Following the post-communist transition, government officials, business and Russian oligarchs felt free to guzzle state resources and since 2007 the substantial subsidies provided by the EU. Amid continuous practices of corruption, MP links with organised crime and a voting system so rigged that it does not even matter if you vote or not, it is hardly surprising that many Bulgarians have lost faith in democracy and see politicians as irrelevant to their everyday lives.
In relation to youth political engagement, this blog will look into insufficient political socialisation and alienation that have shaped the political discourse we will be discussing throughout my blogs.
First i want to introduce Hoskins (2019) basic theory of the social reproduction of inequalities in political engagement and that young people learn political engagement through a combination of participatory activities and knowledge acquisition processes. Mitev (2014) argues that the following results are evidence of Bulgaria’s youth insufficient political socialisation. With that said lets look into the level of political interest amongst young people.
Fig 1. Interest in world politics, EU politics,
politics in the Balkans, and Bulgarian politics (%) (Mitev, 2014)
The level of young people’s interest is the highest with regard to national politics (40%), whist interest in world politics is the lowest 23%, but to what extend is this shaped by Hoskins theory of reproduction ? For Hoskins (2019) political participation directly correlates with educational attainment, for her the more skills and knowledge one gains the more active they become as a citizen.
Fig 2. Levels of political interest among
the main groups of youth (%) (Mitev, 2014)
As we can see the difference by educational attainment are striking: the ratio between voters with higher education and voters with primary education or less is 5:1 (55% as against 11%). Furthermore, lets look into concerning levels of electoral participation for the last decade.
Fig 3. Electoral participation since becoming eligible to vote (%) (Mitev, 2014)
We see that younger respondents (18-22 years) voted significantly more rarely, 37%, than the older ones (23-27 years), 49%. What also influences voting outlined by Hoskins (2019) is unemployment amongst youths. Mitev (2014) found that the share of unemployed youth who have never voted in elections is twice higher than that of employed youth,further, unemployment is found to have a definite de-socializing effect.
As a conclusion (Mitev, 2019) argues that the post-transition political alienation is expressed in the form of young people’s distrust in the democratic institutions. Furthermore, more than half of Bulgarian youth are not interested in national political life, and two-thirds are not interested in EU politics. Just one-third of the 18-22-years-olds have voted in all or most elections since they became eligible to vote.
OK, but does any of these findings explain truly WHY young people are not engaging politically?
YES, education ,employment and insufficient political socialisation are influential factors.
HOWEVER, the reasons for political inactivity go far and beyond any statistic or graph. They all stem from a disbelief and disappointment in our nation…
APATHY OR ALIENATION ?
Norris (2002) argues that political disengagement among young people is due to a particular disillusion about the major institutions of representative democracy, leaving them either apathetic (at best) or alienated (at worst).
I believe that we are not apathetic or delusional about our country, because we do talk about politics, issues and situations. Young people do engage in non-institutionalised forms of participation and care about their nation. However, they feel powerless and hopeless…
Turning to political alienation, Lane (1962, p. 161) stated that it refers to
‘a person’s sense of estrangement from the politics and government of his[/her] society.’
A common way to conceptualise political alienation is to extract it into
four dimensions: powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness, and isolation (Finifter, 1970 cited in Dahl, 2017).
Political powerlessness reflects ‘an individual’s
feeling that he cannot affect the actions of the government…
the heart of the political process…is not subject to his influence’ (Finifter,1970, p. 390).
Political normlessness, in turn, refers to ‘the individual’s perception
that the norms and rules intended to govern political relations have broken
down, and that departures from prescribed behavior are common’ (Finifter, 1970,p. 390).
These reflection truly capture the political climate in Bulgaria, young people feel powerless because of mass corruption and voting fabrications (more on this in my next blog). Young people feel normlessness because the government is playing by its own rules. And as a result everything becomes meaningless and we become isolated.
Furthermore, political parties have begun to play a key role in Bulgarian youth’s political alienation, as indicated also by the fact that they are ranked last in terms of trust in institutions (The European Court of Human Rights is trusted the most, even though they interfere the least in Bulgaria) (Mitev, 2014)
Fig 4. Do you trust or distrust political parties? / How much influence does your vote have on parliament and the government? (%) (Mitev, 2014)
The results show that 80% of the respondents claim to trust no one in the section with little or no influence. Whereas around 50% believe in a single party’s influence.
What do we make of these findings and what are the solutions?
- Introduction of Active Citizenship subjects as school. (we never ever had something like this).
- Shift in online campaigning so young people could become more engaged.
- Development of a long-term national youth strategy that effectively includes political socialisation of the new generations.
- To end corruption and positively shift the political discourse.
References
Dahl, V., Amnå, E., Banaji, S., Landberg, M., Šerek, J., Ribeiro, N., … Zani, B. (2017). Apathy or alienation? Political passivity among youths across eight European Union countries. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15(3), 284–301. doi:10.1080/17405629.2017.1404985
Finifter, A. W. (1970). Dimensions of political alienation. The American Political Science
Review, 64(2), 389–410.
Hoskins, B. & Janmaat, J. G. (2019). Education, Democracy and Inequality. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-48976-0 Accessed: [05.03.20]
Lane, R. E. (1962). Political ideology: Why the American common man believes what he does.
New York, NY: Free Press
Mitev, P. & Kovacheva, S. (2014) Young people in European Bulgaria. A Sociological Portrait. Friedrich Ebert Foundation: Sofia, Bulgaria. Available at: https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/sofia/12569.pdf Accessed: [04.03.20]
Norris, P. (2004) Young People & Political Activism: From the Politics of Loyalties to the Politics of Choice? Available at : https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/COE%20Young%20People%20and%20Political%20Activism.pdf Accessed: [05.03.20]