Volume 10 Number 4 Fall 2001



Focus:

Introduction
Venelin Ganev

The parliamentary elections held in Bulgaria on June 17, 2001, briefly turned the country into a hot media topic that figured prominently in front-page headlines. For the first time in modern European history a former monarch-the Bulgarian czar Simeon II Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-was victorious in parliamentary elections and was sworn in as a prime minister. However, even as Bulgaria was basking in its 15 minutes of fame, it quickly became clear that this extraordinary electoral outcome does not lend itself to easy interpretation. Were these elections a spasm that revealed the shallowness of the democratic order? Is Simeon’s victory a symptom of disenchantment with Western economic and political models? Or are we witnessing a manifestation of a peculiarly “Balkan” political culture?

The absence of convincing explanations in the Western press is not accidental-Bulgaria is an underresearched and underanalyzed case. Monographs and books that focus exclusively on this country are few-and unremarkable. The only two recent books in English that deal specifically with Bulgaria are a descriptive study of Bulgarian parliamentarism by Albert P. Melone, Creating Parliamentary Democracy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998), and an anthropological survey of a single Bulgarian village by Gerald W. Creed, Domesticating Revolution: From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent Transition in a Bulgarian Village (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). The country is mentioned more frequently in the context of various comparative inquiries, but at times the accounts featured in such studies are dubious. One is left with the impression that depictions of Bulgaria are driven by the need to present a “wastebasket” case. Invariably, the country is cast as a laggard that gravitates toward the negative end of whatever analytic continuum scholars happen to be exploring (“least developed,” “least successful,” “most problematic”). A typical example is the study by Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich Preuss, Institutional Design in Postcommunist Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Even though Bulgaria is one of the four principal cases discussed in this book, none of the authors has spent time doing research in the country. Available analyses of the political phenomena in this country are often, if not always, one-dimensional.

The three contributions to this feature offer a fresh look at postcommunist Bulgaria. They highlight patterns of change that cannot be expressed in formulaic fashion and explore phenomena that defy easy characterization. But the significance of these articles goes beyond the clarification of empirical misunderstandings related to a little-known country. The authors skillfully use the Bulgarian case in order to reveal the complexity of postcommunist political experiences. The articles demonstrate, for example, that democratic consolidation may occur even under extremely adverse conditions. In and of itself, however, this consolidation provides no guaranteed security against acute and repeated economic crises. In addition, the Bulgarian case shows that, contrary to expectations, protracted economic suffering need not exacerbate ethnic tensions, and that such tensions may be defused through the workings of formal and informal political institutions. Sensitizing us to the intricacy of these developments, the authors bring into sharp relief the analytical significance of an allegedly peripheral case.

What can we infer from the fact that Bulgaria is a relatively poor, multiethnic country located in the Balkans? Not much, Ralitsa Peeva and Antonina Zhelyazkova suggest-stereotypical notions of democratic instability and of continuous ethnic strife provide no compass for understanding how the fledgling polity navigated the turbulent waters of postcommunist transformations. Peeva argues that at the very early stages of the transition period, the oft-derided roundtable talks served as a forum for genuine elite dialogue that set off a process of democratic learning and facilitated the construction of a workable constitutional framework. While not bereft of controversy and dramatic incidents, subsequent developments led to the establishment of a clearly defined system of political institutions that functions in accordance with democratic procedures. Thus Peeva provides the appropriate analytical background against which Simeon’s sensational success should be interpreted. This electoral outcome is not a negation of the democratic process, but a sign of its viability-and it may wind up reaffirming, rather than undermining, the primacy of constitutional principles. Despite talk of a monarchic restoration, Peeva points to the great likelihood that the amorphous movement led by the former czar will evolve into an ordinary political organization subservient to electoral rules, and that the charisma of this exotic leader indeed may be routinized as he tackles the tasks of everyday governance. Far from being a tortuous process of unraveling a sociocultural mystery, the analysis of Simeon’s success entails a survey of fairly mundane political and economic factors, the same factors that would determine the prospects of participants in a more or less democratic electoral competition.

Antonina Zhelyazkova also stresses that scenarios about so-called Balkan tragedies-featuring murderous ethnic rivalries and pervasive discrimination-fail to capture the peculiarities of the Bulgarian case. In her analysis of the salient features of the “Bulgarian ethnic model,” she shows that despite the explosive situation deliberately engineered by the communist authorities in the 1980s (when the 800,000 Muslims in the country were subjected to horrendous repression and heavy assimilationist pressures) ethnic peace was quickly restored and conciliatory attitudes came to dominate the political scene. Among the factors that contributed to this positive development, Zhelyazkova singles out a historical tradition of tolerance deeply embedded at the grassroots level. She also emphasizes the importance of certain aspects of Bulgarian postcommunist politics; for example, the fact that civic forces rallied around a comprehensive program for democratization that encompassed, rather than downplayed, key minority-rights issues. In addition, she discusses the collaborative stance of local political entrepreneurs, and the expansion of democratic participation that guaranteed to the Turkish minority full access to national political life. Her main message is that, rather than being reduced to an illustration of institutionalized discrimination (see, for example, Jon Elster, “Ways of Constitution Making,” in Democracy’s Victory and Crisis, ed. Axel Hadenius [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], esp. p. 135), the Bulgarian ethnic model should be studied more closely if we want to understand the gamut of factors affecting ethnic relations in a postcommunist setting.

Krassen Stanchev’s succinct account of economic change after 1989 has a direct bearing on another controversy that has been muddled by polemical theorizing and a neglect of evidence: the debate regarding strategies for economic transformation. What Stanchev demonstrates is that while the country was spared shock therapy and never pursued radical neoliberal reforms, it still found itself stricken by a continuing and ever-deepening economic decline. Up till 1997, policymakers in Bulgaria, regardless of their ideological proclivities, emphatically embraced a gradualist vision of economic change. Reform efforts were concentrated on the revitalization of the public sector; private business was subject to heavy regulation; administrative agencies were granted ever-new prerogatives; and the communist-era safety net was kept largely intact. In short, the proverbial “withdrawal of the state from the economy” failed to occur. Having avoided the putative pitfalls of shock therapy, however, Bulgarians had to confront what can only be described as the bleakness of gradualism: a decadelong shrinking of the economy, high inflation, and the agonizing and irreversible decay of the mammoth state-owned enterprises. It would be erroneous, however, to interpret Stanchev’s analysis merely as an implicit endorsement of radical strategies for reform: the gist of his argument is that new analytical approaches are necessary for dissecting postcommunist economic change. Specifically, he highlights the importance of “patterns of regulation and nonregulation,” and he links economic outcomes neither to the ideology of policymakers nor the “vagaries of unfettered markets” but to the functioning of informal, trust-based networks that encompass state and nonstate actors. Thus, Stanchev contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to transcend the crude dichotomy of shock therapy versus gradualism in order to capture more adequately the dynamics and various dimensions of economic transformations in postcommunism.

On November 18, still more surprising news came from Bulgaria. The leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (formerly the Communist Party), Georgi Parvanov, defeated incumbent Petar Stoyanov in the race for the presidency. It is perhaps too early to evaluate the full impact of this electoral outcome on the Bulgarian polity. Clearly, however, it marks the triumph of a nostalgic vision of Bulgaria as an idyllic haven impervious to the corrosive influences of “capitalism” and “the West.” In his campaign, Parvanov offered little more than a blanket promise for “more socialist policies,” while his vice president, retired communist general Angel Marin, argued that the “cultivation of closer relations with NATO may hurt the Bulgarian army.” At least for now, popular expectations that Parvanov’s victory will produce massive and immediate results run extremely high. Whether and how the policies advocated by the new leaders of Bulgaria will improve the welfare of the people and the international reputation of the country remains to be seen.

What lies ahead for Bulgaria? It is hard to provide a simple answer to that question: the very subtlety and richness of the observations put forward by these three authors should make us hesitate to indulge in categorical predictions. But as the country moves forward, two factors are worth emphasizing. On the negative side, there is the sorry state of the Bulgarian press. While free of governmental interference, the print media are subservient to the sensationalist rhetoric of radical populists, the economic interests of shady newspaper owners, and the factionalist passions of self-centered editors. Public discourse in the country is dominated by nostalgic intellectuals who bemoan the “disappearance of the thriving socialist middle class,” admire Slobodan Milosevic for taking on NATO, and describe Osama bin Laden as a champion of the poor who taught America a lesson. The press does not provide a public forum for further discussions of the important issues raised by authors such as Peeva, Zhelyazkova, and Stanchev. On the positive side, Bulgaria possesses a vibrant and active third sector-a dense network of nongovernmental organizations that could serve both as venues for popular mobilization and as instruments for exercising a measure of control over the political class. Civic activism seems to hold out the promise that important debates about constitutional norms, the principles of peaceful coexistence in a multiethnic state, and the future of economic reform will continue in Bulgaria. One thing seems clear in advance, however: one-dimensional descriptive categories will not help us understand future developments in the country. In the past, countries like Bulgaria have been used by poorly informed comparativists to “illustrate” preconceived theories of the success and failure of postcommunist reforms; perhaps in the future the acknowledged complexity of such countries will be perceived as an invitation for further research.

Venelin I. Ganev is assistant professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio and a contributing editor to the East European Constitutional Review.


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