ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the Democracy Scores system of measurement and the relative scores of different states in CEE. It describes an alternative set of criteria for the identification of liberal democratic practices that departs from the formalism of Freedom House. The book derives an inexhaustive set of criteria for recognizing cultural aspects of democracy through reference to normative and empirical research into what is generally referred to as the public sphere an aggregation of sites in society through which individuals meet and discuss public matters, constituting themselves as democratic citizens in the process. In political theory, the emphasis on civic participation that public sphere theories imply is often promoted as an alternative to liberalism. The book presents a discursive-historical analysis of the development of political platforms from above in the politics of Serbia and Bulgaria in the past two decades.
