26 Author’s Note: The arguments presented in this paper were developed in the course of engaging conversations and exchanges with Aurelian Craiutu, Antoaneta L. Dimitrova, Anna Ganeva, Georgy Ganev, Malin Komsiyski, Botyo Peychevki and Milada Anna Vachudova; their help is gratefully acknowledged. Please address correspondence to Venelin I. Ganev, Miami University of Ohio, 316 Harrison Hall, Oxford, OH 45056; e-mail: ganevvi@muohio.edu East European Politics and Societies and Cultures Volume 27 Number 1 February 2013 26-44 © 2013 SAGE Publications 10.1177/0888325412465086 http://eeps.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com Post-Accession Hooliganism: Democratic Governance in Bulgaria and Romania after 2007 Venelin I. Ganev Miami University of Ohio, Oxford, OH, USA The manuscript analyzes negative developments in Bulgarian and Romanian politics in the aftermath of the two countries’ accession to the European Union, with a special focus on the worsening corruption problem, the destabilization of previously coherent normative frameworks, and the reversal of processes of state building. It also explores the main characteristics of a novel form of elite behavior, post-accession hooliganism, which began to emerge as soon as Bulgarian and Romanian political leaders felt strong and confident enough to disregard the demands of their West European counterparts. Keywords: Bulgaria; Romania; European integration; state-building; new members in the EU Introduction: The European Union as an Anesthetic Back in 2007, when the debate about how the completion of yet another round of eastward expansion will affect domestic politics in the European Union’s newest members was just getting under way, an astute observer of the post-communist political condition summarized her expectations in the following manner: “As for the day after accession, when conditionality has faded, the influence of the EU [will] vanish like a short-term anesthetic.” 1 Almost half a decade later, this proposition is well worth examining in some detail. What exactly began to happen in the relatively young East European democracies when the anesthetic wore off? Of course, prudence dictates that those of us tempted to address this question should eschew sweeping generalizations. The entry of several East European coun- tries in the EU is not an event of the same magnitude as the French Revolution, but surely the commonsensical dictum “it is too soon to tell” must temper ambitions to explicate its significance by means of a simple formula. On the other hand, however,