Political Instability vs. Democratic Backsliding: The Dual Role of Parties in Bulgaria

In the most recent decade Eastern Europe has been increasingly associated with democratic backsliding. While some countries in the region continue this process, it is relevant to understand how this can be stopped. This paper addresses this question and uses Bulgaria as a case study of a country that brought the democratic backsliding to a halt in 2021. Although it was the first country after WWII that held three parliamentary elections in one year, the political instability in Bulgaria resulted in a positive outcome. We show how the coordinated action of political parties before and after elections ended the decade-long political domination of the conservative Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) and its leader Boyko Borisov. The democratic backsliding in Bulgaria was stopped through a response to GERB's dominance by a loose coalition of newly formed opposition parties. This created a cordon sanitaire that isolated GERB and prevented its return to power unlike what happened several times in the past. Our qualitative analysis relies on process tracing and uses data from party documents (manifestos), public statements from the elites belonging to the parliamentary parties in the three Bulgarian parliaments of 2021, and media reports. The findings of this paper demonstrate the importance of party response for resisting democratic backsliding.