The assessment of Bulgarians on key issues has remained intact for 25 years –

/ world today news/ “The shares of people who evaluate the period before 1989 highlighted well, are sensitive. And I would say that between the two centuries these shares have even swelled, although they have not continued to grow. Conversely, the estimate for the time after 1989 is controversial, but with a pronounced negativity.”

“Proportions of people who rate the period before 1989 highlighted well, are sensitive. And I would say that between the two centuries these shares have even swelled, although they have not continued to grow. Conversely, the estimate for the time after 1989 is controversial, but with marked negativity.” This is what the executive director of Gallup International, Parvan Simeonov, says about VOICES. The occasion is that Gallup International’s new yearbook, The Political Process and Public Opinion 2014, is finally out. It continues a tradition that began in the 1990s and was revived in 2013, which according to the researchers, it has been an extremely interesting year. Thus, the books for 2013 are already on the market. and 2014 The yearbook contains an overview of data from the agency’s monthly surveys in 2014. in terms of mainstream institutions and parties, as well as mainstream opinions about the economy and personal finance. The annual review also includes a directory of the main events of the year, as well as public opinion data on the hot topics of last year – banking system, Ukraine, etc. But perhaps the most curious thing is that this time there is also a special chapter “A quarter century after 1989”, where the reader can follow how the main indicators of public opinion have moved each month from the beginning of the 1990s until now. This is a unique folk-psychological picture of the period. In this chapter, there are also quite a few comparisons of how we evaluated the period before and after 1989. and how we value it now.

– What are the yearbooks that your agency publishes?

– These books are a kind of urgent chronicle, a current history of public opinion. And as more time passes, they will become even more valuable as a testament to the passing years, snapshots of mass consciousness. I highly recommend the 2014 and 2013 books. in a set – because 2014 was a continuation of 2013

They are something between a textbook, a reference book and a historical reading. They contain a sea of ​​data, but let me not rehash it.

– Will you share in advance some of these curious conclusions about the folk psychology of the Bulgarian, how he reacted to the most interesting events over the years?

– In the 2013 books. and since 2014 there are “before and now” comparisons. And if I have to be honest, in some of the main directions of changes in our country in the last 25 years, the public consciousness seems almost intact.

– That sounds amazing! In what specific directions has it remained intact?

– It is about topics such as political rights, such as perception of the new market reality, such as readiness to live in the new times of social stratification, such as trust and enthusiasm regarding democratic instruments, such as elections, for example. On these topics, the public consciousness in the 1990s turned out not to be much different than now. And these are exactly the main directions of changes after 1989.

– And considering that this is a period of 25 years, that is, there is a change of generations, it sounds even more curious.

– Thank God, the new generation is different and gives more reasons for optimism. In the book, we have given a small part of the main conclusions of a large-scale youth study. Young people perceive things much more positively, with less prejudice, with the frank sharing that they do not know the past well and do not care much about it. But really, let me not rehash.

– Has there been a change in the evaluation of the communist past during this period?

– The shares of people who rate the period before 1989. highlighted well, are sensitive. And I would even say that between the two centuries these shares even swelled, although they did not continue to grow. Conversely, the estimate for the time after 1989 is controversial, but with a pronounced negativity. The good thing is that this negativity doesn’t grow over time either, even if a more moderate assessment seems to be making its way – there has been good and bad. But in general, these types of results are somewhat alarming, or at the very least, thought-provoking.

This is just one of the curious highlights of this book. Another interesting highlight is the retrospective data every month going back decades, which is very informative and one can read it for hours, not to mention days. Because they show where the peaks of our hope, of our expectations, of our optimism were.

– Where were these peaks most distinct?

– It is noticeable that there were very few moments when we looked with enthusiasm at our own institutions, our economy and the general direction of the country’s development. Changes in power have always had an invigorating effect, expectations have soared – more or less, depending on whether a messiah is coming. Our society has lived in an annoying cycle of accumulated expectations, then disappointments, and everything repeats itself.

There are very few times when we thought things were going well. If I have to say something reassuring, it is that in these assessments we are far from alone, it is a common mechanism for our modern societies. This is the logic, people want more, they are not satisfied with their politicians. And in this regard, the Bulgarians have quite a few reasons, agree.

One can see in the data another reading, we even encourage an alternative view of the studies.

Another interesting highlight in the yearbook is the public opinion data on the banking system – mistrust in 2014. rose, but did not continue to grow, there was no panic, the audience reacted maturely.

Another interesting highlight in the book is the mass opinions on the topic “Ukraine”. Our instincts as a society for emerging problems were evident there, the East-West divide (often coinciding in our country with the “left-right” labels) was evident.

– The elections in Greece were very recent and you obviously did not do any research, but I ask you as a political scientist what you think about them. Can this election change Europe or something similar happen in Bulgaria?

– Greece may turn out to be a symptom of a wider process on the European continent. A process in which radical ideologies become more and more mainstream. They were extreme, exotic, marginal, shared by few, but now they are becoming more popular and more mainstream. One phenomenon is national conservatism, which we usually call the radical right. You see what is happening in Britain. In France, over the years, a similar formation has been established and may come out on top. In Germany, where such a topic is absolutely taboo, you see what is happening with the anti-Islamist movement PEGIDA, not to mention rich and settled countries like the Scandinavian ones, like Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Austria, where such forces are just populist phenomena, but also established participants in the party system.

On the other hand, we can see what is happening in Southern Europe – in Spain “Podemos”, in Greece SYRIZA. Italy is also looking around in the hope that the Greek option for debt relief might succeed, and whether someone else ends up on the winning side.

So – stretched between extremes – in many places in Europe the political process is threatened by radicalization.

And this is likely to deepen after the case in Paris. Because as much as he showed the gap between Western civilization and countries with Islamic religion, he also showed a gap in European society itself between conservative and liberal. The case in Greece, on the other hand, shows another rift – between Euro-enthusiasm and Euro-scepticism, even Euro-rejection.

– Maybe these new dividing lines are displacing the old social divisions of poor-rich, left-right?

– They complement them, cross them and complicate the picture. And it has been like this for decades, but after Paris and Greece, the process will deepen.

Let’s take the case of “Charlie Hebdo” for example: some said it was an attack on freedom of speech, others objected – yes, but they were also making caricatures of Christ.

We saw it in Bulgaria too. Liberal thinkers emphasized freedom of speech, while the Patriotic Front took it as a blow against a sovereign state and as a war against Europe.

On one side were social conservative and national conservative formations, which say that this is a crisis of the liberal multicultural model. On the other side, there are those who say – on the contrary, salvation lies in the liberal multicultural model. In such a situation, right-wing radicals can easily win. But also the Eurosceptic and anti-European forces in general.

The traditional left-right divide has always been intersected by this divide – let’s call it broadly an open – closed society. On one side are people who hold liberal values, gay marriage, and issues related to nature. On the other side, there are those who say – enough immigrants, enough draining of social funds, that is, some kind of national closure, nationalism

Moreover, we are talking about radical right and radical left. However, one of the most flattering reviews of SYRIZA’s victory in Greece came from Marine Le Pen. That is, the traditional left-right scale has been left aside here and has prevailed over the other scale – for and against European integration, for and against this Europe.

– Where are we in this process? Which party will become the bearer of the new trends that we have seen, for example, in Greece?

– There is a niche for “consumer”, “socially pathetic”, purely left-wing populist messages, and we have seen it. I will give the following example: after the protests in January 2013. “Attack” woke up with increased support many times over. The BSP also raised the percentages, but not as much. It turns out that the traditional left in Bulgaria does not manage to speak this language, it continues to address a customary-hereditary, predictable audience and could not go beyond it. So there will probably be attempts at political projects, political entrepreneurship in that niche. SYRIZA is a challenge for BSP.

But I do not rule out formations that add a national accent to the social one from moving forward. It is not by chance that I give an example with “Attack”. The patriotic front also sounds very social – for the NFSB, this is evident. For VMRO as well – it left behind the ethno-historical topics and over the years opened consumer topics, such as the problems with electricity distribution companies, etc.

In two words, in Bulgaria (and throughout Eastern Europe) there is good ground for a combination of social and national. And there’s no way it could be otherwise, after years in the context of the transition and beyond, those words were taboo. It was taken for granted that nation-states were somehow dissolving in the process of globalization and that everything social was unprestigious, backward, anachronistic, leading to communism, etc.

The response from SYRIZA in Bulgaria can be in two directions – in the attempt to create new left-wing formations and in combining them with nationalism.

– The coalition partner of SYRIZA – “Independent Greeks” defines itself as a center-right formation, but geostrategically called for a turn towards Russia.

– This example is an exact illustration of what we were talking about – that left-right is not so important in this case, rather it is a general opposition to this Europe as we see it at the moment.

By the way, I personally am not very optimistic about the fate of SYRIZA, because the populist wave on which it is coming will have to meet the reality, which is by no means rosy for Greece. It seems to me that this movement has a lot of prerequisites for failure, which are rooted in something very simple – SYRIZA looks more like a social rebellion than a project. And I don’t think they have a clear vision and plan. They feel what the main forces in Greek society are against, but they don’t feel what they are for. If it really comes to their exit from the Eurozone, it will be a disaster for them. If they try to play against European rules – it will also be a bust. It seems to me that SYRIZA is likely to collapse under the weight of its own promises. But – I say again – I am interested in the phenomenon more as a European one, and not so much as a Greek one.