AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON RELATIONS BETWEEN GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN BULGARIAN AGRICULTURE

Abstract: This paper applies the interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics framework, identifies diverse market, private, collective, public and hybrid modes of governance and assesses their impact on agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria. First, the methodological framework of the study is outlined. After that dominating governing modes in Bulgarian farms of different juridical type, size, specialization, ecological and geographical location are identified, and their impacts on agrarian sustainability and its economic, social, and environmental pillars evaluated. In conclusion implications for further research, public policy improvement, and private managerial strategy formation are presented. Agricultural producers of different type use quite unlike mixture of effective market, private, collective and hybrid modes for governance of their activities and relations. Individual factors and modes most contributing to improvement of agrarian sustainability at the current stage of development are: manager’s personal convictions and initiatives, farms resources and innovation potential, near future profit and benefits strategies, market prices levels and dynamics, area-based EU subsidies, and informal agreements