Democratization, Regional Change, and Ethnicity in the Southern Balkans: The Case of the Rhodope Region of Bulgaria

9515244约翰·皮克尔斯美国肯塔基州这个项目考察了保加利亚南部罗多普地区正在经历从指令式经济向市场型经济转变的社会中(国家以下)的地区经济和政治变化。这种转变以及随之而来的权力下放、去中心化和自由化，给主题区域带来了工业投资的撤出、农业的衰落和日益严重的社会两极分化。在罗多普，社会变革对大量讲土耳其语的少数民族产生了最大的负面影响。该研究项目侧重于三种形式的过渡：(1)地方和国家政权的民主化、新的民间机构和以讲土耳其语的人口为重点的民族政治的出现；(2)工业控制权的下放、区域生产结构调整、分厂关闭和大规模失业；以及(3)烟草生产的私有化和烟草销售中持续垄断的影响。这三个研究问题是：(1)自1989年以来，经济变化如何影响对基于种族的政党和行为者的支持？(2)土耳其主导的政党的崛起如何影响地区经济变化的性质？(3)性别和种族在这些变化中扮演什么角色，在家庭、制造业工厂和地方政治中？与宾夕法尼亚印第安纳大学的罗伯特·贝格和美国大学的穆克·梅尔斯(通过分包合同)以及保加利亚科学院和索非亚大学的同事合作，PI将采访政治和机构领导人、行业经理和家庭，并将利用二次统计数据。研究结果应该与我们越来越多地认识到当地环境中经济、政治和社会认同(性别、种族)变化之间的因果联系有关。S的研究结果对其他周边地区快速变化的中东欧国家也有一定的借鉴意义。这项研究本身将增加这一世界地区的英语写作和专业知识。

SBR-9515244 John Pickles U. Kentucky This project examines (sub-national) regional economic and political change in a society undergoing a shift from a command to market oriented economy, the southern Rhodope region in Bulgaria. This shift and its associated decentralization, demonopolization, and liberalization have brought to the subject region, like many peripheral regions in Central and Eastern Europe, withdrawal of industrial investment, decline in agriculture, and increasing social polarization. In the Rhodope, the social change has most negatively affected the large Turkish-speaking minority. The research project is focused on three forms of transition: (1) the democratization of local and national state power, new civil institutions, and the emergence of ethnic politics focused on the Turkish-speaking population; (2) decentralization of control over industry, regional restructuring of production, branch-plant closure, and mass unemployment; and (3) privatization of tobacco production and the effects of continued monopoly power in tobacco marketing. The three research questions are: (1) How have the economic changes affected support for ethnically based political parties and actors since 1989? (2) How has the rise of the Turkish-dominated political party affected the nature of regional economic change? (3) What roles do gender and ethnicity play in these changes, within households, manufacturing plants, and local politics? Working with Robert Begg of Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Mueke Meurs of The American University (via subcontracts) and colleagues in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Sofia, the PI will interview political and institutional leaders, industrial managers, and households, and will make use of secondary statistical data. The research results should have relevance for our increasing recognition of the causal linkages among economic, political, and social-identity (gender, ethnicity) change in local settings. The results s hould have relevance to other peripheral regions in rapidly changing counties of Central and Eastern Europe. The research itself will add to the English-language writing and expertise on this world region.