Think Tanks in Armenia: Who Needs their Thinking?
By Yevgenya Jenny Paturyan
What does the think tank landscape look like in Armenia?
First of all, the term itself remains an alien catchword that has not taken root (and, frankly, perhaps it should not). Translated into Armenian (ուղեղաին կենտրոն) it sounds utterly ridiculous. Of the 11 Armenian think tanks mentioned by name in the Global Go Think Tanks Index Report 2014, in fact, only one describes itself as a think tank (in English, but not in Armenian). Some organizations prefer to call themselves research centers: a name that is easily translatable into Armenian. Others have broader descriptions corresponding to their general mandate (“an academic bridge between diaspora [sic] and native Armenian scholars” or a “non-governmental organization … which aims to assist and promote the establishment of a free and democratic society in Armenia”).
Taking a closer look at those 11 organizations (supposedly the top Armenian think tanks as ranked by external reviewers) is an interesting reality check. As the 21st century saying goes: if you are not online, you don’t exist. How do these 11 names fare in a Google search? The table below summarizes the results.
Table 1. Online presence of Armenian entities mentioned by name in the Global Go Think Tanks Index Report 2014

*I did not search for a separate Armenian language web page. Instead, I simply noted if the main English web page has a link to an Armenian version
2. Do donors have a responsibility to share think tank outputs with the public in a language accessible to the public?
3. How can we ensure the quality of Armenian language outputs, given that the circle of potential peer-reviewers is so small?
While these questions are beyond the scope of this post and are not likely to have simple answers, they are worth deliberating. What’s your take on these issues? Share your insights by tweeting at us here.
The development of Azerbaijani think tanks and their role in public policy discourse
By Zaur Shiriyev
The lay of the land: An interview with Hans Gutbrod on think tanks in the South Caucasus
[Editor's note: This is the second in a series of blog posts co-published with On Think Tanks. The views expressed within this blog series are the authors alone, and do not represent the views of CRRC-Georgia.]Interview by Dustin Gilbreath
Thinking about think tanks in the South Caucasus
By: Dustin Gilbreath
What do CB interviewers’ ratings of respondents’ intelligence tell us?
Citizenship in action in the South Caucasus
Finding work in Armenia and Georgia
CRRC’s third annual Methodological Conference: Transformations in the South Caucasus and its Neighbourhood
Trust in institutions in the South Caucasus – generating a combined score
NGOs and the Georgian public's expectations
In the know about NGOs in Georgia
The CRRC’s 500th post and thoughts about the future of social research
Kundera revisited: Are Armenians longing to leave their country because of unhappiness?
ქალები საქართველოში და სექსი ქორწინებამდე
Voter Participation and Civic Engagement in Georgia and Armenia
This blog post draws upon official electoral statistics and public opinion survey data from the CRRC Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey to analyze expressions of civic engagement in Armenia and Georgia.Second Languages in the South Caucasus and Georgian Education Policy
Knowledge of Russian in Azerbaijan
Trust in Institutions in the South Caucasus
Smoking in the South Caucasus and tobacco policy in Azerbaijan
CRRC Methodological Conference on Measuring Social Inequality in the South Caucasus and its Neighborhood
When is a war not a war?
Friends and Enemies in the South Caucasus
In the South Caucasus, the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend
Emigration, Language, and Remittances in Georgia
Perceptions of Court System Fairness in the South Caucasus
Ann Bennett Lockwood, an American attorney, politician and author once said that, “If nations could only depend upon fair and impartial judgments in a world court of law, they would abandon the senseless, savage practice of war”. For many, the credibility of a government is judged by the fairness of itsjudicial system. For instance, Michel Rosenfeld (2001) argued that a fair justice system creates respect and faith in government by saying that, “If a citizen implicitly or explicitly endorses a law or legal regime, the latter can be considered subjectively fair.”Do Armenians Still View Integration with the EU as Part of a Positive-Sum Game?
On September 3rd 2013 Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan surprised many observers, including some in his own government, when he announced that Armenia would sign an agreement with Russia to join the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU) and spurn a long-negotiated Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union. The move has been dubbed a “U-Turn” as well as a “sudden shift in policy,” although it was predated by landmark Armenian-Russian agreements in 1997 and 2006.The recent history of the South Caucasus as seen by the world’s media – Part 1, Armenia and Azerbaijan
The recent history of the South Caucasus as seen by the world’s media - Part 2, Georgia
SME Performance in Georgia and Armenia: Part 1
SME Performance in Georgia and Armenia: Part 2
State capacity in the South Caucasus: How do you measure how much the state can do?
Do Think Tanks in Georgia Lobby for Foreign Powers?
By Till Bruckner
Common challenges, common solutions
By Dustin Gilbreath
Household income and consumption patterns in Georgia
Making energy matters matter: entering the electoral field
Democracy in Georgia
The French Senate Bill and Armenian Perceptions on Turkey
ETF Migration Survey in Armenia | Update
Nagorno-Karabakh: Prospects for a Difficult Reconciliation (Armenia)
Subtitling foreign films on Georgian TV? Thanks, but no thanks!
Armenia Civil Society Index | 2009 Findings
Spreading the News: File Sharing through Mobile Phones in Armenia
Conference Summary | "Building Turkish Awareness of Armenian Genocide"
By Ben BronsteinThe Caucasus Barometer 2010 Dataset Is Available!
Internet Penetration in Armenia
ODA – CRRC Data Analysis Online
If You Were Asked What Everyone Else Thought of Your Country...
Blood Donation in the South Caucasus: Refill, Please!
Conference on Social Protection and Social Inclusion in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
Foreign Policy Perceptions in Turkey | new TESEV report
Carnegie Research Fellowship Program | Winners Announced
Engagement without recognition?
Upswing of Transition in Georgia
Material Deprivation in the South Caucasus
Is the South Caucasus a homogenous region?
Migration from the South Caucasus
Armenian attitudes towards opening the border with Turkey
Fancy Living Abroad? 39% of Young Armenians Say "Preferably Forever"
Armenian Corruption Survey Retrospective | still relevant
Boy or Girl? Child Gender Preference in the South Caucasus
Georgia & Russia | Russian Analytical Digest
Women in Parliament: How Do Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan Compare to Other Countries?
Expanding on the topic of a previous blog, this post compares statistics on the number of women in national parliaments in the South Caucasus and other areas of the world. The countries of the South Caucasus rank low on women’s participation in parliament compared to many other countries.Gender imbalances | The South Caucasus on the top of the list
Abortion rates in the South Caucasus among the highest in the world
Caucasus Barometer | A New Name for the CRRC's Data Initiative
Post-Soviet States’ Democratic Decline: Results from Freedom House Report
Attitudes toward the West | Caucasus Analytical Digest
Respondent Evaluation | A Great Tool for Looking into Survey Interviews
Aleksey Hovakimyan on Rural & Economic Development in Armenia
The CRRC Georgia Team
These are the CRRC Georgia team members who work hard on the numbers we usually present!Armenia’s ranking in the World Governance Indicators
Is the Caucasus in Europe or Asia? | Tim Straight at TEDxYerevan
Will You Be My Friend? Gauging Perceptions of Interethnic Friendship in the South Caucasus
Forbidden Love: Attitudes Toward Interethnic Marriage in the South Caucasus
Small changes in corruption rates in the Caucasus
Friends Are Hard To Come By: Friendship Divides by Gender in Azerbaijan
Overcoming Negative Stereotypes in the South Caucasus
The Media in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Effective or Affective?
Policy Attitudes towards Women in Azerbaijan: Is Equality Part of the Agenda?
TI: Corruption Reigns Worldwide; Georgia Comes Out on Top
Why do so many Armenians leave Armenia?
The Global Broadband Speed Test
Bertelsmann Transformation Index | Using a New Interactive Tool to Analyze the Caucasus
Inflation in Armenia? | Lecture by IMF Representative
Book Review | The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict and Nationhood in the Caucasus | Christoph Zürcher
Brookings Index of Regime Weakness | State Rebuilding or State Collapse in the Caucasus | The Annals of Data
Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Performance | Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Meta-Index
Diaspora Internet Presence | Switzerland and Germany
Study of Economic Relations Between Georgia and Armenia
Religious practices across the South Caucasus | Take two
European Cup Craze : Who Supports Whom in the Caucasus?
Maths in Armenia | comparing through TIMSS
Diaspora Armenians in Armenian Society: the Problem of Adaptation
PFA Report on “Armenia’s 2008 Presidential Election”
Caucasus Data: Tolerance towards Others
Cuil for the Caucasus? A quick test!
Russian-Georgian Relations | Alex Rondeli on July 29
What do Russians think about the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? -- Data Snapshot
No Adult Male Role Models: Distorting Armenian Male Teenager’s View of Masculinity
Polling Data on Turkish-Armenian Bilateral Relations
South Caucasus Data 2007 on Unemployment
Policy Think Tanks | A Skeptical Assessment
McCain vs Obama: Caucasus preferences
Restructuring Schools in Armenian Neighborhoods: Does Social Capital Matter?
World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index | a few surprises
Math and Science in the South Caucasus | TIMSS 2007
Caucasus Election Programs in the 1990s
History vs Public Policy
Snapshots on Attitudes towards Education
Financial Sector Snapshot - Armenia
A special issue of the Armenian Journal of Public Policy (published by AIPRG, with CRRC's Heghine Manasyan as one of the Editors) is devoted to Financial Sector Development. All the papers are engaging for non-specialists.Reproductive Health in the Caucasus
Student Migration from the South Caucasus
Snapshot: Border Crossing Armenia-Georgia
Labor Dynamics in Armenia | Youth Unemployment
The Dynamics of Diaspora Investment in Armenia
Schoolchildrens' Attitudes in Armenia: What Kind of Impact Has Civic Education Had?
International Survey of Think Tanks | Zilch in the Caucasus
The Foreign Policy Research Institute does an international survey of think tanks. Apparently they mailed 3,025 surveys to 126 countries. Of these, 817 responded in 96 countries."The Economic Dynamics of the Countries of the South Caucasus"
Civil Society in Post-Soviet Armenia
The study and analysis of civil society and civic participation is a fundamental way of better understanding a region and its processes of development and democratization. Researcher Babken Babajanian has studied civil society and civic participation in post-Soviet Armenia.Prioritizing the personal: People talk more about personal issues than political events
In general people are primarily interested in their own lives, rather than in social or political events. In other words, social and political events will, most probably, be overshadowed by events in one’s personal life. CRRC’s 2015 Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey data provides more detailed insights on this. In this blog post, we compare answers to two CB questions: “When you get together with your close relatives and friends, how often do you discuss each other’s private problems?” and “When you get together with your friends and close relatives, how often do you discuss politics / current affairs?” in Armenia and Georgia.Taking partly free voters seriously: autocratic response to voter preferences in Armenia and Georgia
Do voters in less than democratic contexts matter or are elections simply facades used to create a veneer of democratic accountability for domestic and international actors? Within the Autocratic Response to Voter Preferences in Armenia and Georgia project, funded by Academic Swiss Caucasus Net, CRRC-Georgia and CRRC-Armenia aimed to help answer this question, at least for Georgia and Armenia. On October 27, Caucasus Survey published the results of the project in a special issue, available here.Are Georgians as tolerant as they claim to be?
On 15 November, the Ministry of Culture announced it would give ‘Georgian tolerance’ the status of intangible cultural heritage. Historically, Georgia may have exhibited relatively high levels of tolerance, with many pointing to the reign of King David the Builder in the 12th century. David is celebrated for presiding over the start of the country’s golden age, and many point to his encouragement of other ethnicities settling in Georgia as a good example of Georgian tolerance.რა ფაქტორები უწყობს ხელს კარგი სამსახურის შოვნას? მოსაზრებები სომხეთსა და საქართველოში
რა ფაქტორები უწყობს ხელს კარგი სამსხურის შოვნას? ეს კითხვა მთელ მსოფლიოშია მნიშვნელოვანი, განსაკუთრებით კი ქვეყნებში, სადაც მაღალი გაცხადებული უმუშევრობაა. სომხეთი და საქართველო ასეთი ქვეყნების რიცხვს მიეკუთვნება. იმის გასაგებად, თუ სინამდვილეში რა ეხმარება ადამიანებს კარგი სამსახურის პოვნაში, საჭიროა კონკრეტულ ქვეყნებში შრომითი ბაზრის სიღრმისეული კვლევა. თუმცა, აგრეთვე საინტერესოა ხალხის მოსაზრებები ამ საკითხთან დაკავშირებით. CRRC-ის 2017 წლის კავკასიის ბარომეტრის კვლევის ფარგლებში მოსახლეობას სომხეთსა და საქართველოში ჰკითხეს, თუ რა ფაქტორებია მნიშვნელოვანი კარგი სამსახურის საშოვნელად მათ ქვეყნებში.Which foreign language should children learn in schools in Georgia?
Since Georgia is a small country with a language that people outside the country rarely know, it is not surprising that people in Georgia want their children to know a foreign language. CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey has regularly asked about a foreign language which, in people’s opinion, should be mandatory in secondary schools in Georgia. Since 2009, a majority of people in Georgia have named English as such foreign language, followed, with a large gap, by the Russian language. Other languages were named by less than 2% of the population and less than 10% said that no foreign language should be mandatory.During Sargsyan’s incumbency, dissatisfaction with government grew and support for protest increased
Serzh Sargsyan, formerly the President and then Prime Minister of Armenia, resigned from office on April 23rd, 2018, following 11 days of peaceful protest. Over the past 10 years, which coincide with Sargsyan’s time in office, Armenians were increasingly dissatisfied with their government. At the same time, the country witnessed growing civic engagement, with “youth-driven, social media-powered, issue-specific civic activism,” referred to as “civic initiatives”. CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer data from 2008 to 2017 reflect both these trends.Willingness to temporarily emigrate from Armenia and Georgia: Does fatalism matter?
Scholarship points to a number of factors that contribute to an individual’s willingness to emigrate, either on a temporary or permanent basis. Political, economic, and social conditions are all important variables in the emigration equation. This blog post uses data from CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey to see whether or not people who express a willingness to temporarily emigrate from Armenia and Georgia differ from others in terms of the reported belief that people shape their fate themselves. Those who believe so may be more inclined to consider actions such as temporary emigration.Five data points about homophobia in Georgia five years after the IDAHOT riot
Five years ago, on May 17, 2013 a homophobic riot took place in Tbilisi in response to a small LGBTQ rights demonstration on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. Thousands of protestors, including frocked priests, chased the demonstrators through the streets of Tbilisi as police struggled (some say facilely) to protect the demonstrators from violence. In the time since, LGBTQ rights have remained on the agenda in Georgia, with an anti-discrimination law passed in 2014, which gives some protection to LGBTQ people, and the first openly homosexual candidate running for office in the 2017 local elections. Despite this progress, homophobic and transphobic violence still occurs in the country (for example, see here, here, and here). Five years after the events of May 17, 2013, this article presents five findings from CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey about homophobia in Georgia.Willingness to temporarily emigrate from Armenia and Georgia: Does education matter?
A previous CRRC blog post showed how people’s willingness to temporarily emigrate from Armenia and Georgia varied according to their belief in whether everything in life is determined by fate or people shape their fate themselves. The blog post concluded that compared to people who are not interested in temporary emigration from these countries, those who are tended to believe slightly more often that people shape their fate themselves.Do people in Georgia see the government as a parent or as an employee?
Based on CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey data, this blog post describes how people in Georgia see the government, as a “parent” or as an “employee”, and how this differs by settlement type, gender, and education level.The Caucasus Barometer survey regularly asks people, “Which of the following statements do you agree with: “‘People are like children; the government should take care of them like a parent’ or ‘Government is like an employee; the people should be the bosses who control the government.’” Approximately half of the population of Georgia (52%) agreed in 2017 with the former statement and 40% with the latter. Responses to this question have fluctuated to some extent over time, but overall, attitudes are nearly equally split.
Georgian language proficiency and perceptions of government performance among minorities in Georgia
Integration of ethnic minorities into Georgian society is a significant challenge. As a result of ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis’ linguistic separation from ethnic Georgian compatriots, some research suggests their ability to participate in government has been low. Indeed, programming aimed at minority integration in Georgia often focuses on language skills. But, the question remains, how do ethnic minorities that are proficient in Georgian perceive the government? The April 2019 CRRC and NDI data suggest that, while ethnic Armenians that speak Georgian at an advanced level have worse attitudes towards government performance in Georgia, ethnic Azerbaijanis that speak Georgian at an advanced level have better attitudes.Young people are learning English in Georgia
A common sentiment when discussing foreign languages in Georgia is that young people know some English, older people know Russian, and those in between are mixed. Previous CRRC Georgia analysis from 2014 supported this claim, showing that knowledge of English was on the rise among young people. The 2019 survey on Knowledge and Attitudes towards the European Union in Georgia which CRRC Georgia carried out for Europe Foundation suggests that this trend is continuing in Georgia.აღწერაში დაკარგულები: მეგრული და სვანური ენები საქართველოში გაქრობის საფრთხის ქვეშ არიან
21 თებერვალს საქართველო მშობლიური ენის დღეს აღნიშნავს, თარიღს, რომელიც იუნესკომ „ლინგვისტური და კულტურული მრავალფეროვნებისა და მრავალენოვნების ხელშეწყობის“ მიზნით დააწესა.
გახდნენ თუ არა ქართველები და სომხები უფრო მეტად ტოლერანტულები სხვა ეროვნების წარმომადგენლების მიმართ?
საქართველოსა და სომხეთში 2009 და 2019 წელს ჩატარებულ კვლევებში მოსახლეობას ეკითხებოდნენ, მოიწონებდნენ თუ არა საქმიან ურთიერთობას და ქორწინებას 12 სხვა ეროვნების წარმომადგენელთან. საინტერესოა, რა გამოავლინა კვლევამ. არიან თუ არა ქართველები და სომხები მეტად ტოლერანტულები სხვა ეროვნების წარმომადგენლების მიმართ?
„კავკასიის ბარომეტრის“ მონაცემების მიხედვით, ქართველები და სომხები უფრო ტოლერანტული არიან სხვა ეროვნების წარმომადგენლებთან საქმიანი ურთიერთობის ქონის მიმართ და საკმაოდ მკაცრი, თუკი საქმე სხვა ეროვნების ადამიანთან ქორწინებას ეხება.
War in Nagorno-Karabakh went unnoticed for a quarter of Georgians
The recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of tens of thousands. Yet despite there being a brutal war near its borders, many in Georgia were unaware of the conflict.
Data from the Caucasus Barometer survey indicate that awareness of the conflict’s existence increased shortly after the war in 2020 compared to 2013, but only slightly. In 2013, when the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was ‘frozen’, 66% of Georgians reported they had heard of it. Around a third of the population was not aware of it. In December of 2020, shortly after the 44-day long war, 74% of Georgians reported they had heard of it. A whole quarter (26%) of the population, meanwhile, was not aware of military operations between the country’s two direct neighbours.