Bulgaria

Brief description of the legal entity

The Centre for Liberal Strategies (CLS) is an independent, non-profit public policy institute. Its research and analytical work relies on rigorous background analysis and knowledge formation of high academic quality. Its fields of expertise pertain to a wide range of issues: democratisation of post-communist countries, corruption, populism, the integration of the Balkans into the EU and Balkan-US relations. The Centre collaborates with a wide network of Bulgarian, regional, European and international non-governmental analytical centers and organisations.

Short profile of the team members

Daniel Smilov, the scientist in charge for the research team of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, is a comparative constitutional lawyer and a political scientist. He is Programme Director for Political and Legal Research at CLS, Recurrent Visiting Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the Central European University (Budapest), and Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the Political Science Department, University of Sofia. He holds doctorate degrees from the University of Oxford (DPhil, 2003) and the Central European University (SJD, 1999, summa cum laude). In 2002-2003 he was Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, at the Central European University. In 2003-2004 he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence). He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, in 1995. He has published extensively in his areas of expertise.

Title: Dr.
Position: Research Director
Tel: +359 2 9818926 Fax: +359 2 9818925
E-mail: daniel@cls-sofia.org

Address: Centre for Liberal Studies
26, Solunska Str.
Sofia 1000
Bulgaria

Georgy Ganev holds a PhD in Economics from the Washington University of St. Louis. He is Programme Director of Economic Research at CLS since 1997. He is Assistant Professor at Sofia University, teaching Money, Banking & Financial Markets and New Institutional Economics, since 1998. He is also a member of the Ethics Commission for Print Media at the National Council for Journalistic Ethics. His areas of specialisation include monetary economics, new institutional economics and economic issues of transition. He has taken part in several comparative research projects dealing with issues of economic culture. In 1999-2001 he was an expert with the Economic Policy Committee of the Bulgarian National Assembly.

E-mail: gogi@cls-sofia.org

Antoinette Primatarova graduated in Germanic Studies from the University of Leipzig in 1978. She joined CLS in early 2002. From 1993 to 2001 she served in different positions within the Bulgarian diplomatic service (as Ambassador to Sweden, Norway and Iceland, 1993-1997; as Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1997-1999; and as Ambassador to the European Communities, 1999-2001). Upon the opening of negotiations with the EU in early 2001 she was entrusted with the position of Bulgaria’s Deputy Chief Negotiator. Her main areas of interest concern the European integration process, particularly enlargement and common foreign and security policy aspects.

E-mail: antoinette@cls-sofia.org

Anna Ganeva is connected with CLS since 1994 as a Programme Coordinator and Research Assistant. Since 2003 she is the Executive Director of CLS. As a researcher and team leader, she has participated in various projects in the fields of political science, foreign policy, political sociology, policy analysis, anti-corruption, and public debate. She was a fellow at the Moscow School of Political Studies (Moscow, Russia) and the Freedom House Visiting Fellows Program (Washington DC, USA). She has also been Executive Director of the Bulgaria-Russia Association (1997 – 2000), and Executive Director and member of the Board of the Investigative Journalists Association, Sofia (2000). She is presently managing the research project ‘The BRIC-Hiker’s Guide to the New World Order’.

E-mail: anna@cls-sofia.org

Ruzha Smilova is Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the Political Science Department, University of Sofia. She has participated as external researcher in a number of CLS projects on voting behaviour and participation in politics. She has a doctorate from the Central European University in Budapest. Her dissertation received a CEU university award in 2006. Apart from political theory, her research interests are in the area of parliamentarianism and civic participation in political processes.

E-mail: ruzha.smilova@gmail.com

Yana Papazova holds an MA in International Economic Relations from the University for National and World Economy, Sofia. Since 1994, she has been working as a Research Assistant and Programme Coordinator at CLS. Prior to that, she was an assistant at the Bulgarian Association for Free Elections and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Sofia. Recently she has been involved in projects dealing with social capital and civil society (IBEU, SOCCOH, SCSPN, Local Integrity), as well as participatory democracy [Deliberative Polling (2002 and 2007) and European Citizen’s Consultations (2007 and 2009)].

E-mail: yana@cls-sofia.org