Research
BROD will be bringing to you focused research reports on topics relevant to Bulgaria and Romania. You will be able to find reports in English here, as well as publications in Bulgarian and Romanian.
In addition to its own outputs in research, BROD curates a collection of older studies of the BROD partners and other relevant reports.
Alongside its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has intensified its hybrid influence operations. Southeast Europe (SEE) in particular remains one of the most vulnerable soft targets for the Kremlin’s ongoing hybrid war. Democratic backsliding, governance deficits, the erosion of civil liberties, and a stalled integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions have kept the region locked in political uncertainty, strategic ambiguity, and susceptibility to foreign malign influence. Media capture and the channelling of illicit financial flows (IFFs) are two of the most critical instruments that the Kremlin employs for state capture in the region. [+]
GLOBSEC provides insight into public attitudes regarding the war in Ukraine in 9 Central and Eastern European EU member states (Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia). While the war serves as disturbing evidence that peace is a fragile thing, it was also a key driver in strengthening solidarity in the region. [+]
GLOBSEC highlights the key factors that contributed to the decline in trust in public institutions in the early years of the 2020's, and offers 11 recommendations to counter this worrying trend. [+]
A case study by Funky Citizens' Elena Calistru and Laura Burtan highlights that the rise of right-wing nationalists affected Romania, too. The authors demonstrate how the narratives of the AUR seek to undermine trust in democracy and transatlantic unity for their own gains. [+]
The GLOBSEC Vulnerability Index measures the vulnerability of eight countries (Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia) towards foreign influence on a 0-100 scale. [+]
If liberal democracies want to enhance their resilience against foreign malign authoritarian actors, including their information operations, they need to create a culture of strategic thinking that will prevent fiascos, such as the European energy crisis. GLOBSEC's policy papers seeks to highlight how this enhanced resilience could be achieved. [+]
Lithuania was one of the first European countries to recognize the dangers of relying too heavily on authoritarian regimes. The policies implemented by Lithuania could help other states improve their resilience to foreign malign influence, too. [+]
