Foreign Policy Orientation and Electoral Behavior: Analyzing Opinion Polls in Belarus, Georgia, and Kazakhstan

Abstract

In the post-pandemic years of 2021–2022, the post-Soviet space has entered a stage of decisive transformation, which will test the maturity of the state institutions formed 30 years ago for the region’s countries. The study captures a snapshot of public sentiment in these countries on the eve of this wave of transformation it is based on a series of largescale opinion polls in Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan, conducted immediately after the last elections to the lower houses of the parliaments of these countries in the pre-crisis era. The main research question of the sociological study was to identify demographic and geographical patterns in determining the attitude of voters toward the prospects for relations with Russia. Countries with traditionally different strategies of relations with Russia were taken: Belarus is a strategic ally, Kazakhstan is friendly but pursues a multi-vector policy, and Georgia is generally hostile at the level of the political class. The analysis showed that in matters of orientation towards positive relations with Russia, the voters of these countries nevertheless had more in common than differences. Based on the analysis results, several lines of delimitation can be distinguished. Firstly, the “macro-regional, geopolitical” line runs between Belarus and Kazakhstan, on the one hand, and Georgia, on the other. The second split along the “center-periphery” line takes place within states, i.e., Such a demarcation was singled out by many researchers, singled out concerning Russia; however, we found the same demarcations in Belarus (“Minsk and the rest of the country”) partly in Georgia and Kazakhstan. Finally, the authors admit to it the possibility of delimitation along the north-south lines: in Georgia and, to some extent, in Kazakhstan, as a result of territorial differentiation in the residence of Russians in the northern regions of the republic, where sympathy for Russia is more clearly manifested than in the southern regions remote from it; and this demarcation is less pronounced in Belarus, where it refers to the regions bordering Russia and Ukraine.

Keywords

• electoral geography
• post-soviet space
• belarus
• georgia
• kazakhstan
• sociological survey
• foreign policy orientation