Property Reform and Social Conflict - the analysis of agri- cultural ownership transformations in Post Communist Bulgaria

Land reform and the privatization of agricultural assets in transition is often explained with public choice arguments. These discuss the importance of links between interest groups, party competition and political program design. This paper adds a distributive bargaining concept to the general discussion of how institutions in transition emerge and develop. Based on empirical results, it allows to understand how in Bulgaria, in the face of political conflicts and in concert with the existing informal relations between rural actors, the effective rules for distributing the benefits from agricultural ownership emerged. Paper presented at the KATO Symposium Berlin, Germany, November 2-4, 2000 9 Property Reform and Social Conflict the analysis of agricultural ownership transformations in Post Communist Bulgaria