New Parties and the Crisis of Democracy: Bulgaria’s Political Deadlock

Bulgaria has established itself as a laboratory for the overproduction of both new parties and political crises. The country ranks among the top ten in Europe for the number of new parties formed between 1848 and 2021, while also being among the bottom ten in terms of the average lifespan of political parties. In recent years, Bulgaria has become a 'champion' of political instability, marked by the overproduction, multiplication, and diversification of political crises— with seven elections held within just 3.5 years, including three elections in a single year, each won by a new party. This has resulted in a state of ungovernability, characterized by a series of interim and short-lived governments. Both the proliferation of new parties and the recurring political crises remain understudied, and the relationship between these phenomena has received even less scholarly attention. The aim of this paper is to analyze the nexus between new parties and political crises, contributing to the understanding of these issues from conceptual, theoretical, and empirical perspectives. The paper is structured in three parts. The first section outlines the conceptual cluster of crisis, new parties, and post-democracy. It traces the conceptual history of "crisis," from its origins as a marginal term to its contemporary status as a "structural signature of modernity" (Koselleck) and a "fundamental mode of interpreting historical time" (Schultz). The paper is based on the concept of "post-democratic crisis" introduced by A. Krasteva (2019), which rests on three pillars: post-democracy, mega-leadership, and post-truth. Drawing on Colin Crouch’s (2004) conceptualization, post-democracy is presented as a condition in which democratic institutions persist formally but are increasingly hollowed out. The analysis builds on Deegan-Krause and Haughton’s (2020) framework of a new party subsystem, in which an ever-changing cast of parties appeals to a relatively stable group of dissatisfied voters by using a mix of novelty, celebrity, and anti-corruption rhetoric. The second section examines the impact of the increasing number of new parties on the political process and the quality of democracy. It categorizes three types of new parties: protest and pro-European parties, national-populist parties, and so-called "TikTok parties," and illustrates these categories with examples of emblematic new parties from the past decade. The paper also proposes a typology of political crises in Bulgaria, mapping them along two key axes: democracy versus post-democracy, and civic activism versus national-populist mobilizations. The paper also examines the relationship between political crises and poly-crises, arguing that — contrary to the dominant interpretation of an omnipresent multi-crisis — the differencia specifica of the current crisis lies in its autonomy. It is created and deepened by political elites, despite a relatively stable economy and a peaceful civil society. The analysis locates new parties within the symbolic cartography of these political crises. The conclusion argues that the prolonged cycle of early elections and the proliferation of new parties has resulted in political deadlock, policy impasse, and democratic decline.