Preying on the state: the transformation of Bulgaria after 1989

Venelin I. Ganev’s Preying on the State will be of interest to political sociologists as well as sociologists studying postcommunism, although it is aimed primarily at a political science audience. It notes that “a consensus has coalesced around the viewpoint that the transformative processes unleashed in 1989 precipitated a rapid and radical weakening of state structures” (p. 1). Ganev contributes to understanding this social fact with a detailed case study of the Bulgarian state from 1989 to 1997. He advances a “state-centered perspective” (p. 3), targeting the “policy-centered approach” (p. 13) that blames neoliberal policy that deliberately dismantled the state in order to let markets flourish. The central argument of the book is that postcommunist elites pillage the resources of the state for their short-term gain and in the process end up destroying its capacity in order to facilitate their crimes and cover their tracks. Ganev begins with the observation that in Soviet-style systems there was a fusion of the Communist Party and the state. With the birth of multiparty elections, these spheres had to be separated. Ganev demonstrates that during this process the party cadre use their networks and insider knowledge of state assets to amass personal wealth. Along the way they destroy the institutional capacity of the state to facilitate and conceal their crimes. The book provides a catalog of the various ways members of the political elite rip off the state. While these vignettes are interesting, none of them will be at all surprising to students of postcommunism. Ganev’s contribution is directing our attention to the deleterious effects this type of “political capitalism” has on state capacity. Bulgarian elites deliberately destroyed institutions that the party-state used to monitor and control personnel in charge of economic assets. For example, the last all-Communist parliament, led by Andrei Lukanov, abolished the committee that collected information on economic crimes during communism. At the same time, Lukanov broke up the law enforcement departments responsible for overseeing the conduct of managers of state property. The security personnel migrated to new private protection firms that worked closely with the now-governing Bulgarian Socialist Party (the new name for the Communist Party). Similarly, the department in the Ministry of Foreign Trade that monitored the foreign