Search results for: "petya kabakchieva" in PDF Content

Programming EU funds in Bulgaria: Challenges, Opportunities and the Role of Civil Society

Programming EU funds in Bulgaria: Challenges, Opportunities and the Role of Civil Society

Author(s): Desislava Hristova Kurzydlowski / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2013

Keywords: EU Structural funds; principle of partnership; Europeanisation; civil society

While expectations were high for Bulgaria’s EU membership, it has been marked by numerous domestic challenges. This article explores the application of the principle of partnership in Bulgaria in programming EU funds for 2007-2013 as a litmus test for the capacity of the civil society and the preparedness of the state’s institutions for full-fledged membership. The article displays evidence that unsuitable adaptation and the remnants of the previous institutional establishment filter the EU leverage in the country. Furthermore, the article maps the role of civil society organisations in the process and identifies the main challenges and opportunities for their inclusion.

Editor’s note

Editor’s note

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English / Issue: 35/2012

Editor’s note

Table of Content: Issue 35 / spring - summer 2012

Table of Content: Issue 35 / spring - summer 2012

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Miscellaneous languages / Issue: 35/2012

Table of Content: Issue 35 / spring - summer 2012

A History of the Structuring of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria as a Whole

A History of the Structuring of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria as a Whole

Author(s): Petya Kabakchieva / Language(s): English / Issue: 35/2012

DEBATES: HOW TO WRITE THE HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST PAST?

Contributors to this issue

Contributors to this issue

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English / Issue: 35/2012

Authors

book review

comptes rendus

Author(s): Yura Konstantinova,Roumiana Parvanova,Stanka Georgieva,Varban Todorov,Ogniana Hrissimova,Anelia Kasabova,Nadka K. Milanova,Nadya Danova / Language(s): Miscellaneous languages / Issue: 2/2009

Lawyers and the Socialist Regime in Bulgaria: The Sovietization of the Profession and Local Resistance Practices

Lawyers and the Socialist Regime in Bulgaria: The Sovietization of the Profession and Local Resistance Practices

Author(s): Petya Slavova / Language(s): English / Issue: 5/2013

The goal of this working paper is to analyze relations between lawyers and the Soviet-type socialist regime in Bulgaria. The chief question I will seek to answer is how a profession referred to as instrumental for the emancipation of liberal societies (Abel & Lewis 1988–1989) ended up caught in the iron grip of Soviet undemocratic regimes. Liberal regimes turn lawyers into intermediaries guaranteeing the exercise of civil rights by providing expert knowledge as a service. My question is whether and how the socialist regime managed to turn them into intermediaries for imposing control over citizens.

The Balkans: Stories from the Classroom

The Balkans: Stories from the Classroom

Author(s): George Bethell / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/14/2005

Keywords: Terrice Bassler; Central European University Press; Berlin wall; Ceausescu regime; political reform; Sergij Gabrscek

Teachers’ stories may not provide a comprehensive map of educational reform, but they can reveal the passions and the frustrations of the battle for reform.

Mobile identities? Mobile citizenship?

Мобилни идентичности? Мобилно гражданство?

Author(s): Ivaylo Dichev / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 25/2008

Keywords: Mobile identities; citizenship; migrants; labour migration; identity

The paper presents the results of a field research conducted with students in 2006, dealing with mass labour migration from Bulgaria towards countries in the EU. The trajectory of the migrants is reconstructed through life-stories from interviews with them and their relatives, as well as participant observations of the journey conducted in the buses taking them to Italy, Austria and Germany. A special emphasis is put on the question how the mobile persons perceive their citizenship and identity. The paradox, having led to this research, is that more freedom of movement produces more submission and the general lowering of citizenship standards. The result seems to be a defensive reaction on the level of the imaginary, a general hardening of identities.

Dumb Blondes and Democracy

Dumb Blondes and Democracy

Author(s): Stanoy Stanoev / Language(s): English / Issue: 46/2010

Keywords: dumb blonde jokes; femininity; identity; masculinity; post-Socialist transition

The jokes about dumb blondes, thinking only of sex, are very popular in the international joke repertoire. From the perspective of the ancient misogynous narrative tradition they are perhaps the most radical part. In Bulgarian everyday communication the jokes about dumb blondes began to be spread during the second half of the 1990s and are still popular today. In Western democratic societies the creation and spreading of jokes about dumb blondes is a logical consequence from advanced social and economic development which brings forth more and more women onto the public stage and the sphere of employment, and gives them the chance for individual accomplishment. The socio-cultural situation in Bulgaria, after the fall of the communist regime, in relation towards women is a bit different – characteristic for it is a discredited emancipation, obvious aggravating and extension of sexist discourses, male domination over public life and professional activities, feminization of poverty, a tendency to return to patriarchal values in private life. Despite the diverse contexts in both cases, jokes about dumb blondes represent an adequate strategy for the adaptation to the deep social change which challenges, in many ways, female and male identities.

Intercultural Experiences of Hauzmajstor. A Case Study on Repatriate Entrepreneurship in Serbia

Intercultural Experiences of Hauzmajstor. A Case Study on Repatriate Entrepreneurship in Serbia

Author(s): Vesna Vučinić Nešković / Language(s): English / Issue: 14/2010

Keywords: Serbia; business culture; intercultural communication;

This case study gives an account of the development of Hauzmajstor, a small real estate maintenance firm, founded by a Serbian repatriate in 2004. Beginning with its start up as the first daughter firm of Komon sens, the consulting and project development firm, the study follows its adaptation to the local business environment, concentrating on its organizational and business culture. The study also presents a detailed description and analysis of intercultural experiences of the Hauzmajstor insiders focussed on the perception of their first contacts and established relations with foreign (Western) clients. Conclusions deal with the mechanisms and the processes of establishing intercultural communication.

János Mátyás Kovács / Violetta Zentai (eds.), Capitalism From Outside? Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe After 1989

János Mátyás Kovács / Violetta Zentai (eds.), Capitalism From Outside? Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe After 1989

Author(s): Christian Mady / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2014

n.a.

A History of Totalitarian Power and Care

A History of Totalitarian Power and Care

Author(s): Boyko Penchev / Language(s): English / Issue: 31/2010

A careful reader will notice that "History of the PRB" actually questions two popular myths or clichés attached to our communist past. The first one is the easy generalization that “This is the time when the Party was in power.” This is no doubt true, but what was “the Party” really?

How to Write a History of the Recent Past: Reflections on a Contemporary Historiography Debate

How to Write a History of the Recent Past: Reflections on a Contemporary Historiography Debate

Author(s): Blagovest Nyagulov / Language(s): English / Issue: 31/2010

A new, comprehensive and innovative book has recently been added to the numerous publications on Bulgaria’s recent past. This is the latest in a series of books published by the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past (ISRP), founded as a non-governmental academic organization in 2005.1 A History of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (hereinafter History of the PRB) is a collective work by twelve authors – historians and other scholars in the humanities and social sciences – under the editorship of Ivaylo Znepolski.

Negotiating Partnership: How Serbian Hauzmajstor Established a Business Relationship with Austrian Rustler

Negotiating Partnership: How Serbian Hauzmajstor Established a Business Relationship with Austrian Rustler

Author(s): Vesna Vučinić Nešković / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2011

Keywords: entrepreneurs; repatriates; business culture; negotiations; partnership; Serbia;

This study is an account of how Serbian Hauzmajstor negotiated and entered into partnership with the Austrian Rustler. The introduction is devoted to the development of Hauzmajstor, a small real estate maintenance firm, founded by a Serbian repatriate in 2004. Beginning with its start up as the first daughter firm of Komon sens, a consulting and project development firm, the study follows its adaptation to the local business environment, concentrating on its organizational and business culture. The focus of the study is on the detailed description and analysis of experiences of the Hauzmajstor insiders with the Austrian Rustler, first as a potential, and later as an actual partner. In the end, a view from the other side, i.e. perceptions of Hauzmajstor by the Rustler Group area manager are given.

Family and Enterprise. Cultural Encounters between the Family Life-World and the Market Economy

Family and Enterprise. Cultural Encounters between the Family Life-World and the Market Economy

Author(s): Ivanka Petrova / Language(s): English / Issue: 20/2017

Keywords: Bulgaria; Belogradčik; family-owned enterprises; social capital; Mladentsi (feast);

In the 1990s, after the collapse of socialism and the establishment of a market economy, a large number of married couples in Bulgaria chose to work as private entrepreneurs, establishing small family-owned enterprises. In the frameworks of these organizations, family and economic roles intertwine in individual members of the family, whereby the economic relations become an important part of the family-life world. Specific conceptions of work-kinship interrelations come to the fore in the family enterprises for the needs of the entrepreneurial practice. This article presents some features of working life in small Bulgarian family enterprises from an ethnological point of view. The reasons for the transfer of established and utilized family values and models from the private world onto the family enterprises and the world of labour are analysed. I explore the ways and cultural expressions through which this transfer is realized. Research topics include forms of leadership, attitudes towards work in family enterprises, and the building of loyalties. The study is based on empirical ethnographic fieldwork in a family enterprise in the town of Belogradčik. The methodology used includes biographical and semi-structured interviews, informal talks, and participant observation.

What is Wrong with the Process of "Intergation of Roma in Bulgarian Society": The Case of Education

What is Wrong with the Process of "Integration of Roma in Bulgarian Society": The Case of Education

Author(s): Maya Grekova / Language(s): English / Issue: 10/2018

Keywords: integration; minority; nation-state; Roma

In this paper, I examine the understanding of Roma integration which, although not explicitly articulated in the official documents of Bulgarian state institutions, nonetheless implicitly informs the “politics of Roma integration” declared in these documents. The goal of the analysis is to outline a fundamental problem that largely condemns to failure the “national politics of Roma integration”, whose objectives have been consistently reconfirmed over the years. First, I formulate the problem with the situation of the Roma minority in Bulgaria and, in this connection, my understanding of “national/ethnic” minority as a social construction and a contemporary political concept. Next, I offer a review and critical analysis of the documents which state “the national policies of Roma integration in Bulgarian society”. In the last part I focus on the policy of so-called “educational integration of children and students from ethnic minorities” in an attempt to show how the understanding of “integration of Roma in Bulgarian society” condemns integration policies to failure.

Judicial Power or Conspiracy?

Judicial Power or Conspiracy?

Author(s): Lea Vajsova / Language(s): English / Issue: 49/2018

Keywords: transition; post-communist Bulgaria; judicial power; rule of law; anticorruption discourse; subjectivity; civil society; conspiracy; Boltanski; sociology of secrecy

The thesis of this article is that it is difficult to distinguish the logic of conspiracy in some of its manifestations from the logic of the judiciary. The author attempts to show that the difference between conspiracy and judicial power is a consequence of the positioning of the respective logic in locations that are discursively granted the right to evaluate something as true. Undoubtedly, the discourse of judicial power is one of the leading political perspectives in Bulgaria nowadays since politics are centred around the rule of law and the fight against corruption. In order to unfold her main thesis, the author attempts a reconstruction of the anticorruption discourse based on the works of Ivan Krastev and Nadège Ragaru. She demonstrates its development on a global scale and its entry in post-communist Bulgaria. What she finds particularly interesting in Ragaru’s observation is that the anticorruption fight relies on civil society, and in that sense, constructs a ‘civil society’ which, within the framework of this judicial discourse, begins to duplicate the practices of the investigator.

The Bulgarian Society: Changes and Barriers after Ten Years of EU Membership

The Bulgarian Society: Changes and Barriers after Ten Years of EU Membership

Author(s): Rumiana Stoilova / Language(s): English / Issue: 05-06/2018

Keywords: Bulgaria; Bulgarian society; EU Membership; Changes; Barriers

The article presents results about Bulgaria taken from different international comparative public opinion surveys and indexes. They have been formed both on the basis of subjective assessments as well as of objective data. The international comparisons highlight the chances and barriers connected with Bulgaria’s EU membership for the social groups located at the bottom, top and middle tiers of the income structure in society. Major emphasis is put on the occupational perspective, which presents different chances for the prosperity of people actively participating in the labour market. The major risks for Bulgaria with EU membership are connected to poverty, especially among low educated and low qualified people thus increasing inequalities, which place the country at the bottom of the EU’s Social Justice Index. The free movement of people is on the one hand a chance for Bulgarian citizens, and on the other hand a barrier for the further development of the democratic society because of the brain drain. The chances of success for small and medium-sized Bulgarian businesses are restricted in a number of cases by large-scale business. This influence is a barrier to Bulgaria’s sustainable development in which citizens, the state and businesses should take part in an equal and more transparent way.

Chitalishta as Part of the Development of the Civil Society in Bulgaria in the Period from 1878 to 1944

Читалищата като част от развитието на гражданския сектор в България в периода от 1878 г. до 1944 г.

Author(s): Silvena Bayrakova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2019

Keywords: chitalishta (Bulgarian cultural community centers); civil society; public organization; state institution; cultural policy; intellectual elite

In order to analyse in depth, the process of the present special status of the Bulgarian chitalishta, a look at the past is required to search for historical threads that lead to the reconciliation between their functions as state institutions from the one hand and civic organization ones from the other hand. The article highlights some features of the development of the Bulgarian civil sector and focuses on the chitalishta as the first civic organization with traditions dating back to the Bulgarian nation building period. Two major events in the span between 1878 and 1944 have an impact on the contemporary government policy concerning the Bulgarian chitalishta. Firstly, their consolidation in union in 1911 is initiated by the will of their leaders to coordinate the activities and to form high representation raising the organizational status. Secondly, due to the longstanding efforts of the chitalishte intelligentsia, the first Law to regulate them is passed in 1927, which strongly favours their financial and infrastructural support. This text intends to reveal how the democratic civic associations that have occurred in the context of non-existent national state during the Bulgarian “modernity”, acquire specific social and government-institutional hue that brings forth the prototype of their public duties and functions as a space for civil debate.