Governance legitimacy in the oligarchized settings: the case of Bulgaria
Over the past decade, concerns about a crisis of democratic legitimacy have become central in political science scholarship, often linked to the rise of populism, governance transformation, and declining trust in political institutions. This dissertation contributes to these debates by examining how political legitimacy is constructed in contemporary democracies. It conceptualizes legitimacy as a relational, subjective, and processual phenomenon that is continuously produced through practices of legitimation and delegitimation. It argues that these processes are embedded in the social practice of storytelling, through which narratives structure collective understanding of political reality. Particular attention is paid to the role of metaphors in reinforcing certain interpretations and shaping the prominence of specific narratives.Empirically, the dissertation analyses the Bulgarian socio-political situation during the protests of 2020-2021, focusing on mainstream news media. Based on a quali-quantitative analysis, the study reveals widespread perceptions of governance (il)legitimacy that extend beyond specific governments to politic as a whole. Three interrelated narratives – violated democracy, crisis, and left-behindness – structured this delegitimation, with democratic principles serving as the primary normative benchmark. The analysis further shows that governance illegitimacy was configurated through regimes of multidirectional, agonistic, and disapproving metaphors. These metaphors were built on confrontational, unavailing and inflammatory logic, activating “us versus them” dichotomies and evoking perceptions of insecurity and fear. Overall, the dissertation demonstrates that legitimacy crises are not merely the result of institutional failure or deficient argumentation but emerge from overlapping narrative and metaphorical structures that shape how politics is perceived and evaluated in the public sphere.