Ivan Krastev

Ivan Krastev is a widely published analyst of Bulgarian and Southeast European affairs. He is Research Director and Chairman of the Board of the respected Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; member of the editorial board of the academic journal published by the Budapest-based Central European University; and, until recently, an Advisory Board representative of the Democracy Network / USAID Project in Bulgaria.

In 1998, Ivan Krastev was both a Woodrow Wilson Policy Fellow in Washington D.C. and a German Marshall Campus Fellow. Earlier, he enjoyed a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Collegium Budapest.

He has led numerous think-tank and policy research bodies including the NATO-commissioned ‘NATO's Enlarged Mission in the First Decades of the 21 st Century' (1998); ‘The Impact of NATO Enlargement on the Have-Nots' (1998); the UNDP-commissioned ‘Bulgaria in the Regional Context – Risky Scenarios for Bulgaria up to 2010 (1998); and the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry-commissioned ‘The Current State and Prospects for Co-operation between Countries of Southeast Europe' (1997).

In Bulgaria, his research is famed and influential. In 1996, the research team, ‘Bulgarian Primaries,' lead by Mr. Krastev played a significant role towards the introduction of an American-style Primary Presidential Selection system in the country. The same year he led a policy group examining the ‘Structuring of the President's Administration' which was commissioned by the Bulgarian President. Earlier, in 1995, Ivan Krastev headed a policy group tasked by the Bulgarian Parliament with drafting a new Electoral Law.

Mr. Krastev has written several hundred articles and papers for newspapers, journals and inclusion in books. Major publications include ‘ Post-Theory, Games and Discursive Resistance' with A. Kyossev, I. Ditctchev and Vladislav Todorov (State University of New York Press, 1995); ‘The Role of Civilian Experts in Foreign Policy Decision-Making' published in ‘Civilian Control over the Military' ed. D. Harold (NATO Defence College, 1995); ‘Party Structure and Party Perspective in Bulgaria' published in the ‘Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics' , Vol. 13, March 1997; and ‘Pluralism' with R. Dimitrov and R. Avramov (Sofia, 1990). Other articles have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung and elsewhere.