Ethnicity, State Violence, and Neo‐Liberal Transitions in Post‐Communist Bulgaria

John Pickles and Robert B. Begg

Growth and Change, 2000, vol. 31, issue 2, 179-210

Abstract: State socialist nationalization policies in the 1980s severely impacted the ethnic Turkish and Muslim regions of Bulgaria, while neo‐liberal economic strategies have subsequently further deepened their economic crisis. This paper focuses on the ways in which policies of regional economic marginalization, cultural assimilation, and population expulsion have deeply marked the people and places of the Kurdajli region of southeastern Bulgaria. The paper shows how mass unemployment arose quickly after 1989 as a result of the closure of branch‐plants, and assesses the role of social networks and non‐capitalist economic practices in the Muslim communities during this period of economic immiseration. The paper shows how these legacies of state policy and social practice have provided flexible opportunities for the resurgence of apparel assembly for export, referred to locally as ‘Klondike capitalism’. The paper concludes with a discussion of the extent to which the history of violence has influenced the processes of internationalization in the region, and how we are to think about the relationship between regional mass unemployment and sectorally specific industrial revitalization.

Date: 2000
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