Политически изследвания Брой 1-2, 2022

The article raises a classic question – about the compatibility of capitalism with democracy. Numerous studies and political thinkers have been drawn upon to critically comment on the presumed immanent relationship between capitalism and democracy. The thesis argues that the market economy is fun- damental to democracies as a regime of complete civil equality, then capitalism is not synonymous with the market economy but a particular transformation of it that deepens inequalities. The conclusion is that contemporary global cor- porate capitalism undermines the democratic order by reinforcing inequalities.

The article explores the growing tension between the constitution and the political process under the influence of various crisis processes and problems in Bulgarian democracy. Their conceptual differences are expressed through the limiting framework of the constitutional norms and the strong dynamics and instability in the political space. The thesis asserts that in conditions of political crisis, democratic institutions and parliamentary parties are more often inclined to violate the constitution or to use it excessively as a tool for institutional op- position in the political process. The concrete manifestations and dimensions of this tension are analyzed, through examples from the Bulgarian political pro- cess in recent years. Mechanisms and guidelines for improving the relationship between the constitutional order and political practice in Bulgarian democracy are proposed.

The paper aims to analyze the crisis of political representation in Bulgaria, using the conceptual apparatus of Antonio Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks”. The logic of the argument is as follows: it begins by presenting the motivation and rationale for the usefulness of Gramscian analysis in understanding the crisis of political representation in Bulgaria. The next step, highlights Gramsci's under- standing of crisis and explores how it can be applied to the current situation. At the end, parallels are drawn between what Gramsci calls “morbid symptoms” and certain dynamics in the development of the Bulgarian political environment.

Over the last decade, two trends have gradually come to the center of atten- tion of European integration studies. The first is related to the “politicization of the EU” – a complex concept that aims to link a number of political and public issues, underlying the growing contradictions of the multi-level decision-mak- ing process. The second line of analysis concerns the “parliamentarization of the EU”, referring to the changing institutional role of the European Parliament and its interaction with the legislatures of the Member States.The main thesis put forth by the author is that the analysis of parliamen- tarization is key but yet insufficient component of a broader process of polit- icization. This goes beyond the standard theoretical concepts and provokes a new reading of the implications associated with these phenomena. Thus, it contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of EU decision-making in the context of various crises and growing euroscepticism/.

The article analyzes the state of play of the various types of privileges of MEPs in some European countries and in the European Parliament. Leading here are the size and scope of the privileges that result from the mandates won in individual countries. Based on this, conclusions and summaries are drawn for the future use (and application) of the political privileges of the European continent.

The digitalization of communications has created conditions for the modern reading of the contemporary phenomenon known as post-truth. Political con- sequences continue to pile up – from the marginalization of classical political parties to the atomization of citizens and the disintegration of their social struc- tures. Political culture, in turn, is undergoing a metamorphosis that seems to be lasting. Turning political communication into a battle in which there can be only one winner radicalizes the political process and has an extremely negative impact on communication between both citizens and their political representa- tives. Taking as hostile a position as possible towards those who disagree with a given proposal or idea has become a sign of political leadership.

In a concise manner the present article examines the deformation of demo- cratic parliamentarism as well as the weakening of democracy in general. Thisnegative evolution has occurred as a result of the influence of dogmatized and globalized neoliberalism. In the last few decades, this ideology has exerted this impact on national economies and the policies of countries around the world. Instead of a process in which different national authorities exercise control and balance with each other in order to protect the political rights of the local peo- ple (citizens’ rights, the rights and the interest of the people) – the modern par- liamentarism has transformed into a process in which competing international, multinational and transnational capital fight each other to master the local leg- islative process.The crisis of democratic parliamentarism arose as a result of the separation of political power from the citizens, and its center shifted to the sphere of the economy. In other words: the political has consciously lost in favor of the eco- nomical.In short, the doctrine of neoliberalism is: insertion overdose of liberalism into excessively economized politics. As a consequence, this led to a crisis of democratic parliamentarism.In this sense, today in the modern age, democratic parliamentarism is per- ceived by citizens as a legislative process that has become an opaque activity carried out by various political representations that protect interests and pur- sue goals important not to citizens but rather to global transnational and foreign capital, whether that capital is of Western or Eastern origin. In this way however, this dogmatized ideology inadvertently benefited primarily Chinese and later Russian capital in their competition with Western-type capitalism.

The crisis cycle after 2019 has already led to a significant social conse- quences. It has once again shown the need of reforms into the Bulgarian social policy. Such kind of crisis periods have always been challenging. On one side they demand adequate and timely crisis-management. On other side they are a “window of opportunity” for implementation of more ambitious and far-reach- ing reforms. In this context the study describes the social consequences of the crisis – cycle and tries to explore the policy measures undertaken to address them through the work of the Bulgarian parliament.

The article looks at the concept of Kurt Weyland about populism as a strategy for political mobilization. The analysis focuses on three thematic elements: first, the strategic approach is distinguished from the ideological and the discursive ones. Second, the role of the personalistic leader has been outlined as an engine of the populist strategy. Third, Weyland‘s interpretationof the relationship between populism and democracy has been subjected to critical analysis.

The topic of the present article is the ideological strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Party (VMRO) for ethnicizing social problems and their politicization along ethnic lines. First, the research con- centrates on reconstructing VMRO’s nationalist narrative through a discursive analysis of the party’s official newspaper, “Bulgaria,” from 2011–2020. The focus is on VMRO’s attempts to inculcate a public fear of an impending national catastrophe by aggressively imposing topics such as the demographic, ethnic balance, the role of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Party (DPS) in Bulgarian politics, and the refugee crisis. Special attention is paid to the symbolic construction of threatening and negative images of the Roma minority. Further, the study focuses on the relationship between, on the one hand, the radical messages’ frequency and, on the other hand, the dynamics of the national agenda and VMRO’s participation in governance.

Referred to by the protest civil activity, the ombudsman institution proves that it can be an effective mediator between civil activities and state institutions. Efficiency, which is expressed in preventing the escalation of conflicts between governing and civil society. The institution of the ombudsman provides an op- portunity to exercise civic participation and becomes one of the instruments for the inclusion of citizens in the decision-making process, in some cases much more effective than other forms that exist legislatively in Bulgaria.

This article examines the role small parties played in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections. The aim is to test whether the results of small parties in key states have influenced the final outcome of the race. The assumption is that in the presence of marginal differences between the candidates of the main political forces, the emergence of a third and fourth candidate may be key to determining the ultimate winner.The object of the study are the major small parties in the United States, and the subject is their performance in the last two presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. The article analyzes the results of the so-called swing states – the keystates that, due to the electoral system in the United States, play a dispropor- tionate role in determining the winner. For this purpose, official election results are used, focusing on the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Flori- da and Nevada, and comparing the achievements of the Libertarian and Green parties and the difference between the main candidates for Democrats and Republicans. The positioning of the small parties in the political spectrum and the extent to which they could have harmed the electorate of the ideologically closer large parties, thus tilting the elections in one direction or another, are considered. The coverage of the results of the small parties in the mainstream media is reviewed.It is concluded that the US electoral system does not give the small parties a chance for ultimate success in the presidential election, but again, due to the specifics of the Electoral College, their slightly higher result can be interpreted as detrimental to a major political force. The question remains whether the vot- ers of the Libertarian and Green parties would actually support Republicans or Democrats, respectively, since they did not do so even in the face of growing polarization.