The 2010 World Giving Index

By David McArdle

In recent weeks, CRRC have focused on levels of happiness and satisfaction in the Caucasus. In line with this theme, the World Giving Index 2010 (WGI) has released their latest figures, which they hope will act as a marker of cohesiveness in a society.

Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) published the WGI report, discussing how they believe that almost all countries, cultures and faiths have their own traditions of giving which are complex and shaped by their history, customs and religion.

The report finds that the association between happiness and giving is greater than that of national GDP, or wealth, and giving. Perhaps the level of giving in a country speaks to the strength of its civil society – the extent to which individuals are willing and able to contribute towards addressing the needs of others both in their own localities and across borders.

The results of the WGI placed Australasian neighbours Australia and New Zealand in the top two positions, respectively. As for the Caucasus countries, Azerbaijan was placed as the top country in the Caucasus with regard to giving, ranked 67th out of the 153 countries listed on the WGI, sharing its spot with Botswana, Mongolia, Mexico and Mauritius.



Meanwhile, Armenia was 115th and shared its ranking with El Salvador, Ecuador and Latvia.

Finally, Georgia was situated at a rather low 134th, joined alongside India, Turkey and Cote D’Ivoire (and please refer to the Index’s methodology section for an insight into how ‘giving’ is defined. For instance, the Index regards the term ‘giving’ as not exclusively connected with the donation of monies).



For access to the colourful and accessible report in full, please follow the link to CAF’s site. We’d like to thank Jonathan K. for drawing our attention to this.

Winners of the First Stage of the Junior Research Fellowship Program-Azerbaijan Announced

In August 2010, the Fellowship Selection Committee of the Junior Research Fellowship Program (JRFP)-Azerbaijan had the difficult task of selecting the three best policy papers submitted by program participants. The voting, which was held by secret ballot was extremely difficult because these three papers had minimum differences between scores. Thus, the distribution of the top three winners was unknown until the very last moment. CRRC-Azerbaijan is proud to present the winners of the JRFP policy paper competition: Aynur Ramazanova (first place), Shabnam Agayeva (second place) and Gulnar Mammadova (third place).

The competition for best policy paper was open to students or recent graduates of Azerbaijani Universities between the ages of 18 and24. Before working on their papers, participants were invited to become members of the CRRC Moodle Platform and to take two courses: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis and Academic Writing for Policy Analysis. These courses provided participants with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to successfully complete their papers. All of the projects conducted by students were remarkable and touched upon various significant social issues ranging from control over genetically modified products to e-government, and from programs for juvenile offenders to respiratory diseases among children.

The winner of the contest, Aynur Ramazanova, discussed the challenging issue of corruption in Azerbaijani Universities using Azerbaijan Medical Universities as her case study. Her findings indicate that 89.3% of students surveyed in the project had paid cash bribes at least once. Among the indicated causes of corruption were low teaching wages, a weak system of control over corruption in the higher education system, and the incompetence of management staff at universities. Results also found that students were often reluctant to learn and invest their energy into education since chances for a decent occupation on the labor market usually depend on the ability to pay bribe, rather than on their level of professionalism. The research also discusses the relationship between corruption and the general climate in society. When corruption and nepotism are a norm, students become socialized to it from early childhood. The author concludes that this negative socialization should be challenged through “positive propaganda” in the mass media and educational programs that will promote alternative values and show that corruption can easily suspend a country’s development.

The second place winner, Shabnam Agayeva, discussed the problem of inadequate services for survivors of marital physical abuse. She interviewed workers at NGOs that provide services for battered women. She also examined secondary sources to conclude that the absence of cooperation between key institutions such as hospitals, legal advice centers, crisis centers, shelters and police significantly hinders adequate responses to domestic violence. Therefore, the development of policy mechanisms to address this must be considered.

The third winner, Gulnar Mammadova, discussed the issue of education in her paper “Challenges of General Secondary Education at Public Schools in Azerbaijan: How to Turn the ’Quality of Reality’ into the ‘Reality of Quality’?” In her paper, Gulnar recommends expanding the size of public financing in education and ensuring effective budget distribution in order to confront important issues such as poor quality schooling in Azerbaijan.

The winners of this competition will be awarded iPods and the other participants of the JRFP competition will be awarded book vouchers. These are only the results of the first stage of the JRFP program. We anticipate many more interesting and challenging projects from our participants in the next two stages. The program will conclude in June 2011 with a conference where participants will publicly present their research projects.

The Junior Research Fellowship Program is implemented by CRRC office in Azerbaijan and was made possible with the generous support of the Open Society Institute, Think Tank Fund.

Aleksey Hovakimyan on Rural & Economic Development in Armenia

While writing his PhD, Aleksey Hovakimyan was a regular user of CRRC-Armenia, often working in the computer lab or the library. We therefore were delighted to hear that his PhD thesis has now been published, and wanted to support him in spreading the word of his book's release.

Hovakimyan's book, Rural Clusters and Structural Transformation: An Exploratory Case Study in Armenia, concerns the change in the structure of an economy as an important process for long-term development. This key process, called structural transformation, reflects the change in the contribution of the agriculture, industry and service sectors within the national economy.

The book also examines the cluster concept, which is generally a geographic concept from regional economics and economic geography. Since its origin, the cluster concept mostly refers to the industry sector, and very little academic literature directly ties structural transformation to rural cluster formation in developing countries. Hovakimyan's work, therefore, tries to do so through an exploratory case study of Armenia, and examines three dimensions: space (cluster concept), time (structural transformation) and levels of change (from national to household level).

The book also provides an overview of relevant theories and approaches, as well as the case analysis helpful to understand the economic behaviour/choice of rural households within the realities of developing countries which have various gaps and shortcomings in infrastructure and institutions.

This work should be especially useful to students, development researchers and practitioners, or anyone else who is interested in rural and economic development. For more information and to purchase the book, go here.

Googling the Application Address

One of the bugbears of announcing a new position is that you get plenty of application spam. Many of the people have barely read the announcement, and blast out an e-mail attaching their CV, sometimes copying three of four other firms into the e-mail. A vacancy can generate 60 to 70 applications, of which only 10 to 15 are relevant. While we go through them quickly, it is unproductive time, and it's even a little sad, looking at so much helplessness.

Now we are trying a new method, of hiding the e-mail address that we request applications to. Anyone qualified should be able to figure this out, and application-spammers (there must be a better term in there somewhere) are unlikely to make the effort.

Those of you familiar with Gmail will know that anything with a plus sign still arrives, if the previous word indicates an existing address. However, we can effectively filter the application, making sure that only those that got it right get a "For Review" label attached.
 

It is the typical spiral of technology providing solutions (ease of application), creating problems (quantity of applications), until we use the next countermeasure to increase thresholds. So far, no spam received.

Life Satisfaction in Armenia and Azerbaijan

By David McArdle & Jesse Tatum

After investigating what makes Georgians happy in a July blog based on data from the World Values Survey (WVS), we wondered how a similar analysis would look in Armenia and Azerbaijan. This time, using data from the 2008 European Values Survey (EVS) to compare the two, we found that, first, people claiming higher life satisfaction do not inevitably place a greater emphasis on religion in either country.

Second, the EVS data also showed that higher job satisfaction was said to be more essential by those satisfied with life in Azerbaijan, and was even more so the case in Armenia. Next, being in good health was more significant for the Armenians satisfied with life than for the Azerbaijanis in the same category. Finally, high rates of life satisfaction and of happiness, as observed in the WVS results for Georgia, simply do not always mirror each other. In short, Armenians and Azerbaijanis can be satisfied without being completely happy.

Religion

The data revealed that those Armenians and Azerbaijanis completely satisfied with life do not always place the highest importance upon religion. In Armenia, of those who are ‘completely satisfied’ with life, 33% value religion as ‘very important’. However, of those who list themselves as ‘completely dissatisfied’ with life, a slightly higher value of 36% rate religion as ‘very important’. Thus in Armenia, according to the figures, religion is as much associated with life dissatisfaction as it is with life satisfaction.



Similar to Armenia, slightly more than a quarter (26%) of Azerbaijanis who are completely satisfied in life also say that religion is very important. On the other hand, a slightly higher percentage (30%) of those who are completely satisfied claim that religion is ‘not important’ in life. Furthermore, of those who assert that they are completely dissatisfied in life, fully 45% say that religion is ‘very important’. There are obviously factors other than religion which tend to lead to life satisfaction in both countries, and these results stand contrary to the WVS data for Georgia, where everyone, regardless of life satisfaction, appeared to place importance on religion.



Job satisfaction

In Azerbaijan, the data showed a possible connection between high life satisfaction and high job satisfaction. Taking into account only those who said they were employed, 53% of those completely satisfied with their lives chose between 8 and 10 on the ten-point job satisfaction scale where ‘10’ denotes complete job satisfaction.

In Armenia, a similar association between higher life and job satisfaction was observed. In all, 50% of those completely satisfied with life who said they are employed chose 8–10 on the same job satisfaction scale. In addition, 61% of Armenians completely dissatisfied with life and employment chose 1–3 on the scale, the three lowest choices, where ‘1’ equals complete dissatisfaction with one’s job.


Health

Health was arguably a noteworthy factor for overall life satisfaction in Armenia. Seventy-five percent of those completely satisfied with life also judged their health to be either ‘very good’ or ‘good’. Moreover, only 5% of those completely satisfied with life deemed their health ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

However, even for those Armenians completely dissatisfied with life there are still 28% who rate their health to be ‘very good’ or ‘good’, while 39% judge their health to be ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. Thus, though the data highlights that perceptions of health might influence the degree of overall life satisfaction, it does not necessarily affect life dissatisfaction.



In contrast with Armenia, being in good health appeared to play less of a role for those Azerbaijanis completely satisfied in life, 43% of which either see themselves to be in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health. Still, 10% completely satisfied with life rate their health as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. Furthermore, 52% of those completely dissatisfied with life actually remarked that their health is ‘very good’ or ‘good’. According to these results, health as a determining factor ranks much lower for Azerbaijanis than job satisfaction does, for instance, in being potentially associated with satisfaction in life.



Happiness

According to the data, for Azerbaijanis, higher levels of happiness did not seem to be associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. In fact, more who said that they were dissatisfied with life still claimed to be ‘very happy’ (18%) than did those who are satisfied with life (7%). As was the case with Georgians, perhaps happiness and life satisfaction are two separate concepts which need not necessarily run parallel to each other.



In Armenia the data show that the greater their life satisfaction, the more the respondents in Armenia said that they are ‘very happy’. In all, 90% who are completely satisfied in life indicate that they are ‘very’ or ‘quite’ happy. Still, 58% of those who are dissatisfied with life also ranked themselves ‘very’ or ‘quite’ happy, which, as with Armenia’s neighbors, may mean that there is more in life that drives levels of happiness upwards.



Conclusion

Data from both the WVS and EVS surveys are extensive and expose nuances which highlight some fascinating differences between the three states of the South Caucasus. Why is religion so important in Georgia regardless of life satisfaction and not so for those respondents in Armenia and Azerbaijan? Why is happiness not proportionally bound with life satisfaction in all three nations? Why do the Armenians polled greatly value health when judging overall life satisfaction in contrast to the Azerbaijanis who do not equate good health with overall life satisfaction? Interested in finding out more? The EVS online data analysis is available here, and the WVS here.

New Associate Regional Director at CRRC

I am excited to be the new Associate Regional Director at CRRC and to work with a staff dedicated to constantly improving the quality of data from the South Caucasus. I aim to promote new social science research and to ensure a vibrant and local research community in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

I am a California native who specializes in comparative politics, post-communist politics and both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. A few of my academic interests include nationalism and the intersection of politics and religion, especially in the post-Soviet region. My current research focuses on secular regimes and state engagement with religion in post-Soviet Eurasia.

My journey in the post-Soviet region began in 1999 when I first visited Irkutsk, Russia in Eastern Siberia as a participant in an environmental exchange program (The Tahoe-Baikal Institute). I lived with a Buryat family that summer and began to study the political history of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and the 15 post-Soviet countries. In the following years, I traveled or worked throughout Western Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (as well as much of Eastern Europe and many other parts of the world).

I was able to combine my persistent interest with this region with the political and methodological training that I had received at the University of California, Berkeley where I am a current Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science and where I completed my second Master's degree in 2005. I also earned a M.A. in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the European University of St. Petersburg, Russia in 2003 and a B.A. at the University of California, Davis where I studied Russian and Mathematics. This prior training also contributed to my combination of area studies and methodological knowledge that I hope to employ at CRRC.

As Associate Regional Director, I will endeavor to strengthen the quality of social science research and publications, as well as public policy analysis in the region. I also look forward to working with the CRRC team in all three countries, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, local community members, and various organizations that are also enthusiastic about and committed to our vision.

CRRC's Media-Monitoring Project: TV Coverage of the Election Campaigns

How do the Georgian media frame political information for its viewers? This was an especially relevant question during the lead-up to the May 30th local elections, and a subject of much public debate. To add greater insight to this debate, CRRC-Georgia, at the UNDP and European Delegation’s request, carried out a media-monitoring project of Georgia’s six major television channels.

Five weeks before and one week after the May 30th local government and Tbilisi mayoral elections, CRRC monitored the six TV channels – the Georgian Public Broadcaster, Rustavi 2, Kavkasia, Maestro, Imedi, and Real TV – and produced a media-monitoring report comprising of quantitative and qualitative elements.

In the quantitative section, factors such as the tone of coverage of each candidate and party, and the ratio of direct and indirect speech for candidates within the allocated time were measured. Meanwhile, in the qualitative part, components such as hidden advertisements, objective vs. neutral coverage, and black public relations were evaluated, among others.

Full access to both the quantitative results and the final report can be found on the UNDP’s website.

Ask CRRC: what does the public actually know?

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center showing that 18% of Americans think that US President Barack Obama is Muslim, and that a further 43% respond that they don't know what religion the President practices, has raised discussions about the level of political knowledge in democracies. Indeed, Newsweek has published a slideshow showing dumb things that Americans believe.

How do Georgians fare by comparison? Actually, Georgians seem remarkably well informed. In late 2007, in the run-up to the Presidential Elections, Jonathan K. suggested to us to include some questions in our pre-election survey (the entire effort was done in seven days, so even the slides don't quite match the standards we have today). As you can see, we had about 15% of respondents getting questions of national importance wrong. However, many respondents were willing to confess that they "don't know" the right answer, a healthy attitude we have also seen in other surveys.

Political knowledge 2007

View more presentations from crrccenters.

We know that public opinion is imprecise once we get into details: try and find out how Georgians look at detailed constitutional arrangements (sharing tax revenue between central and local government, Presidential versus Parliamentary system, that type of stuff) and you get the expression of a general desire for balance. Many respondents can't necessarily keep the Council of Europe and the European Union apart, but this is hardly surprising. Also, back when this was a topic, respondents struggled to distinguish NATO membership from the Membership Action Plan. In the end, we did find Georgian respondents so informed that we stopped asking knowledge questions.

According to more a survey conducted in October 2009, Georgians don't think that it's the bigger national and international issues they are not informed about.

It's things that happen in the other part of town that the media doesn't cover sufficiently.

Note one important difference between these opinion surveys: the American polls mostly are conducted on the phone, and may have a bored respondent paying insufficient attention. Moreover, the polls with surprising results capture a disproportionate amount of the attention. So one should not overstate the US results. The Georgian surveys are conducted face-to-face, and respondents are more likely to struggle to find the right answer. 

More questions? Let us know.

Ask CRRC!

When presenting our work, or talking about it informally, we are asked fairly similar questions: do you do your interviewing in all of the country? How do you select the respondents? How do you know they are not lying to you? Are people willing to say things critical of the government? How do you design a questionnaire?

These are extremely important questions, because they will influence whether you can take our survey results at face value. As mentioned in the last post, we have decided to give you more regular updates on what we do, and how we do it.

This, too, was another lesson we learned from our favorite role models, the Pew Research Centers. They have a specific section called "Ask the Expert", pictured below.

What, then, has always puzzled you about survey research? Let us know, either through the comments or by writing an e-mail. We will, eventually, make this information available in the local languages as well. Your input will help us identify the questions people have.

So, what questions do you have for us?

More News & Numbers from CRRC

Over the last few weeks and months, we have regularly posted updates about what's going on, and where we stumbled on information we thought was interesting. We think these are useful contributions: small snippets, searchable, easy to find through Google, and a way for us at CRRC to think about synthesizing complex research into a handful of paragraphs. Note some of the emerging themes, such as the question of life satisfaction.

What we have done less systematically is to give you a glimpse about what's going on within CRRC. We will change that, by giving you more updates on work we are doing, people we are working with, and what they're doing. We also want to use this opportunity to set out more clearly why we think that the work we're doing is important, and is a good model of development. For us, it's not one project after another, although it may sometimes feel that way. There's a rationale that we would like to share with a broader audience.

Senator Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Essentially, what CRRC seeks to contribute is facts, so that people can have more than just an opinion. That, in a nutshell, is what quality research in a transition context should be about.

Put us into your CSS feed for more regular updates, and consider subscribing to our new e-bulletin, relaunched as News & Numbers from CRRC. You find details here.

Internet Cables to the Caucasus

If you ever wondered how the Caucasus is connected via underwater Internet cables, here is your answer (via James Fallows).

The site is Greg's Cable Map, and it allows you to explore particular cables interactively. Apparently, Georgia and Russia are connected via a cable running to Sochi. No cable is running across the Caspian yet. If anyone has any idea how up-to-date these maps are, let us know.

A Love of the unknown, South Caucasians' attitudes to the EU

By Laurène Aubert

In May 2009 the EU launched the Eastern Partnership – the Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy – showing its intention to cooperate more closely with the South Caucasus (SC). EU officials expressed their support for this initiative, convinced that the SC is as enthusiastic about it as they are. The data collected by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) show that the EU will indeed have an enthusiastic population with which to work; however they also seem to lack information about the EU.

The enthusiasm of the South Caucasus populations has been exposed by the results of a CRRC survey conducted in 2007 which revealed that, overall, 78 percent of the people in South Caucasus were in favour of economic cooperation with the EU, this percentage reaches 84 in Georgia when it remains close to 70 in Armenian and Azerbaijan.

Should /country/ cooperate economically with the EU? (%) 2007 CB

The South Caucasus population is also supportive of more political cooperation with the EU (78 percent) and here again the support is more important in Georgia (85) than in Armenia (71 percent) and Azerbaijan (73).

Should /country/ cooperate politically with the EU? (%) 2007 CB

However this enthusiasm towards the EU concealed a general lack of knowledge on the subject. According to the results of the Caucasus Barometer (CB) of 2009, 33 percent of the South Caucasians polled thought that they were an EU member. In all, 48 percent in Armenia contended that their country was an EU member. The regular discussions about EU membership made by the Georgian government might help to explain the greater awareness in this country.

Is your country a member of the European Union? 2009 CB

These results indicate a visible enthusiasm towards the EU, but also a lack of knowledge on the subject. This lack of information of the South Caucasians towards the EU is illustrated by other results of the 2009 CB. Respondents were asked about whether or not their country is a member of the “Organization for European Development”, which, in fact, does not exist. Nearly 47 percent of the respondents said that they did not know if their country was a member of the “Organization”, 29 percent said their country was a member, and 23 percent said that their country was not a member of this organization.

Is your country currently a member of the Organization for European Development? 2009 CB

The South Caucasians themselves recognize their lack of knowledge towards the EU. Indeed, when in 2008 a CRRC survey asked in the South Caucasus: “Using this CARD, where '1' means “Nothing at all” and '10' means “A great deal”, please tell me how much do you feel you know about the European Union, its policies, its institutions?”, almost 90 percent of the respondents were located from 1 to 5 on the scale.

How much do you feel you know about the European Union, its policies, its institutions?” 2008 CB

On the 15^th of July 2010, Catherine Ashton - High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy - declared in Georgia that “The Eastern Partnership we established last year has given new impetus to our efforts to create the closest possible links between the EU and its Eastern neighbours. However, the CRRC data prove that the EU already has the support of the population and now it should focus on telling them what they are actually supporting. On this path, the upcoming removal of the Special Representative to South Caucasus – Peter Semneby – and the strengthening of the EU Delegations made in the framework of the European External Action Service indicate a change in EU policy in South Caucasus. Will this change be sufficient to bring the EU to the level of the South Caucasians is a major question for the future of SC-EU relations.

For all the information on the data, you can have a look at CRRC website

This post is also available at CRRC-Armenia blog

Religious Service Attendance: An ESS/CB Snapshot

By David McArdle

Earlier this week, The Economist pointed out some data from the 2008 European Social Survey (ESS) on attendance at religious services across Europe. Collating the answers on attendance from 28 countries in order to ascertain one aspect of religious observance, the results showed that the Czech Republic had the highest percentage of people who said they never attend services, apart from special occasions such as weddings and funerals.

Using the 2009 CB data, which has the same question on attendance, we included the countries of the south Caucasus to see how they fit vis-à-vis their European counterparts. Georgia is the country in the south Caucasus with the fewest people who say they never attend services (11 percent). Georgia, therefore, was fourth in the list behind Cyprus, Greece (both predominantly Greek Orthodox), and Poland (almost exclusively Roman Catholic).

Next came Armenia (21 percent) and then Azerbaijan (29 percent), with more moderate levels of religious service attendance. As shown on the graph below, Armenia’s figure was just below Turkey’s, while Azerbaijan’s was closer to Estonia’s.



While this is just one way to measure religious observance, it offers a glimpse of how people are practicing throughout Europe. The ESS has much data to discover, which can be done using its easy-to-use format, available here. Meanwhile, our own Caucasus Barometer also has similar questions, on rates of fasting (2009) and prayer (2007), for instance. For more information on these, get in touch with us, or explore the data on our interface here. Finally, to check out The Economist's article, go here.

Life Satisfaction: Denmark, Georgia & Moldova Compared

By David McArdle & Jesse Tatum

On a roll with the life satisfaction comparisons, we were curious to place Georgia within a broader context. Using the 2006 Life Satisfaction Index (LSI), which uses subjective well-being indicators to measure people’s levels of life satisfaction and happiness, we chose Denmark, ranked the ‘happiest’ country on earth, and Moldova, the post-Soviet state considered the least happy, as the respective benchmarks (see Table 2, an abridged version of the LSI at the end of this post). Then, with data from the 2008 European Values Survey (EVS) we were able to analyze in greater depth any observations which may or may not pertain to greater life satisfaction with regard to the three divergent states.

Firstly, the EVS shows that far more Danes claim to be completely satisfied with life compared with Georgians and Moldovans. The raw numbers themselves are telling: in all, nearly 30 percent of the Danes polled claimed to be completely satisfied with life. Secondly, the EVS data revealed that over twice as many Moldovans than Georgians claimed complete life satisfaction (186 vs. 79; see Table 1). These numbers are fascinating all the more so because Moldova is ranked marginally lower on the LSI than Georgia.



For the large number of Danes completely satisfied with life, factors such as life control, stated happiness, health and national pride seem to play a more determining role compared with those completely satisfied with life in Georgia and in Moldova. The number of those who ranked religion as very important, however, did not rise with increased satisfaction.

Similar to Denmark, those completely satisfied with life in Moldova also indicated that they are more in control of life and happier compared with respondents in Georgia. The importance of religion was, as in Denmark, less acute than in Georgia.

Life Control, aka ‘agency’

It is in ‘happy’ Denmark but also, surprisingly, in ‘unhappy’ Moldova where the respondents completely satisfied in life also more often stated that they have greater control over their lives. In Georgia, however, those who are completely satisfied with life did not answer that they are also in control of it with the same frequency as in the other two countries. Feeling in control of life, then, seems to play less of a role in Georgia in terms of life satisfaction than it does in the world’s happiest country and in the least happy post-Soviet state.

In Denmark a clear majority of 72 percent of those fully satisfied with life chose marks 8–10 on the scale where ‘10’ equals complete control over one’s life. In fact, in further confirming the recent label of ‘world’s happiest’, only 25 of all the Danes polled said they were completely dissatisfied with life.

With Moldova the case for greater life control and greater life satisfaction commingling is almost as clear as in Denmark. Though far fewer people overall indicated total life satisfaction, fully 62 percent of the satisfied respondents said that they also had a great degree of control over their life. At least in Denmark and Moldova, perhaps being in control of life may help to steer one’s perceptions of life satisfaction in a positive direction.

Compared with both Denmark and Moldova, life control appears to be less of a factor in leading Georgians to higher levels of assessed life satisfaction. For example, nearly the same percentage of the respondents fully satisfied with life and those completely dissatisfied with life said they have a great deal of control over their life (38 percent vs. 36 percent).

Happiness

As was duly noted in the previous blogs, the South Caucasus respondents’ answers on life satisfaction and on subjective happiness generally are not parallel. People say that they can be happy without being satisfied in life, and vice versa. But the EVS figures on Denmark appear to buck this trend, as satisfied Danes are also happy Danes. In all, 75 percent of those completely satisfied with life also asserted to be ‘very happy’.

In Moldova, too, people completely satisfied with life also answered that they were ‘very’ or ‘quite happy’ (28 percent and 63 percent, respectively). In fact, the answer patterns of Moldovans satisfied in life rose accordingly with levels of greater happiness, revealing that perhaps the two do complement each other in the country, in contrast with Georgia. In addition, this shows that although Danes are said to be happier than Moldovans in general, the responses follow a similar pattern: completely satisfied respondents in both countries also say that they have greater life control and are happier, compared with Georgia.



Health

Life satisfaction levels and health are factors which correlated strongly in the LSI study. Similarly, the EVS data reveals that this potential link is far more pronounced in Denmark than it is in Georgia and Moldova. In Denmark 58 percent of respondents who were completely satisfied with life said too that their health was ‘very good’.

In Moldova, however, of those who feel completely satisfied in life, only 11 percent replied that they were in ‘very good’ health. The majority of the respondents (72 percent) claimed to be in either ‘good’ or ‘fair’ health. What is more, 17 percent of those who were completely satisfied in life stated that they were either in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ health, a marginally higher number than those who considered their health to be ‘very good’.

In Georgia people with greater life satisfaction were less likely than their Danish counterparts to say they were in ‘very good’ health. For example, Georgians completely satisfied with life are more likely to be in ‘good’ (45 percent) than in ‘very good’ health (27 percent). Moreover, on the opposite end of life satisfaction, sizable numbers of Georgians completely dissatisfied with life said they were in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ health (27 percent and 17 percent, respectively), figures which were much higher than those in Denmark.

In short, according to the combination of the responses, health could possibly be associated with helping people to fend off dissatisfaction rather than acting to yield complete life satisfaction. In Denmark a stronger linkage can arguably be made whereby very good health equates with complete life satisfaction. However, this same link between greater health and greater life satisfaction is less evident from the responses in Georgia and Moldova, as even those completely satisfied with life are more likely to see themselves in fair health than in very good health.

Pride in one’s country

If judged by the answer patterns in the three countries, greater national pride sits alongside higher life satisfaction only in Denmark, where 61 percent completely satisfied with life also are ‘very proud’ of being a Danish citizen, whereas only 1 percent of those completely satisfied said they were ‘not at all proud’ of being a citizen. In Moldova, however, being ‘very proud’ of being a national citizen was far less important for life satisfaction levels. And in Georgia nearly all indicated that they are proud of being a Georgian citizen, even for those completely dissatisfied with life (71 percent). Similar to religion, for instance, these figures show that feelings of pride in one’s country can flourish without high levels of life satisfaction.

The figures in Moldova, a country divided, reveal that both those satisfied and those dissatisfied in life were lukewarm on the issue of national pride. Overall, more people said they were still ‘very proud’ (36 percent of those completely satisfied) than otherwise, but the figures were much lower than in Denmark and Georgia, with more people choosing the second option (‘quite proud’) and higher numbers selecting ‘not very proud’, compared with the other two countries.



Religion

The Georgians, whether satisfied or not, appear to cherish religion uniformly. Completely satisfied Danes, however, seem to answer in general consensus (51 percent) that religion is not as important irrespective of life satisfaction levels. Whilst the Moldovans, more often than not, responded that religion is quite important regardless, once again, of life satisfaction scores. In other words, the importance one places on religion appears to be a country-specific issue and does not tie in with overall life satisfaction levels.

Conclusion

Of course there are massive political, social, and economic differences between these three countries. But we wanted to use them here as benchmarks within Europe with which to compare Georgia, as one would in other major indices (e.g. TI’s Corruption Perceptions, the Big Mac, and the Human Development Indices). In the final analysis, however, the results are still fascinating and call for further research. For this, the EVS {HL} offers a supremely user-friendly interface with which one can explore the data sets to find other factors which may help to explain why some countries are happier than others.

Respondent Evaluation | A Great Tool for Looking into Survey Interviews

What are the patterns in how the respondents are rated by the interviewers? The relevance of this question is beyond doubt, as patterns in such ratings allow for an idea of the reliability of the data as well as for more general insights into the settings in which interviewers are gathering data. Relevant data has been gathered in the Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey for years, enabling us to analyze the impressions that interviewers have gained during their work in the South Caucasus.

One particularly interesting endeavour is to make comparisons between the perceptions of interviewers in the three countries – Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. In all three cases, interviewers were asked to evaluate issues affecting the interview such as levels of distraction, frequency of the need for clarifications, or the extent to which respondents were reluctant to answer questions. Perceptions of the personal characteristics of respondents, such as sincerity, comfort and interest, are also recorded. Patterns of interviewer’s ratings can subsequently be identified by looking at several of the measured variables. These also allow us to filter out interviews in which respondents were uncomfortable, or seemed insincere.

One first interesting finding is that interviewers in Azerbaijan seem to face more obstacles in the interviewing process when compared with their counterparts in Armenia or Georgia. More concretely, respondents in Azerbaijan are more frequently in need of clarifications of questions and also show more often a lack of knowledge on a certain subject. Only in slightly above 20 percent of the cases were the interviewers in Azerbaijan ‘never’ (i.e. not throughout the entire interview) confronted with such situations. By contrast, in the neighbouring countries, such instances comprise over 30 percent (see Figures 1 and 2). A comparison between Armenia and Georgia shows that inhabitants of Georgia seem to have difficulties in slightly fewer instances, and in particular appear more knowledgeable to the interviewers. (Interestingly, there is some evidence that respondents in all countries seem to face more difficulties in answering questions without clarifications in 2009 as compared to 2007-08, but this is yet another topic.)

Given the above findings, it is then arguably strange that Azerbaijani and Armenian respondents were labelled as "more comfortable" compared with the Georgian respondents (see Figure 3). In other words, although Georgians are perceived by their interviewers to have less trouble during the interview (as reflected in need of clarifications and lack of knowledge), this does not coincide with a more comfortable behaviour even if one might have expected that. However, in all three instances, there is a comparably low number of nervous respondents (slightly less than 10 percent), which suggests that nervousness is not a particularly serious problem in any of the surveys.

Finally, of the many interviewer ratings the CB includes, another remarkable one is the evaluation of interest and involvement. The first striking aspect here is that in all three countries, most respondents do not appear to be interested or involved during the interview. Moreover, Georgians are least interested/involved in the interview process (less than 30 percent were assessed as interested), whereas Azerbaijanis are the most interested (approximately 45 percent; see Figure 4). Armenian subjects are, as in the above cases, perceived to be somewhere in the middle (40 percent). Thus, while interviewers in Azerbaijan seem to be more often confronted with a lack of knowledge and confusion about questions, interviewers in Georgia more often come across higher levels of perceived disinterest and lack of comfort on the part of the their respondents.

 

To be sure, these ratings are done at the end of the interview, and we know that we cannot ask complex questions at this point anymore. Typically we've been talking for 45 minutes and have exhausted the patience of the respondent. Nevertheless, these findings remind us that we need to keep our questionnaires short.

While we know that particular wordings may lead to slightly different interpretations in different languages, the interviewer ratings give us a glimpse into what is going on, and thus help us improve the quality further. Survey work is nearly never perfect. It's a process of continuous improvement. Plenty of opportunities for researchers to analyze the data more closely.

The Public's View of Constitutional Reform in Georgia

The 2010 Georgian Constitutional Reform in the Eyes of the Public report is now available. As a product of the study commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and carried out by CRRC-Georgia, it presents the results of the opinion survey on constitutional and governance processes and their development in Georgia.

According to the main findings, the majority of Georgians have a general lack of awareness of their rights and of the institutions enshrined in the Constitution, and they do not feel that they have been fully consulted about the constitutional reform process. As such, the report calls for greater public engagement and confidence-building measures to be undertaken throughout the country.

The summarizing analysis is written in Georgian and in English (the latter starting on p. 16), and is followed by reader-friendly charts (pp. 25ff.) which greatly enhance the findings. To read the full report, click here.

The South Caucasus population asks for a stronger European Union

The results of the CRRC’s 2008 Caucasus Barometer (CB) reveal that the population of South Caucasus (SC) is in favour of the EU taking on a stronger foreign policy stance. The SC is considered a region as a whole here, as EU policy towards the SC arguably tends to adopt a regional approach. However, it must be said that Azerbaijan is slightly less enthusiastic about the EU overall than Armenia and Georgia (usually 10 points fewer), which each have very similar results.

The EU does not seem to be perceived as a credible military power and the disagreement about the Iraq war among EU member states is still weakening the image of a united EU. Indeed, 88 percent of the respondents think that the EU should have a rapid military reaction force and 92 percent of them estimate that the EU should agree on a unified stance towards a conflict when an international crisis occurs.



The EU should have a rapid military reaction force that can be sent quickly to trouble spots where an international crisis occurs



When an international crisis occurs, EU Member States should agree on a common position

The idea of a European common voice is furthermore promoted by 84 percent of the respondents who agree with the following statement: “the EU should have its own foreign minister who can be a spokesperson for a common EU position.”


The EU should have its own Foreign Minister who can be a spokesperson for a common EU position

The SC arguably supports an independent EU policy, as 87 percent of people are in favour of an EU seat at the UN Security Council. Surprisingly, 85 percent of the respondents consider that the EU should have an external policy independent of the US. This second statement seems staggering when most of the critics regarding the lack of the EU's commitment in the post-Soviet countries evoke the fear of the EU to be “seen by Russia as a 'geopolitical adversary'” (Halbach, “The EU fears being seen by Russia as a 'geopolitical adversary' in post-Soviet space”, Caucaz.com, 10 Sept. 2006).

The EU should have its own seat at the UN Security Council




EU foreign policy should be independent of US foreign policy

Generally speaking, the EU is seen as an ally rather than a threat by people in the SC. Indeed, according to the research done by the International Republican Institute in 2010 for Georgia and in 2008 for Armenia, 24 percent of the Georgians and 29 of the Armenians see the EU as a possible political or economic partners, compared with the 6 percent of Armenians and the 1 percent of Georgians who see the EU as the greatest political and economic threat. However, the EU might suffer to be seen as a weak ally compare to other international powers as Armenia still considers that Russia is its main partner in the region, Georgians ranks the US as their main partner and Azerbaijan historically sees Turkey as its first ally.












For all the information on the data, you can have a look at CRRC and IRI websites on
http://crrccenters.org/sda/
http://www.iri.org/explore-our-resources/public-opinion-research/public-opinion-polls#three .

This post is also available on CRRC-Armenia blog
http://crrcam.blogspot.com/

Attitudes toward the West | Caucasus Analytical Digest

Following an article on Georgians’ attitudes toward Russia, CRRC Fellows Therese Svensson and Julia Hon have written a new piece for CAD, entitled “Attitudes toward the West in the South Caucasus”. Their article looks at citizens’ views on three areas of relations — political, economic and cultural — between the South Caucasus and the West, in particular NATO, the US and the EU. The data were derived from the South Caucasus–wide 2007 and 2008 Data Initiatives (DI), as well as from the 2009 EU survey that was conducted in Georgia.

The article highlights several figures which show that citizens in the South Caucasus, and especially those in Georgia, are keen to cooperate with the West on economic and political levels. For example, on a ten-point scale — where '10' equals full cooperation and '1' is no cooperation — 80 percent of the Georgian respondents ranked their desire for economic cooperation with the U.S. in the top five categories, compared with 71 percent in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The percentages on potential NATO membership, by contrast, vary more widely in the three countries: while 42 percent in Georgia said they are fully in favor of membership, 21 percent said the same in Azerbaijan, and only 10 percent in Armenia.

But the most fascinating figures arise when the subject of cultural relationships comes up. Although citizens in the South Caucasus are open to friendship and doing business with citizens of the West, they seem less keen on Western cultural influences, which they view as potential threats to their own cultural identity and traditions. In all, 64 percent and 63 percent in Armenia and Azerbaijan, respectively, either strongly or somewhat agreed with a statement that "Western influence is a threat to [national] culture". Twenty-four percent in Georgia said the same, while 34 percent chose "neutral" as their answer.

Perhaps understanding exactly which elements of Western culture are seen to be threatening, and in what way, would be a topic of additional interest.

For the full article, go here.

What Makes Georgians Happy? Results from World Values Survey

By David McArdle

What makes Georgians satisfied with life? Religion, education, one’s financial situation, and levels of happiness are often assumed to be crucial in determining a person’s overall level of life satisfaction. Results yielded from the World Values Survey (WVS) reveal that religion does indeed play an important role vis-à-vis life satisfaction while levels of education, financial situations, and levels of individual happiness, do so as well, but to a lesser extent.

Religion is of paramount importance across Georgia. For instance, a staggering 94 percent of those who claimed to be completely satisfied in life felt that religion was ‘very important’. Yet, those respondents who were completely unsatisfied with life as a whole displayed less emphasis on the prevalence of religion as a significantly lower 76 percent judged religion to be ‘very important’.

A university education also slightly increases the chances of life satisfaction as a whole as 42 percent of those respondents who claimed complete life satisfaction had obtained a university-level education. Interestingly, however, 31 percent of respondents who asserted to be completely dissatisfied in life satisfaction also had a university-level education. The majority of those who stated they were completely dissatisfied in life as a whole were respondents whose education reached complete secondary: university preparatory type education (33 percent) thus showing that whilst one might expect those with lower levels of education to have less life satisfaction, this is not always the case.



Perhaps Georgians do not always equate money with overall life satisfaction. With regard to the financial situation of the household, 23 percent of those completely satisfied in life as a whole were also completely satisfied with the financial situation of the household. Oddly, however, the most common response to this query given by those who were completely satisfied with life as a whole stated that they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the financial situation of the household. In other words, they appeared indifferent which suggests that the financial situation of the household is not a key factor in determining overall satisfaction in life.

In many cases, people who are satisfied with life also indicate that they are happy. Comparing overall life satisfaction with levels of happiness shows that fully 92 percent purport to be ‘very’ or ‘rather happy’. But life satisfaction and happiness are not always synonymous. Paradoxically, from those who claim to be completely dissatisfied in life, for instance, 32 percent still claim to be ‘very’ or ‘rather happy’. Georgians, hence, appear to find satisfaction in other forms rather than a conventional factor such as individual happiness, as 8 percent of those completely satisfied with life also say that they are not very happy. Further research on the aforementioned paradox may be beneficial for those interested in the region and/or on the topic of what factors provide overall life satisfaction for people.



Interested in finding out more? The Georgian data (collected by GORBI, sponsored with the help of CRRC) is available for your online analysis, here.

Post-Soviet States’ Democratic Decline: Results from Freedom House Report

Freedom House has just released its Nations in Transit report for the year 2010. The report attempts to quantify democratic development in Central European and Eurasian states by observing 8 separate factors – for instance, Electoral Process and National Democratic Governance - which affect the level of democracy in a given country. Each category is graded on a score of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level of democratic progress, and 7 representing the lowest. Much of the media attention has typically focused on Russia. The report concluded with a new low for Russia with regard to its democracy score (6.14) and an overall rapid decline in the last decade attributed mostly to the Putin’s extreme centralization policies. However, it is important to look too at the lack of progress being made in the South Caucasus countries and what this may mean for future democratic efforts in a region prevalent to Russia’s foreign policy goals. Of the South Caucasus countries, democratic development in Georgia and Armenia remained stagnant, while in Azerbaijan it deteriorated.

Armenia’s scores remained exactly the same as those in the previous year, having fluctuated up and down by half a point over the last decade. Of particular concern is the level of corruption in Armenia, which many Armenians claim as having a negative impact on their everyday lives. The corruption rating remained at 5.5 and down from a decade-long trend of 5.75. Similarly, ratings for the country’s electoral processes, national democratic governance, and judiciary remained the same as the year before. To view CRRC's reports on corruption in Armenia, please click here.

Georgia’s scores also remained the same as those in 2009. Of great concern is Georgia’s level of national democratic governance. Whilst the national democratic governance rating remains at an uncomfortable 6.0, the report notes that despite political unrest and demonstrations, both protestors and the government mostly refrained from violence, which had been a severe problem in previous years. As a result, it may be construed that Georgia is making certain attempts at progress in this realm.

In Azerbaijan democratic progress regressed somewhat from the previous year, particularly in the area of judicial independence. In the NIT report, the judiciary is characterized as dependent upon the executive branch, whose power it helped to expand by supporting the 2009 referendum on the constitution. It is also judged to be highly corrupt, inefficient, and that it provides no mechanism for human, property, or civil rights violations. Like Russia, overall democratic progress in Azerbaijan has steadily deteriorated over the last decade.

Each category measured by the report for Russia has experienced either a decrease in democratic scores or has remained the same. In other words, the report has found no signs of improvement in any of the 8 categories. The overall democracy score has slipped from 4.58 in 1999-2000 to an “abysmal” 6.14. Whilst Russia views the South Caucasus as within its sphere of influence it is clear that Russia can offer little in the way of guidance when democracy promotion is concerned.

To see other posts on this blog on previous Freedom House reports, please click here.