CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AS A CHALLENGE FOR BULGARIAN SOCIETY

Petrana STOYKOVA

Abstract

There are various forms of participation of citizens and social groups in the political process. While political engagement is a more narrow term that refers to direct participation in formal city governance and administration, civic engagement is a broad term that implies being an active citizen in any way in service to the community. According to Dan Jasper “the term civic engagement doesn’t have a standard definition and it could be applied to a range of activities” (Jasper). Civic engagement conventionally refers to activities by the citizens that are intended to influence in the society. The main purpose of the study is the current challenges to civic engagement of Bulgarian citizens to be analyzed. The applied methodology is a combination of a theoretical approach to civic engagement and analysis of the data gathered from various quantitative surveys (European Social Survey, other representative and non-representative sociological surveys) for the period 2018-2022. The data reveal the relatively low civic activity of Bulgarian citizens. According to the results of the Chi-square analysis, education has an impact on the participation of Bulgarian citizens in the various forms of civic activity studied. Given the fact that the younger part of the population has a better educational structure, it can be assumed that it is mostly young people who take part in the various types of civic engagement. However, among young Bulgarians there are apathetic attitudes towards the political processes. The civic engagement of Bulgarian youth is a main challenge for the Bulgarian state and society. The need for political socialization is particularly obvious, and so is the need for specific policies encouraging the promotion of civic engagement.

Pages: 143 - 152