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Saturday | 18 February, 2012

Leaving Thoughts by British Political Officer in Georgia

David Gale, who had served as Political Officer at the British Embassy since 2007, recently wrote down some of his thoughts upon leaving Georgia, after covering a turbulent time. It was refreshing to read a direct and evenhanded take on a number of issues, from a diplomat who has been following events very closely.

One aspect we especially liked in David's reflections is that he repeatedly highlights polling, as a way of understanding the preferences of the Georgian electorate. To read David's thoughts click here.
03.05.2008 | Saturday

Exit Polls | Take Two

Readers may recall that we voiced some concern with regards to exit polls. Here is a fascinating account, first-hand, by a reputed pollster having what they describe as an "Adventure in Baku".
06.05.2008 | Tuesday

Diversity Polling on the Caucasus | Ask500

Sometimes it's worth clicking on those Gmail links. "Ask 500" is a website in beta, the web version of a straw poll. Polling? Surveys? Obviously I wanted to know more. To say it up front: it's about as unrepresentative as you can get, since it assembles those that suffer from terminal curiosity.
27.05.2008 | Tuesday

What do Georgian Troops Think about the Iraq War?

Recently, the Georgian Times published an article on a poll recently conducted by GORBI of Georgian Troops in Iraq. According to the article, this is the first poll conducted amongst these soldiers.
16.01.2017 | Monday

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

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.
11.11.2019 | Monday

Government employees assess the work of the government better than the general public

The outlook in Georgia continues to be increasingly pessimistic, with more people reporting that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Similarly, performance assessments of government institutions have been on the decline in recent years. As recent CRRC analyses have highlighted, party identification, attitudes towards individual politicians, ethnicity, and Georgian language proficiency among ethnic minorities are associated with attitudes towards government. Analysis of the July 2019 CRRC and NDI survey suggests that working for the state is also associated with performance assessments. However, government employees in poor households and those in Tbilisi rate government performance significantly worse.
09.12.2019 | Monday

Optimism Regarding EU membership is decreasing

Georgia is not a candidate for membership in the European Union (EU), but the government has the stated goal of joining the EU when the country is ready for it. According to the Knowledge of and Attitudes towards the EU in Georgia survey (EU Survey) CRRC-Georgia conducted in spring 2019 for Europe Foundation, 71% of the population of Georgia would vote for EU membership if a referendum were held tomorrow. Only 10% would vote against it and 7% would not vote at all. While support for joining the EU is clearly high, people are increasingly pessimistic about how long it will take Georgia to join.