Game of Democracies

The diagnosis of a crisis of liberal democracy is almost consensual. The forms of contestation vary, but the alternatives insist on presenting themselves as democratic. Critiques usually do not propose abandoning democracy; rather, they call for a ‘real,’ not merely ‘facade,’ democracy. We need political imagination in order to understand how citizens conceive democracy and what politically mobilizes them.

Our initiative aims to take seriously grassroots contestation of democracy and the different visions of how a democratic society should be organized: how citizens imagine alternatives to liberal democracy, whether there are democratic values and practices with which they would engage, and what might motivate them toward political participation. We will attempt to answer these questions through several interconnected but relatively autonomous approaches:

1. We will examine how the principles and practices of democracy are presented in the classroom, focusing on lessons in literature and history textbooks, because these subjects traditionally teach us what it means to be Bulgarian. Do we also learn in these classes what it means to be citizens and how to participate in the political process?

2. By playing a political boardgame (developed by CLS), we will initiate conversations with young people about their understanding of democracy, democratic values, and a collective future that could motivate them. Our goal is to hear the ideas of both ‘majorities’ and ‘minorities,’ engaging young people from different social groups.

3. Democracy is based on an informed public conversation; therefore, we will organize public lectures and debates on fundamental democratic principles, aimed at broad audiences.
We share the effort to discover these everyday understandings of democracy with our partners, the European Information Centre in Veliko Tarnovo and L.I.D.E.R. in Blagoevgrad.

The initiative is implemented within the framework of the PACT project and is funded by the European Union and the Open Society Institute - Sofia Foundation (OSI).