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An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia
Communist and Post-Communist Studies xxx (2018) 1e8
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An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia John Ishiyama a, *, Lia Mezvrishvili b, Nina Zhgenti b a b
University of North Texas, United States Free University of Tbilisi, Georgia
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online xxx
We examine whether the existence of civil society in Georgia has promoted social and institutional trust in the population. As much of the literature suggests, Georgia is different from its neighbors in that civil society development is more advanced. Does participation in civil society lead to more social and institutional trust? Using survey data from the Caucasus Barometer and the World Values Survey, we find that attitudes regarding social and institutional trust are more developed in Georgia than in its neighbors, and that activity in voluntary organizations is positively associated with social and institutional trust in Georgia. © 2018 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Georgia Social trust Institutional trust Civil society Caucasus barometer
In 2005, President George W. Bush, speaking in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, spoke of Georgia as a “beacon of liberty”. Although perhaps exaggerated at the time, Georgia has come to resemble that democracy that President Bush had hailed earlier, unlike its neighbors. Indeed, Russia and Azerbaijan are both clearly authoritarian regimes, and Turkey and Armenia, although more pluralistic than Russia and Azerbaijan, are led by autocratic, dominant ruling parties. None of Georgia's neighbors demonstrate the qualities that make Georgia democratic. As Michael Cecire, an international relations analyst, writes: “In this sense, Georgian democracy is not a beacon so much as it is an islanddisolated and removed in an unforgiving sea” (2016:1). This is despite the many challenges the country has faced, including fractious and unresolved civil conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the upheaval caused by the “Rose Revolution” in 2003. Nonetheless, Georgia has developed fairly stable patterns of competitive politics, and in some ways passed the Huntingtonian “two turnover” electoral test as a mark of “consolidated” democracy. In October 2012, the National Movement, which had held power after the Rose Revolution and the elections of 2004, lost the parliamentary elections and accepted constitutional changes that significantly weakened the presidency. In 2016 the Georgia Dream Coalition, financed largely by Bidzina Ivanashvilli, one of Georgia's wealthiest oligarchs, won reelection in a decisive victory over the National Movement, seeing the return of an incumbent governing party in free and competitive elections. Thus, Georgia's legacy of Soviet rule and the challenges of independence (including a number of intense civil conflicts) make the emergence of Georgian democracy quite remarkable. Indeed, among the regimes that emerged from the Soviet Union (outside of the Baltic States), only Georgia has developed any degree of stable competitive democracy. For instance, compared to its more immediate neighbors Armenia (which has a polity score of 4) and Azerbaijan (which stands at a -6)
* Corresponding author. 1155 Union Circle #305340 Denton, TX 76203, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Ishiyama). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.01.005 0967-067X/© 2018 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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Georgia comes very close to the democratic threshold (with an average polity score since 2011 of 6.6). Further when compared to other countries that also had experienced an election-generated “colored revolution”, only in Georgia has a peaceful emergence of democracy occurred. In Moldova in 2001 and Ukraine in 2010, governments went down to defeat at the polls and left peacefully, but in both cases the victors were Communists or their descendants, and the result was increased authoritarianism. The case that most closely parallels Georgia in 2012 is Moldova in 2009 and 2010, but the changes there were “half” revolutionary and led mainly to more confusion and political stalemate. Thus, at least for the moment Georgia's current government looks like a democratic regime that has come to power without recourse to revolutionary action, and has won an election mandate twice (Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili, 2013). What could explain the Georgian case? First, many observers of Georgian politics have noted the existence of a “vibrant civil society that has long been regarded as evidence of Georgia's democratic credentials” (Broers, 2005, p 333; Nodia, 2005), which is lacking elsewhere in other Former Soviet Countries (FSU), particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Broers (2005) suggests that the development of Georgian civil society is due to two factors. First, the Georgian state is not particularly strong, and does not have control over key natural resources, such as gas and oil. Thus, the Georgian state does not have the economic wherewithal to suppress or coopt civil society groups. Such limits on state autonomy have provided space for civil society development in Georgia since independence in 1991. Many of these groups have roots in the informal groups of the perestroika period, particularly those that were concerned with ‘non-political’ issues like environmental protection and monument preservation. Second, Georgia, has, since independence, pursued identification with Europe, and a desire to demonstrate democratic credentials to Western donor states. As such showcasing a vibrant civil society is a very important asset is cultivating ties with the West (Broers, 2005, p. 337; Nodia, 2005). These conditions led to the growth of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) sector in the 1990s and the emergence of a “new elite of civic activists… providing a new source of intellectual leadership in the country” Broers (2005, p. 338. For Broers (2005, 343) these civil society organizations were the key to the success of the Rose Revolution in 2003d“the Rose Revolution was more a revolt than a revolution, perpetrated by a coalition between political groups protesting their exclusion from power, and civil society actors protesting the methods used to enforce that exclusion.” However, more recently, some scholars, such as Pokleba (2016), have questioned the thesis that Georgia has a well-developed civil society, and argues that it is currently ill suited to promote democratic consolidation in the country. In this paper we examine whether the existence of something like a civil society in Georgia has promoted social and institutional trust in the population. As most of the literature suggests, Georgia is different from its neighbors in that civil society development in the country was more advanced (Broers, 2005). Thus, does participation in civil society organization lead to more social and institutional trust? We use recent survey data from the Caucasus Barometer and the World Values Survey to address these questions. 1. Why is social and political trust important to democracy? The idea that social trust is critical for the development of democracy is not a new one, having first been introduced by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in 1963 in the classic work, “Civic Culture” (Almond and Verba, 1963). In particular, social trust is seen as necessary for the emergence of civil society, which is widely believed to be essential for the development of political democracy (Foley and Edwards, 1996: 38). It is often argued that social trust directly supports democracy in that people trusting one another leads to the formation of secondary associations, “which, in turn, support the stability of democratic rule” (Mackie, 2001: 246). Indeed, social or interpersonal trust and reciprocity are essential components of Putnam (1993, 2000) concept of “social capital”. By social trust he meant values that “link the citizens to daily public life and strengthen their social ties and their loyalty to the community” (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005: 6). In addition, social trust, or “generalized interpersonal trust,” reduces transaction costs and contributes to economic growth, helps to solve collective action problems, facilitates civic engagement, and leads to better functioning government (Putnam, 2000; 1993; Fukuyama, 1995; Knack and Keefer, 1997). In turn, civil society reinforces social trust. According to Putnam (1995: 2) social trust improves in the communities that have a substantial stock of social capital because “networks of civic engagement foster sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity” and “facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations” allowing solutions for collective action dilemmas to arise. A second type of trust that is considered important for the development of political stability and democracy is institutional trust or confidence in existing political institutions. David Easton (1965) argued that in order for a political system to function it needs legitimacy through the public support of the system's institutions as well as the system as a whole. Indeed, a requirement for the stability of democracy is that the public is generally supportive of the regime and confident in its institutions (Chanley et al., 2000; Newton and Norris, 2000). Further, trust in institutions is related to the promotion of social trust because trust in institutions and “the ability of associational life in general and the habits of association in particular foster patterns of civility in the actions of citizens” (Foley and Edwards, 1996: 39). Institutional trust is thus an essential part of the development of civility and, hence, the development of democracy. 2. What affects social and institutional trust? What affects levels of social and institutional trust? Many studies have identified various possible causes of social trust at both the societal and individual levels. At the societal level there are several factors that have been cited as impacting the level Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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of social trust and confidence in institutions, such as national wealth, regime performance, regime type, and ethnic homogeneity. Greater wealth, regime performance, and ethnic homogeneity, for instance, have often been found to be significantly related to higher levels of social trust at the country level (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002; Uslaner, 2002; Zak and Knack, 2001). Another societal characteristic that the literature suggests is the existence of a well-developed “civil society” (Putnam, 1995; Foley and Edwards, 1996). The basic argument regarding the relationship between civil society and trust is that the citizen involvement in the local community and its voluntary activities teaches the “habits of the heart” of such social behavior as trust, reciprocity, solidarity, and cooperation. The most recent variation on these themes is to be found in recent writings on social capital. This perspective argues that trust has its origins in that broad, deep, and dense network of voluntary associations and intermediary organizations that comprise civil society. Trust is the-main component of social capital, and social capital is a necessary condition of social integration, economic efficiency, and democratic stability (Arrow and Hurwicz, 1972: 357; Coleman, 1988: 306; Ostrom, 1990; Putnam, 1993, 1995, 2000; Fukuyama, 1995). It has been argued that when individuals participate in civil society organizations and partake in organizational life, this builds social trust, and ultimately confidence in political institutions. Thus, participation in voluntary or community activities should positively impact social trust and confidence in institutions (Baek & Jung, 2015; Williams, 1988; Geertz, 1962). This is because participation in such activities builds a sense of interpersonal trust, cooperation, and civic mindedness that in turn helps create strong social and political institutions, (Sztompka, 1996; Inglehart and Abramson, 1994; Coleman, 1990). Thus, based upon what Newton and Norris (2000) refer to as the “sociocultural approach” to social and institutional trust, one would expect that more engaged individuals would have higher levels of social trust and confidence in institutions. The above suggest the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Individuals who are active in civil society organizations will exhibit higher levels of social and institutional trust.
2.1. Country level controls However, the literature also suggests many other variables that affect social and institutional trust. At the country level, according to Inglehart and Baker (2000: 20) economic development and greater national wealth has “systematic and, to some extent, predictable cultural consequences”. In particular, economic development and greater wealth are associated, in their view, with greater levels of social and institutional trust, quite apart from regime type. Indeed, wealth, and perceived regime performance even for highly authoritarian regimes, creates a kind of “performance legitimacy for the regime” leading to greater levels of social and institutional trust. Thus we would expect that trust is higher in countries that are wealthier than those than in countries that are less wealthy. Further we would expect trust to be positively related to improved economic performance in a country, particularly after the collapse of an authoritarian regime. Regime type is also cited as an important factor impacting levels of social and institutional trust (Sun and Wang, 2012). In authoritarian regimes, levels of social and institutional trust are significantly lower than in countries that are relatively more democratic (Marshall et al., 2009). In part, this is because the regime may purposely seek to atomize society, to create distrust amongst citizens in a form of “divide and rule.” Empirically, Booth and Bayer Richard (1998: 43) found that repressive governments discouraged trust generally, and distrust was much higher in authoritarian regimes than in more democratic ones. Further, authoritarian regimes are also associated with lower levels of confidence in institutions. This, in part, may be an expression of dissent regarding the institutions of an existing authoritarian regime. In some cases the population may be driven toward activity against the system, or into apathy if their demands are repressed or ignored (Putnam, 1995; Foley and Edwards, 1996). Both would, however, lower institutional trust. 2.2. Individual level characteristics Beyond the literature that has focused on country-system level effects on social and political trust, there are a number of individual level factors that are also cited as impacting social and institutional trust. At the individual level, some of the characteristics associated with higher levels of social trust are an individual's economic welfare, education level, age (with older people more trusting than younger people) and gender (with men more trusting than women) (Williams, 1988; Geertz, 1962). Individual economic welfare has been cited as an important factor impacting levels of social and political trust (Inglehart and Baker, 2000). Generally, wealthier individuals are more likely to exhibit higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust, largely because of the material benefits they derive from the existing system. Thus, we would expect that individual economic situation should be an important factor in affecting levels of social and institutional trust in the sample of respondents from the post-communist countries included in this study.
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Others have pointed to individual demographic features of individuals and their impact on their levels of social trust. Inglehart and Abramson (1994) suggest that generally older people tend to be more trusting than younger people across many countries. This suggests that age differences may affect levels of social and institutional trust. Levels of social and institutional trust may also vary across gender. Inglehart and Norris (2000) noted that in less democratic countries, there has been a consistent gap between men and women in terms of levels of social and institutional trust, with women less trusting than men. However, as countries become more democratic, the gender gap disappears. Women in well-established democracies adopt similar attitudes toward politics and participation. This would suggest that gender should also be an important consideration in assessing the level of social and institutional trust among the countries included in this study. 3. Background to Georgian politics From 1992 to 2003 (after the overthrow of the Zviad Gamsakhurdia regime that had emerged to govern Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union) Georgia was headed by the former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1993 Georgia government forces suffered a catastrophic defeat in the northwestern region of Abkhazia, which led to the expulsion of the entire Georgian population of the region in a spate of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic violence also flared in South Ossetia, resulting in 100,000 refugees fleeing to Russian North Ossetia. In south-western Georgia, the autonomous republic of Ajaria under the control of local strong man Aslan Abashidze also toyed with secession. Georgia thus has had its share of internal conflicts. In 1995 Shevardnadze narrowly survived an assassination attempt and used this as pretext to sack his political competitors in the coalition government and consolidated his authority. However, his governmentdand his own familydbecame increasingly associated with pervasive corruption that hampered Georgia's economic growth. He won presidential elections in November 1995 and April 2000 with large majorities, but there were persistent allegations of vote-rigging. The second war in Chechnya, which began in 1999, strained relations between Russia and Georgia, with the former accusing the Georgian government of aiding the Chechen rebels. In addition, Shevardnadze's overtures to the United States, which he saw as a counterbalance to Russian influence in the Southern Caucasus, further heightened tensions with Russia. Georgia became a major recipient of US foreign and military aid, signed a strategic partnership with NATO and declared an ambition to join both NATO and the European Union. Georgia also was able to secure the Baku-Tbilisi_Ceyhan Pipeline project which amounted to $3 billion of investment into the country. In 2003 Shevardnadze was challenged by a coalition of reformists headed by Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania in the November 2003 elections. The elections were widely regarded as blatantly rigged, and the opposition organized mass demonstrations in the streets of Tbilisi, later called the “Rose Revolution”. After two tense weeks, Shevardnadze resigned on November 23, 2003. Saakashvili then won a landslide victory in the presidential election January, 2004, and subsequently moved quickly to implement market reforms and root out low- and mid-level corruption in the state bureaucracy. These successes gave Georgia a reputation as the one post-Soviet country where real reform had taken hold (Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili, 2013). However, although the Georgian state became more efficient the regime began to drift toward autocracy. Many decisions seemed to be based on Saakashvili's personal whims, such as the construction of oddly shaped modern artistic government buildings in Tbilisi (which stand in stark contrast to the older structures in the center of the city), and the idea of moving Parliament and the Supreme Court to provincial towns. There were also other very risky decisions such as the dispatch of troops to the disputed region of South Ossetia in 2008 da move that touched off a brief but intense war with Russia. Beginning in 2011 a new opposition emerged, funded by the media oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who had amassed an enormous fortune in Russia during the wild days of the 1990s. Ivanishvili built the opposition based on his network of friends and clients, as well as some established opposition parties into the “Georgian Dream” coalition. As Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili (2013: 119) note “Georgian Dream was an ‘anti’ movement, united not by policy positions or constituencies but by disgust with the government”. Georgian Dream capitalized on the downturn in the Georgian economy that had resulted from the global recession. This coupled with the growing dissatisfaction with the National Movement Government, and the release of tapes of the torture of state held prisoners shortly before the election, tipped the poll in favor of Georgia Dream. In the 2012 parliamentary elections Georgia Dream won 85 of 150 seats in Parliament and 55% of the proportional representation list vote, ousting the National Movement from power. In the October 2016 election, Georgia Dream won even more decisively, taking 115 seats out of 150. The OSCE certified the election as “competitive and well administered” the fourth straight election in Georgia certified as such. Thus, unlike many of its neighbors, Georgia has emerged as a fairly well functioning democracy, with at least one peaceful turnover of power and four straight free and competitive parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, has the development of Georgian democracy been accompanied by greater levels of social and political trust? 4. Design and methodology As a test of the hypothesis that activity in civil society organizations will promote social and institutional trust, we employ data from Caucasus Barometer for the 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015 survey waves (no wave was conducted in 2014). We use Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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these data because they include both data from a time prior to the transition from the National Movement to Georgia Dream in the fall of 2012. Thus the 2011 and 2012 data precede the transferal of power, and the 2013 and 2015 waves follow it. The Caucasus Barometer is an annual household survey about social economic issues and political attitudes conducted by Caucasus Research Regional Center (CRRC). Since 2006, the survey has been carried out based on a representative nationwide sample excluding territories affected by military conflicts. The Caucasus Barometer survey runs annually in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The 2011e2015 waves include a total of 22,516 respondents from across the three countries. The dependent variables we employ are questions related to interpersonal trust, trust in the legislature, and trust in the judiciary. More specifically we employ as measures of the three dependent variables three questions from the Caucasus Barometer dataset. As a measure of interpersonal trust from the Caucasus Barometer we use question GALLTRU, which asks whether the respondents: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people in/country/can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? Code ‘1’ corresponds to answer “You can't be too careful” and code ‘10’ corresponds to answer “Most people can be trusted.” These questions were similar to the World Values Survey questions regarding trust (although the WVS questions were dichotomized). Unfortunately, this question was only asked for the 2012 and 2015 Caucasus Barometer waves, which limits its use but still allows for the examination across time of changes in levels of interpersonal trust. We dichotomize this into a dummy variable where 1e5 is lower levels of trust and 6e10 are recoded as higher levels of interpersonal trust, thus make it comparable to the data from the World Values Survey (which we use to measure the level of trust for the countries of the Former Soviet Union). For trust in institutions, we included questions regarding trust in parliament (TRUPARL), in the executive (TRUEXEC) and trust in the courts (TRUCRTS). These were measured in five (5) categories ranging from “fully distrust” to “fully trust”. We then recoded the responses into dichotomous categories with 1 coded as “0” and 2 and 3 coded as “1”, with 0 represent low trust, and 1 representing moderate to high trust. We also include a number of individual-level and country-level control variables. At the individual level we include the age of the respondent (in years), the gender of the respondent, the number of reported years of education, and the respondent's reported personal income in US dollars. Further we include a variable that measures the extent to which the respondent is involved in the activities of a civil society organization (or whether the respondent did volunteer work without expecting compensation. [ACTVLNT]) and the respondent's level of trust in Non-Governmental Organizations or TRUNGOS. Additionally, we measure the extent to which individuals view the state as a “patriarchy” or the idea that the state is meant to protect citizens like a parent. Generally, it has been suggested that such a set of political attitudes is detrimental to the development to democracy, but may help explain higher levels of political trust. To measure the extent to which individuals see the state as a patriarchy, we use the question “Do you agree with this statement or do you agree very strongly with this statement?” (GOVTROL) and the responses to two statements. The first statement (which is the patriarchy response) the respondent is asked to agree very strongly with the statement or agree with the statement “People are like children; the government should take care of them like a parent.” The second statement is “Government is like an employee; the people should be the bosses who control the government” and again the respondent is asked to agree strongly or agree with this statement. WE recoded the variable so that those who agreed or agreed strongly with the first statement were scored a “1” and those who agreed or agreed strongly with the second statement were scored a “0”1. We also include three country level variables, a country's average Polity2 score for a four-year period from 2012 to 16, which indicates the extent to which a country is a democracy or an autocracy. We also use Freedom House's Nations in Transit measure of civil society, which “assesses the growth of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), their organizational capacity and financial sustainability, and the legal and political environment in which they function; the development of free trade unions; and interest group participation in the policy process.” The value ranges from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level in civil society development (Freedom House, 2017). Finally we use GDP per capita as a measure of national level economic wealth (The World Bank, 2017).
5. Analysis Table 1 reports some overall descriptive statistics comparing the three countries, as well as comparing the three Caucasian countries with average measures for the other countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Overall, as we mentioned earlier, according to Polity2 the level of Georgian Democracy is quite high over the four-year period from 2011 to 2015, standing at a score of 6.6, which is considerably higher than Armenia (with a score of 5) and clearly more democratic than autocratic Azerbaijan. Moreover, Georgia's Polity2 score is much higher than the average score for the FSU countries outside of the Caucasus (excluding Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are currently members of the European Union). Further, Armenia and Georgia score better on the Freedom House Civil Society Index score relative to both Azerbaijan and the rest of the FSU
1 In the World Values Survey, there was not an identically worded question. Thus, as a proxy we used the question (E037) “People should take more responsibility to provide for themselves vs the government should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for”. Those who that the government should take more responsibility (scores 6e10) were coded as a “1”. This provided for a roughly similar measure of the paternalistic role of the state.
Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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Table 1 Comparing states.
Polity2 Average 2011e15 FH Civil Society Index Average 2011e2015 Percent involved in voluntary activity Level of General Trust Level of Parliament trust Level of Judicial Trust Level of Trust in Executive Statist Political Culture
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
FSU Countries Average WVS (excluding Caucasus)
5 3.75 9 21 16 20 19 75
7 6.27 9 36 44 32 54 76
6.6 3.75 18 32 33 32 41 56
5.25 5.40 8.54% 22.48 27.60 40.27 36.74 72.19%
Sources: Marshall et al. (2016); Freedom House (2016); Caucasus Barometer (2016); World Values Survey (2015).
countries. However, Georgians are much more likely to report being involved in voluntary activities (18%) than in either Armenia or Azerbaijan, and much higher than the proxy measure we use for voluntary activity for other FSU countries.2 Interestingly, the country that is the most authoritarian, Azerbaijan, reports higher levels of interpersonal trust than Armenia, which is the lowest (at 0.21), although Georgian levels of interpersonal trust are higher than either in Armenia or in Azerbaijan. However, in terms of institutional trust, Azerbaijan ranks highest, with parliamentary trust at 0.44 (higher than Armenia and Georgia and the FSU average) and judicial trust at the same level as Georgia. However, this may be due to the authoritarian nature of the Azeri state, which may affect responses to queries regarding institutional trust. Another notable feature of Table 1 relates attitudes regarding the state. Far fewer respondents agreed with the statement that supported the notion of the state as paternalistic power in Georgia as compared to Armenia and Azerbaijan. What is clear is that Georgia has a higher level of civil society development than its neighbors, and generally higher levels of social and institutional trust than other countries in the FSU. This is generally consistent with observations about Georgian civil society made by scholars such as Broers (2005). So, what are these individual and national level correlates of interpersonal and institutional trust in the Caucasus? Is participation in civil society associated with higher levels of social and institutional trust in the Caucasus generally, and in Georgia in particular? To begin, we acknowledge that the effects of some of the explanatory variables (such as individual level characteristics) on the dependent variables are nested within country contexts. To take into account the multiple levels in the analysis, in Table 2 we cluster the robust standard errors by country to model in the multilevel nature of the data. Table 2 reports the results of the logit analysis of the interpersonal and institutional trust variables regressed against the individual and country level variables, with odds ratios reported rather than coefficients. Odds ratios are interpreted differently than general coefficients. When an odds ratio larger than 1, this indicates the percent increase in the dependent variable; when the odds ratio is below 1, this indicates the percent decrease in the dependent variable. As indicated by the results in the table. The two most important variables in the pooled data that explain higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust are whether or not the respondent had engaged in a voluntary activity (which was used to measure engagement in civil society) and whether the individual trusted NGOs. Both of these indicate that greater trust and engagement with civil society produces significantly higher levels of social and political trust. This finding is consistent with hypothesis 1. However, have these relationships changed over time? Is trust growing or declining? In Table 3 we rerun the analysis splitting the sample to separate analyze the data from Georgian and Armenia (leaving out Azerbaijan given that Azerbaijan is the most autocratic of the three states). In addition to the individual level variables, we also include a year dummy where the data from 2011 to 12 are compared to the data from 2013 to 15. In other words, the impact of the transition from the National Movement to the Georgia Dream coalition can be examined and then compared to Armenia. In Table 3 we report the levels of interpersonal trust and trust in parliament (since parliament is the most democratic institutional aspect of a functioning democracy). As Table 3 indicate, consistent with hypothesis 1 participation in voluntary activity is a significant factor in promoting both interpersonal and political trust in Georgia. However, these findings do not hold for Armenia. What might explain these differences? In Armenia the fact that voluntary activity does not result in greater trust is because the level of such activity in Georgia is quite low, even when compared to authoritarian Azerbaijan (see Table 1 above). Colleagues of ours in Georgia have suggested that the level of international NGO activity is significantly higher there than in Armenia (although we do not have hard data do demonstrate this, but this observation is consistent with Broers, 2005) –this might help explain why voluntary activity does not promote trust (because the opportunities to participate in civil society organizations are much rarer in Armenia than in Georgia).
2 The World Values Survey does not include the question of voluntary activities in the questionnaire. As a proxy measure we use the question of whether individuals report being active in a list of organizations including: A098 (active membership in a church or religious organization) A103 (active membership in an environmental organization) A104 (active membership in a professional organization) A105 (active membership in a charitable/humanitarian organization) A106 (active membership in other groups).
Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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Table 2 Explaining levels of trustdPooled data. General trust Odds Ratio (clustered robust standard errors)
Parliamentary Trust
Judicial Trust
Executive trust
0.89* (0.04) 1.01*** (0.000) 0.99 (0.02) 0.99* (0.01) 1.53*** (0.07) 0.98 (0.03) 2.62*** (0.23)
0.94*** (0.02) 0.99 (0.003) 0.99 (0.007) 0.97 (0.004) 1.15* (0.17) 0.94*** (01) 2.65*** (0.05)
1.06 (0.05) 1.00 (0.003) 0.99 (0.006) 0.99 (0.01) 1.44*** (0.08) 0.98 (0.04) 2.11*** (0.11)
.21 (.31) 1.02 (0.15) 1.01* (0.00)
3.89 (8.17) 0.95 (0.20) 0.99* (0.00)
4.76* (3.88) 1.17 (0.12) 0.99* (0.00)
26.49 (67.89) 1.46 (0.55) 0.99* (0.00)
0.02 7205 4276.774
0.17 14996 7095.269
0.14 14297 6971.010
0.14 14919 8565.861
Individual Level Gender
0.98 (0.05) 1.01 (0.002) 0.99 (0.02) 1.04* (0.02) 1.24*** (0.04) 1.09*** (0.02) 1.17** (0.08)
Age Income Education in years Active in Voluntary organization Attitude about role of the state Trust in NGOS
Country Level NIT FH civil society score Polity 2 GDP/capita * ¼ P .05 ** ¼ P .01 *** ¼ p 001 Pseudo r-square N Log pseudolikelihood
Sources: Marshall et al. (2016); Freedom House (2016); Caucasus Barometer (2016); World Values Survey (2015); World Bank (2016).
Table 3 Levels of Trust, Armenia and Georgia over time. Armenia
Gender Age Income Eduyrs Active in Voluntary organization Attitude about role of the state 2013-15 dummy * ¼ P .05 ** ¼ P .01 *** ¼ p 001 Pseudo r-square N Log pseudolikelihood
Georgia
General trust Odds Ratio (robust standard errors)
Parliamentary Trust
General Trust
Parliamentary Trust
0.94 (0.09) 1.00 (0.002) 1.01 (0.018) 1.08*** (0.02) 1.21 (0.17) 1.08* (0.04) 1.14 (0.11)
0.82* (0.07) 1.00 (0.002) 0.99 (0.02) 0.98 (0.01) 1.23 (0.17) 0.88*** (0.03) 0.36**** (0.04)
0.97 (0.07) 0.99 (0.002) 1.02 (0.02) 1.02 (0.01) 1.26* (0.13) 1.04 (0.26) 0.62*** (0.04)
0.87* (0.06) 1.00 (0.002) 1.03* (0.01) 0.98 (0.01) 1.44*** (0.11) 0.95 (0.03) 0.20*** (0.018)
0.02 2870 1488.281
0.18 6037 1884.568
0.02 3029 1909.048
0.14 5533 2734.968
Sources: Caucasus Barometer (2016)
More troubling is the trend over time. Table 3 also reports the effects of comparing the previous waves of the CB survey (2011-12) with the data from 2013 to 15, by using a dummy variable (2013-15 dummy) to examine changes across time in levels of trust. Unfortunately, despite the promise of Georgian democracy, the level of social trust has decreased in Georgia over these two periods by about 38% and the level of institutional trust has decreased by 80% (based upon the interpretation
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of the odds ratios for that variable reported in Table 3. These results do not bode well for the future consolidation of Georgian democracy. This supports some of the more pessimistic assessments of Georgian civil society (Pokleba, 2016). 6. Conclusion The above paper attempts to address the question of identifying the underlying popular political attitudes and explains differences in Georgian politics compared to its most immediate neighbors, Armenia and Azerbaijan and other countries in the former Soviet Union. The results above suggest that the existence of a fairly well developed network of non-governmental organizations and the opportunities to engage in voluntary organizations has helped the development of higher levels of social and institutional trust in Georgia, in contrast to its neighbors. However, overtime there has been an erosion of social and institutional trust, and this raises some concerns over the staying power of Georgian democracy. Although the above paper suggests that the existence of civil society has helped to promote social and institutional trust in Georgia more so than in other FSU states, this does not mean that democracy has become fully consolidated in the country. As some observers have noted, much of Georgian civil society is dependent on its ties with the West (Broers, 2005). There is the possibility that with rise of nationalist populism in the West (and to some extent disengagement and isolationism), this international commitment to Georgia may wane in the future. Despite its European and Western orientation, Georgia shares no border with Europedhowever it does share borders with many countries that do not necessarily share a commitment to democracy. What effect this has on the staying power of Georgian civil society and democracy remains to be seen. References Alesina, A., La Ferrara, E., 2002. Who trusts others? J. Publ. Econ. 85, 207e234. Almond, G., Verba, S., 1963. The Civic Culture. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Arrow, Kenneth J., Hurwicz, Leonid, 1972. Decision making under ignorance. In: Carter, C.F., Ford, J.L. (Eds.), Uncertainty and Expectations in Economics: Essays in Honour of G.L.S. Shackle. Basil Blackwell/Augustus M. Kelley, Oxford/New York. Baek, Y.M., Jung, C.S, 2015. Focusing the mediating role of institutional trust: How does interpersonal trust promote organizational commitment? Soc. Sci. J. 52, 481e489. Booth, J.A., Bayer Richard, P., 1998. Civil society, political capital, and democratization in Central America. J. Polit. 60, 780e800. Broers, L., 2005. After the ‘revolution’: civil society and the challenges of consolidating democracy in Georgia. Cent. Asian Surv. 24 (3), 333e350. Caucasus Barometer, 2016. http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/datasets/. (Accessed 2 April 2017). Cecire, Michael, 2016. Georgian Democracy: an Island, Not a Beacon, New American Weekly, Edition 138, October 13, 2016. Chanley, V.A., Rudolph, T.J., Rahn, W.M., 2000. The origins and consequences of public trust in government: a time series analysis. Publ. Opin. Q. 64, 239e256. Coleman, J.S., 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. Am. J. Sociol. 94, 95e120. Coleman, J.S., 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Easton, D., 1965. A Framework for Political Analysis. Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N. J. Fairbanks Charles Jr., H., Gugushvili, Alexi, 2013. A new chance for Georgian democracy. J. Democr. 24 (1), 116e127. Foley, M., Edwards, B., 1996. The paradox of civil society. J. Democr. 73, 38e52. Freedom House, 2016. Freedom in the World 2016. www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016. (Accessed 1 May 2017). Freedom House, 2017 https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/nations-transit-2017. Fukuyama, F., 1995. Trust: the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Free Press, New York. Geertz, C., 1962. The rotating credit association: a middle rung in development. Econ. Dev. Cult. Change 10, 241e263. Inglehart, R., Abramson, P.R., 1994. Economic security and value change. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 88, 336e354. Inglehart, R., Baker, W.E., 2000. Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values. Am. Socio. Rev. 65, 19e51. Inglehart, R., Norris, P., 2000. The developmental theory of the gender gap: Women's and Men's voting behavior in global perspective. Int. Polit. Sci. Rev. 214, 441e463. Inglehart, R., Welzel, C., 2005. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: the Human Development Sequence. Cambridge University Press, New York. Knack, S., Keefer, P., 1997. Does social capital have an economic Payoff? A cross-country investigation. Q. J. Econ. 1124, 1251e1288. Mackie, G., 2001. Patterns of social trust in western Europe and their genesis. In: Cook, K.S. (Ed.), Trust in Society. Russell Sage, New York. Marshall, M., Gurr, T., Jaggers, K., 2016. Polity™ IV Project Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2015 Dataset Users’ Manual, 1st ed. Centre for Systemic Peace. Marshall, M., Jaggers, K., Gurr, T., 2009. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800e2009. (Accessed 23 April 2014). Newton, K., Norris, P., 2000. Confidence in public institutions: faith, culture, or performance? In: Pharr, Susan J., Putnam, Robert D. (Eds.), Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries? Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 52e73. Nodia, G., 2005. Civil Society Development in Georgia: Achievements and Challenges (Tbilisi: Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development). http://www.csogeorgia.org/uploads/developmentTrends/56/CivilSocietyDevelopmentinGeorgia-eng.PDF. accessed December 2017. Ostrom, Elinor, 1990. Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Pokleba, N., 2016. Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality. Southeast Eur. Black Sea Stud. 16 (2), 235e253. Putnam, R., 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Putnam, R., 1995. Bowling alone: America's declining social capital. J. Democr. 5, 65e78. Putnam, R., 2000. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. Sun, W., Wang, X., 2012. Do government actions affect social trust? Cross-city evidence in China. Soc. Sci. J. 49, 447e457. Sztompka, P., 1996. Trust and emerging democracy: lessons from Poland. Int. Sociol. 11, 37e62. The World Bank, 2017. GDP per capita (current US$). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations¼7E. Uslaner, E.M., 2002. The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Williams, B., 1988. Formal structures and social reality. In: Gambetta, Diego (Ed.), Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. World Bank, 2016. 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An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia John Ishiyama a, *, Lia Mezvrishvili b, Nina Zhgenti b a b
University of North Texas, United States Free University of Tbilisi, Georgia
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online xxx
We examine whether the existence of civil society in Georgia has promoted social and institutional trust in the population. As much of the literature suggests, Georgia is different from its neighbors in that civil society development is more advanced. Does participation in civil society lead to more social and institutional trust? Using survey data from the Caucasus Barometer and the World Values Survey, we find that attitudes regarding social and institutional trust are more developed in Georgia than in its neighbors, and that activity in voluntary organizations is positively associated with social and institutional trust in Georgia. © 2018 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Georgia Social trust Institutional trust Civil society Caucasus barometer
In 2005, President George W. Bush, speaking in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, spoke of Georgia as a “beacon of liberty”. Although perhaps exaggerated at the time, Georgia has come to resemble that democracy that President Bush had hailed earlier, unlike its neighbors. Indeed, Russia and Azerbaijan are both clearly authoritarian regimes, and Turkey and Armenia, although more pluralistic than Russia and Azerbaijan, are led by autocratic, dominant ruling parties. None of Georgia's neighbors demonstrate the qualities that make Georgia democratic. As Michael Cecire, an international relations analyst, writes: “In this sense, Georgian democracy is not a beacon so much as it is an islanddisolated and removed in an unforgiving sea” (2016:1). This is despite the many challenges the country has faced, including fractious and unresolved civil conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the upheaval caused by the “Rose Revolution” in 2003. Nonetheless, Georgia has developed fairly stable patterns of competitive politics, and in some ways passed the Huntingtonian “two turnover” electoral test as a mark of “consolidated” democracy. In October 2012, the National Movement, which had held power after the Rose Revolution and the elections of 2004, lost the parliamentary elections and accepted constitutional changes that significantly weakened the presidency. In 2016 the Georgia Dream Coalition, financed largely by Bidzina Ivanashvilli, one of Georgia's wealthiest oligarchs, won reelection in a decisive victory over the National Movement, seeing the return of an incumbent governing party in free and competitive elections. Thus, Georgia's legacy of Soviet rule and the challenges of independence (including a number of intense civil conflicts) make the emergence of Georgian democracy quite remarkable. Indeed, among the regimes that emerged from the Soviet Union (outside of the Baltic States), only Georgia has developed any degree of stable competitive democracy. For instance, compared to its more immediate neighbors Armenia (which has a polity score of 4) and Azerbaijan (which stands at a -6)
* Corresponding author. 1155 Union Circle #305340 Denton, TX 76203, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Ishiyama). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.01.005 0967-067X/© 2018 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Georgia comes very close to the democratic threshold (with an average polity score since 2011 of 6.6). Further when compared to other countries that also had experienced an election-generated “colored revolution”, only in Georgia has a peaceful emergence of democracy occurred. In Moldova in 2001 and Ukraine in 2010, governments went down to defeat at the polls and left peacefully, but in both cases the victors were Communists or their descendants, and the result was increased authoritarianism. The case that most closely parallels Georgia in 2012 is Moldova in 2009 and 2010, but the changes there were “half” revolutionary and led mainly to more confusion and political stalemate. Thus, at least for the moment Georgia's current government looks like a democratic regime that has come to power without recourse to revolutionary action, and has won an election mandate twice (Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili, 2013). What could explain the Georgian case? First, many observers of Georgian politics have noted the existence of a “vibrant civil society that has long been regarded as evidence of Georgia's democratic credentials” (Broers, 2005, p 333; Nodia, 2005), which is lacking elsewhere in other Former Soviet Countries (FSU), particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Broers (2005) suggests that the development of Georgian civil society is due to two factors. First, the Georgian state is not particularly strong, and does not have control over key natural resources, such as gas and oil. Thus, the Georgian state does not have the economic wherewithal to suppress or coopt civil society groups. Such limits on state autonomy have provided space for civil society development in Georgia since independence in 1991. Many of these groups have roots in the informal groups of the perestroika period, particularly those that were concerned with ‘non-political’ issues like environmental protection and monument preservation. Second, Georgia, has, since independence, pursued identification with Europe, and a desire to demonstrate democratic credentials to Western donor states. As such showcasing a vibrant civil society is a very important asset is cultivating ties with the West (Broers, 2005, p. 337; Nodia, 2005). These conditions led to the growth of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) sector in the 1990s and the emergence of a “new elite of civic activists… providing a new source of intellectual leadership in the country” Broers (2005, p. 338. For Broers (2005, 343) these civil society organizations were the key to the success of the Rose Revolution in 2003d“the Rose Revolution was more a revolt than a revolution, perpetrated by a coalition between political groups protesting their exclusion from power, and civil society actors protesting the methods used to enforce that exclusion.” However, more recently, some scholars, such as Pokleba (2016), have questioned the thesis that Georgia has a well-developed civil society, and argues that it is currently ill suited to promote democratic consolidation in the country. In this paper we examine whether the existence of something like a civil society in Georgia has promoted social and institutional trust in the population. As most of the literature suggests, Georgia is different from its neighbors in that civil society development in the country was more advanced (Broers, 2005). Thus, does participation in civil society organization lead to more social and institutional trust? We use recent survey data from the Caucasus Barometer and the World Values Survey to address these questions. 1. Why is social and political trust important to democracy? The idea that social trust is critical for the development of democracy is not a new one, having first been introduced by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in 1963 in the classic work, “Civic Culture” (Almond and Verba, 1963). In particular, social trust is seen as necessary for the emergence of civil society, which is widely believed to be essential for the development of political democracy (Foley and Edwards, 1996: 38). It is often argued that social trust directly supports democracy in that people trusting one another leads to the formation of secondary associations, “which, in turn, support the stability of democratic rule” (Mackie, 2001: 246). Indeed, social or interpersonal trust and reciprocity are essential components of Putnam (1993, 2000) concept of “social capital”. By social trust he meant values that “link the citizens to daily public life and strengthen their social ties and their loyalty to the community” (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005: 6). In addition, social trust, or “generalized interpersonal trust,” reduces transaction costs and contributes to economic growth, helps to solve collective action problems, facilitates civic engagement, and leads to better functioning government (Putnam, 2000; 1993; Fukuyama, 1995; Knack and Keefer, 1997). In turn, civil society reinforces social trust. According to Putnam (1995: 2) social trust improves in the communities that have a substantial stock of social capital because “networks of civic engagement foster sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity” and “facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations” allowing solutions for collective action dilemmas to arise. A second type of trust that is considered important for the development of political stability and democracy is institutional trust or confidence in existing political institutions. David Easton (1965) argued that in order for a political system to function it needs legitimacy through the public support of the system's institutions as well as the system as a whole. Indeed, a requirement for the stability of democracy is that the public is generally supportive of the regime and confident in its institutions (Chanley et al., 2000; Newton and Norris, 2000). Further, trust in institutions is related to the promotion of social trust because trust in institutions and “the ability of associational life in general and the habits of association in particular foster patterns of civility in the actions of citizens” (Foley and Edwards, 1996: 39). Institutional trust is thus an essential part of the development of civility and, hence, the development of democracy. 2. What affects social and institutional trust? What affects levels of social and institutional trust? Many studies have identified various possible causes of social trust at both the societal and individual levels. At the societal level there are several factors that have been cited as impacting the level Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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of social trust and confidence in institutions, such as national wealth, regime performance, regime type, and ethnic homogeneity. Greater wealth, regime performance, and ethnic homogeneity, for instance, have often been found to be significantly related to higher levels of social trust at the country level (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002; Uslaner, 2002; Zak and Knack, 2001). Another societal characteristic that the literature suggests is the existence of a well-developed “civil society” (Putnam, 1995; Foley and Edwards, 1996). The basic argument regarding the relationship between civil society and trust is that the citizen involvement in the local community and its voluntary activities teaches the “habits of the heart” of such social behavior as trust, reciprocity, solidarity, and cooperation. The most recent variation on these themes is to be found in recent writings on social capital. This perspective argues that trust has its origins in that broad, deep, and dense network of voluntary associations and intermediary organizations that comprise civil society. Trust is the-main component of social capital, and social capital is a necessary condition of social integration, economic efficiency, and democratic stability (Arrow and Hurwicz, 1972: 357; Coleman, 1988: 306; Ostrom, 1990; Putnam, 1993, 1995, 2000; Fukuyama, 1995). It has been argued that when individuals participate in civil society organizations and partake in organizational life, this builds social trust, and ultimately confidence in political institutions. Thus, participation in voluntary or community activities should positively impact social trust and confidence in institutions (Baek & Jung, 2015; Williams, 1988; Geertz, 1962). This is because participation in such activities builds a sense of interpersonal trust, cooperation, and civic mindedness that in turn helps create strong social and political institutions, (Sztompka, 1996; Inglehart and Abramson, 1994; Coleman, 1990). Thus, based upon what Newton and Norris (2000) refer to as the “sociocultural approach” to social and institutional trust, one would expect that more engaged individuals would have higher levels of social trust and confidence in institutions. The above suggest the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Individuals who are active in civil society organizations will exhibit higher levels of social and institutional trust.
2.1. Country level controls However, the literature also suggests many other variables that affect social and institutional trust. At the country level, according to Inglehart and Baker (2000: 20) economic development and greater national wealth has “systematic and, to some extent, predictable cultural consequences”. In particular, economic development and greater wealth are associated, in their view, with greater levels of social and institutional trust, quite apart from regime type. Indeed, wealth, and perceived regime performance even for highly authoritarian regimes, creates a kind of “performance legitimacy for the regime” leading to greater levels of social and institutional trust. Thus we would expect that trust is higher in countries that are wealthier than those than in countries that are less wealthy. Further we would expect trust to be positively related to improved economic performance in a country, particularly after the collapse of an authoritarian regime. Regime type is also cited as an important factor impacting levels of social and institutional trust (Sun and Wang, 2012). In authoritarian regimes, levels of social and institutional trust are significantly lower than in countries that are relatively more democratic (Marshall et al., 2009). In part, this is because the regime may purposely seek to atomize society, to create distrust amongst citizens in a form of “divide and rule.” Empirically, Booth and Bayer Richard (1998: 43) found that repressive governments discouraged trust generally, and distrust was much higher in authoritarian regimes than in more democratic ones. Further, authoritarian regimes are also associated with lower levels of confidence in institutions. This, in part, may be an expression of dissent regarding the institutions of an existing authoritarian regime. In some cases the population may be driven toward activity against the system, or into apathy if their demands are repressed or ignored (Putnam, 1995; Foley and Edwards, 1996). Both would, however, lower institutional trust. 2.2. Individual level characteristics Beyond the literature that has focused on country-system level effects on social and political trust, there are a number of individual level factors that are also cited as impacting social and institutional trust. At the individual level, some of the characteristics associated with higher levels of social trust are an individual's economic welfare, education level, age (with older people more trusting than younger people) and gender (with men more trusting than women) (Williams, 1988; Geertz, 1962). Individual economic welfare has been cited as an important factor impacting levels of social and political trust (Inglehart and Baker, 2000). Generally, wealthier individuals are more likely to exhibit higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust, largely because of the material benefits they derive from the existing system. Thus, we would expect that individual economic situation should be an important factor in affecting levels of social and institutional trust in the sample of respondents from the post-communist countries included in this study.
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Others have pointed to individual demographic features of individuals and their impact on their levels of social trust. Inglehart and Abramson (1994) suggest that generally older people tend to be more trusting than younger people across many countries. This suggests that age differences may affect levels of social and institutional trust. Levels of social and institutional trust may also vary across gender. Inglehart and Norris (2000) noted that in less democratic countries, there has been a consistent gap between men and women in terms of levels of social and institutional trust, with women less trusting than men. However, as countries become more democratic, the gender gap disappears. Women in well-established democracies adopt similar attitudes toward politics and participation. This would suggest that gender should also be an important consideration in assessing the level of social and institutional trust among the countries included in this study. 3. Background to Georgian politics From 1992 to 2003 (after the overthrow of the Zviad Gamsakhurdia regime that had emerged to govern Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union) Georgia was headed by the former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1993 Georgia government forces suffered a catastrophic defeat in the northwestern region of Abkhazia, which led to the expulsion of the entire Georgian population of the region in a spate of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic violence also flared in South Ossetia, resulting in 100,000 refugees fleeing to Russian North Ossetia. In south-western Georgia, the autonomous republic of Ajaria under the control of local strong man Aslan Abashidze also toyed with secession. Georgia thus has had its share of internal conflicts. In 1995 Shevardnadze narrowly survived an assassination attempt and used this as pretext to sack his political competitors in the coalition government and consolidated his authority. However, his governmentdand his own familydbecame increasingly associated with pervasive corruption that hampered Georgia's economic growth. He won presidential elections in November 1995 and April 2000 with large majorities, but there were persistent allegations of vote-rigging. The second war in Chechnya, which began in 1999, strained relations between Russia and Georgia, with the former accusing the Georgian government of aiding the Chechen rebels. In addition, Shevardnadze's overtures to the United States, which he saw as a counterbalance to Russian influence in the Southern Caucasus, further heightened tensions with Russia. Georgia became a major recipient of US foreign and military aid, signed a strategic partnership with NATO and declared an ambition to join both NATO and the European Union. Georgia also was able to secure the Baku-Tbilisi_Ceyhan Pipeline project which amounted to $3 billion of investment into the country. In 2003 Shevardnadze was challenged by a coalition of reformists headed by Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania in the November 2003 elections. The elections were widely regarded as blatantly rigged, and the opposition organized mass demonstrations in the streets of Tbilisi, later called the “Rose Revolution”. After two tense weeks, Shevardnadze resigned on November 23, 2003. Saakashvili then won a landslide victory in the presidential election January, 2004, and subsequently moved quickly to implement market reforms and root out low- and mid-level corruption in the state bureaucracy. These successes gave Georgia a reputation as the one post-Soviet country where real reform had taken hold (Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili, 2013). However, although the Georgian state became more efficient the regime began to drift toward autocracy. Many decisions seemed to be based on Saakashvili's personal whims, such as the construction of oddly shaped modern artistic government buildings in Tbilisi (which stand in stark contrast to the older structures in the center of the city), and the idea of moving Parliament and the Supreme Court to provincial towns. There were also other very risky decisions such as the dispatch of troops to the disputed region of South Ossetia in 2008 da move that touched off a brief but intense war with Russia. Beginning in 2011 a new opposition emerged, funded by the media oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who had amassed an enormous fortune in Russia during the wild days of the 1990s. Ivanishvili built the opposition based on his network of friends and clients, as well as some established opposition parties into the “Georgian Dream” coalition. As Fairbanks Charles and Gugushvili (2013: 119) note “Georgian Dream was an ‘anti’ movement, united not by policy positions or constituencies but by disgust with the government”. Georgian Dream capitalized on the downturn in the Georgian economy that had resulted from the global recession. This coupled with the growing dissatisfaction with the National Movement Government, and the release of tapes of the torture of state held prisoners shortly before the election, tipped the poll in favor of Georgia Dream. In the 2012 parliamentary elections Georgia Dream won 85 of 150 seats in Parliament and 55% of the proportional representation list vote, ousting the National Movement from power. In the October 2016 election, Georgia Dream won even more decisively, taking 115 seats out of 150. The OSCE certified the election as “competitive and well administered” the fourth straight election in Georgia certified as such. Thus, unlike many of its neighbors, Georgia has emerged as a fairly well functioning democracy, with at least one peaceful turnover of power and four straight free and competitive parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, has the development of Georgian democracy been accompanied by greater levels of social and political trust? 4. Design and methodology As a test of the hypothesis that activity in civil society organizations will promote social and institutional trust, we employ data from Caucasus Barometer for the 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015 survey waves (no wave was conducted in 2014). We use Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
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these data because they include both data from a time prior to the transition from the National Movement to Georgia Dream in the fall of 2012. Thus the 2011 and 2012 data precede the transferal of power, and the 2013 and 2015 waves follow it. The Caucasus Barometer is an annual household survey about social economic issues and political attitudes conducted by Caucasus Research Regional Center (CRRC). Since 2006, the survey has been carried out based on a representative nationwide sample excluding territories affected by military conflicts. The Caucasus Barometer survey runs annually in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The 2011e2015 waves include a total of 22,516 respondents from across the three countries. The dependent variables we employ are questions related to interpersonal trust, trust in the legislature, and trust in the judiciary. More specifically we employ as measures of the three dependent variables three questions from the Caucasus Barometer dataset. As a measure of interpersonal trust from the Caucasus Barometer we use question GALLTRU, which asks whether the respondents: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people in/country/can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? Code ‘1’ corresponds to answer “You can't be too careful” and code ‘10’ corresponds to answer “Most people can be trusted.” These questions were similar to the World Values Survey questions regarding trust (although the WVS questions were dichotomized). Unfortunately, this question was only asked for the 2012 and 2015 Caucasus Barometer waves, which limits its use but still allows for the examination across time of changes in levels of interpersonal trust. We dichotomize this into a dummy variable where 1e5 is lower levels of trust and 6e10 are recoded as higher levels of interpersonal trust, thus make it comparable to the data from the World Values Survey (which we use to measure the level of trust for the countries of the Former Soviet Union). For trust in institutions, we included questions regarding trust in parliament (TRUPARL), in the executive (TRUEXEC) and trust in the courts (TRUCRTS). These were measured in five (5) categories ranging from “fully distrust” to “fully trust”. We then recoded the responses into dichotomous categories with 1 coded as “0” and 2 and 3 coded as “1”, with 0 represent low trust, and 1 representing moderate to high trust. We also include a number of individual-level and country-level control variables. At the individual level we include the age of the respondent (in years), the gender of the respondent, the number of reported years of education, and the respondent's reported personal income in US dollars. Further we include a variable that measures the extent to which the respondent is involved in the activities of a civil society organization (or whether the respondent did volunteer work without expecting compensation. [ACTVLNT]) and the respondent's level of trust in Non-Governmental Organizations or TRUNGOS. Additionally, we measure the extent to which individuals view the state as a “patriarchy” or the idea that the state is meant to protect citizens like a parent. Generally, it has been suggested that such a set of political attitudes is detrimental to the development to democracy, but may help explain higher levels of political trust. To measure the extent to which individuals see the state as a patriarchy, we use the question “Do you agree with this statement or do you agree very strongly with this statement?” (GOVTROL) and the responses to two statements. The first statement (which is the patriarchy response) the respondent is asked to agree very strongly with the statement or agree with the statement “People are like children; the government should take care of them like a parent.” The second statement is “Government is like an employee; the people should be the bosses who control the government” and again the respondent is asked to agree strongly or agree with this statement. WE recoded the variable so that those who agreed or agreed strongly with the first statement were scored a “1” and those who agreed or agreed strongly with the second statement were scored a “0”1. We also include three country level variables, a country's average Polity2 score for a four-year period from 2012 to 16, which indicates the extent to which a country is a democracy or an autocracy. We also use Freedom House's Nations in Transit measure of civil society, which “assesses the growth of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), their organizational capacity and financial sustainability, and the legal and political environment in which they function; the development of free trade unions; and interest group participation in the policy process.” The value ranges from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level in civil society development (Freedom House, 2017). Finally we use GDP per capita as a measure of national level economic wealth (The World Bank, 2017).
5. Analysis Table 1 reports some overall descriptive statistics comparing the three countries, as well as comparing the three Caucasian countries with average measures for the other countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Overall, as we mentioned earlier, according to Polity2 the level of Georgian Democracy is quite high over the four-year period from 2011 to 2015, standing at a score of 6.6, which is considerably higher than Armenia (with a score of 5) and clearly more democratic than autocratic Azerbaijan. Moreover, Georgia's Polity2 score is much higher than the average score for the FSU countries outside of the Caucasus (excluding Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are currently members of the European Union). Further, Armenia and Georgia score better on the Freedom House Civil Society Index score relative to both Azerbaijan and the rest of the FSU
1 In the World Values Survey, there was not an identically worded question. Thus, as a proxy we used the question (E037) “People should take more responsibility to provide for themselves vs the government should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for”. Those who that the government should take more responsibility (scores 6e10) were coded as a “1”. This provided for a roughly similar measure of the paternalistic role of the state.
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J. Ishiyama et al. / Communist and Post-Communist Studies xxx (2018) 1e8
Table 1 Comparing states.
Polity2 Average 2011e15 FH Civil Society Index Average 2011e2015 Percent involved in voluntary activity Level of General Trust Level of Parliament trust Level of Judicial Trust Level of Trust in Executive Statist Political Culture
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia
FSU Countries Average WVS (excluding Caucasus)
5 3.75 9 21 16 20 19 75
7 6.27 9 36 44 32 54 76
6.6 3.75 18 32 33 32 41 56
5.25 5.40 8.54% 22.48 27.60 40.27 36.74 72.19%
Sources: Marshall et al. (2016); Freedom House (2016); Caucasus Barometer (2016); World Values Survey (2015).
countries. However, Georgians are much more likely to report being involved in voluntary activities (18%) than in either Armenia or Azerbaijan, and much higher than the proxy measure we use for voluntary activity for other FSU countries.2 Interestingly, the country that is the most authoritarian, Azerbaijan, reports higher levels of interpersonal trust than Armenia, which is the lowest (at 0.21), although Georgian levels of interpersonal trust are higher than either in Armenia or in Azerbaijan. However, in terms of institutional trust, Azerbaijan ranks highest, with parliamentary trust at 0.44 (higher than Armenia and Georgia and the FSU average) and judicial trust at the same level as Georgia. However, this may be due to the authoritarian nature of the Azeri state, which may affect responses to queries regarding institutional trust. Another notable feature of Table 1 relates attitudes regarding the state. Far fewer respondents agreed with the statement that supported the notion of the state as paternalistic power in Georgia as compared to Armenia and Azerbaijan. What is clear is that Georgia has a higher level of civil society development than its neighbors, and generally higher levels of social and institutional trust than other countries in the FSU. This is generally consistent with observations about Georgian civil society made by scholars such as Broers (2005). So, what are these individual and national level correlates of interpersonal and institutional trust in the Caucasus? Is participation in civil society associated with higher levels of social and institutional trust in the Caucasus generally, and in Georgia in particular? To begin, we acknowledge that the effects of some of the explanatory variables (such as individual level characteristics) on the dependent variables are nested within country contexts. To take into account the multiple levels in the analysis, in Table 2 we cluster the robust standard errors by country to model in the multilevel nature of the data. Table 2 reports the results of the logit analysis of the interpersonal and institutional trust variables regressed against the individual and country level variables, with odds ratios reported rather than coefficients. Odds ratios are interpreted differently than general coefficients. When an odds ratio larger than 1, this indicates the percent increase in the dependent variable; when the odds ratio is below 1, this indicates the percent decrease in the dependent variable. As indicated by the results in the table. The two most important variables in the pooled data that explain higher levels of interpersonal and institutional trust are whether or not the respondent had engaged in a voluntary activity (which was used to measure engagement in civil society) and whether the individual trusted NGOs. Both of these indicate that greater trust and engagement with civil society produces significantly higher levels of social and political trust. This finding is consistent with hypothesis 1. However, have these relationships changed over time? Is trust growing or declining? In Table 3 we rerun the analysis splitting the sample to separate analyze the data from Georgian and Armenia (leaving out Azerbaijan given that Azerbaijan is the most autocratic of the three states). In addition to the individual level variables, we also include a year dummy where the data from 2011 to 12 are compared to the data from 2013 to 15. In other words, the impact of the transition from the National Movement to the Georgia Dream coalition can be examined and then compared to Armenia. In Table 3 we report the levels of interpersonal trust and trust in parliament (since parliament is the most democratic institutional aspect of a functioning democracy). As Table 3 indicate, consistent with hypothesis 1 participation in voluntary activity is a significant factor in promoting both interpersonal and political trust in Georgia. However, these findings do not hold for Armenia. What might explain these differences? In Armenia the fact that voluntary activity does not result in greater trust is because the level of such activity in Georgia is quite low, even when compared to authoritarian Azerbaijan (see Table 1 above). Colleagues of ours in Georgia have suggested that the level of international NGO activity is significantly higher there than in Armenia (although we do not have hard data do demonstrate this, but this observation is consistent with Broers, 2005) –this might help explain why voluntary activity does not promote trust (because the opportunities to participate in civil society organizations are much rarer in Armenia than in Georgia).
2 The World Values Survey does not include the question of voluntary activities in the questionnaire. As a proxy measure we use the question of whether individuals report being active in a list of organizations including: A098 (active membership in a church or religious organization) A103 (active membership in an environmental organization) A104 (active membership in a professional organization) A105 (active membership in a charitable/humanitarian organization) A106 (active membership in other groups).
Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005
J. Ishiyama et al. / Communist and Post-Communist Studies xxx (2018) 1e8
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Table 2 Explaining levels of trustdPooled data. General trust Odds Ratio (clustered robust standard errors)
Parliamentary Trust
Judicial Trust
Executive trust
0.89* (0.04) 1.01*** (0.000) 0.99 (0.02) 0.99* (0.01) 1.53*** (0.07) 0.98 (0.03) 2.62*** (0.23)
0.94*** (0.02) 0.99 (0.003) 0.99 (0.007) 0.97 (0.004) 1.15* (0.17) 0.94*** (01) 2.65*** (0.05)
1.06 (0.05) 1.00 (0.003) 0.99 (0.006) 0.99 (0.01) 1.44*** (0.08) 0.98 (0.04) 2.11*** (0.11)
.21 (.31) 1.02 (0.15) 1.01* (0.00)
3.89 (8.17) 0.95 (0.20) 0.99* (0.00)
4.76* (3.88) 1.17 (0.12) 0.99* (0.00)
26.49 (67.89) 1.46 (0.55) 0.99* (0.00)
0.02 7205 4276.774
0.17 14996 7095.269
0.14 14297 6971.010
0.14 14919 8565.861
Individual Level Gender
0.98 (0.05) 1.01 (0.002) 0.99 (0.02) 1.04* (0.02) 1.24*** (0.04) 1.09*** (0.02) 1.17** (0.08)
Age Income Education in years Active in Voluntary organization Attitude about role of the state Trust in NGOS
Country Level NIT FH civil society score Polity 2 GDP/capita * ¼ P .05 ** ¼ P .01 *** ¼ p 001 Pseudo r-square N Log pseudolikelihood
Sources: Marshall et al. (2016); Freedom House (2016); Caucasus Barometer (2016); World Values Survey (2015); World Bank (2016).
Table 3 Levels of Trust, Armenia and Georgia over time. Armenia
Gender Age Income Eduyrs Active in Voluntary organization Attitude about role of the state 2013-15 dummy * ¼ P .05 ** ¼ P .01 *** ¼ p 001 Pseudo r-square N Log pseudolikelihood
Georgia
General trust Odds Ratio (robust standard errors)
Parliamentary Trust
General Trust
Parliamentary Trust
0.94 (0.09) 1.00 (0.002) 1.01 (0.018) 1.08*** (0.02) 1.21 (0.17) 1.08* (0.04) 1.14 (0.11)
0.82* (0.07) 1.00 (0.002) 0.99 (0.02) 0.98 (0.01) 1.23 (0.17) 0.88*** (0.03) 0.36**** (0.04)
0.97 (0.07) 0.99 (0.002) 1.02 (0.02) 1.02 (0.01) 1.26* (0.13) 1.04 (0.26) 0.62*** (0.04)
0.87* (0.06) 1.00 (0.002) 1.03* (0.01) 0.98 (0.01) 1.44*** (0.11) 0.95 (0.03) 0.20*** (0.018)
0.02 2870 1488.281
0.18 6037 1884.568
0.02 3029 1909.048
0.14 5533 2734.968
Sources: Caucasus Barometer (2016)
More troubling is the trend over time. Table 3 also reports the effects of comparing the previous waves of the CB survey (2011-12) with the data from 2013 to 15, by using a dummy variable (2013-15 dummy) to examine changes across time in levels of trust. Unfortunately, despite the promise of Georgian democracy, the level of social trust has decreased in Georgia over these two periods by about 38% and the level of institutional trust has decreased by 80% (based upon the interpretation
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of the odds ratios for that variable reported in Table 3. These results do not bode well for the future consolidation of Georgian democracy. This supports some of the more pessimistic assessments of Georgian civil society (Pokleba, 2016). 6. Conclusion The above paper attempts to address the question of identifying the underlying popular political attitudes and explains differences in Georgian politics compared to its most immediate neighbors, Armenia and Azerbaijan and other countries in the former Soviet Union. The results above suggest that the existence of a fairly well developed network of non-governmental organizations and the opportunities to engage in voluntary organizations has helped the development of higher levels of social and institutional trust in Georgia, in contrast to its neighbors. However, overtime there has been an erosion of social and institutional trust, and this raises some concerns over the staying power of Georgian democracy. 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Please cite this article in press as: Ishiyama, J., et al., An oasis of democracy in an authoritarian sea? Civil society, social, and institutional trust in Georgia, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.postcomstud.2018.01.005