First a confession.
I’ve been deeply interested in politics for decades at this point. I was born in Washington D.C., the son and grandson of men who had worked in that city helping to craft legislation and find ways to make the US work better. I myself spent several summers of my youth interning in the city, seeing how the US government functioned from the inside. Growing up where I did, I was also surrounded by friends whose parents worked for the government in one way or another.
All of this turned me into a person who cares deeply about politics because it affects people’s lives in profound ways and at the end of the day I also care deeply about my fellow human beings.
In the decade plus I’ve been creating the Bulgarian History Podcast and living in Sofia, I’ve noticed that my deep care and interest in politics is rarely shared by the Bulgarians I know. Even well educated and well-off young Bulgarians often have no idea what’s happening in politics or that an election is even happening. The extent to which people are politically disengaged is often shocking for outsiders like me, with the average voter turnout being just 45.59%.
I never had a term for this beyond “political disengagement” until I read a recent newsletter by journalist and friend Graham Griffith. There he uncovered the term whatsthepointism, a cousin of the more (in)famous whatbaboutism that’s so rampant in online spaces.
Graham’s newsletter does a good job exploring this a bit, but I wanted to also share my own perspectives on the current and historical roots I see tied to it over the coming months. In short, I see three primary causes:
- Historical political culture
- The way politics is practiced
- Deliberate attempts to prevent engagement
This month I want to begin by talking about the history behind Bulgaria’s whatsthepointism political culture. Of course it’s easy to point to the socialist period as a primary cause, but I’d like to show how it actually goes back much further.
Understandably, Bulgarians who came out of the Ottoman Empire were not used to being asked what they thought about political issues, let alone holding any level of responsibility. This carried over into the post-Ottoman period.
A very enlightening book called Bulgaria 1879-1946 The Challenge of Choice by Tatiana Kostadinova notes how Bulgarians of this early independence period were “timid and unsure in their social behavior they were suspicious and mistrustful… disrespectful of the state institutions due to their automatic linking of institutions with foreign rule.”
She notes that Bulgarians did feel more democratic and empowered on the local level, but that when it came to national politics they were indifferent. Many felt that problems would be solved without their participation and that their participation would not fundamentally change anything. In many cases, the fact that peasants, the overwhelming majority of the population, would have to give up most of a day’s work to travel by foot for miles in order to vote meant that political participation meant giving up the work that felt far more vital and relevant to their lives.
The irony was that Bulgaria’s constitution, modeled on that of Belgium, was quite progressive. Yet the reality was that far from a robust democratic culture developing, it quickly turned into a system where the monarch effectively chose who ran the country. Eventually during the reign of Ferdinand this system would be perfected.
People knew that whichever party the monarch chose would likely win and by supporting them you might be able to obtain a patronage job. Thus the electorate would shift wildly with the whim of the monarch and not as much based on its own desires. In practice, the opposition rarely won elections, when the ruling party changed it was because the monarch decided it should.
Considering how closely the monarch was able to control the ruling party, you can see why such apathy developed. You can see why the old Ottoman perception that decisions come from the top not from the people was only reinforced under democracy.
Then there were the parties themselves. Konstadinova notes that by the end of the 19th century, there were nearly no actual policy differences between most parties. Their differences were purely based around the personalities of their leaders, which meant each focused more on courting the support of the monarch instead of the people because he was the one who could put them in power.
If you’re like me, you may have been listening to that first section and thinking that many of these elements sound very familiar.
Politics that’s driven by personalities and not policy.
Politics that often gets bogged down in discussions over how things should be done, what’s proper, what’s legal, etc. Often these discussions feel entirely pointless because they are not done in good faith, for example the calls for a referendum on the Euro despite such a referendum being obviously unconstitutional.
A feeling of apathy and a sense that no matter what any regular individual says or does, the people in charge will do what they want.
A sense that political parties aren’t very adept at the communication side of politics, with many feeling that politics is opaque and difficult to follow or engage with because decisions are made for unclear reasons, parties are built around personalities more than policies.
A prevailing feeling of cynicism and apathy deriving from everything I’ve mentioned.
So what are the conclusions here? For one I simply wanted to share a story I was somewhat shocked by. But it’s a reminder that despite all the progress Bulgaria has made in the past two centuries, one thing this country still desperately needs is a thriving civil society and engaged political culture. The good news is that I see a lot of inspiring people working on those problems every day, but it’s still an uphill battle.
But having a name for this culture certainly makes it easier to identify and combat. So as you live your life, consider whether you or someone you know may be falling victim to whatsthepointism. Also, check in for more expansion on this topic from me next month.
(Image by Serenay Tosun)