The Roots of the Moralization of Politics in Post-1989 Bulgaria and What It Means for the Left

Bulgaria seems to have produced no strong progressive left alternative despite having one of the highest rates of social inequality in the EU and facing rising poverty levels. This chapter argues that dominant anti-corruption discourses and policies, together with the moralization of politics and post-political tendencies, impede the articulation of viable left alternatives. The post-1989 changes were presented in very broad terms (for example, as “Europeanization”, “catching up with the West”), leaving debates over economic policies outside of public scrutiny. This framing naturalized and dehistoricized class antagonisms, and produced the illusion that the best policies simply needed to be implemented by honest technocrats. Discontent with rising inequalities appears not as a critique of liberal economic policy, but only of its political representatives—dishonest and corrupt politicians. This chapter traces the trajectory of the postsocialist Bulgarian left, situating it in the wider context of the moralization of politics.