Nikolai Genov
GLOBAL TRENDS
AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
ABSTRACT
Societies in Western and Eastern Europe alike are facing the challenge
of all-pervading global trends . Among them, the spreading of instrumental
activism, individualization, upgrading of organizational rationality and
value-normative universalization seem to exert the deepest influence . The
South-East European societies have to cope with them under the precari-
ous conditions ofprofound national transformations. Their core is the search
for solutions to four major tasks . First, how to restructure the national
economies by balancing instrumental activism with the value-normative
and institutional patterns of sustainability . Second, how to complement the
civilizational triumph of individualization by communitarian patterns of
problem-solving . Third, how to upgrade organizational rationality and
counteract the development of organizational pathologies . Fourth, how to
co-ordinate the value-normative universalization with unavoidable
particularisms. These tasks are complex and complicated . Therefore, South-
East European societies will retain the potential of intensive risk . Most
probably, their integration with the European Union will reduce this potential
while loading the Union with internal tensions .
Key words : global trends, instrumental activism, individualization,
rationalization, value-normative universalization
1 . The problem
The integration of some South-East European societies into the European Union is
already regarded as a task on the current political agenda . In reality, the practical steps
in this direction will take decades . The key issue is the competitiveness of their national
economies . It is not a matter of productivity and pricing alone . Political stability and
cultural cohesion belong to the issue as well . As seen from another angle, the opening
of the South-East European societies to the integration schemes of the European Union
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
	
33
Nikolai Genov
is not the ready-made solution to the problems of adjustment to changing global and
regional conditions. The European integration is part of the challenge itself since it
raises a series of questions . How will the large agricultural sector in the South-East
European subregion react to the integration process? How will the energy intensive
industrial production there adapt to the economic opening? What would be the pros-
pects for human development under the rapidly changing economic, political and cul-
tural conditions?
In broader terms, there are many open questions concerning the long-term social,
political and cultural prospects of the Eastern European part of the former Council for
Mutual Economic Assistance . The general issue of the sustainability of their develop-
ment might be well illustrated by two rankings from the mid-nineties . They vividly
characterize the difference between the core of the modem civilization and the Central
and Eastern European periphery or semi-periphery . The complicated situation of South-
East Europe represented by Bulgaria and Romania is obvious in this context (Human
Development Report, 1997 : 146-7) :
Table 1
Ranking of selected European countries according to their GDP per capita
(US$, PPP) and to the Human Development Index (HDI)'
Country
	
GDP per capita HDI ranking
Austria 20,667 12
Bulgaria 4,533 69
Czech Republic 9,201 39
Germany 19,675 19
Hungary 6,437 48
Poland 5,002 5 8
Romania 4,037 79
As seen in this context, Central and Eastern Europe and especially the South-East-
ern part of the continent is not just a case of underdevelopment . It is a typical region
marked by manifest and latent uncertainties and tensions, by high intensity risks as
well (Genov, 1994a; Genov, 1996) . Moreover, some major risks of far reaching social and
economic transformations in the region are still ahead (Berend, 1997). This is obviously
the case with a country like Bulgaria which has been repeatedly caught in transformation
crises. In fact, changes of the country's political institutions have been succesfully
accomplished . However, the slight economic stabilization in 1994 and 1995 could not be
sustained. Despite the promising predictions at the beginning of 1996, the year turned to
an economic collapse with a drop of GDP by 10 .9%. As a result, 1997 witnessed a
dramatic change of government. Despite some signs of economic stabilization, the year
brought about a new decline of GDP by 7 .2% and an annual inflation rate of 578% . As
34 DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European persp e ctive
seen in this perspective, the economic development of the country after 1989 is rather
depressing :
Figure 1
Major economic indicators of Bulgaria 1989-1997,1989 =100 2
100
	
--- - --- -------
90 -
80 -
70	 	4f--- -_ '~ 	-
60
50 -- = _- - -
40 -- ---	' . -- ---~
30 --- -
20 -.
10 --
o	 I	
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
-~--GDP ---E--Industrial output -t-- Agricultural
production
This is a clear case of high intensity transformation risks which have to be handled
carefully and competently (Genov, 1997a) . Thus, assessment and management of inten-
sive risks remain the major tasks to be resolved by the South-East European societies .
What concepts would grasp the problem situation best? What practical efforts for risk
management seem to be most promising?
2. Global trends and national transformation
The changes in Bulgaria as well as all over Central and Eastern Europe after 1989
have one common denominator. It is the transfer of institutional patterns which have
already proved their efficiency in managing industrialized societies (Wiesenthal, 1996) .
These institutions have first emerged in Western Europe and North America . The transfer
basically concerns four types of value-normative orientations and institutions which
embody the most fundamental trends in the development of modem societies (Genov,
1997b) .
First, the subject of transfer are the value-normative ideas and institutional con-
figurations of instrumental activism . The point is the concentration on instrumental
values and behavioural patterns which make out the core of modern industrialism, or,
broader, of the Western type of Weltbeherrschung in Max Weber's terminology .
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26 35
Nikolai Genov
Second, the institutional transfer concerns the modern forms of individualization . It
shows various modifications under specific historical conditions . In Western Europe
and in North America, the innovations in market economy, competitive politics and in
pluralist culture made it the major feature of institutions in the form of institutionalized
individualism as Talcott Parsons called it .
Third, another global trend which guides the recent developments in Central and
Eastern Europe is the upgrading of organizaional rationality . First of all, it concerns
the timely and sufficient differentiation of social structures and functions . Another char-
acteristic of this trend is the upgrading of social integration . The underlying assump-
tion of the following discussion is that both achievements and failures in implementing
this trend might be registered in Bulgaria as it is the case all over Eastern Europe .
Fourth, during the last decades we have experienced an intensive and worldwide
universalization of value-normative systems . The process is being effectively pushed
forward by the electronic media . The deeper causes and reasons of the trend are con-
nected with the universal technological standards of industrialization and urbanization,
with the globalization of economy, with global political interdependencies as well as
with the globalization of culture and life styles .
How are these trends manifested in the ongoing transformation of Bulgarian society?
2.1. The challenges of instrumental activism
The dominant ideology of the transformation of Bulgarian society after 1944 had two
focal points . The first one expressed the ultimate values of social justice, mass welfare
and personal development . The second one found its expression in the instrumental
ends of industrialization, mechanization of agriculture and development of the
infrastructure of a technologically advanced society . Gradually, the moral impetus of
the ultimate values got lost in everyday concerns dominated by instrumental ends .
Among them, continuing industrialization took the lead . It was understood as the major
precondition for economic development . In fact, during the sixties and the seventies
Bulgaria had rather high rate of economic growth . As a region, Eastern Europe had the
highest regional rate of GDP growth in the world and managed to reduce its distance to
Western Europe in terms of GDP per capita (Berend, 1997 :11) :
However, the state socialist form of social and economic organization did not suc-
ceed in stabilizing its initial high rate of technological and economic growth . During the
eighties it sharply declined in the region . Its peripheral position to the core of the
modern civilization strengthened anew. For the first time in history, the GDP per capita
fell in Eastern Europe below the level of Latin America (Berend, 1997 : 12) . Mainly this
development and less the problem of human rights became the moving factor of decay
and eventually brought about the political collapse in the region .
36
	
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
Table 2
Central and Eastern Europe's per capita GDP as percentage of the various
regions of the world 1913-1973'
1913
	
1938 1973
Western Europe 42.0 44 .1 46.6
Overseas West 29.7 34.9 35.7
Southern Europe 88.8 107.9 95.2
Latin America 102.8 105.5 120.9
Asia 209.8 238.3 341.8
World average 97.8 108 .3 132.6
After 1989 the solution of the problem is being sought for in the development of
private initiative and market institutions . More specifically, the solution is searched for
in the fast privatization. The process is well advanced all over the region . Bulgaria is in
the middle range of the scale (From Plan to Market, 1996 :15) :
Fig. 2 .
Private sector output as a share of GDP in the Central and
Eastern European countries (end of 1995, %)
Ukraine
Slovenia
Slovak Republic
Russia
Romania
Poland ":5 x :,. . ..
Moldova
FYR Macedonia
Lithuania
Latvia
Hungary
Estonia
Czech Republic
Croatia
Bulgaria
Belarus sa: ... _ .
Albania
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
DR, Vol . XIV (1998) 26 37
Nikolai Genov
Though, the shift in the structure of property has not brought about positive changes
to the extent it was expected . For large groups it is existentially important that the
smaller GDP is being distributed in a more and more inequal manner. In Bulgaria, the
ratio of the incomes of the richest 20% to the incomes of the poorest 20% was about
2.7:1 in 1990 . At the end of 1995 the ratio was already 6 .5:1 (Genov, 1997a : 38) . This
development and the strong trend towards commercialization of all activities cause
intensive value-normative tensions and conflicts since they clash with influential tradi-
tional visions about social justice . These contradictions bring about moral disorienta-
tion which undermines the social sustainability of Bulgarian society . The division of
society to rich and poor is exactly the perception of a specific risk whose intensity
increases most rapidly in the course of the profound changes .
The second problem is also connected with ultimate values but in the context of the
environmental sustainability . The international experience provides abundant evidence
that the commercial 'instrumentalization of social life is shortsighted . In principle, it
puts limits to the link of market principles with the practices of sustainable development .
This limitation is particularly strong in the conditions of imperfect markets which hardly
tell the environmental truth of production and consumption . The achievement of this
result is even more difficult in conditions when the economic crisis supresses the
environmental issues to the periphery of the public interest :
Figure 3
Perception of risks facing Bulgarian society
(National surveys, five points scale, only position 5 "Very serious problem", %)'
90
60
	
--- - j i
70
60
50 . .---
T40 - --' -
30
20
10 4
I
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
- --State of the ---U---- Division rich- ---A-- Crime
enviro nm e nt poor
Briefly summarized, the market oriented instrumentalization of action brought about
destabilization of the balance between the instrumental and ultimate values . Thus the
38 DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
development of the ultimate value-normative system of sustainable technological, eco-
nomic, political, cultural and environmental development has been postponed . How-
ever, no sustainable social order would be possible under the domination of action by
instrumental values. The present day social desintegration of Bulgarian society leads it
astray from the global trend towards bringing together instrumental activism with the
ideas and practices of sustainable development .
2.2. Tensions of rapid individualization
It is often assumed that Eastern Europe has been isolated from the global process of
individualization because of the collectivistic ideology which dominated the region after
the Second World War. In reality, in the course of the rapid industrialization and
urbanization and together with the increase of the well-being all forms of modem
individualization found their way in the region . The enlargement of the pool of alterna-
tives for personal realization coincided with the enhancement of personal capacities to
make well founded selections . In a parallel manner, the potential for conflicts also increased
since the state interventionism into economic, political and cultural life put narrow limits
on the individual initiative and responsibility .
The beginning of the nineties brought about a new wave of rapid individualization
in the region . The establishment of half a million private firms in Bulgaria which has
about six million voters is an impressive illustration of the scale of the process. The
registered more than two hundred political parties or about 4,000 non-governmental
organizations would be impossible without the initiative of individuals who are seek-
ing for new forms of personal realization . There is no doubt, this development might be
adequately interpreted in terms of the triumph of individuality as an evolutionary
achievement (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1994) .
The close analysis reveals, however, both the achievements and the tensions of the
process. More often than not the strengthening of indivualities comes about at the ex-
pense of the common good. The most impressive example is the looting of state prop-
erty which has been accumulated after the Second World War . Undoubtedly, the state
did not effectivery manage the property of an increasingly differentiated industrialized
society . That is why the introduction of market mechanisms became unavoidable . The
real problem is the ongoing transfer of state property into private hands without any
compensation to the national community since the state machinery has been substan-
tially weakened . The mechanisms of the transfer are various and effective . They start
with the legalized low rate selling of state property to managerial teams and reach criminal
plundering . This development has and will have negative implications on the economic
situation of large strata as well as on their ability to adequately react to the new openings
of individualization . Thus for deprived groups the changes move in the direction of
restricting the field for individual development and realization as compared to the situation
during the eighties .
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
	
3 9
Nikolai Genov
Under these conditions the individual aspirations and the time horizon of personal
planning shrunk substantially . Moreover, the minimized time perspective stabilized it-
self with the wide majority of the Bulgarian population :
Figure 4
Time perspective of personal planning (National surveys, % )
50
45 ~_
40 -
35 --
Ir30 -
	
--•- - Bulgaria '95
25 -- I --∎-- Bulgaria '96
120 -A Bu lgaria '97
15 -
10 -
5-
0 i -	 -	
Day by Five-six Several
Day months years
This is a clear indication of helplessness which is in a sharp contradiction to the
requirements of a conscious government of the personal development and realization .
No doubt, the emancipation from the restrictive official Party-State ideology imposed
on the individuals is an evolutionary achievement . However, the high level of personal
disorientation and insecurity indicates that the Bulgarian national transformation in-
cludes an intensive cutting of community bonds . However, a sustainable social order
cannot be established on the basis of extreme individualization . The question is still
open as to the proper mechanisms which should represent and strengthen the common
good together with the support to individualization . It is clear that the necessity of a
communitarian reintegration of the national society is acute . Bearing in mind the expe-
rience from the previous decades, it is also vitally important to achieve this reintegra-
tion without returning to authoritarian political and cultural patterns of over-integra-
tion .
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GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
2.3. Upgrading the organizational rationality
During the eighties it became obvious that the Eastern European societies were
loosing the global competition in upgrading organizational rationality . A series of cul-
tural and institutional causes and reasons were blocking the innovations in the region .
The crucial moment for a timely adaptation of organizational structures to the complexity
of industrial societies was missed at the end of the sixties . The chance to smoothly
introduce economic liberalization, political democratization and pluralization of cul-
ture, what other authoritarian regimes successfully did (Genov, 1994b), was lost. The
adaptation had to be carried out later on with substantial difficulties and at higher social
costs . The processes during the second half of the eighties have shown this clearly.
The problem consisted and still consists mainly in the necessity to successfully
manage the postponed differentiation. The crucial point is the differentiation of economy,
politics and culture . They have been kept in a monolithic complex for decades by the
political over-integration of the Party-State . Another key issue is the differentiated po-
litical representation of specific interests . In the long run, the differentiation of markets
gets a growing importance as well . These and many other differentiations of action
spheres and in action spheres materialize the global process of organizational rational-
ization .
At the regional Eastern European level the process is so complex that it cannot be
free of tensions and paradoxes (Glatzer, 1996) . They are rather intensive and put its
very course under question . The most important paradox concerns the role of the state .
The very core of the differentiation process is the withdrawal of the state from its
domination on economy and culture. However, under the given civilizational condi-
tions there is no other agency which might be able to manage this withdrawal than the
state itself. Numerous misunderstandings and lack of coordination in this respect brought
about consequences which indicate a degradation instead of upgrading of organiza-
tional rationality (Genov, 1997a).
This holds true mainly for the first stage of the radical economic reforms . It was
marked in Bulgaria by the lack of fundamental legal arrangements, of crucial market
institutions as well as of knowledge and skills for managing the introduction of market
mechanisms. All this led to destructive instititional effects which put on stake the very
political and economic legitimacy of reforms . The withdrawal of the state from the
control on the banking system turned out to be especially explosive . The catastrophic
development of Bulgaria in 1996 can be explained - other major factors notwithstand-
ing - by the fact that tremendous resources were reallocoted towards excessive con-
sumption or drained abroad via the liberalized banking sector of the national economy .
It was deprived of vitally important capital flows . This development is a manifestation of
political irrationality which has far reaching impacts on the major economic indicators of
the country . No wonder why the trust in major state instututions reached remarkable
lows in the mid nineties :
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
	
41
Nikolai Genov
Table 3
Degree to which major institutions contribute to the governance
of the country (National surveys, five points scale, positions 1 and 5)
To a very
	
To a very
Institutions low extent (%) high extent (%)
Oct. 1994 Nov. 1996 Oct. 1994 Nov. 1996
The Parliament 58.6 46 .1 1 .7 1 .8
The President 34.9 43.0 3.4 1 .8
The Government 52.4 53.4 1 .4 1 .1
Courts and
Prosecutors' offices 50.1 51.8 1 .9 0.7
The organizational rationalization has not been compromised by the inefficient or
lacking state intervention alone . Many processes exceed the capacities of the Bulgarian
national state. Whatever the clarifications, the very problem remains a burning one :
Can the stabilization of social order be accomplished without the active participation
of the nation state in the transformation? The question does contain an intellectual
provocation but it aims mainly at a burning practical problem . The intellectual answer
was already clear in the moment when the obstacles in the way of the development of
institutional frameworks of market economy became obvious . The processes all over
Eastern Europe manifest the necessity of an active participation of the state in the regu-
lation of the economic transformation (Eatwell et al ., 1995 : Ch .7) . The search for an
optimal solution to this problem will certainly make the core of political debates in
Bulgaria in the years to come . It remains a burning issue in the integration of the coun-
try with the European Union .
2.4. Value-normative universalization
In their development after the Second World War the Eastern European countries
did not manage to effectively adapt to the ongoing world-wide process of value-norma-
tive universalization . The major reason for this failure was their rather unequal position
under the conditions of a polar division of the world in spheres of influence . Eastern
Europe was practically isolated from the world markets as well as from other fundamental
political and cultural processes . This isolation substantially contributed to the paralysis
of their capacity to innovate in order to adapt effectively to the global trends .
The dissolution of the polar political and military confrontation speeded up the
development of universalistic value-normative systems in the region . The universal
rights of the human individual are in the core of the new constitutional arrangements .
The particularisms of thinking in categories of ideological, political and military con-
frontations have not disappeared but they have been suppressed to the periphery of the
value-normative orientations .
42 DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
The strengthening of the universalistic value system does not imply, however, any
end of the conflictual history of struggling particularistic views . To the contrary, we
witness a general value-normative uncertainty . Facing a similar situation at the end of
the First World War, Max Weber registered the decline of the large ideological systems
but also predicted the rise of competing value orientations in everyday life (Weber,
1992[1919] : 101) . This new potential for cultural conflicts makes the illusions con-
nected with the "end-of-the-history" thesis manifest . The indications for a number of
future conflicts is easily recognizable in the different assessments of rural and urban
population as well as in the rapidly ongoing economic differentiation .
A substantial potential for conflicts is also present in the ethnic and religious differ-
ences. The processes in former Yugoslavia showed this clearly . Nationalism which
was regarded there as a remnant of traditionalism has re-established itself as a major
factor determining the value orientations . The revival of traditional religions and the
intrusion of non-traditional sects indicate that religiously based cultural conflicts have
a future - may be even a rather important one . In the Bulgarian national context this
potential for future conflicts is easily recognizable in the deep and stable social dis-
tances between the major ethnic groups in the country :
Table 4
Would you accept a representative of another ethnic group for :
(National surveys, position "No", % )
A Turk
	
A Gypsy
1993 1996 1993 1996
Neighboour 35.2 30.2 71 .0 67.9
Colleague at the work place 31 .5 25.5 63 .1 60.8
Close friend 51.7 48 .2 78.7 79.6
Member of the family 77.0 78 .9 90.2 90 .0
Thus tensions between the universalized value-normative structures and the spe-
cific ethnic, religious and other identities which incorporate the diversity of cultures
will certainly leave their imprints on the future of Bulgarian society .
3. Contradictory trends in social differentiation and integration
The explanatory perspective searching for the causes and reasons of the acute prob-
lems conditioning the integration of South-East Europe with the European Union should
refer to the belated differentiation of nation-states in the region . In broader terms, the
major problem is the belated differentiation of action spheres but also in specific ac-
tion spheres. However, problems of social integration at societal level are no less rel-
evant in the context of the European integration .
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26 43
Nikolai Genov
In the course of the whole 20 11 century all societies from South-East Europe have
been dominated by politics . They all are societies in which the state intervention in
economy and culture is the normal state of affairs . The forms of interventionism vary
from country to country and from period to period. It reached its peak in the cases of full
nationalization of economy and full state control on culture as it was the case in Bul-
garia . The major way for achieving individual economic success under such conditions
is the use and abuse of political power .
The development of this common model of domination of economy by politics has
its historical reasons . The countries from South-East Europe have not had and do not
have the historical time to develop their modernization via industrialization in an or-
ganic way. Just having appeared on the political map, they faced well defined areas of
economic and political influence . Their only promising reaction could be the state gov-
erned modernization . The intellectual and emotional moving force of this type of mod-
ernization is nationalism. This model of modernization has retained its vitality in the
region during a long period (Mouzelis, 1987) .
As seen from a social-structural point of view, the major reason for the domination
of politics in the South-East European societies in most cases was the weakness of the
middle class and of civil society . Moreover, in large parts of the region the civil society
has been suppressed during the development of their industrial base . In these cases the
de-differentiation of economy and politics has been developed to the extreme . One of
the major reasons for this is the effort to maximally concentrate the scarce national
resources for achieving fast advances in economic modernization . In this way rela-
tively fast industrialization has been accomplished . However, in the long run the de-
differentiation of economy and politics turned out to be counter-productive since it
suppressed the economic initiative and responsibility . Thus in several countries of the
subregion, Bulgaria included, the future differentiation of economy and politics will
substantially depend on the development of the middle class .
Societies in South-East Europe still remain politically dominated because of inter-
national reasons as well . The great powers exert their influence on the subregion through
the local political elites . They readily take this function of intermediators since the
foreign patronage supports their own position . There are abundant examples of eco-
nomic and political strengthening of ruling political groupings exactly because of their
role as implementing agencies of foreign interests .
The political domination of society continues the tradition of paternalistic political
culture and practices which have been inherited from the medieval empires . The vari-
ous forms of political paternalism combined with a strong familial traditionalism persist
in the political tissue in the subregion . The similarities with political structures in the
Mediterranean and in Latin America is obvious .
The low level of differentiation of politics from other action spheres goes hand in
hand with a low level of differentiation in the sphere ofpolitics itself . The most extreme
44
	
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspe ctive
case is the elimination of the division of powers which was practiced in most countries
of the subregion after the Second World War . Bulgaria is a typical example in this
respect. The unclear differentiation of political interests and processes is another side
of the coin. It is not by chance that, national specifics notwithstanding, the dictatorial
traditions of suppressing the differentiation of politics are widely spread all over the
region .
Thus, as paradoxical as it may seem, exactly the domination of society by politics
is one of the major reasons for the permanent political instability in the region . The
overconcentration of political power is not necessarily the most effective answer to the
economic, ethnic, religious and other challenges to sustainable developrnent. More
flexible forms of government are needed . Among other things, this means to leave
economy and culture to develop along their own logics and not to subject them to the
logic of politics . This means also a sufficient differentiation in the sphere of politics
itself.
The Bulgarian case shows how urgent and complicated is the task to continue the
differentiation of social systems . This is a challenge to most other countries in the
subregion. Another common task is the need to connect the differentiation with strength-
ening the domestic and international mechanisms of social integration . In the latter
respect, the major issue is the difference between the South-East European societies
and the core of the European Union in work productivity, in economic organization, in
stability of democratic institutions and in the dominating value-normative orientations .
The differences are too substantial to be overcome in the short run (Riedel, 1996). The
domestic integration is also a difficult task since the belated modernization will be
marked by differentiation of economy and culture from politics, continuing differen-
tiation of powers, of political identities and groupings . This predominance of differen-
tiation will be stronger in the former state socialist countries like Bulgaria. Thus, we
shall certainly witness new tensions and conflicts at national and international levels .
Substantial, efforts will be needed in order not to leave them to develop into intensive
confrontations . Attempts at political overintegration of societies at the expense of their
opening to regional and global cooperation are still quite possible in the subregion .
4. Conclusion : Integration and sustainable development
In this complicated context the crucial issue is the prospect of economic, political,
cultural and environmental sustainability in the development of South-East European
societies . In Bulgaria the task meets complicated problems in the course of the ongoing
transformation . First, taking the form of all-pervasive commercialization, instrumen-
tal activism turns into an obstacle in the way of the long-term oriented sustainable
development, which can be only materialized on the basis of ultimate values referring
to the common good . The positive prospect of this trend is the strengthening of the idea
and the practices of sustainable development without stifling the innovative potential
of instrumental activism . Second, there is no doubt that modern individualism has no
DR, Vol. XIV (1998) 26
	
45
Nikolai Genov
alternative . However, its negative effects should be minimized by the effective function-
ing of mechanisms of communitarian solidarity . Sustainable development is not possible
under the conditions of value-normative and institutional predominance of individualism,
as it is the trend in Bulgaria at present . The clash of individualism with traditional and
prospective forms of communitarianism continues with high intensity . The results will
determine the future of sustainable development in the country . Third, the neglect of
evolutionary universals of state government brought about a series of tensions and
conflicts . The crash of financial pyramids is only one of the numerous examples of
deviation from the patterns of organizational rationalization which threaten the sustainable
development in the country. The advancing rationalization of organizational structures
and processes requires institutional changes in order to reduce the potential for
organizational pathologies . Fourth, together with the rapidly proceeding universaliza-
tion of values and norms one can observe various forms of particularism as well . So far,
the most relevant among them is the particularism of political confrontation. Many
others are still latent, however. As the experience of neighbouring countries clearly
shows, they could be easily activated . That is why it is one of the most important tasks
to preserve universalistic solidarity in order to cope with the extremes of particularism .
Against this background, the concluding thesis might be formulated as follows :
Sustainable development of Bulgarian society and its successful integration with the
European Union is only possible when the current destructive trends would be re-
placed by a multidimensional domestic integration . The consolidation of national
economy by means of integrating market mechanisms has a priority in this respect . The
restructuring of economy cannot be postponed any more . However, its impact on un-
employment and living standards will become clear in the years to come . Another
source of uncertainty is the perspective of mass privatization . Only after five or ten
years it will be possible to assess its economic and social consequences . The continu-
ing uncertainty as to the future organizational forms of agriculture is another major
challenge. It is very much desirable to mobilize political will and organizational ca-
pacities in order to reduce the uncertainties . This is still another precondition for the
sustainable development of the country .
The outlined complexity and unpredictability of many processes require a careful
and long-term management . The re-establishment of social integration in general and
of value-normative integration in particular will certainly be a protracted and difficult
process . In the global and regional aspects the peripheral position of Bulgaria will be
probably solidified . In both directions one can hardly expect a reduction of conflicts .
Coping with these conflicts will gradually move into the hands of supranational organi-
zations . In the short run, however, the way out of the economic, political and value-
normative crisis, which is a serious crisis of sustainability as well, requires a stabiliza-
tion of the state institutions first of all. Only under this condition the recovery of the
national economy could be managed and resources could be mobilized in favour of
sustainability (Genov, 1995 : Ch. 8). The effects of these efforts depend on many do-
mestic and international circumstances . The field for free choice has narrowed substan-
tially, however. It is the time to act and to act immediately .
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GLOBAL TRENDS AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
The South-East European perspective
NOTES
'The Human Development Index (HDI) combines the level of GDP per capita, the life
expectancy and data about the educational level of the population in a given country .
'According to data from the National Statistical Institute and author's calculations .
'The calculations are made on the average of sample countries . Western Europe is represented
by 12 countries ; the Overseas West is the aggregate of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the
US. Southern Europe is the average of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey ; Central and
Eastern Europe consists of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia; Latin America is represented by seven countries ; Asia by eleven countries,
including China, India, Bangladesh, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea ; Africa is represented by ten
countries ; and the world average is composed by the average of the above 56 countries .
"All survey data from public opinion polls stem from national surveys carried out by a team
headed by the present author at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences .
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