Briefly

• The political space of Belarus can be described as two-dimensional - through the attitude towards political subjects and towards politics as such.

• There are groups of staunch opponents and supporters of the government, who are characterized by a very high interest in politics, they are not tired of it.

• Large groups of society are defined by a clear, certain political position (for or against the government), but a very low interest in politics as such.

• One of the reasons for this decline in interest in politics is the reaction to the dramatic and stormy events of 2020, a certain boredom with politics.

• Both the government and the opposition have considerable public support resources in the event of a situation when public interest in politics rises sharply again, the "tired" will "rest", and those who "fell asleep" will "wake up".

Journalistic publications and scientific studies about Belarus usually use a three-member classification of the country's political field — opponents of the government, its supporters, and the middle between them.

There are different opinions and estimates about the size of these groups (one can recall at least the famous "Sasha 3%"), but such a one-dimensional description of the political sphere of Belarus remains unchanged.

But how adequate are such one-dimensional models to the political reality?

I analyzed data from an online survey of citizens of Belarus conducted by Chatham House in August 2022.

21 variables were selected that characterize the attitude of the respondents to various aspects of the political process in the country.

Questions about the attitude to the government, to the protests of 2020, to the judicial system, to the consumption of information, and so on, were considered.

A description of the statistical methods used in the research, as well as its exact results, are given in the publication on the website of the Chatham House "Belarusian Initiative" project.

I will not bother the reader with mathematical details here, I will formulate the main conclusions.

The set of 21 variables is actually described by two indicators, two dimensions, axes of the political field: the attitude towards political subjects and their actions, as well as the level of interest in politics, interest in it.

At the same time, a special algorithm provides an optimal division of the entire array of respondents into 5 groups, clusters: "hard opponents of the government" (19%), "unengaged opponents of the government" (19%), "moderate opponents of the government" (19%), "unengaged supporters of the government" " (28%), "die-hard supporters of the government" (15%).

In parentheses are the sizes of each group.

The members of each cluster are closer to the members of the same cluster than to the members of others, according to their attitude to politics and its subjects.

The graph below shows the midpoints, the centers of the clusters, and the average values ​​of the corresponding indicators in two-dimensional space.

In two clusters - "die-hard opponents of the government" and "die-hard supporters of the government" - the level of definition of political positions is very high.

At the same time, both groups are similar in their extremely high interest in politics, in political news, in the discussion of politics.

In this, informative sense, they are engaged in politics.

Now it is not possible to measure practical, at the level of actions, involvement in politics - it is not 2020, when millions of Belarusians directly participated in politics.

But we can talk about her engagement in the sense of interest, interest, and it is the highest and approximately equal in these two clusters.

The "stalwarts" - both of them - are not tired of politics.

But "non-engaged opponents of the government" and "non-engaged supporters of the government" are tired.

For some of them, this is a reaction to the results of 2020, for some - to the war, to life's recent hardships.

And some of them were not interested in politics as such in general, never or for a long time.

But at the same time, the members of the "non-engaged" clusters have quite clear political positions.

They are less clear than those of the "stalwarts", but they are quite certain.

Using a sports analogy, the "game" itself is not very interesting to them, they are not dedicated "fans", but a good number of them have a rather firm idea of ​​which "team" is theirs.

However, the level of reciprocity of political assessments and ideas among the "non-committed" is lower than among the "committed".

For example, on questions about the evaluation of the actions of law enforcement agencies during the suppression of protests and the fairness of the Belarusian judicial system, "die-hards" support the actions of law enforcement officers in 2020 and positively evaluate Belarusian courts.

And among "disengaged supporters of the government" the balance of answers to these questions is negative, on average they are more inclined to believe that in 2020 law enforcement officers were brutal, and the Belarusian judicial system is unfair.

And yet, on most questions about the subjects of Belarusian politics, the assessments of "enthusiastic" and "non-engaged" are close on average, only the "non-engaged" are less clear.

Finally, the last group is "moderate opponents of the government".

This is "the middle of the square", both figuratively and literally.

The members of this cluster have certain political views to the smallest degree, to a lesser extent than all 5 clusters.

But on average, they are still more against the government than for it.

However, at the same time, their interest in politics as such is average - not that they are very interested in it, but not that they are not interested at all.

This two-dimensional structure of public consciousness is interesting in itself - as an aspect of how Belarusian society is organized.

However, for various political forces, it can have a practical meaning, it gives an idea of ​​the reserves that can be mobilized by the opposing forces of the Belarusian political field.

The political content of the results of the analysis is made clearer in comparison with alternatives that could take place.

It could be the case that the shares of supporters and opponents of the government among those who are not interested in politics, among the "unengaged" are exactly the same as among those who are very interested in it, that interest in politics as such is in no way related to the political views of the respondents.

Theoretically, there could also be the opposite alternative - if those who are not interested in politics as such, had no inherent political preferences, preferences, if they were neither for the government nor against it.

But the reality is different.

One dimension of the political space is not reducible to the other, but they are not completely independent of each other.

The political preferences of the "non-engaged" are, indeed, less clear than those of the "stalwarts".

But they are actually quite significant.

At first glance, this is paradoxical - people are not interested in politics, so it would seem that the "players" of this field and what happens on it should not be interesting either.

But the logic of public opinion is different.

Some of those whom 2020 mobilized to support the protest and participate in it are now disappointed in the effectiveness of direct confrontation with the government.

Accordingly, the flickering of political news (and they are mostly gloomy and depressing) no longer inspires them or even interests them.

But some of them remember why they and their like-minded people rose up in 2020.

And even now they know and remember who is their own and who is the enemy.

As a result, significant apathy and loss of interest in politics did not lead to a commensurate increase in sympathy for the government, but even to the neutralization of political preferences.

But similar processes took place in another part of society.

Among Lukashenka's supporters in 2020, there was a fear that as a result of the change of power they would lose their usual way of life, there was also hostility, and sometimes even hatred towards the participants of the protests.

Sometimes such sentiments of this group spilled over into practical actions - from participation in pro-government rallies to writing denunciations of disloyal neighbors and acquaintances (GUBAZIK himself did not write these denunciations).

But Lukashenka's supporters, as well as his opponents, were then more involved in politics in the informational sense - they watched BT, read pro-government newspapers, even opposition information resources - "what are the enemies writing?"

Now a good part of them have lost their interest in politics, they say, it has calmed down, it seems, so why listen to Lukashenka's stories once again, how he and the "handsome men" saved Belarus in 2020?

These people did not necessarily change their political positions.

And for many of them, "their team" remained the same as it was.

But interest in the "game", boredom with the flow of political news, which is not too pleasing to them too, arose in many of them.

It's not that "non-committed supporters of the government" idolize Lukashenka and obsessively approve everything he does.

Let's say, on average, they do not approve of the brutal violence of 2020.

But their side is the side of the government.

In the same way, "non-committed opponents of the government" do not demonize Lukashenka, nor do they believe that President Tsikhanovskaya or Babarika would have turned Belarus into a sparkling city on a hill.

But their side is the side that is against the existing government.

These conclusions are not only an interesting picture of the current state of public opinion.

This is the basis for conclusions and predictions for the future.

In the event of an aggravation of the political situation, in the event of political mobilization, both sides of the political confrontation in the country have good reserves.

Such mobilization took place in 2020.

"Non-engaged" got involved, "those who slept" - woke up, "tired of politics" - "rested", and those indifferent to politics became interested in it.

And the indicator of that was not only the unimaginable number of protest participants, but also the insane popularity of, say, the TG channel NEXTA and other information resources.

And now the "disengaged" together make up about half of society (47%).

For a long time?

The opinions expressed in the blogs represent the views of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editors.

• Yuri Drakakhrust

  Radio Svaboda journalist

  
  

  drakakhrusty@rferl.org

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