing the virus and the economic collapse directly, polling has the potential to address a wide range of cross-cutting issues, from gender divisions in care work to Russian propaganda.

For example, around the world, women do a disproportionate amount of unpaid care work. With children home from school, the increased levels of care work may mean that the crisis impacts women more than men along some domains. Surveys can measure these and help inform policy efforts to alleviate these impacts.

Disinformation or propaganda is another key issue with important implications during the crisis. To take an example from Georgia, Russia has long spread propaganda in the country about the Lugar Lab, suggesting that it is a biological weapon development centre. The Lab has played a critical role in Georgia’s response to the virus. Opinion polls can enable an immediate understanding of how propaganda is spreading and inform messaging efforts against Russian propaganda.

An example survey research data concept note
Clearly, surveys have the potential to inform a wide array of policies. Indeed, in places like the UK, the Government has already commissioned them to inform response efforts. However, developing countries are less likely to be able to afford or have experience in polling in response measures. Given this, donors need to step up now more than ever to enable a strong response.

In support of helping think tanks do just this, here is CRRC-Georgia’s concept note for survey data collection to inform the COVID-19 response in Georgia. Although, at the time of writing, we have not received funding (if you want to fund something like this, do get in touch), we felt that this proposal might help other organisations to rapidly create their own proposals, in turn cutting down the time between proposals and funding being delivered to enable effective response. Response time aside, we hope sharing the proposal will encourage potential collaboration and learning from each other (we’d be happy to hear others thoughts on this).

Do Georgians understand what gender equality means?

[This article was co-published with OC-Media. The views expressed in this article are the author's alone and do not reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia, the National Democratic Institute, or any affiliated entity.]

The terms ‘gender equality’ and ‘feminism’ are increasingly used in public discourse in Georgia. In 2010, Georgia passed a law on gender equality. Popular TV shows often discuss the topic, and Georgia’s Public Defender reports on the issue. Yet, survey data shows that Georgians often appear not to understand what gender equality means.

In October 2014, the CRRC/NDI survey asked the population whether they thought that there was gender equality in Georgia or not. Only a fifth of respondents said there was, though twice as many people reported that women and men in Georgia have equal opportunities to succeed in any field.
Even though they touch on the same subject, the difference between the answers to these questions is significant, suggesting a misunderstanding in what the population understands by the term ‘gender equality’.

The CRRC/NDI December 2017 survey asked whether people had positive or negative associations towards gender equality, equality between men and women, and feminism, two terms that basically mean the same thing and another that means advocating for the other two.

The data shows that the majority of Georgia’s population has positive associations towards ‘equality between men and women’ and ‘gender equality’. However, they have more negative than positive associations with the term ‘feminism’. An even larger share is uncertain about what types of associations they have with the term feminism.


People of different genders, age, and levels of education report similar associations towards equality between men and women, with a majority indicating positive associations towards the expression. A slightly smaller share of the population of the capital reports positive associations compared to those living in other urban and rural settlements. In ethnic minority settlements, even smaller shares hold positive attitudes and more say they don’t know whether their associations are negative or positive.



A similar situation is observed with the term ‘gender equality’. While there are no differences by gender, age, and education level, a smaller share of the population of the capital report positive attitudes, compared to those living in other urban and rural settlements. Moreover, an even smaller proportion of people from ethnic minority settlements say they have positive attitudes and more than 40% say they don’t know if their associations are positive or negative.



As for the term feminism, there is more variance in people’s attitudes across various demographic groups. People over 55 indicate more frequently that they don’t know if their associations are positive or negative compared to younger people. People from rural areas and minority settlements are much more likely to say they don’t know if they have positive or negative associations.

The difference is especially visible when comparing people with different levels of education. Forty-seven per cent of people with secondary or lower education indicate they don’t know if their associations are negative or positive, while 40% of people with secondary technical education and only 25% of people with tertiary education state the same. People with tertiary education are more capable of providing a response compared to those with lower levels of education.



People have more positive associations with the expression ‘equality between men and women’ and less positive associations with ‘feminism’. In all demographic groups, people have the least clear attitudes towards feminism, frequently responding they don’t know what associations they have with the term.

Why this might be a case?

One albeit speculative explanation hints to the relative novelty of the idea of feminism in Georgia’s public discourse. Even though feminism implies equal rights for men and women, the explicit accent on one gender might trigger negative attitudes.

At the same time, heated verbal exchanges which often accompany televised discussions on gender equality are unlikely to help create positive associations with feminism. Nevertheless, this is only speculation and further research could clarify why people are less likely to have an opinion about feminism or be positive about it.

Tsisana Khundadze is a Senior Researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the National Democratic Institute, CRRC-Georgia, or any related entity.

The data used in this article is available here.

Which questions do people tend to respond “Don’t know” to?

On surveys, sometimes the questions asked are hard for some people to answer. As a result, the answer option “Don’t know” is a regular part of any survey dataset. But are some questions particularly likely to elicit these responses? This blog post uses un-weighted 2017 CRRC Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey data for Georgia to look at this question.

The ten CB 2017 questions with the highest share of “Don’t know” answers are provided on the chart below.


Two patterns are present in the CB 2017 questions that people responded “Don’t know” to most often. First, unsurprisingly, the shares of “Don’t know” answers are higher to questions that it is reasonable to think a person would be uncertain about. Second, while only about one in five questions on the CB questionnaire aimed to measure political or economic attitudes, most of the questions in the top ten are such questions.

To have a closer look at the data used in this blog post, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis portal.

Most dog owners in Tbilisi vaccinate their dogs, but few spay or neuter them

Based on the findings of a phone survey of the population of Tbilisi, conducted by CRRC-Georgia for the British charity Mayhew in November, 2017, 15% of Tbilisi households have one or more dogs at home. A majority of dog owners reported their dogs were vaccinated at the time of survey, but few spay or neuter them.

Only 5% of Tbilisi dog owners reported having never visited a veterinarian, although it should be kept in mind that the margin of error is rather high when analyzing the relatively small group. Almost all dog owners who visit veterinarians do this for the purpose of vaccination, while other reasons include hygiene and grooming, parasite control, and accident/trauma, each reported by approximately 1/5th of dog owners.

Vaccination is important to protect both dogs and humans from diseases like rabies. An absolute majority of dog owners (97%) reported they have vaccinated their dogs. However, only about one in five dog owners reported their dogs were sprayed or neutered. The following reasons for not spaying or neutering dogs were named most frequently:

• The dog owners wanted their dog(s) to have puppies;
• They were against either of these practices for ethical reasons; 
• They saw no need to spay/neuter their dog(s).

Spaying and/or neutering dogs is important not only from the point of view of controlling the dog population, but it also may reduce dogs’ risk of cancer. The findings presented in this blog post suggest there is a need to raise the awareness of Tbilisi dog owners on the importance of spaying and neutering their dogs. Importantly, when providing reasons why they did not spay or neuter their pets, dog owners did not mention that they do not trust veterinarians. This suggests that veterinarians could potentially be trusted communicators for awareness raising activities.

To explore the data in this blog post more extensively, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis portal.

The population of Tbilisi on street dogs

Street dogs are a common sight on the streets of Tbilisi. How do people’s attitudes towards them vary by age, gender, and whether or not someone lives in the center or outskirts of the city? Results of a November 2017 phone survey CRRC-Georgia carried out for a British charity Mayhew provide some answers to these questions.

Forty per cent of Tbilisi’s population reported positive attitudes towards street dogs, 39% neutral, and 20% negative. Women and men and people in central and non-central neighborhoods of Tbilisi report positive and negative attitudes at similar rates. People over the age of 56 report negative attitudes slightly more often than people under this age.




Why do the 20% of the population who report negative attitudes not like street dogs? Their majority (67%, although margins of error are higher for this relatively smaller subgroup) report a “general fear of dogs” as the main reason. The data suggests that women fear dogs more than men, which is not a finding unique to Tbilisi. Research from other contexts (e.g. see here and here) also indicates that women in general are more likely to report fearing dogs than men.

To explore the data in this blog post, visit our Online Data Analysis portal.

Perceptions of professionalism, corruption, and nepotism in local government

Professionalism, honesty, and fair competition are important in any institution. Yet, incidents involving corruption, nepotism and/or a lack of professionalism are sometimes reported in the Georgian media when the work of local government bodies is covered. How does the public perceive local government? This blog post describes data from the June 2017 CRRC/NDI survey, which show that a majority of people in Georgia thought that there were problems with nepotism and a lack of professionalism in local government. Moreover, roughly half of the population thought that their local government also faces a problem with corruption.

These assessments vary across different settlement types. The population of Tbilisi and other urban settlements was most likely to think that their local government faces all three problems. A majority of people from rural and ethnic minority settlements agreed that there was a lack of professionalism in their local government, but fewer agreed that there were problems with nepotism and corruption. Notably, as with many other survey questions, a high share of the population of ethnic minority settlements answered “Don’t know”.



People’s perceptions also vary by their level of education. People with higher levels of education agreed more often that their local government has issues with nepotism, professionalism, and corruption.



Note: Answer options to the question “What is the highest level of education you have achieved to date?” were recoded. Answer options “Did not obtain a nine-year certificate”, “Nine-year certificate”, and “Secondary school certificate” were combined into “Secondary or lower”. Answer options “Bachelor’s degree/5-year diploma” and “Any degree above Bachelor’s” were combined into “Higher than secondary”. 

In June 2017, a majority of the population of Georgia agreed that their local government had issues with professionalism and nepotism. Corruption was less often reported to be a problem, though 1/3 of the public (and almost half of the population of Tbilisi) agreed with the statement that there was corruption in their local government.

To explore the data in this blog post more extensively, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

Who should own land in Georgia? How attitudes changed between 2015 and 2017

[Note: This article originally appeared on OC-Media. It was written by Kristina Vacharadze, Programmes Director at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in the article are the author’s alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia or the Europe Foundation.]

Georgian parliament recently adopted constitutional amendments. Among the many changes were those regulating the sale of agricultural land. According to the amendments, “Agricultural land, as a resource of special importance, can only be owned by the state, a self-governing entity, a citizen of Georgia, or a union of Georgian citizens.” While the constitution allows for exceptions, which should be regulated by a law yet to be written, it is expected that foreigners will not be allowed to buy agricultural land in Georgia as freely as Georgian citizens. This blog post looks at public opinion about foreigners owning land in Georgia.

A majority of the population (64%) think that land should only be owned by Georgian citizens no matter how they use it, according to the EF/CRRC survey on Knowledge of and Attitudes toward the EU in Georgia (EU survey) conducted in May 2017. This share increased by 21 percentage points since 2015.


Note: The original 11-point scale was recoded into a 5-point scale for the charts in this blog post. Codes 0 and 1 were combined into ‘Only citizens of Georgia should own land in Georgia, no matter how they use this land’; 2 and 3 into ‘2’; 4, 5 and 6 into ‘3’; 7 and 8 into ‘4’ and codes 9 and 10 - into ‘Land in Georgia should be owned by those who will use it in the most profitable way, no matter their citizenship’.  

The rural population is least favourable to the idea of foreign ownership of Georgian land. A large majority (74%) strongly believe that only citizens of Georgia should own land.


The younger population (18-35 years old) is more open towards foreigners owing land in Georgia. Approximately one in five believes that land should be owned by those who will use it in the most profitable way, irrespective of their citizenship. Older people are less open to foreign ownership. Still, in 2017 the proportion of young people who are more open towards foreigners owning land in Georgia dropped by seven percentage points compared to 2015, while the proportion of young people who think that the land should be owned only by Georgian citizens increased by 22 percentage points.


The majority of the population of Georgia do not favour foreigners buying land in the country. Younger people and those living in urban settlements appear more open to the idea of foreign ownership of Georgian land. But the number of those opposing foreign ownership of Georgian land is high and has increased in the past two years. 

Explore the data used in this blog post further using our Online Data Analysis tool.

Survey incentives: When offering nothing is better than offering something

Why do people take the time to respond to surveys in Georgia? A telephone survey experiment CRRC-Georgia carried out in May 2017 suggests that small financial incentives may actually discourage people from participating in surveys. This finding suggests people may respond to surveys for intrinsic (e.g. because they are curious or want to help) rather than extrinsic reasons (e.g. doing something for the money).

During the experiment, 2320 respondents were asked whether they would be willing to participate in future phone surveys. Half were offered a GEL 2 transfer (about US$0.82 at the time of the survey) to their telephone in exchange for doing so. The other half was not offered any incentive. Respondents were randomly assigned whether they were offered an incentive or not.

The difference in responses isn’t impressive, but is statistically significant. Approximately 4% fewer people said they would participate in future surveys when offered the incentive. The chart below displays the effects of different variables on willingness to participate in future surveys in terms of odds ratios. The first model looks at the effect of being offered GEL 2 alone, while the second model controls for age, sex, and settlement type. The odds of someone responding positively when offered the incentive where approximately 0.8 to 1 in both regressions, meaning that the offer made it less likely that individuals would be willing to participate in a future survey. The second model also shows that except for those in the 36-55 age group, demographic characteristics have no effect on people’s likelihood of agreeing to participate in future surveys.


Note: For the regression models presented above, “No” was coded as the base category, “Don’t know” as the second category, and “Yes” as the third category. The logic behind coding “Don’t know” as a middle category is that the person is not refusing to participate in future surveys, but rather is saying they might or might not. 

The results of this experiment show that people in Georgia are slightly less likely to want to participate in future surveys if you offer them a small amount of money compared with offering nothing. This finding may at first seem strange. However, a potential explanation is that GEL 2 may have seemed like a paltry sum, and people may have been offended. In turn, rather than engaging people’s intrinsic motivations like a sense of duty to help others or simple curiosity, the offer of GEL 2 could have activated people’s extrinsic motivations. In turn, the extrinsic incentive wasn’t large enough to counter the loss in the intrinsic value of participation, at least on average.

For a look at a comparable effect in a very different context, this study on attitudes towards having nuclear waste facilities found a similar pattern: when offered money, people were less likely to support having such a facility in their community.

Have other thoughts on what might have encouraged those offered GEL 2 to participate in future surveys to decline participation more frequently? Let’s have a conversation on Facebook or Twitter.

Visa liberalization: How much do people in Georgia know about the conditions of visa-free travel to the EU?

CRRC’s previous blog posts have shown that the population of Georgia had rather moderate expectations of the recent visa liberalization with the Schengen zone countries, especially when it comes to the question of how much ordinary people will benefit from it. Europe Foundation’s latest survey on Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union in Georgia, conducted in May 2017, provides a more nuanced understanding on how people in Georgia feel about this process and to what extent they are familiar with the conditions of visa liberalization.

In May 2017, only about 1% of the population of Georgia reported having not heard of visa liberalization. A majority, 64%, reported being glad to have the possibility to travel to the Schengen zone countries visa free, although only 16% believed they personally would take advantage of the visa-free regime in the next 12 months. About a third of the population said visa liberalization did not matter for them, and a rather small minority (4%) reported not being glad about visa liberalization.

Five major conditions have to be met by Georgian citizens to enjoy visa-free travel: they should be able to provide a return ticket, travel insurance, proof of financial means to cover their trip expenses, the address where they will be staying during the trip (a hotel reservation or the address of people inviting him/her) and hold a biometric passport. The Georgian government has implemented a large-scale information campaign to spread information about the conditions of visa liberalization as widely as possible. In order to learn how effective this campaign was, the survey included an open question, “Which are the documents that a Georgian citizen needs in order to travel to the Schengen zone countries visa-free?”

According to the findings, people best remembered the requirement of having a biometric passport – 78% named this condition of visa-free travel. Much smaller shares remembered the other conditions: 45% named financial means, 40% a return ticket, 34% the address where a traveler will be staying during the trip, and only 24% named travel insurance. Understandably, those planning to travel to the Schengen zone in the next 12 months demonstrated a better knowledge of the conditions of visa-free travel. However, the differences were not impressive, especially taking into consideration the small size of this group and thus a relatively larger margin of error.

Overall, only 12% of the population named all these conditions during the survey. Rather surprisingly, the rural population and those living in urban settlements outside the capital “scored” better in this exercise compared to the population of the capital and ethnic minority settlements. On the other hand, 18% failed to name any of the five conditions of visa-free travel. The population of ethnic minority settlements demonstrated the poorest knowledge.

Importantly, as of May 2017, a quarter of the population of Georgia mistakenly believed that as a result of the visa-free regime, Georgian citizens obtained permission to work in the EU. The share increases to 34% among those who say they will travel to a Schengen zone country in the next 12 months. Thus, a preliminary look at the findings about knowledge of the conditions of visa liberalization for Georgian citizens suggests that the information campaign needs to expand, and become more intense and targeted to potential travelers.

The datasets and findings of all waves of Europe Foundation’s survey on Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the European Union in Georgia are available on CRRC’s online data analysis platform. A report focused on the 2017 data is 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.

Rugby: The sport Georgians report the country is most successful at

The Georgian National Rugby Team’s achievements have been many in recent years. From gaining automatic qualification for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in 2015 for the first time to ranking 12th in the world rugby rankings, the team has obtained widespread national support and established a presence on the international rugby scene.

The results of a telephone survey CRRC-Georgia conducted in May 29-30, 2017 suggest that the public recognizes these achievements. According to the survey, a majority (62%) of the Georgian public think that rugby is Georgia’s most successful sport. This attitude is more common in Tbilisi (72%) than in other urban (67%) and rural areas (51%). Notably, more women (67%) than men (57%) consider rugby to be the most successful sport. The public also backs financial support for rugby: after football (38%), Georgians report second most often (27%) that rugby should be supported.

In 2015, Georgia won the right to host the World Rugby under 20 Championship for the first time, one of the highest level juniors’ tournaments in the rugby world. The tournament kicked off on May 31 in Kutaisi and came to an end on June 18, in Tbilisi at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium. Tournament awareness was high. According to the CRRC-Georgia survey results, more than half of the population (55%) was aware that Georgia was about to host the World Rugby under 20 Championship.

In spite of strong support for rugby, many Georgians don’t know much about the game. The survey shows that only 18% of the population knows what the amount of points for a try without conversion kick is (five points), and only 6% of Georgians know how many players are in the scrum (eight players) for each team. While 21% gave the incorrect answer on this question, 73% responded don’t know. Notably, men (28%) gave the right answer more often than women (10%) to the question on tries.

CRRC-Georgia’s survey results show that Georgians recognize the country’s rugby achievements and support allocating financial resources to it. However, many aren’t so knowledgeable of the game’s rules.

The above results are based on a panel telephone survey carried out between May 29-30, 2017 with 726 completed interviews. The panel was created using random digit dialing. The results are representative of Georgia and have an average margin of error of 2.9%. Want to know what Georgians think about another issue or track attitudes over time? Get in touch with us at crrc-geo@crrccenters.org if your organization has questions about Georgian public opinion.

Developing the “culture of polling” in Georgia (Part 2): The misinterpretation and misuse of survey data

[Note: This is the second part of a guest blog post from Natia Mestvirishvili, a Researcher at International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and a former Senior Researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The first part of this blog post is available here. This post was co-published with the Clarion]

The misinterpretation of survey findings is a rather widespread problem in Georgia. Unfortunately, it often leads to the misuse of data, which not only diminishes the importance of survey research, but also leads to more serious consequences for the country.

To illustrate how one might misinterpret survey data, the following example from CRRC’s 2015 Caucasus Barometer survey can be used. When asked, “What do you think is the most important issue facing Georgia at the moment?”, only 3% of the population mentioned low pensions, 2% the unaffordability of healthcare, and 2% the low quality of education. A number of issues including the violation of human rights, unfairness of courts, corruption, unfairness of elections, unaffordability of professional or higher education, the violation of property rights, gender inequality, religious intolerance and emigration were grouped into the category “Other”, because, in total, only 7% of the population mentioned these issues.

Based on these findings, one might think that these issues are unimportant in Georgia. However, this would be a misinterpretation, which happens for a number of reasons. Here, I focus on two. The first is:

1. Not paying attention to the exact formulation (wording) of the survey question, answer options, and instructions 

One reason a large share of the population did not mention the violation of human rights, gender inequality and religious intolerance as important issues is because each respondent could name only one issue. The options they chose (unemployment and poverty were named most often) were more important to them than human rights, gender inequality, and religious intolerance.

If a different question – “How important is the issue of human rights [or gender inequality, or religious intolerance] for Georgia?” – had been asked, the share of people who would answer that these issues are important would very likely be much higher than one or two percent. This wording would make people judge the issue not in relative, but absolute terms.

While working with survey findings, the exact wording of question(s) should always be taken into account. When the question is interpreted or reworded, it will almost inevitably lead to some degree of misinterpretation. More often than not, fieldwork instructions should also be taken into account. For example, was a show card used for the question? Was the number of answer options a respondent could choose limited or not?

Thus, it is crucial that survey results are understood and reported, keeping in mind the exact wording of the question(s), answer options provided, and any instruction(s) that had to be followed during the interviews. This will help minimize the risk of misinterpretation.

A second common cause of misinterpretation of public opinion polls in Georgia is:

2. Interpreting public opinion survey results as ‘reality’ rather than perceptions 

Even if the question discussed above had been asked so that the absolute rather than relative importance of the issues was measured and the survey findings still suggested that people thought the violation of human rights, gender inequality and religious intolerance were not important issues for the country, the findings should not be interpreted as a direct reflection of ‘reality.’ As discussed in the first part of this blog post, public perceptions are not ‘reality’.

Interpreting public perceptions as objective ‘reality’ is incorrect, because both perceptions and misperceptions, information and misinformation shape public opinion. It is equally important to remember that, sometimes, ‘reality’ simply does not exist. Moreover, as a number of studies have shown, it is often the case that people are simply wrong about a wide variety of things.

None of the above, however, diminishes the role and importance of public opinion polls. In fact, the misperceptions that survey findings can uncover are often among the most important outcomes for policymakers. Instead of putting an equal sign between public perceptions and ‘reality,’ data analysts and policymakers should critically analyze and address gaps between the two.

Going back to the above example, an accurate interpretation would consider the findings in the context of other studies that are specifically focused on human rights (or gender equality or religious tolerance). Indeed, numerous studies indicate that Georgia has serious problems with all three issues i.e., the population does not have much respect for human rights, gender equality, or people of other religions. Only looking at the latest Human Rights Watch report on Georgia makes this quite clear.

Looking at inconsistencies between people’s answers to different questions, or between survey findings and other types of data when available and relevant, is a good way to uncover misperceptions. For example, a 2014 CRRC/NDI survey found that roughly every fourth person reports there is gender equality in Georgia. However, about half of those who think so also think that taking care of the home and family makes women as satisfied as having a paid job, and that in order to preserve the family, the wife should endure a lot from her spouse.

The answers to these three questions should be presented and discussed not separately, as independent findings, but rather as interrelated findings that, taken together, give a better understanding of the assessments of and attitudes towards gender equality in Georgia. In this context, the question that needs to be raised and answered is why and how this inconsistency between answers occurs.

The misuse of survey findings happens when findings are presented and used in a way that reinforces people’s misperceptions and prejudices. The misinterpretation of findings often leads to their misuse, and eventually, can lead to serious issues.

Again, going back to the most important issue example, it would be a misuse of survey findings to conclude that since the violation of human rights, religious intolerance or gender inequality seem to not be perceived as important issues in Georgia, no policy is needed to address them. As demonstrated above, alternative sources show that these issues need to be addressed, and, at the very least, awareness of them needs to increase. Thus, policy intervention is needed.

What the survey findings tell us in this case is that people underestimate the importance of these issues. In turn, this contributes to the worsening of the problems. If you believe gender inequality or religious intolerance are not important, you probably would not care about these issues either. Thus, the larger is the gap between public perceptions and reality, the more important it is for policy makers to address the issue.

Public opinion should not be used as a directive for policy making without careful analysis of misperceptions and alternative sources of information.

Unfortunately, in Georgia sometimes it’s exactly the misperceptions that drive policy. Speaking of recent developments, misperceptions about homosexuality have lead politicians to talk more about the prohibition of same-sex marriage, something that has never been allowed in Georgia in the first place, than about human rights issues. Misperceptions about gender roles led politicians to reject a proposal that would define femicide as a premeditated murder of a woman based on her gender. Looking forward, the country cannot allow the misperception that the EU threatens Georgia’s traditions to drive the country’s foreign policy.

Now more than ever, when Georgia is still attempting to transition into a stable, democratic country, the country needs policymakers and researchers who have the knowledge and skills to critically analyze survey findings and use their potential for the development of the country.

Developing the “culture of polling” in Georgia (Part 1): Survey criticism in Georgia

[Note: This is a guest post from Natia Mestvirishvili, a Researcher at International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and former Senior Researcher at CRRC-Georgia. This post was co-published with the Clarion.]

Intense public debate usually accompanies the publication of survey findings in Georgia, especially when the findings are about politics. The discussions are often extremely critical or even call for the rejection of the results.

Normally criticism of surveys would focus on the shortcomings of the research process and help guide researchers towards better practices to make surveys a better tool to understand society. In Georgia most of the current criticism of surveys is, unfortunately, counterproductive and mainly driven by an unwillingness to accept the findings, because the critics do not like them. This blog post outlines some features of survey criticism in Georgia and highlights the need for constructive criticism aimed at the improvement of research practice, because constructive criticism is extremely important and useful for the development of the “culture of polling” in Georgia.

Often, discrepancies between the findings and the critics’ opinion about public opinion cause criticism of surveys in Georgia. Hence, the survey critics claim that the findings do not correspond to ‘reality’. Or rather, their reality.

But, are surveys meant to measure ‘reality’? For the most part, no. Rather, public opinion polls measure and report public opinion which is shaped not only by perceptions, but also by misperceptions i.e., the views and opinions that people have. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinion. It is equally important that these are opinions that people feel comfortable sharing during interviews –while talking to complete strangers. Consequently, and leaving aside deeply philosophical discussions about what reality is and whether it exists at all, public opinion surveys measure perceptions, not reality.

Among the many assumptions that may underlie criticism of surveys in Georgia, critics often suggest that:

1. They know best what people around them think;
2. What people around them think represents the opinions of the country’s entire population. 

However, both of these assumptions are wrong, because, in fact:

1. Although people in general believe that they know others well, they don’t. Extensive psychological research shows that there are common illusions which make us think we know and understand other people better than we actually do – even when it comes to our partners and close friends;
2. Not only does everyone have a limited choice of opinions and points of view in their immediate surroundings compared to the ‘entire’ society, but it has also been shown that people are attracted to similarity. As a result, primary social groups are composed of people who are alike. Thus, people tend to be exposed to the opinions of their peers, people who think alike. There are many points of view in other social groups that a person may never come across, not to mention understand or hold; 
3. Even if a person has contacts with a wide diversity of people, these will never be enough to be representative of the entire society. Even if it were, individuals lack the ability to judge how opinions are distributed within a society.

To make an analogy, assuming the opinions we hear around us can be generalized to the entire society is very similar to zooming in on a particularly large country, like Canada, on a map of a global freedom index, and assuming that since Canada is green, i.e. rated as “Free”, the same is true for the rest of the world. In fact, if we zoom out, we will be able to see that the whole world is all but green. Rather, it is very colorful, with most of the countries being of different colors than green, and “big” Canada is no indication of the state of the rest of the world.

Source: www.freedomhouse.org

People who think that what people around them think (or, to be even more precise – who think that what they think that people around them think) can be generalized to the whole country make a similar mistake.

Instead of objective and constructive criticism based on unbiased and informed opinions and professional knowledge, public opinion polls in Georgia are mostly discussed based on emotions and personal preferences. Professional expertise is almost entirely lacking in those discussions.
Politicians citing questions from the same survey in either a negative or positive context, depending on whether they like the results or not, is a good illustration of the above claim. For example, positive evaluations of a policy or development by the public is often proudly cited by political actors without doubting the quality of the survey. At the same time, low and/or decreasing public support for a particular party according to the findings of the same survey is “explained away” by the same actors as poor data quality. Subsequently, politicians may express their distrust in the research institution which has conducted the survey.

In Georgia and elsewhere, survey criticism should be focused on the process of research and should be aimed at its improvement rather than the rejection of the role and importance of polling. It is the duty of journalists, researchers and policymakers to foster healthy public debate on survey research. Instead of emotional messages aimed at demolishing trust in public opinion polls and pollsters in general, rationally and carefully discussing the research process and its limitations, research findings and their meaning/significance and, where possible, pointing to possible improvements of survey practice is needed.

Criticism focused on “unclear” or “incorrect” methodology should be further elaborated by professionally specifying the aspects that are unclear or problematic. Research organizations in Georgia will highly appreciate criticism that asks specific questions aimed at improving the survey process. For example, does the sample design allow for the generalization of the survey results to the entire population? How were misleading questions avoided? How have the interviewers been trained and monitored to minimize bias and maximize the quality of the interviews?

This blog post argued that survey criticism in Georgia is often based on inaccurate assumptions and conveys messages that are not helpful for research organizations from the point of view of improving their practice. These messages are also often dangerous as they encourage uninformed skepticism towards survey research in general. Rather than these unhelpful messages, I call on actors to engage in constructive criticism which will contribute to the improvement of the quality of surveys in Georgia, which in turn will allow people’s voices to be brought to policymakers and their decisions to be informed by objective data.

The second part of this blog post, to be published on January 23, continues the topic, focusing on examples of misinterpretation and misuse of survey data 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.

CRRC’s Fourth Annual Methodological Conference: Research for Development in the South Caucasus

CRRC’s fourth annual Methodological Conference took place on June 24 and 25, 2016 in Tbilisi. Over 50 participants representing numerous institutions from seven countries attended.

David Lee, Chairman of CRRC’s Board of Trustees, opened the conference highlighting the importance of the issues discussed at the conference not only for the region, but also for the world.

The conference had a wide variety of workshops, such as Koen Geven’s  workshop on Causal Inference and Estimating Treatment Effects and  Julie A. George’s Methodological Approaches to Estimating Voter Fraud.

With four conference sessions focused on migration, politics, ideology and media, and gender inequalities in the labor market, the conference participants – academics and policymakers alike – had the opportunity to discuss the challenges with and ways forward towards generating more reliable knowledge on the issues.

CRRC-Georgia’s President, Koba Turmanidze, closed the conference noting that next year’s Methodological Conference will continue to focus on policy research and methodological issues, which can lead to better development policy in the region.

For more information, the full conference program can be accessed here.

How the EU sees Georgia: The Georgian population's perceptions

Although a majority of the population of Georgia approves of the Government of Georgia’s stated goal to join the European Union (EU), reported trust in the EU declined between 2011 and 2015. According to Europe Foundation’s Knowledge and attitudes towards the EU survey conducted by CRRC-Georgia, 22% of the Georgian public reported fully trusting the EU in 2011. In 2013 and 2015, the respective shares were only 4% and 3%. The share of those reporting they “trust” the EU moderately, rather than “fully trust” it, also declined from 47% to 31%. Distrust in the EU, on the other hand, increased in all age groups (between 2011 and 2015) and all settlement types (between 2011 and 2015), both among men and women (between 2011 and 2015). Moreover, the EU is increasingly perceived as a threat to Georgian traditions, as described in a recent blog post. This blog post looks at the Georgian public’s changing perceptions of EU-Georgia relations focusing on how Georgians think their country is perceived by the governments and citizens of EU member states.

In 2011, 41% of the population of Georgia reported believing that a majority of EU member states would like Georgia to enter the EU. Four years later, only 32% gave the same answer, while the share of those answering negatively doubled. Importantly, almost 50% of the population cannot answer this question. Similarly, in 2015, 18% answered that, in their opinion, a majority of European citizens wouldn’t like Georgia to enter the EU, compared to 11% in 2011. 

The decline of the share of the population that believe the EU will welcome Georgia as a member state may be related to the finding that the population of Georgia sees their country’s EU accession as less likely. While 33% of the population of Georgia thought in 2011 that the country would join the EU in 5 years or less, 18% did so in 2015. Today, 16% of the population thinks Georgia will join the EU within ten years – twice the share of 2011. The share of those answering that Georgia will never join the EU rose from 2% in 2011 to 11% in 2015.

Over time, the Georgian population thinks that citizens of the EU as well as the EU governments are less inclined towards integrating Georgia into the Union. More clarity and realism concerning Georgia’s potential for EU membership certainly could help to avoid a slow backslide towards less EU support for strong relations between Georgia and the EU in the years to come. The public should be aware that EU membership is a long-term prospect at best rather than an immediate future. This may avoid a sense of betrayal and frustration with slow progress.

To explore the data in more depth, take a look at our online data analysis tool or take a look at some of CRRC’s recent blog posts (see here, here and here). 

What do CB interviewers’ ratings of respondents’ intelligence tell us?

CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer (CB) surveys regularly collect information about how the interviewers assess each of the conducted interviews – so called paradata that provides additional insight into the conditions surrounding the interviews (e.g., whether someone besides the respondent and the interviewer was present during the face-to-face interview), as well as interviewers’ subjective assessments of, for example, level of sincerity of the respondents. This type of knowledge is especially important not only because the populations of the South Caucasus countries often distrust polling and pollsters (Hayes et al., 2006), but also because the conditions during the face-to-face interviews are rarely perfect in the region. The latter usually stems from objective reasons, like, for example, crowded dwellings (especially in the winter, when families normally heat only a few rooms, where all household members tend to gather). This blog post looks at the information provided by CB 2013 Interviewer Assessment Forms in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, trying to determine whether there is a bias in interviewers’ assessments. Specifically, we will have a look at interviewers’ ratings of respondents’ intelligence.

Overall, CB interviewers tend to rate the majority of respondents as average to (moderately) intelligent, but rarely as “very intelligent”. Interestingly, Georgian interviewers’ ratings are more skewed towards the positive edge of the scale, compared to those in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Note: The data was not weighted for the analysis performed for this blog post. 

These figures, of course, in no way provide objective assessments of the intelligence of the respondents – neither was it the aim of this exercise. We will now look at how these assessments correlate with respondents’ answers on their basic socio-economic characteristics, including gender, age and level of education.

In all countries, there is a strong positive correlation between interviewers’ assessment of intelligence of the respondents and the two variables measuring respondents’ level of education - highest level of education achieved by the respondent, and the years s/he spent in formal education. The strength of correlation is somewhat stronger in Azerbaijan (.549 for the first variable) and somewhat weaker in Georgia (.455) and Armenia (.468).

Azerbaijan is the only country where, according to CB 2013, there is a relatively weak, but significant correlation between interviewers’ assessment of respondents’ intelligence and the respondents’ gender (-.192), suggesting that there is a systematic tendency to rate male respondents’ intelligence higher than that of females’. This finding is all the more interesting since a bit over half of CB2013 interviewers in Azerbaijan were female (22 male interviewers, 24 female interviewers). In all countries, there is a tendency to rate the intelligence of those living in the capital cities higher than those living in other settlements – the respective correlation coefficients are not high (-.094 in Azerbaijan, -.119 in Georgia and -.155 in Armenia), but are significant. There is, however, no correlation between these assessments and respondents’ age.

Interviewers’ ratings of respondents’ intelligence do not seem to be straightforwardly related to the attitudes towards democracy, or reported trust towards major social and political institutions, although respective findings differ by countries. It’s only in Georgia that we can see weak, but negative correlation between trust towards the president of the country and assessment of respondent’s intelligence by interviewer (-.141), while the correlations between these variables are not significant in Armenia and Azerbaijan.  

What other variables might, in your opinion, affect an interviewer’s assessment of a respondent’s intelligence?

You can have a look at CB’s Interviewer Assessment Form at the end of each CB questionnaire, e.g., here; and, of course, you can learn all about CB data on CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

Junior Fellows at CRRC-Georgia: Facing new challenges

[Note: Over the next two weeks, Social Science in the Caucasus will publish the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015.]

CRRC’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) was launched in 2009 as a Carnegie Corporation initiative within the CRRC, with the goal of providing on-the-job training opportunities in applied research for young social scientists. As the Program’s motto claims, the JFP would be “the best and hardest” experience the Junior Fellows would ever have, opening doors for educational and employment opportunities worldwide. Every year since, a new group of bright young people interested in social science research and selected through a highly competitive and challenging selection process would join CRRC-Georgia for a period of five to nine months.

Once becoming members of the CRRC-Georgia team, Junior Fellows are engaged in ongoing research projects at various stages of implementation both through direct participation and observation. Fellows learn about questionnaire development, pretest, sampling, survey fieldwork and back-checks, data management and analysis, slide production and presentation of results, report writing, the development of discussion guides, and preparation of interview and focus-group write-ups. We believe, Georgian higher educational institutions currently fail to help students acquire most of these skills, and hence the opportunity offered by CRRC-Georgia is quite unique for the Junior Fellows.

Potential junior fellows are expected to have already completed at least a BA degree, although it is not required that this degree is in the social sciences. They have to commit to the program full-time, and hence cannot combine JFP and another job or full-time studies during the fellowship period. In addition to valuable research experience, the Junior Fellows are provided with a number of training sessions on quantitative data analysis using SPSS and Stata statistical software, qualitative data analysis using NVivo software, and report writing.

Thirty two young people have been CRRC-Georgia Junior Fellows to date. After their fellowship period, seven stayed on to work at CRRC-Georgia, five continued their education abroad, and others started jobs at a number of different international and governmental organizations.

We asked some of the former fellows to share their opinions about what the JFP experience gave them, and how it relates to their current educational and employment situations. Here are some answers:

[At CRRC-Georgia] I got a valuable knowledge of how high-quality research should be conducted. While working with qualified people, I obtained knowledge and experience that helped me to advance in my future career. A great team, interesting projects and a great deal of perspectives – this is how I would describe my experience working at CRRC.
Nino Kerkadze, JFP-2012

CRRC is a small family, where one acquires new skills that will be useful [for the rest of your life].
Merab Bochoidze, JFP-2011

CRRC is a place with a wonderful working environment, qualified colleagues and great friends that will give a valuable boost to your career.
Salome Minesashvili, JFP-2011

CRRC-Georgia is currently hosting six junior fellows, and we believe, one of the most exciting, although challenging tasks for the current Junior Fellows is writing blog posts for the CRRC regional blog, Social Science in the Caucasus. In their blog posts, the Junior Fellows can focus on social science issues they are most interested in, apply their data analysis skills, and communicate their findings to an audience of international and local scholars, researchers, and journalists.

For the first time, we have decided to publish the 2015 Junior Fellows’ first blog posts in a single series. The JFP series will start today with Nino Zubashvili’s post and continue for two weeks.

Exploring Homophobia in Georgia: Part 4

This is the fourth blog post in a series analyzing homophobia in the capital of Georgia and is focused on the influence of education and liberal values on homophobic attitudes among Tbilisi residents. Previous blog posts in this series can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Adamczyk and Pitt (2009) found that attitudes toward homosexuals have become more tolerant in cultures that have successfully gone through the processes of modernization and industrialization and shifted their values from survival to self-expression. Although we cannot test this exact finding in the Georgian context, our findings are similar as they show that among Tbilisi adults, homophobic attitudes are negatively correlated with high levels of education and liberal values.

As mentioned in previous posts, homophobic attitudes were measured by the question: “Whom would you not wish to be your neighbor most?” which was recoded as a dummy variable with the categories “homosexuals” and “others”.

Respondents’ levels of education have been grouped into one of three categories: secondary or lower education, secondary technical education, and higher education. A liberal values score for each respondent was calculated based on the answers to the following six questions:

1) “How acceptable is it for you if a man has long hair?”
2) “How acceptable is it for you if a man wears earring(s)?”
3) “How acceptable is it for you if a woman has eyebrow piercing(s)?”
4) “How acceptable is it for you if a woman drinks strong alcohol?”
5) “How acceptable is it for you if a woman has premarital sex?”
6) “How acceptable is it for you if a man has premarital sex?”

The original coding for each question was: 0 = Never, 1 = Sometimes, 2 = Always. Factor analysis was performed (number of items: 6; Cronbach’s Alpha = .80), eventually resulting in a “liberalism scale” measuring respondents’ level of tolerance. An independent sample t-test showed that, unsurprisingly, the higher the level of education, the lower was the reported level of negative attitudes towards homosexuals (t (526) = 2.19, p =. 03). Also, as expected, people with non-homophobic attitudes scored higher on the liberalism scale (M= 0.14, SD = 1.09) than those with homophobic attitudes (M = -0.29, SD = 0.72, t (526) = 5.09, p =.001).

Similarly, Kendall’s rank correlation analysis showed that the higher the level of education, the less homophobic people are ( (Kendall’s τ (526) = - .10, p = .02). Liberal attitudes were negatively associated with homophobia (Kendall’s τ (214) =  - .19, p = .01), indicating that tolerance and acceptance of differences can prevent homophobic attitudes.

Finally, the Wald criteria in logistic regression confirmed that low education and lack of liberal values were significant predictors of homophobic attitudes among Tbilisi adults.

Binary logistic estimates for homophobia (N = 526)

The eB value in Model 1 indicates that when level of education increases by one unit, the odds ratio is 0.78 times smaller, and therefore, a person has 0.78 times less chance to be homophobic. In terms of predictive equation, this means that if someone has secondary education, his or her chance of being homophobic is 37%, while for someone with technical education the respective chance decreases to 32%, and for someone with higher education the chance is 27%. Similarly, each additional point on the liberal attitudes scale decreases the risk of homophobia by 0.61 (Model 2).

Even though the data confirms that a low level of education is a significant predictor of homophobic attitudes of the population of Tbilisi, its predictive role disappears when liberal values are brought into the model. This means that, in Tbilisi, people with higher levels of education are less homophobic, but people who share liberal values (acquired through formal education or other sources) are even less likely to have homophobic attitudes.

Generally, education is considered an important tool for combating homophobia. Educated people are often believed to be exposed to liberal values to a greater extent, compared with non-educated individuals. However, formal education in Georgia does not necessarily contribute to internalization of liberal values. A recent study on intercultural education in the primary grades of Georgian schools showed that 47% of interviewed teachers who teach at the primary level in Georgian public schools think that having a non-traditional sexual orientation should be punishable by law.

Further analysis of the May 17 survey data – moderation using bootstrap – showed that people who share liberal values and personally know homosexuals are less homophobic than those who share liberal values but do not know homosexuals personally. In contrast, people who score low on the liberal attitudes scale and personally know homosexuals are even more likely to be homophobic than those who do not share liberal values and do not know homosexuals personally.

To summarize, one of the most salient predictors of homophobic attitudes in Tbilisi is level of education, even provided that, as other studies suggest, tolerance is not specifically promoted in the system of formal education. The predictive role of education, however, disappears when liberal values are added to the statistical model. As moderation analysis shows, the relationship between liberal values and homophobic attitudes is further enhanced by respondents’ personal contact with homosexuals.

These results indicate that fostering liberal attitudes through formal and non-formal education, the media as well as other channels will be a good strategy to address the problem of homophobia in Tbilisi. Concrete policy recommendations will be presented in the final blog of this series.

Exploring Homophobia in Georgia: Part 3

This is the third blog post in a series where we analyze homophobia in Tbilisi and is focused on potential relationships between religiosity and homophobia. The previous blog posts in this series can be found here: Part 1, Part 2.

In a number of studies, religiosity has been linked to lower levels of support for human rights for homosexuals (Johnson, Brems, & Alford-Keating, 1997; Adamczyk, A., & Pitt, C., 2009; Merino, S. M., 2013). This literature, on the one hand, and the clergy’s active participation in the May 17 events in Tbilisi in 2013 on the other hand, led us to the question - are religiosity and homophobia related to each other, and if they are, what is the strength of the relationship?

In the CRRC-Georgia survey on the events of May 17, 2013, religiosity was measured with one variable - frequency of attendance at religious services (question “Not to speak about special occasions, such as weddings or funerals, how often do you attend religious services?”). It was expected that those who do so regularly and, hence, have more exposure to religious sermons, would be more homophobic than those who attend religious activities less often. The findings, however, do not prove this hypothesis. As the chart below shows, over half of Tbilisi residents rarely or never attend religious services.

 

 

Homophobia was measured by a dummy variable generated based on the question, “[Whom] would you not wish to [be] your neighbor most?” with the categories 0 = others, 1 = homosexuals. Neither independent t-test (t (n=526) =.669, p = 504), nor correlation (Kendall’s τ (214) = -.09) showed any evidence that frequency of attendance of religious services was statistically related to homophobic attitudes.

 

This finding may come as a surprise for many readers, and it should certainly be interpreted taking into consideration the nature of religiosity in Georgia. According to the CRRC 2013 Caucasus Barometer survey, the overwhelming majority of  Georgians consider themselves to belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church (10% of the population reports being Muslim). Trust in the religious institutions people belong to, and the reported importance of religion in their daily lives are high: 72% of the population reports fully trusting these institutions, and 93% think that religion is either “very important” or “rather important” in their daily lives. At the same time and in contrast to these reported attitudes, actual religious practices such as service attendance, fasting and prayer are rather low throughout Georgia. In light of this, the lack of a statistical relationship between religious service attendance and homophobia is less surprising than at first glance.

 

Finally, if we assume that attending religious services leads people to a better understanding and internalization of religious principles, this finding becomes even less surprising. Since there is much more in the Bible about love and tolerance than there is about hatred and judging others, those who attend religious services may have internalized these messages.

 

The mismatch between high trust towards the church and the reported importance of religion, on the one hand, and a lack of actual involvement in religious practices, on the other hand, highlights the multidimensional nature of religiosity in Georgia. In the May 17 survey, CRRC-Georgia asked respondents about only one dimension of religiosity – religious service attendance. This dimension may not be the most accurate measure of religiosity in Georgia (and, most probably, only one measure would not be enough to understand this phenomenon anyway). Having data on other aspects of religiosity, like participation in religious practices, the level of trust towards religious institutions or the importance of religion in one’s daily life, would allow us to conduct a more sophisticated analysis of the relationship between religiosity and homophobia and could change the picture that we have at this point. We consider this task a priority for further analysis.

The next blog post in this series will discuss the influence of education and liberal values on homophobic attitudes among Tbilisi residents.