EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF BULGARIA ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

An environmental movement emerged in Bulgaria in the late 1980s around which regime dissent coalesced. Success was achieved in bringing an e nd to the communist state, but environmental problems were not resolve d. Environmental issues now must be tackled within a developing plural istic political system and its new political elite and within a strugg ling market economy. As Tarrow suggests in his ''cycles of protest'' t hesis, new repertoires of political action are available to the enviro nmental movement along with new political opportunities for it to seiz e. This study of the Bulgarian environmental movement suggests that ev en when a social movement secures significant success,far from bringin g an end to activity, the movement is likely to find that there are un resolved and even new issues to address that must be pursued under sig nificantly changed political, social, and economic conditions.