State Capture versus Contestatory Citizenship in Bulgaria

Abstract:

The Policy Brief argues that Bulgaria is experiencing a negative transformation, a transition from post-communism to post-democracy expressed in the transition from corruption to endemic corruption and state capture.

The Policy Brief is structured in three parts:-

• The first part introduces the theoretical model of the post-communist post-democracy (Krasteva 2019) based on the concept of “symbolic-ideological hegemony” (Schmitter 1994). It articulates three different transformations in Bulgaria’s post-communist development, each one of them defining in a different way the rule of law and justice as well as the Europeanisation of the country and region as a political project.
• The second part examines civic mobilisations for rule of law and justice as an expression of and catalyst for the formation of active and contestatory citizenship.
• The third part analyses the three-pole model of state capture. The article examines also the alliance for change and rule of law.

• Ffynhonnell Amgen 1