Масоните са в Парламента! Политикономия на конспирациите в съдебната реформа на България
The Freemasons are in Parliament! Political Economy of Conspiracies in the Judicial Reform Discourses in Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: The article proposes an explanation of the social conditions of and thepolitical effects from widespread conspiratorial discourses in Bulgaria today. The approach is based on a generalization of Moishe Postone’s use of Marx’s critiqueof political economy to articulate a critical theory of modern antisemitism. My main argument is that it is possible to deploy Postone’s thesis, regarding the personalization of abstract domination in modern capitalism, more generally, that is without limiting it to the analysis of strictly antisemitic conspiratorial discourses. What interests me in particular is how to adapt Postone’s theory of antisemitism to explain narratives about “the Backstage of the Transition” in Bulgaria today, understood as the secretive force, derailing the nation fromits “natural” historical course. The concrete empirical focus of the article is the parliamentary debates around the adoption of amendments to the Judicial System Act from 2016. The amendments’ stated goal was to limit influences of “secret societies” in the judicial system; during the debates the imagined “Backstage of Transition” was personalized in the figure of “the free masons”.

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