25-07-2018
The seventh expert poll conducted by the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) explores the extent that the opinions of the expert community, both domestic and international, differ from the perceptions of the Georgian public. The survey collected responses from 28 renowned Georgian and foreign experts and scholars who are actively researching and studying Georgian domestic and foreign policy. In order to compare the expert respondents’ answers to the views of the general public, the questions in the survey were partly taken from the public surveys commissioned by the NDI and the IRI.
We can draw several conclusions from the survey: overall, the scholars and the general population seem to have similar views on many domestic and foreign policy issues. Yet there are also significant differences in the assessment of certain domestic institutions as well as the foreign policy performance of the Georgian government. On balance, scholars and experts seem to be more critical of the performance of a number of institutions but assess the foreign policy of the Georgian government more positively than the wider population.