As a rule, governments monitor people.

- Ivan Krastev

Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing.

- Ivan Krastev

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basical…

- Ivan Krastev

Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground.

- Ivan Krastev

Before, revolutions used to have ideological names. They could be communist, they could be liberal, they could be fascist or Islamic. Now, the revolu…

- Ivan Krastev

Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions. Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust.

- Ivan Krastev

[It's] difficult to engage people in politics when they believe that what really matters is where they personally stand.

- Ivan Krastev

Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often com…

- Ivan Krastev

The Church of TED is very optimistic. Bulgarians are some of the most pessimistic in the world. There are the Happy, the Unhappy and the Bulgarians.

- Ivan Krastev