Social Legitimacy of Mass Privatization: The Case of Bulgaria

Abstract

Mass privatization is an important part of the Bulgarian post-socialist transformations. Because of citizens’ direct involvement in it, its social legitimacy is crucial for the social acceptance of the privatization in general. The paper analyzes the problem of the social legitimacy of mass privatization in a long-term period and the main research question is: did privatization succeed in acquiring social legitimacy or did the attitude towards it remain mostly negative. To contextualize the topic, a brief overview of the results of mass privatization in the Czech Republic and Russia is also included in the analysis. The main research hypothesis is that privatization could not legitimize itself as the right path taken in Bulgarian society. The main reason behind this is the non-success of the main wave of the Bulgarian mass privatization. To prove the main hypothesis, data of national representative survey is analyzed in the paper.