The FINANCIAL — Georgians typically express support for democracy, but as a local pollster I’m frequently reminded that the Georgian definition of democracy is quite distinct from my own.
Our most recent survey comes with another of these reminders, in that it seems most Georgians have no problem with a politically active church.In fact, many have the opposite position: that godly politicians make for good government, and that the Georgian Orthodox Church should have substantial influence on the decisions made for the nation.
Georgian Opinion Research Business International, the Georgian member of Gallup International, conducts a quarterly omnibus survey using nationwide sampling to interview 1000 respondents. For the last omnibus in August, we included some questions meant to understand Georgian attitudes toward religiosity and governance. Most of these questions were phrased for compatibility with the European Values Survey in which GORBI participates, but I’ve also included some questions meant to allow more extreme attitudes to be expressed.
That politicians should be men of god is hardly contested in Georgia – 68% agreed that atheists are unfit for public office, and only 10% disagreed. On the other hand, substantial numbers of Georgians believe that religious leaders should not directly influence either the election of public officials or their decisions once the office is held. So far we’ve got a picture not strikingly different from much of the west.
However, when we start suggesting specific ways that the church might influence politicians’ decisions, and when we start mentioning the Georgian Orthodox Church by name, we find that Georgians are actuallyquite interested in an engaged church.
Separation of what, now?
% Agreeing
Politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for public office. 68%
Religious leaders should not influence how people vote in elections. 62% Religious leaders should not influence government decisions. 49%
The Georgian Orthodox Church should have official representatives in the government and legislature. 61%
The Georgian Orthodox Church should have the final say over all major government decisions 42%
Sometimes polls have respondents who answer questions with no apparent logical consistency; they express both support and disdain for an idea. This is not unique to any given place or subject, it happens quite frequently. The number of these internally inconsistent beliefs seems to skyrocket when religion enters the discussion, and we’re about to look at a relatively extreme example.
While 61% of people agreed that the church should have some official positions in government – perhaps a few chairs in parliament or a ministry of their own – this idea is not in direct logical conflict with other questions supporting the separation of church and state. The final question we asked, however, is quite at odds with a government free to make its own decisions – 42% of Georgians said that the church should be at the top of the pyramid, and have final say over all government decisions.
You might now be thinking that less than half of respondents said that the church shouldn’t influence the government, and less than half said it should. Where’s the overlap?
As a matter of fact, the overlap is quite extensive. Of those who agreed that religious leaders should not influence government decisions, 64% also agreed that the church should have the final say. To put this another way, one quarter of our respondents simultaneously express support and opposition to giving the church power over the government.
Perhaps this apparent inconsistency comes from question wording; that “religious leaders” are seen as a different entity than “the Georgian Orthodox Church.” There could also have been some common misunderstanding of the questions, but I find it more likely that this is just another in an endless list of examples of cognitive dissonance. These instances of double-think plague every human being’s mind, and we usually don’t notice until they’re pointed out to us. There is a worry, however, when these mental glitches start to affect the political system. Despite the general consensus that God would make a great president, most Georgians would be a bit worried if they woke up tomorrow in a theocracy.
Margins of error for these data are around 3% with 95% confidence. Visit our website at gorbi.com.
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