Suchergebnisse

The dysfunctionality of post-communist state structures -- The separation of party and state as a logistical problem -- Conversions of power -- Winners as state breakers in post-communism -- Weak-state constitutionalism -- The shrewdness of the tamed -- Post-communism as an episode of state formation

The main argument presented in this essay is that the politics of Ataka, the most successful and influential populist party in Bulgaria, should be construed as a form of left-wing radicalism. Originally a nationalist formation, over the last decade Ataka has evolved into a broader social movement that blames free markets, neoliberalism, and US led neocolonialism for the country's misfortunes. Today its activists routinely assault liberal democracy as a political system unable to cope with the evils of capitalism, and seek to marginalize political actors and social constituencies identified as pro-western.

The article offers a critical analysis of the view that Marx's critique of capitalism provides the analytical lenses necessary to understand post-communist transformations. The author examines the problematic premises underpinning this view—for example, that capitalism can be created by design, and that in the early 1990s the former "second world" constituted a tabula rasa—and insists that a proper answer to the question "How did capitalism emerge in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union?" is yet to be given. The text also identifies the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical difficulties that might ensue if analyses of post-communist politics are reduced to a critique of neoliberal capitalism.

This paper offers an empirical description and analytical interpretation of the borsa—the largest black market for rock music in Bulgaria in the 1980s. The text illuminates the distinct characteristics of the urban locale that became the focal point of rock fans' desires and ambitions, examines how the interactions between the entrepreneurs who supplied the music and their adoles-cent clients were embedded in enduring networks of trust, and explores the peculiarities of the borsa as a site where western works of art were mechanically reproduced. It also demonstrates that the place where admirers of rock music met was enlivened by political energies and deliberately demarcated as a space in which ideological differences could manifest themselves, thus contesting Alexei Yurchak's argument that in late socialism it was possible to be loyal to and love "both Lenin and Led Zeppelin."

Abstract: This article offers an analytical interpretation of the various strategies which Bulgaria's mobilized citizens have recently deployed in order to hold political elites accountable. It focuses on post-accession hooliganism, a specific form of elite misbehavior which became increasingly visible after the country joined the European Union, and on civic anger, a political sentiment that spread as a popular reaction to this misbehavior. The main conclusion to which the examination of the ongoing process of antigovernment mobilization in Bulgaria lends credence is that civic involvement in democratic politics is the most important factor that might reverse the decline of a democracy's quality.