Although 6% of the population of Georgia reported not knowing anything about public opinion polls in 2015, polls - especially those focused on political issues - have become a visible part of the political landscape of the country. However, decision makers most often use the results with a specific agenda in mind. As CRRC's 2015 Caucasus Barometer data suggest, attitudes towards poll results are ambivalent. However, there is a clear expectation that the government should consider the results of public opinion polls when making political decisions

Zurabishvili, Tinatin

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www.ssoar.infoPublic Opinion on Public Opinion: How Does thePopulation of Georgia See Public Opinion Polls?Zurabishvili, TinatinVeröffentlichungsversion / Published VersionZeitschriftenartikel / journal articleEmpfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:Zurabishvili, T. (2016). Public Opinion on Public Opinion: How Does the Population of Georgia See Public OpinionPolls? Caucasus Analytical Digest, 85, 2-5. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-89442-5Nutzungsbedingungen:Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz(Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zurVerfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen findenSie hier:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.deTerms of use:This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence(Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Informationsee:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0(Table 1). Interestingly, people are more likely to report having trust in polls (26% choosing codes 8, 9 and 10, corresponding to high levels of trust according to the survey instructions) than they are to report “others” hav-ing such trust (12%), suggesting that they have heard more negative than positive attitudes towards poll results during the discussions that took place around them.As the findings in Table 1 demonstrate, overall, the pop-ulation does not report any convincing level of trust in CAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 85, 8 July 2016 2Public Opinion on Public Opinion: How Does the Population of Georgia See Public Opinion Polls?Tinatin Zurabishvili, TbilisiAbstractAlthough 6% of the population of Georgia reported not knowing anything about public opinion polls in 2015, polls—especially those focused on political issues—have become a visible part of the political land-scape of the country. However, decision makers most often use the results with a specific agenda in mind. As CRRC’s 2015 Caucasus Barometer data suggest, attitudes towards poll results are ambivalent. However, there is a clear expectation that the government should consider the results of public opinion polls when making political decisions.Following tense debates over the trustworthiness of the findings of public opinion polls in contempo-rary Georgia, CRRC’s 2015 Caucasus Barometer survey (CB) asked for the first time a series of questions con-cerning people’s attitudes towards poll results. In this article, we will first discuss the reported level of trust in the results of public opinion polls in Georgia and then analyze assessments of specific statements about public opinion polls, with the eventual goal of understanding whether the population perceives the results of public opinion polls as representing their own voice or, rather, as yet another tool in the hands of those in power.Assessing TrustWith, on the one hand, a lack of knowledge of the pop-ulation en masse concerning representative surveys in general and, on the other hand, often biased, contradic-tory and/or unprofessional reporting of poll results by the media1, unsurprisingly, the population finds it dif-ficult to assess their trust in public opinion poll results in Georgia. A large share, 41%, either report “don’t know” or choose middle positions (codes ‘5’ and ‘6’) on the 10-point scale that was used to assess people’s level of trust. When asked whether, in their opinion, “most of the people around them” trust or distrust poll results, the respective share increases to 57%, with an understandably high positive correlation between the answers to the two questions (Spearman’s correlation coefficient is .626).The answers to the questions about people’s own trust in public opinion poll results and that of the “others” are rather similar, with a mean of 5.82 of a 10-point scale in the case of assessment of personal trust and a mean of 5.39 in the case of the assessment of “others’” trust 1 Making Public Opinion Matter in Georgia, <https://www.eso mar.org/uploads/public/knowledge-and-standards/documents/ESOMAR-WAPOR-guideline-on-reporting-pre-election-poll-results.pdf>Table 1: Personal Vs. “Others’” Trust in Poll Results in Geor-gia (% and Mean)To what extent would say you trust or distrust the results of public opinion polls conducted in our country?And to what extent, in your opinion, do most of the people around you trust or distrust the results of public opinion polls conducted in our country?Trust 27 13Tend to trust16 17Tend to distrust32 34Distrust 17 12Don’t know8 24Mean 5.82 5.39Source: CRRC 2015 Caucasus Barometer SurveyNote: A 10-point scale was used to measure the level of trust, with code ‘1’ corresponding to the response “Do not trust at all” and code ‘10’ corre-sponding to the response “Completely trust.” For this paper, the responses were recoded into a 4-point scale, with original codes 1, 2 and 3 corre-sponding to “Distrust,” codes 4 and 5 corresponding to “Tend to distrust,” codes 6 and 7 corresponding to “Tend to trust,” and codes 8, 9 and 10 cor-responding to “Trust.”While answering the first of these questions, 6% reported, “I don’t know anything about polls”; they have been excluded from the analysis.CAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 85, 8 July 2016 3lead to distrust. On the other hand, the relatively high correlation of trust in poll results with trust in NGOs, the Ombudsman, the EU and the UN—i.e., the insti-tutions that are not viewed as a part of the traditional system—may suggest that the population regards polls as something alien, and although people are more or less informed about them, people lack an understand-ing of both the nature of polls and how to assess their trustworthiness.How Does the Population View Polls?The following six statements about public opinion polls were assessed during the survey, using a 10-point scale3:[1] Public opinion polls help all of us get better knowl-edge about the society we live in.[2] Ordinary people trust public opinion poll results only when they like the results.[3] Public opinion polls can only work well in devel-oped democratic countries, but not in countries like Georgia.[4] The government should consider the results of pub-lic opinion polls while making political decisions.[5] Politicians trust public opinion poll results only when these are favorable for them or for their party.[6] I think I understand quite well how public opinion polls are conducted.Starting with the last of these statements, 14% of the population did not know how to answer this question, i.e., could not assess their own understanding of how public opinion polls are conducted. Approximately one-third chose middle positions on the scale (codes ‘5’ and ‘6’), while 16% “completely agreed” with the statement. Overall, although only slightly over one-third of the population claims to understand “quite well” how pub-lic opinion polls are conducted, the share of those who answered positively (codes ‘7’ through ‘10’) is twice as large than the share of those who answered negatively (codes ‘1’ through ‘4’), 37% to 18%. Of course, this is a person’s self-assessment, and specifically focused experiments or exercises would be needed to determine the extent to which this self-assessment corresponds to reality.Assessments of statements [1] and [4] indicate whether people find survey results valuable. Although one would expect these two statements to measure rather similar aspects of attitudes towards polls, the answers to these two questions are surprisingly different. Com-pared to the share of those who claim that polls help us to better understand society, a considerably larger 3 Code ‘1’ on this scale corresponded to the response “Completely disagree” and code ‘10’ corresponded to the response “Com-pletely agree.”the results of public opinion polls conducted in Georgia. Slightly more than one-quarter of those who answered this question (27%) report trust, with an additional 16% who, arguably, tend to trust but are nevertheless reluc-tant to report trust.According to the theory of the “spiral of silence,” the answers to the question assessing the trust of “people around” an individual rather than respondents them-selves represent a more accurate indicator of the atti-tudes that are prevalent in a given society. As this theory would suggest, the level of trust in public opinion poll results should be assessed as rather low in Georgia, with less than one-third of the population believed to trust polls at least slightly. This level of trust is comparable2 to the reported level of trust in the local government, banks, or the Ombudsman and is, in fact, higher than that in the Parliament, executive and political parties. Statistically, of a number of social and political institu-tions that CB asked about, reported trust in poll results correlates most, although still rather moderately, with trust in NGOs, the media, the EU, the UN and the Ombudsman (Table 2).These findings may help to suggest important areas for the future study of the nature of (dis)trust in public opin-ion polls and their results in Georgia. On the one hand, most of the people do not trust poll results, the main goal and role of which should be voicing the people’s views and attitudes. It is important to know which factors 2 Different scales were used during the survey to measure the level of trust in the results of public opinion polls, on the one hand, and major social and political institutions, on the other hand; hence, the results on the reported level of trust are not directly comparable but are instead indicative.Table 2: Correlation Between Reported Trust in Poll Results and Selected Institutions (Spearman’s Correlation Coefficients)“To what extent would say you trust or distrust the results of public opinion polls conducted in our country?”by“How much do you trust or distrust …”NGOs .239EU .205Media .203UN .200Ombudsman .186Source:  CRRC 2015 Caucasus Barometer SurveyCAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 85, 8 July 2016 4share agrees that the government should consider the results of public opinion polls when making political decisions—47% report “completely agreeing” (code 10) with this statement.The share of those who disagree with the opinion that “Public opinion polls can only work well in developed democratic countries, but not in countries like Georgia” is nearly twice as large as the share of those who agree with it—41% and 22%, respectively—with one-quarter of the population choosing middle positions and another 13% answering “Don’t know.”People rather confidently agree that politicians in Georgia “trust public opinion poll results only when these are favorable for them or for their party,” with 42% reporting complete agreement with this statement. When speaking about ordinary people, however, con-siderably fewer people—slightly less than half of the population—agree that people trust the results of polls “only” when they like the results, although the distribu-tion of answers to these two questions follows a similar pattern (Figure 1 on p. 5).Overall, the data suggest little certainty in Geor-gian society regarding public opinion polls. The major-ity of the population does not report trust in poll results, which obviously means that people do not regard poll results as reflecting their voice; however, people also do not clearly state their distrust. Moreover, there is a clear demand for the government to consider the results of public opinion polls when making political decisions.There are a number of important questions that still need to be answered to understand the role that public opinion polls play in contemporary Georgian society. Some of these questions are highlighted below:• What are the factors that lead to distrust in the results of public opinion polls?• Who influences what people think about the polls, and how?• How much does the population actually need to know about the polls to be able to make indepen-dent and qualified judgments about their quality and the reliability of their findings?• What role do the media play in (a) informing the population about polls and (b) influencing people’s trust in their results?Table 3: (Dis)Agreement with Statements about Polls (% and Mean)Public opinion polls help all of us get better knowledge about the society we live in.The government should consider the results of public opinion polls while making political decisions.Agree 46 69[In the middle] 30 18Disagree 13 5Don’t know 12 8Mean* 6.72 8.20Source: CRRC 2015 Caucasus Barometer Survey* To calculate means, the option “Don’t know” was excluded.Note: A 10-point scale was used to record answers to these questions, with code ‘1’ corresponding to the response “Completely disagree” and code ‘10’ cor-responding to the response “Completely agree.” For this paper, the responses were recoded into a 3-point scale, with original codes 1 through 4 correspond-ing to “Disagree,” codes 5 and 6 to “[In the middle],” and codes 7 through 10 to “Agree.”CRRC’s 2015 Caucasus Barometer survey dataset is available at <http://www.caucasusbarometer.org/en/downloads/>.About the AuthorTinatin Zurabishvili holds a PhD in Sociology of Journalism from Moscow M. Lomonosov State University. From 1994 to 1999, Tinatin worked for the Levada Center in Moscow. After returning to Georgia in 1999, she taught var-ious courses in sociology, particularly focusing on research methodology, for BA and MA programs in Telavi State Uni-versity and Tbilisi State University Center for Social Sciences. From 2001 to 2003, she was a Civic Education Project Local Faculty Fellow; from 2010 to 2012, she was a professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). In 2007, she joined the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) as Caucasus Barometer survey regional coordina-tor. Since 2012, she has worked as the CRRC-Georgia research director. Her research interests are focused on post-Soviet transformation, sociology of migration, media studies, and social research methodology.Recommended Reading• Making Public Opinion Matter in Georgia (2013). <https://www.esomar.org/uploads/public/knowledge-and-stand-ards/documents/ESOMAR-WAPOR-guideline-on-reporting-pre-election-poll-results.pdf> (Accessed June 6, 2016).• Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984). The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion—Our Social Skin. Chicago: University of Chicago.CAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 85, 8 July 2016 5Figure 1: (Dis)Agreement with Statements about the Polls (%)1111158281946620% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Ordinary people trust public opinion poll results only whenthey like the resultsPoliticians trust public opinion poll results only when theseare favorable for them or for their partyAgree [In the middle] Disagree Don't knowSource: CRRC 2015 Caucasus Barometer SurveyNote: A 10-point scale was used to record answers to these questions, with code ‘1’ corresponding to the response “Completely disagree” and code ‘10’ corresponding to the response “Completely agree.” For this paper, the responses were recoded into a 3-point scale, with original codes 1 through 4 corresponding to “Disagree,” codes 5 and 6 to “[In the middle],” and codes 7 through 10 to “Agree.”Evaluation of the Georgian Government’s Performance Through the Lens of Public TrustRati Shubladze, TbilisiAbstractUsing time-series survey data from the Caucasus Barometer (CB) conducted annually from 2008 to 2015 in Georgia, this article explores how the outcomes of (a) general political events and (b) policymaking can influence the formation of trust in key political and social institutions. If political actors or institutions real-ize high levels of performance in their policymaking and achieve results (measured in economic indicators), grateful citizens will repay them with a high level of political trust. However, in the event of unsatisfactory performance by political actors or institutions, a decrease in citizens’ trust in institutions can be expected.IntroductionThe concept of political trust can be defined as the public’s belief that political actors and public institutions would not perform any action that will deceive or harm society (Levi & Stoker, 2000). Political trust is particularly impor-tant in countries such as Georgia, where the presence of democratic institutions is relatively novel and the pre-vious authorities left a legacy encouraging distrust. The lack of institutional memory and of experience in dem-ocratic governance could cause legitimacy problems for public institutions—i.e., in the capacity to maintain the confidence that those institutions are reliable, trustworthy and suitable for citizens (Slomczynski & Janicka, 2009).Hence, it is important to understand the factors that shape political trust. For this purpose, this paper uses institutional theories of political trust that claim that trust in institutions is rationally generated as a result of a citizen’s evaluations of institutional performance and reactions to ongoing social events. When studying established democracies and developed countries, insti-tutional theories typically emphasize the importance of economic performance. However, in post-Commu-nist countries such as Georgia, where human rights and the rule of law have been violated for years, neglecting the rule of law and human rights are no less important. Therefore, while explaining changes political trust, we will be employing both economic indicators and polit-ical performance, suggesting that citizens’ evaluation of public institutions are based on two different crite-ria: outcomes of political events that shape the politi-

Public Opinion on Public Opinion: How Does the Population of Georgia See Public Opinion Polls?

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Public Opinion on Public Opinion: How Does the Population of Georgia See Public Opinion Polls?

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