Social Capital in Georgia

Author(s): Leslie Hough
Editor(s): Iris Kempe, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Lili Di Puppo
Series: Caucasus Analytical Digest (CAD)
Issue: 31
Pages: 2-5
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Resource Security Institute (RSI), Arlington; Heinrich Böll Foundation, Tbilisi; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen
Publication Year: 2011

Georgia has been characterized as a country with high bonding social capital, but low bridging social capital. This pattern of in-group solidarity and out-group mistrust is thought to contribute to the lack of civic engagement in Georgia as evidenced by extremely low rates of group membership and participation in public meetings. However, results from a new survey on social capital and civic engagement show that despite the Georgian publics low levels of formal participation in the civil society sector, widespread norms of openness and altruism underlie vibrant forms of bridging social capital that already exist in Georgia. These findings suggest that the key challenge to increasing civic engagement among Georgian citizens is the institutionalization of currently informal forms of social capital and the alignment of the civil society sector with the population's existing priorities and habits.

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