Oligarchic Party-Group Relations in Bulgaria

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. The Extended Parentela

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 1-28

3. The Parentela Through the Eyes of Bulgarian Policy-Makers

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 29-58

4. La Palombara’s Parentela in Bulgaria: The Case of Public Procurement Contracts (Public Tenders)

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 59-75

5. Type Two Parentela as an Instrument of Coercion

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 77-93

6. The Extended Parentela as a Model of Party-Centric Oligarchic Relations in Bulgaria

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 95-122

7. Ukraine Under Kuchma—An Illustration of the Link Between the Extended Parentela and Consolidated Oligarchy

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 123-146

8. The Parentela and Oligarchy

   • Mihail Petkov

   Pages 147-160

9. Back Matter

   Pages 161-183

   PDF

This book argues that the relationship between political parties, civil service and party insider groups in Bulgaria is oligarchic. It also argues that these oligarchic dynamics overlap with the parentela policy network, which is a relationship where a ruling party interferes with the civil service to the benefit of its own insider group. In Bulgaria, party-wide executive appointments attract businesses to seek insider status hoping to expand their activities through prejudiced regulatory inspections as one form of executive interference. Such inspections constitute a veiled attempt to coerce a business, which is in a direct market competition with the party insider or in party political opposition. Any such successful party-insider relationship forms an oligarchic elite, which then converts political access into capital and coerces its rivals into losing parliamentary elections. When ruling parties change, the cycle is repeated, as the newly formed elite seeks to check all and any rivals.

• parentela
• policy network
• party-group relationship
• Bulgarian Parentela Study
• prejudiced regulatory inspections
• oligarchy
• civil service
• corruption
• parentela dynamics
• La Palombara
• campaign funding
• political parties
• party insiders
• political patronage
• tax audits
• extortion
• political dissent
• Bulgaria
• Ukraine
• democratic policy-making

• Naples, USA

  Mihail Petkov

Mihail Petkov is an independent researcher and journal reviewer. Apart from Bulgarian politics, he is interested in political elites, policy-making networks, power relations between policy-making actors and the development of democracy.

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