Vol. 49, No. 1/2018 Media, Conspiracies, and Propaganda in the Post-Cold War World This issue is published within the framework of the project on Anti- Liberal Discourses and Propaganda Messages in Bulgarian Media: Dissemination and Social Perception with the fi nancial support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation. The statements and opinions expressed herein are solely those of HSSF – Sofi a and do not necessarily refl ect the views of the America for Bulgaria Foundation or its affi liates. Critique and Humanism journal is indexed by ERIH PLUS (European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences) Critique and Humanism is a partner in the electronic network and it is a partner of the on-line library CEEOL Contents Editorial Tom Junes, Milla Mineva, Dimitar Vatsov . 5 The Russian Factor Mark Galeotti (Mis)Understanding Russia’s Two ‘Hybrid Wars’ . 17 Andrei P. Tsygankov American Russophobia in the Age of Liberal Decline . 29 Stephen Kotkin What Everyone Needs to Know about Russia under Putin . 41 Tom Junes Propaganda in Bulgaria: Made in Russia or Home-grown? . 51 Populism and Propaganda: Logics, Ideology, Styles Chantal Mouffe The Affects of Democracy . 61 Dimitar Vatsov Logics of Propaganda Part One. Populism and Propaganda: Dangerous Liaisons and Family Resemblances . 71 Boyan Znepolski Ideological Dimensions of Anti-Democratic Propaganda in Bulgarian Media . 107 Albena Hranova Bulgarian Anti-Democratic Propaganda: Talking Points, Styles and Audiences . 145 Martin Kanoushev The Social (In)Commensurability between Totalitarian and Anti-Democratic Propaganda . 179 Dimitar Vatsov Logics of Propaganda Part Two. The Conspiratorial Logic of Populist Propaganda . 209 Populist Propaganda in Bulgaria: Media and Social Reception Milena Iakimova, Dimitar Vatsov Co-opting Discontent: Bulgarian Populism, Local Interests and Russian Propaganda . 233 Boryana Dimitrova Infl uence of Anti-Democratic Propaganda on Bulgarian Public Opinion: Between the Psychological Pressure and the Political Choices . 249 3 Critique & Humanism, vol. 49, no. 1/2018 Deyan Kiuranov Bulgarians and Russians Today: A Mismatch of Two Complexes . 271 Milena Iakimova Populist Propaganda in a Context of Social Solitude . 293 Konstantin Pavlov Analysis of the Online Media Reactions to the Government’s Annual National Security Report for 2016 . 313 Conspiratorial Mind and Social Imagination Alejandro Romero Reche The Conspiracy Theory of Ignorance in the Classical Sociology of Knowledge . 357 Nebojša Blanuša The Deep State between the (Un)Warranted Conspiracy Theory and Structural Element of Political Regimes? . 369 Lea Vajsova Judicial Power or Conspiracy? The Emergence of the Citizen-Investigator in the Context of a Politics Centred around the Rule of Law and the Fight against Corruption . 385 Todor Hristov Conspiracy and Vulnerability: #Occupy, Zeitgeist, and the Legitimation of Rebellious Knowledge . 405 Julien Giry Devenir complotiste: trajectoires de radicalisation et de professionnalisation de deux groupes de citoyen(ne)s enquêteur(rice)s . 429 Review КХ Tom Junes Russian Infl uence in the Balkans. A Review of Dimitar Bechev’s Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 300 p. 451 Hristo P. Todorov Modernity and the Mathematical: A Review of Stefan Popov’s Descartes and the Mathematization of the World (Sofi a: Altera, 2017), 123 p. 457 Abstracts . 460 4 Editorial EDITORIAL Disinformation, fake news, hybrid war, post-truth... – words that don’t al- ways have a distinct meaning, but in recent years have ever more frequently signifi ed the anxiety gripping our late modern societies. The media use these words time and again, they can be heard in different contexts, but in any case they indicate insecurity, public distrust of public institutions and above all of the media themselves, confusion and loss of common reference points. Lest we fuel the general anxiousness which tabloid media often escalate to paranoid levels, we avoid fad words that contribute to anxiety by being ambigu- ous. Instead, we try to address this anxiety and its social roots through more meticulous and clearly focused studies. In fact, this volume of Critique & Hu- manism has two main analytical focuses: it includes studies on propaganda in the media since the end of the Cold War, mostly in Bulgaria, as well as studies on the ways various actors today use conspiracy theories as a quick and easy explanation for complex global processes. This issue is published within the framework of the Human and Social Studies Foundation’s large-scale research project on Anti-Liberal Discourses and Propaganda Messages in Bulgarian Media: Dissemination and Social Per- ception. Most of the articles in it have already been published in Bulgarian in vol. 47, titled Media and Propaganda in the Post-Cold War World, while the section on ‘Conspiratorial Mind and Social Imagination’ features articles from the eponymous Bulgarian-language vol. 48 of Critique & Humanism. The Russian Factor Nowadays when one reads about media and propaganda in the interna- tional press it is hard not to notice how much of the discourse revolves around or even centres on Russia. Russia is clearly back as a geopolitical player, ex- erting infl uence and projecting power beyond its hitherto regarded traditional sphere of infl uence in the post-Soviet space. More so, ever since the Ukraine crisis, the occupation and annexation of Crimea, and the war in Donbas, Rus- sia is increasingly seen once again as the primary foe of the West. In the past four to fi ve years, pundits have been speaking about a new Cold War, albeit one that is hybrid in the sense that it is more unconventional and non-linear than during the decades of the post-Second-World-War confrontation between the Soviet and the Western blocs in the twentieth century. This perception has only increased since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States after which accusations of Russian interference, meddling, and collusion in the electoral processes on both sides of the Atlantic have permeated reporting and thinking about the state (and fate) of liberal democracy. In short, the Russian factor has become a cornerstone of Western political analyses to such an extent that it even eclipses the degree to which this was present in the Cold War era. 5 Critique & Humanism, vol. 49, no. 1/2018 Yet, much of these analyses tend to rely on hyperbole and less on empirical evidence and concrete research results. The notion of a hybrid war has become so common that practically nobody questions the concept or its origins. In his contribution to this volume, Mark Galeotti skillfully disentangles myth from reality and discusses how the concept has become a mainstay in Western politi- cal discourse based on a misrepresentation of its origins and use in the Rus- sian military and intelligence establishments. On the one hand, Galeotti dem- onstrates that the term originated as a perception of the West’s actions against Russia’s self-perceived security interests primarily as part of the West’s own military doctrine. On the other hand, Galeotti argues that given the disparity in conventional military power, Russia’s intelligence and security communities have adopted the concept as a pro-active response and de facto alternative for military confrontation with the West. Russia’s hybrid war in fact constitutes no more than a form of political warfare against the West which in turn calls for the need for new and adequate measures and policies. While Russia’s military actions in Ukraine have not resulted in any further military escalation with the West, Western commentators have started and con- tinued to invoke a Russian threat to the West. As noted above, this has gained new traction in the wake of Trump’s election to the US presidency. While Rus- sian interference certainly cannot be excluded, it is at present still doubtful whether this played any fundamental role in supposedly altering the outcome of the elections in 2016. Andrei Tsygankov challenges the dominant narra- tive in liberal Western media by examining the persistence and subsequent re- invigoration of Russophobia among leading political and media circles in the United States. Acknowledging the revived East-West confrontation, Tsygankov refl ects upon the manner in which this confl ict – perceived among others as a clash of fundamental values – could be de-escalated in future. What is often missing in the mainstream media coverage is an informed assessment of Putin’s Russia in light of Moscow’s foreign policy. Stephen Kotkin provides a historically argued assessment of Russia’s domestic and for- eign policy conundrums. Highlighting both patterns and contradictions, Kotkin stresses that the geopolitical interests of the United States and Russia are inexo- rably bound to produce tension. Nevertheless, the deterioration of relations in recent years should not be seen as inevitable, but instead understood through the lack of an adequate response in US foreign policy. Kotkin subsequently outlines what such an adequate response could be. In light of the ongoing dis- cussion about the ‘hybrid war’, Kotkin also refl ects upon the controversial is- sue of ‘Russian collusion’ in the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. In a similar vein, tackling the question of what is perceived to be a pillar of the hybrid war, namely Russian propaganda directed against the West, Tom Junes qualifi es the phenomenon based on a case study of Bulgaria and how it features in what are perceived to be Russian propaganda outlets. Junes elabo- 6 Editorial rates on how what can be coined as propaganda primarily serves a domestic purpose through Russian and Russian-language media outlets. In the case of Bulgaria, Junes also disentangles Russian propaganda from actual Russian in- fl uence in the country as the former often serves to distract from the reality of the latter instead of promoting it. Junes concludes that rather than any directed propaganda campaign against Bulgaria and its Western orientation, there is in fact a domestic home-grown phenomenon of pro-Russian propaganda which at times is taken over by and amplifi ed through Russian or Russian-language out- lets.