Multiple modernities in Bulgaria: Social strategies of capitalist entrepreneurs in the agrarian sector

Abstract

The article focuses on trust/mistrust relations, strategies of cooperation, and emerging conflicts in the period of establishing capitalist reforms in Bulgaria after 1989. In this frame, trust building, as a key challenge for a successful transformation process, is analysed as a premise for cooperation and social cohesion in the process of reforming governance, establishing local institutions, rebuilding civil society, and validating the acknowledged human and natural potential of a "failing" i.e. "fragile state" like Bulgaria. Of specific significance is the analysis of agency in which individuals possess mainly personalised types of trust and cooperation and are suspicious about systemic trust. The analysis of the empirical materials reveals that the agents involved in present capitalist agriculture do not follow the abstract model proposed by transition/consolidation theories but rather they confirm the validity of the multiple modernities approach proposed by S.N. Eisenstadt.