Characteristics of actors: motivation

Local and international NGOs began working on the DV problem in Georgia much earlier than the government (Javakhishvili and Tsuladze, Reference Javakhishvili and Tsuladze2011a). Tamar Sabedashvili claims that, without Georgian NGOs’ work in support of female victims, there would have been no grounds for a legislative response or a relevant policy. According to Sabedashvili, the draft law of anti-domestic-violence is the result of NGOs’ activities. She highlights the actors’ internal motivation and underscores that, although the international NGOs had a crucial role in developing the law, the idea was not theirs (Sabedashvili, Reference Sabedashvili2011).

However, the interview data point to a strong external pressure for the adoption and implementation of the anti-domestic-violence law in 2006. The adoption of the law was heavily influenced by international norms and convention requirements, which is confirmed by the following excerpts from the interviews:

The idea of combating domestic violence was not sufficiently mature on the national level. Thus the law was adopted mainly because of international requirements. As early as 1999, the CEDAW Committee (Georgia joined CEDAW in 1994) strongly recommended that Georgia, as a State Party, adopt relevant legislation and elaborate on its respective measures to eliminate violence against women (Sabedashvili, Reference Sabedashvili2011). The analysis of media materials, namely records of the parliamentary debates over the adoption of the anti-DV law, clearly show that MPs voted for the law because of the request from the international community: ‘I voted for this law because “the West” requests us to do so’ was a typical phrase heard at the debates (video recordings of parliamentary hearings on adopting anti-domestic-violence law in 2006).

The Parliament and the government attached higher priority to compliance with international politics than to the elimination of the DV problem. Consequently, their lack of commitment to DV prevention was reflected in the policy implementation process, as will be shown later in this article. The government aimed to adopt the law but it did not have sufficient motivation to implement it. We can judge the actors’ motivation by studying their perception of the DV problem and their attitude towards its implementation from the following perspectives: Is domestic violence a crime? Should the violator be punished? Should others interfere? Is divorce a reasonable solution in such cases? What are the reasons for domestic violence?

The organisation representatives interviewed for this study held diverse attitudes towards these issues. The respondents’ opinions differed significantly even on such a fundamental issue as the recognition of domestic violence as a crime:

The interviews clearly show that domestic violence remains tabooed, the victims – targets – are still afraid to talk about it openly and believe that the problem must be solved within the family. They are ashamed of external involvement and are not motivated to fight for their rights or take a divorce decision as their family, friends and the community do not support them. The societal attitudes reflect the lack of motivation to combat DV and intervene against perpetrators. Representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations often encounter obstacles while dealing with DV cases, because they are opposed by the local community that supports perpetrators or disapproves of the disclosure. Female victims are thus limited to discussing their problems with parents (47.5 per cent), friends (31.2 per cent), siblings (22.4 per cent) and rarely with police or health care institutions. Moreover, they are not likely to seek divorce as the society is against it. The representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations hold similar views, believing that ‘divorce is a tragedy’ (Chitashvili and Arutiunov, Reference Chitashvili and Arutiunov2010; Tsuladze, Reference Tsuladze2010; Javakhishvili et al., Reference Javakhishvili, Lortkipanidze and Petriashvili2012a).

Respondents who find involvement important admit, at the same time, that intervention is too difficult in Georgia, because the society – targets – opposes it. They believe the problem is rooted in the mentality of the society. Moreover, most of the respondents admitted that they would not call the police if they witnessed violence:

The majority of the respondents believe that everything should be done to avoid divorce which is seen as the last resort. The following two statements are typical examples of this stereotype:

Most of the respondents consider social and economic factors, such as unemployment and alcoholism, as the main reasons for domestic violence. Only six out of 44 foregrounded the structural causes of the problem. The following statement reveals that the respondents' personal beliefs about the domestic violence issue are fairly traditional:

The actors – implementers as well as targets – lack the motivation to face the problem of DV which, in turn, prevents their successful collaboration.

Characteristics of actors: information

The organisations we contacted have a vague idea about the national DV policy, its goals and potential benefits for victims, but no visible attempts are made to obtain more information about it. It is clear from the interviews that there is a substantial gap between governmental and non-governmental sectors, as well as within each sector. The organisations lack information about each other's activities and strengths:

Many regional organisations experience difficulties in obtaining relevant information, because the information is primarily available online, in languages other than Georgian, and many of them cannot access the Internet because they cannot afford to do so:

Many victims lack information to resist DV; some of them do not even know that there is a law and specific organisations to protect them. Individuals and society lack information, despite the campaign efforts of NGOs.

Thus, it is clear that there are serious problems in terms of information transparency. Very often, the organisations do not have access to the necessary information due to a lack of resources.

Characteristics of actors: power

According to CIT, power is associated with capacity, resource and control. The actor's resources crucially determine their power in the process of implementation, which can strengthen or weaken its enactment. Resources include finances, personnel and time.

Our study data show that the DV-relevant NGOs employ an average of five members of staff. The minimum is three and the maximum is 150 (only in one central NGO). The professional backgrounds of the employees are quite diverse, varying from a social worker to a philologist, from a lawyer to a chemist and from a psychiatrist to a theologian. Education, training and professional background are not always decisive factors in hiring employees at these organisations.

In terms of working conditions, most of the organisations have the relevant technical equipment (e.g. computer hardware, a copy machine and a printer). However, a car, a driver, fuel and other ‘luxuries’ are rare exceptions.

Most of the organisations only have small amounts of funding and three NGOs have no income. The annual income of employees in these organisations varies from 5,000 GEL (~ £1,650) to more than 500,000 GEL (~ £165,000).

The activities of the NGOs primarily depend on donor organisations because they are funded by the latter. Consequently, their scope of activities is determined by the requirements of the funder:

Governmental organisations, on the other hand, do not depend on a donor; donor organisations mostly work in coordination with governmental organisations.

Governmental organisations and some large NGOs, described as ‘elite’ organisations by the respondents, have access to more resources than others. They have sufficient personnel, funding and technical equipment to implement large-scope projects. Most of other organisations do not have sufficient resources, which prevents them from implementing projects.

Targets – victims – obviously possess little power to face the problem. However, in the complex case of DV, victims' behaviours largely influence the implementation of a policy. For example, when reaching out to a victim of a specific DV case, a non-governmental organisation tried to explain to her that she was a victim of domestic violence from her husband. The woman admitted to being a victim but could not be persuaded into calling the police. The latter was not even given a chance to intervene or, in other words, to play its role as a policy implementer. The case described above is not an exception. Other studies show that most victims do not apply to the police or NGOs for help. The 2010 nationwide study of Georgian women revealed that only two per cent of victims report DV incidents to police and one per cent reports to NGOs (Chitashvili and Arutinov, Reference Chitashvili and Arutiunov2010).

Motivation, information and power are obviously unequally distributed between the implementers. In particular, the governmental sector has more power and less motivation whereas NGOs hold less power and more motivation. Both sectors lack information: due to ineffective communication: they do not exchange information adequately. Furthermore, the organisations find it difficult to discuss ways of problem solving, which can also be considered as a lack of information.

Interaction/cooperation

The analysis of the interview data revealed that cooperation among implementers occurs within a limited circle of NGOs that are perceived as ‘elite’ organisations, with more power than others. They cooperate with each other, as well as with the government, which increases their power:

Further developing the CIT, Cheryl de Boer (Reference de Boer2012) focused on the receptivity of implementers and target groups. Receptivity denotes openness to new experiences, which begins with getting new information, filtering it through the existing frames of reference, acquiring new knowledge and applying it. This capacity also shows to what extent actors can interact and cooperate. De Boer's observation is supported by the international experience of combating DV, which shows that united interagency efforts have been successful in overcoming this complex problem. It is important to encourage various agencies ‘to effectively co-operate in order to adopt an integrated approach to eliminating violence against women and domestic violence’ (Council of Europe, 2011). Also, it is the responsibility of government agencies to ‘recognize [. . .] at all levels, the work of relevant NGOs and of civil society active in combating violence against women and establish effective co-operation with these organizations’ (Istanbul Convention, 2011). The need for interagency cooperation has been emphasised since the 1980s, with the noted success of the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project and the Duluth model, which have proved to be effective and efficient DV strategies (Domestic Abuse International Programs, 2011). Unfortunately, the organisations combating domestic violence in Georgia – the implementers – have limited resources with which to cooperate.

The complex DV problem also requires the cooperation of target groups, as shown by the CIT framework. As we have shown above, target groups – victims and the community – lack the motivation, information and power to combat DV. Therefore, they do not cooperate with implementers. Moreover, the implementers face obstacles from target groups – the community –and, in many cases, victims also oppose their activities.

Context

The context in which a policy unfolds is an important factor in the Contextual Interaction Theory. It can be relatively narrow and structural – as in the case of property rights; or broad – as in the case of a political system and economic conditions (de Boer, Reference de Boer2012). We discuss the context in which the anti-domestic-violence policy is realised by actors and consider the church and mass media as external factors that influence policy implementation. These two institutions are quite powerful in Georgia. According to one public opinion survey, the activities of the Orthodox Church are assessed favorably by 91 per cent of the population and that of the Georgian media by 82 per cent (IRI, 2015).

From 2006–2010 only 11 articles (in 3 newspapers and 4 magazines) covered the topic of DV (Javakhishvili, Reference Javakhishvili2010b). Since 2006, related issues have been aired by a handful of TV programmes, mostly at the initiative, and with the support, of international donor organisations. Interviews with the representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations reveal that they are not satisfied with the media coverage of the issue and find that ‘mass media do not see domestic violence as a social problem and provide little space to discussing the issue’ (Javakhishvili et al., Reference Javakhishvili, Lortkipanidze and Petriashvili2012b). A thorough review of media revealed no evidence of the Georgian Orthodox Church's efforts to combat DV. The study of church publications and sermons of church representatives indicate that they turn a blind eye to this problem (Kobalia, Reference Kobalia2011). Most representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations reported that the clerics discourage female victims from opposing the violence and call on them to obey their husbands, while a few respondents gave a positive account of priests trying to help the victims. However, these are sporadic cases indicating that ‘the representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church lack systemic understanding of domestic violence and have limited resources to effectively intervene in domestic violence cases’ (Javakhishvili et al., Reference Javakhishvili, Lortkipanidze and Petriashvili2012b).

The analysis of the interviews allows us to conclude that external factors hinder the reenactment of DV policy implementation.

Policy implementation

The results obtained attest to the presence of the anti-DV policy in Georgia. However, its realisation can be qualified as a symbolic application because the actors involved have different goals and different levels of motivation. Moreover, they lack information and power. Under such circumstances, a policy is often realised via bureaucratic channels and its implementation is weak (Bressers, Reference Bressers and Lafferty2004; Owens, Reference Owens2008). According to Bressers, symbolic implementation is characteristic of a ‘. . . .policy that is not taken seriously by implementers (and perhaps not meant to be) and that is not supported by a serious commitment of resources’ (Bressers, Reference Bressers and Lafferty2004). In Georgia, this takes the shape of an insufficient allocation of funds (National Action Plans 2007–2009, 2009–2010, 2011–2012 and 2013–2015), and inadequate support of DV victims, as evidenced by the scarcity of shelters and crisis centres, and by the failure of law enforcement intervention (UN Women, 2014).

Within the CIT framework, policy implementation is successful when the issue is important for each actor – in Georgia's case this condition is not fulfilled. As noted above, the targets – victims and community – and even the implementers, prefer the cases of DV not to be dealt with outside the family. Moreover, the implementers’ opinions were self-contradictory. As they started answering our questions, they would express egalitarian views but, as they proceeded, they would switch to traditional views, not even noticing the inconsistency in their speech. Both husband and wife should be equally involved in raising their children, but the wife is expected to be more involved; both husband and wife should be breadwinners in a family, although men better fit the role; a woman can have sexual relations before marriage, however she should not; divorce is a way out of violence in a family, although only in severe cases (only in exceptional cases/ under extreme circumstances) and for the sake of protecting children; a husband should not control his wife, but he may; a wife should not be required to obey her husband, but it is better if she does obey:

Such disposition of the actors obviously influences their motivation – if domestic violence is not recognized as a social problem, why should one intervene; if gender inequality is not a reason behind DV, then it is not relevant in decision making, etc. Consequently, traditional attitudes of implementers and targets may hinder effective implementation and, because of these attitudes, they may not carry out relevant activities to combat DV. Additionally, targets and the governmental sector have lower motivation because the latter's activities towards DV are influenced by the external pressure from international institutions. In our view, the lack of genuine motivation is one of the reasons for a symbolic (and ineffective) implementation of a policy.

In order for a policy to be realised, the actors need to have relevant information and vision to solve the problems. In our case, the organisations, as well as actors, lack information and find it difficult to identify sufficient ways of problem solving and collaboration. Furthermore, organisations working on the DV issue do not have shared attitudes about the problem, which hampers their collaboration in developing a unified strategy to combat DV. From the CIT perspective, it is clear that there is also a problem in terms of transparency. Respondents note that some organisations often conceal information; others do not have access to relevant documents, etc. These problems are also associated with resources – the actors do not have sufficient resources and skills to obtain the information. Furthermore, there is a question about how the actors can come to understand the complexity of the problem and the necessity to collaborate. Generally, they talk about the importance of collaboration, but seem to require the other side to initiate the activity and do not recognise their own reluctance.

Besides, the results show that the respondents do not have sufficient information about the causes of domestic violence. Most of them consider economic and social problems, mostly unemployment, as the main reasons for DV. Only a few respondents cite upbringing and mentality and, consequently, gender inequality as the reasons for domestic violence.

Also, it is necessary that the actor has the capacity to intervene, i.e. has the power. In our case, the power is distributed unequally between the implementers. The party with lower motivation holds more power. Even influential governmental organisations lack relevant qualified personnel and sufficient resources. There is less power on the side of organisations working on gender issues.