protests

The article 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 aim of the article is twofold: on the one hand, to analyze the current hot political debate on the rule of law, on the other hand, to conceptualize in an innovative and original way the political transformations that make predictable and inevitable giant corruption scandals like Magnitsky, Pandora’s files. The first introduces the author’s concept of the transition from post-communism to post-democracy, which articulates three different transformations in post-communist development, each defining the rule of law differently. The second part considers the civil mobilizations against the corruption model as an expression and catalyst for the formation of active and contestant citizenship. The third part analyses the three-pole model of the state capture, as well as the coalition for political change.