A Message from the Editor: Between North and South Thinking about the Semi-Periphery

Abstract

Once again, the Association of Global South Studies is preparing to host its annual conference, this time in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. While I will not be in attendance, the fact of its location has had me wondering where we might place such a country in the Global North–South framework. Certainly, we would not place it in the Global South. It is, after all, a member state of the European Union, a Western-oriented democracy with a developing capitalist economy and a reasonable standard of living. None of those characteristics square with the common image of underdevelopment and poverty we tend to associate with the Global South. Yet it doesn’t quite find a home in our image of the Global North, either. Bulgaria, like many Eastern Bloc states, has held a kind of in-between status since the days of Soviet domination. Bulgaria’s integration into the community of European nations has been quite recent: it has been a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) only since 2004 and of the European Union since 2007, where it remains the only state with less than a “very high” Human Development Index rating. Still, despite its lagging status vis-à-vis other European nations, it has made great strides, perhaps owing more to its affiliations with dominant European institutions than to the dynamism of its own economy.