Bulgarian

За първи път в българската научна литература се появява цялостно изследване на женския самоубийствен тероризъм, съчетаващо подходи и изследователски инвенции, характерни за политологичния, организационен и културалистки анализ. Изследователските цели на този задълбочен научен труд са определени скромно като усилие за конструиране на рамка, позволяваща цялостно сравнително изследване на формите, факторите и смисъла на актовете на женския самоубийствен тероризъм. Едновременно с това предмет на изследване е и възможността за установяване на специфични джендър измерения в неговото развитие. Изходната теза на Дронзина определя женския самоубийствен тероризъм не като индивидуален, а като организационен и социален феномен. Тази теза е защитена убедително на основата на детайлен анализ на състоянието на публичния, академичния и политическия дебат по отношение на тероризма.

The article examines the results of the European Parliament elections in Bul- garia in the general context of other European countries. It is argued that these are not key elections, but a symptom of a major change in the political attitudes of European citizens. In Bulgaria, the elections seem to confirm a new trend, beginning with the 2016 presidential election, of a political split not between the supporters of the two major parties but between those who voted for the winner and those who did not vote at all. The hypothesis is that a new political cleavage is emerging.

Bulgaria is so far the only member-state that is reproducing its European Parliament elections results in a third consecutive European election after 2009, both in terms of turnout and in terms of seats distribution among the major political actors, regardless of the variety of crises that have hit the EU since. The paper introduces its own analytical model that re-explores both the SOE and EU sali- ence theories in order to explain the different types of electoral strategies put in place by political actors. The paper is built on a comparative approach exploring data from previous EP elections in Bulgaria.

The South Slavic translation of the complete version of the Capita de temperantia et virtute (CPG 7862) is attested in more than 40 Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian and Moldavian-Wallachian manuscripts, the earliest from the opening decades of the 14th century. Text-critical research shows two translations (Middle Bulgarian and Serbian from Mount Athos) and one revision of the first translation. Translations circulate from Paroria and Veliko Tarnovo to Mount Athos, to the monasteries of Manasia and Ravanitsa. The ascetic collections in which it is placed are composed of works by Mark the Hermit (4th–5th c.), John the Carpathian (5th c.), John of the Ladder (579–649), Evagrius of Pontus, Nile of Sinai (345–430), and later in compositions together with Diadochus of Photiki (c. 400–c. 486), Thalassius of Libya (c. 590–660), Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022), Nikitas Stetates (1005 – c. 1090), Maximus the Confessor (580–662); after 1340 works by Gregory the Sinaite (c. 1275–1347) are included. The history of the Capita de temperantia in Slavic translation is largely connected with the history of Balkan ascetic literature. I am very grateful for the cooperation of the Hilandar Research Library at The Ohio State University and to the Monks of Hilandar Monastery for giving me the opportunity to work with manuscript copies.

The article systematizes and compares the copiеs of two versions of the offices for Petka of Tarnovo (Paraskeve of Epibatai) in Bulgarian and Serbian literature from the 15th to the 17th century. The different editions of the two offices are presented, and based on a study of their composition and structure, it is concluded that their editions are clearly distinguished from each other, and may be to be defined as separate offices. The Vidin office is preserved in copies and editions that occurred in the Vlachian-Moldovan principality, in the Kingdom of Poland and in Russia, while the Serbian office is missing from the manuscripts in the repositories of these lands (i.e. outside the territory of Bulgaria and Serbia). This leads to the assumption that Gregory Tsamblak, who established the cult of the Saint in the northeastern Slavic lands with an Orthodox Christian population, introduced the Vidin office into the liturgy, and it is much more likely that he was the author of the Vidin office for St. Petka of Tarnovo, than the Serbian office.

В статията е направена съпоставката между съдържанието на ръкопис ЦИАИ 182 – Панигирика на дяк Андрей от 1425 г., и още 6 ръкописа, разделени в 3 групи. При съпоставянето на съдържанията на ръкописите, включени в първата група и на тези във втора и трета група се разкриват особеностите на състава на ръкописи, писани с ресавски правопис на Света гора по времето, по което е създаден и Панегирикът на дяк Андрей в Белград при управлението на деспот Стефан Лазаревич (1402–1427) и по нареждане на патриарх Никон, което е отбелязано в приписката към ръкописа.

The article offers possible answers to the question of whether the dietary calendars disseminated among the South Slavs in the Late Middle Ages were actually practised or served only for reading. In this connection, it highlights the main specificities in the Byzantine and Slavic cultural contexts within which interest in dieteticons unfolded. On the basis of this comparison, it is suggested that, on Slavic soil, this applied genre may have had mostly symbolic value and that, although it provided a model of a concrete modus vivendi, it was primarily a sign of prestige, a marker of readers’ attitudes and cultural needs. Evidence is drawn from sources that demonstrate that the dietary prescriptions given in these calendars were entirely feasible. At the same time, considering the extant manuscripts, the copyists and, more generally, the spiritual changes that took place in the Late Middle Ages, the reading of dietetic works in this period is interpreted as a socio-cultural phenomenon, as part of a wider self-reflection of the emerging new reader and user.

A Serbian manuscript from the beginning of the 16th century with unique content contains a formulary with templates of letters to high clergy and rulers, which is the earliest known Serbian epistolary. The manuscript is kept at RGADA, Obolensky fund, op. 1, No. 88, ff. 211r–218r. The comparison with other Serbian formularies shows that it has a unique composition and most of the texts in it have no parallels. Similarities are noticeable between some of the samples in RGADA 88 and another manuscript which is kept in the Archive of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 31, which probably have a common provenance, based on a Byzantine sample. The formulary collection in RGADA 88 reflects the emergence of the genre in Serbian literature, but also its enrichment with texts characteristic of Serbian reality.

The article offers a critical review of B. St. Angelov’s statement that there was a Serbian translation into Church Slavonic of the Modern Greek anthology Thesaouros of Damaskenos Stoudites (Venice, 1557/58). The outcomes of the current inquiry confirm the view that the Serbian tradition was resistant to the work. The account also presents new found data on the manuscript copying activity of Rila men-of-letters of the literary circle of Yosif Bradati in the 18th c., on the archaeographic history of the 17th-c. Belgrade damaskin that in the 1740s was owned by an upstanding Serbian clergyman in the metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci. In addition, the author identifies the source of the only unquestionable Serbian copy of a Thesauros item – the “Sermon for the Third Sunday of the Holy Lent” included in the Hilandar set of cheti-menaia compiled in 1623-1626.

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.

The paper examines the phenomenon of the 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary elections. The case study is focused on five distinctive features: /1/ the electoral success of new parties; /2/ the intensity, efficiency and main demands of the mass protests preceding the triple parliamentary elections; /3/ the downward trend in the exceptionally low turnout; /4/ the electoral cost of party clientelism and corruption of the incumbent parties; /5/ the destabilisation of the party system and the possible trajectories of change.

The purpose of the article is to summarize the results of the general elections in Bulgaria, held on 4th of April 2021 and to highlight the main reasons for these results. The main focus is on the electoral dynamics among the main parties compared to previous parliamentary elections. In the course of the text, the demographic profile of the voters of GERB, “There is such a people”, BSP, MRF and “Democratic Bulgaria” is analysed in detail. The text lists the factors and reasons for the outcome of the individual formations, as well as the main challenges facing them.

The article aims to address the fragmentation and the oppositions dividing the opposition in Bulgaria in the light of the parliamentary elections on April 4 2021, the “short” 45th National Assembly and the early parliamentary elections on July 11 2021. Following the mass citizens protests in 2020, all opposition parties did campaign against the incumbent party GERB and its allies and claimed to dismantle the authoritarian model of governance and to tackle the endemic corruption. This seemed to be the main common goal of the opposition. In the end, the opposition actors discovered their political immaturity and incapacity to construct a viable alternative of government. Above all, the elections in 2021 have revealed and deepened the divides amongst the opposition forces.

Against the background of the increasingly common opinions about the blurring of the classic division between left and right in politics, in the election campaign the leading Bulgarian parties presented platforms that are largely close to the so-called “left-right consensus”. Both established and emerging political actors have been influenced by strong populist projections, turning the election campaign into confronting impossibilities. The big question is whether this consensus is another sign of the end of the traditional left-right dichotomy or it is another disease of the political systems, which can be overcome precisely by returning to this sustainable division.

The study evaluates to what degree of importance and through what specific political alternatives the need of serious reforms and changes into Bulgarian social policy was addressed and articulated during the two campaigns for the parliamentary elections in 2021. The focus on the “social dimension“ in the pre-election debate is more than grounded, because of the lasting existence of considerable social inequalities and problems which turned to be a chronicle diseases in the Bulgarian development. The text tries to evaluate the “social dimension” of the parliamentary election through the prism of the existing social problems in the country. That is because the answers (reform plans and declared political measures) presented by the different political parties and coalitions which took part into the elections are analyzed with regard to the existing social problems. By following this approach, the study is organized upon three main themes. The first section gives a systematized description of the leading social challenges faced by the Bulgarian population and of the main problems in the functioning of the country’s social policy. The second section is an attempt of evaluation not only of the importance of the social problematic into the elections debate and parties programmes. It also analyses the character and possible impact of the proposed political alternatives and solutions which are supposed to address the social problems in Bulgaria.

This observation is a pilot part from a more comprehensive study on VMROBulgarian National Movement. Theoretical framework for political actors positioning in this segment is outlined retrospectively – mainly in the field of conservativeness of stances. Indications of such are identified via reviewing of 1,320 official party publications over a year, 48 monthly waves of representative research, main campaigning messages and programme indicators analysis, as well as electorate profiling. As a result, a hypothesis is motivated and discussed of an attempt for positive campaigning on otherwise radical appeals – labelled “radical normality”.

The first part of the article examines the tools through which, to date, Russia is trying to influence the Bulgarian political system, as well as the reaction of the Bulgarian political institutions to these attempts. The second part analyzes the role of the US and the EU. The third part examines the programs and priorities of the political formations in the 45th National Assembly. The paper concludes with the forecast that, in the near future, Bulgarian foreign policy will likely continue to rely on some sort of “balance” between NATO and Russia.

The article examines and theorizes some current techniques and tools for persuasive impact in virtual space during the election campaign of the regular parliamentary elections in April 2021 and the extraordinary ones held in July of the same year. The tools “live stream”, “sponsored publication”, “remarketing function” are theoretically differentiated and practically analyzed. The possibilities and the application in the Bulgarian political sphere of the most up-to-date platform for editing and sharing short videos - Tik Tok are presented. Sustainable argumentative means that dominate the virtual environment are sought. The article is part of the project “Techniques and tools for persuasion in online communication” under the program “Young Scientists and Post-Doctoral Students”, funded by the Research Fund at the Faculty of Philosophy of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia.

Political communications; anti-systemic parties; rules of strategic communications; pre-election communications in traditional and social media

The article is positioned within the understanding of populism as a discursive practice and strategy characteristic of all political actors. Such an understanding turns the scope of the concept of populism from ideology or identity, i.e. noun (populist), which is thought and evaluated through the binary opposition populists - non-populists, into a characteristic, i.e. adjective (populist), which can be observed and measured on certain scales. The aim of the research is to apply such a framework regarding the political discourse in the days after the elections for the National Assembly from 4 April 2021.

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.

This article aims to present and examine the results of an original dataset of collective protest actions in Bulgaria from 2009 to 2017. Unlike previous studies that focus on a specific protest movement or protest wave, this dataset consists of all collective protest actions in the form of demonstrations, strikes, blockades, marches, petitions, etc., including information about their demands, repertoires and number of participants. Along with the description of the initial findings of the dataset, the article makes a periodization of the protest cycle in three separate phases: an ascending phase with reactions against austerity measures and the emergence of new protest movements (2009-2012), the mass discontent against the political elite (2013) and demobilization of the mass protest and the rise of contention over cultural issues (from 2014 onwards). The findings offer arguments against the backward hypothesis of the civil society in Bulgaria and describe the most complete picture of the quantitative dynamics of the protest mobilizations.

EU eastern enlargement is a historical success. However, up to the date this statement doesn’t seem so undisputable. The Europeanization of the newcomers from the Eastern and Central Europe is under suspicions. The enlargement policy „new approach“ to the Western Balkans is based mainly on the reforms on the implementation of the conditionality, but it doesn’t change significantly the conditions for the influence of the member states on this implementation itself. The dynamics of the national interests of the member states in fact has the formative effect on the enlargement policy. Therefore, the research of this dynamic is important for the improvement of enlargement policy. Bulgarian case seems suitable for this research agenda. The statement that there are no patron member state for Bulgarian accession is widespread in the academic literature. From this point of view, the research on EU member states influence on the Bulgarian accession will be useful by the findings for the parameters of this influence. This article present result of the content analisys of 37 interviews with key participants in Bulgarian accession process. This results give the possibility for answers of the questions – who, how much, when, how and why support/resist Bulgarian membership, as well as for the answer of more general questions – how the dynamic of EU member states interests is reflected to the Bulgarian way to EU membership and therefore on the quality of the result.

The presidency of the Council of the EU gives member states a chance for visibility, publicity, manifestation of their capacities and strengths as well as an opportunity to navigate independently the connotations and impressions, connected to them in the public field in European scale. For Bulgaria changing the negative stereotypes in the European media sphere was a key element holding the Presidency in 2018 as stated multiple times by public officials. The following analysis aims to trace what is the media image of Bulgaria in three main European news outlets and to identify the persistent topics that create the public profile of the country in the EU public sphere during the Presidency.

The reality of global risks is a condition to which humanity has adapted from the end of World War II to the present day. The state of total global war was replaced by the fear of a nuclear apocalypse. The great ideological and economic rivalry of the Cold War has been replaced by pervasive globalization, which, along with its pros, has come with many risks. The financial, economic, and humanitarian crises around the world are a clear evidence of this. Pandemics were left out of political analysis, even though the threat of a pandemic has been growingin recent years. This article analyses the changes that are taking place in the political system because of the pandemic threat. Political reaction is becoming the new reality, produced by a real risk to the population, which significantly affects its health status. This necessitates a more careful analysis of the emerging pandemic dystopia and the transformation of political reality.

The article is an attempt to conceptualize the escalating political crisis in the since 7th July 2020. This is the most significant domestic political crisis of a structural-functional type, after the landmark for the Bulgarian transition, crisis of 1996-1997. The research interest is also provoked by the fact that the current attempt for a radical political change is taking place in the context of the WHO-declared global pandemic of COVID-19. By itself, the pandemic could be categorized as a symbolic-propaganda crisis. On one hand, it is both an environment (domestic and international) for the manifestation of the political crisis, and on the other hand, it could be considered as a kind of “trigger”. This synchronous “superimposition” of crises of different order and nature necessitates a critical rethinking of the typological classification of domestic political crises developed by the author more than ten years ago. This is the main purpose of the article.

This article examines how the situation in the world and the tactical and strategic responses to the Coronavirus pandemic affect the EU’s aspiration for unity (of action and messages) and its active presence in the international field. Was the European reaction flexible and balanced enough? Did Europe exit stronger after the challenge? Specific emphasis is placed on the analysis of whether and to what extent the Coronavirus made senseless the so called “European values” or, conversely, stressed even more clearly the need for European solidarity in the recovery process.

The paper deals with the interaction of two processes in the European politics: the expansion of the radical right and the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The influential interpretation that the first stage of the coronacrisishas registered the radical right’s failure to use the pandemic politically, is being examined. The text tries to demonstrate that the radical right’s inconsistency and ineffectiveness are genuine, but they do not thwart the classical agenda of ultranationalism, antiliberalism, populism and traditionalism and their reaffirmation in these new conditions. Moreover, the governmental responses to the pandemic in Europe encourage the radical right’s penetration in a new paradoxical field, the defence of democracy. It is concluded that the first months of 2020 have not eroded the ideological potential of this part of the political spectrum and consequently have not destroyed its chances for political rise without predetermining them.

The COVID-19 hospital crisis shines attention to municipalities’ governance needs and specifics. An attempt for analysis through approaches from political science, public administration and regional economy and research has been made. On the theoretical level the paper presents, grounds for a territorial governance approach, guided by local and regional interests. The conclusions are mainly theoretical but are also applicable in the field of interaction between strategic documents at the local level. The conducted comparative analysis of strategic documents of two comparable municipalities serves to illustrate the reached theoretical and applied conclusions. The hypothesis whether there is no interaction between the municipal development plans and the mayors’ political programs was tested in two case-studies. The results are used to prove the thesis that the lack of such interaction is a condition for a problem in local government and development and a prerequisite for risks and crises in different sectors at the local level. This assumption is considered through a specific policy sector - healthcare, given the relevance of the topic during the pandemic.

The crisis in 2020, as any crisis, brought many problems but also created opportunities in various areas of human life. In the field of politics, the crisis provided different opportunities for oppositional political actors in Bulgaria to be an alternative to the government, which is incapable of dealing with the biggest social problems, multiplied by the crisis. Chances, however, must be “caught”. If the opposition is not able to make the right decisions in the context of contemporary events, it will lose that political game undoubtedly. Even if, the opposition has all the necessary qualities and the necessary circumstances are there, the essence is contained in the right and prompt decisions.

This article traces the emergence and development of another major political crisis in the Republic of Northern Macedonia, as well as the options for overcoming it as a result of the parliamentary elections and the process offorming a new government. This is a continuous cycle, referred as “stability in instability”. Overcoming the crisis will not be enough, but rather will lead to another situation of “stability in instability”. Moreover, the pandemic caused by COVID–19 prolongs the crisis but does not play a fundamental role regarding the (in)stability of the political system in our southwestern neighbour.