Explaining the Creeping Failure of Liberal Democracy in Bulgaria from Below

Unlike some other states in East-Central Europe, Bulgaria’s post-EU accession politics has been dominated by nominally pro-European parties. Nevertheless, international databases record that the country’s liberal democratic institutions are being steadily eroded. Starting from the premise that citizens (including politicians) can only attain the capacity to uphold liberal institutions when they both understand and identify with the principles enshrined in them, this paper asks to what degree liberal norms were ever embedded in Bulgarian society. Through analysis of political discourse, media narratives and, especially, the discussions of ordinary citizens as revealed through ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that liberal institutions are failing primarily because they give legal force to specific liberal norms that no major political party has publicly ever espoused and that very few Bulgarians identify with.