From communist to capitalist industrial policy: policy-making during late socialism, transition and EU capitalism

Abstract

In the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, the countries from the former communist bloc embarked on a journey to market capitalism and democracy. Studying Bulgarian industrial policy over a period of 30 years, I argue that the specific institutional and political history of Bulgaria shaped its industrial policies during the periods of late socialism, transition and EU capitalism. My project is an incorporated comparative study (McMichael, 1990) of Bulgarian industrial policy during periods of different transnational organizations. I investigate the role transnational organizations played in shaping Bulgaria's industrial policy by looking for answers to the same set of questions in each consecutive period and across different periods. Continuities between the periods indicate that past institutional and political structures produce similar industrial policies across the three periods. I also maintain that international institutional pressures affected Bulgarian industrial policies. Thanks to my integrated theoretical and methodological framework, I demonstrate that the Washington Consensus did not take into account the variety of capitalisms existing in the real world. I argue that some of those capitalisms, the European ones in particular, are closer to Bulgaria's late socialism than the ideal type composed by the Washington Consensus.