Measuring the Public Agenda on the Balkans

Period: October 2000 - October 2002
Coordinators: Deyan Kiuranov

This project aimed at measuring the "public agenda" on the Balkans as something different from the agenda of the elites, something that had not been attempted so far. The means were regular sociological surveys (performed by a network of public opinion institutes) using the same questionnaire and done at the same time throughout the region; the data was analyzed by local think tanks (organized in a network of policy institutes), and both data and analyses were published. CLS was the analyst for Bulgaria, while "Vitosha Research" was the data producer for Bulgaria.

Vitosha Research performed series of indepth interviews and focus groups. Four focus group discussions were carried out.

The main objectives of the focus groups were:

• exploring the public opinion on the main problems in Bulgaria in the current situation, and the basic fears, considerations and hopes with regard to the perspectives to be solved;
• identifying the public images of the concepts "market economy" and "democracy" and their relevance to the current situation in Bulgaria;
• exploring the public attitudes and level of trust towards the Bulgarian political institutions and the International community;
• exploring the public images of the role of the civil society in Bulgaria;
• collecting information on the public evaluation of some of the public services in Bulgaria;
• exploring the public attitudes and expectations towards the role of the international institutions for the development of Bulgaria;
• identifying the individual characteristics and attitudes of the participants.

The surveys were printed by IDEA International both in English and Bulgarian.