Bulgaria: A Fertile Ground for Populism?
Bulgaria: A Fertile Ground for Populism?

Summary/Abstract: Populism became a popular topic in the studies of Central and Eastern Europe after the emergence of new parties and movements, adopting a similar type of strategy and structure in the region over the last decade. This study aims at assessing populist formations in Bulgaria, a country where such parties have significant electoral success over the last decade. The main question to be answered is twofold: how can we analyze the populist parties in Bulgaria in a common framework and what are the reasons of their success. The first section addresses the theoretical question of definition and the state of the research both in Western and Eastern Europe, including the existing studies of Bulgarian case. The second one focuses on the populist parties in Bulgaria, assessing their specific features. The third section concentrates on the questions of populist parties’ success, taking into account both electoral and party dimension. The last chapter presents the analysis and conclusions returning to the questions of the dynamics of the development of these parties and their decline, followed by the general conclusions.

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