Bulgaria belongs to a group of Central and East European (CEE) countries, which until only recently were commonly referred to as ‘transition economies’. As is well known, for several decades after the end of World War II, Bulgaria was part of the Soviet sphere of influence and was characterised by command economy and authoritarian rule. Following the demise of state socialism, the country embarked on a difficult path of reforms towards building democracy, rule of law and a social market economy. Importantly, already in the early 1990s the country made clear its aspirations to join the European institutions. Indeed, in 1992 Bulgaria was accepted as member to the Council of Europe and in 2007, after lengthy negotiations and years of monitoring, technical assistance and preparation, acceded the European Union (EU). These processes of transition and integration in the European institutions have been decisive for determining the direction of Bulgarian consumer law and policy, as well as for shaping the modalities of consumer law enforcement. As a result of sustained efforts, the country now has in place detailed consumer legislation, closely following EU consumer law instruments, and a full-fledged institutional framework of consumer law enforcement with a variety of public and private bodies and enforcement avenues. This development has certainly contributed to improving the position of Bulgarian consumers. Nevertheless, the system of enforcement still suffers of serious weaknesses, related foremost to limited resources and institutional capacity, and to imperfect implementation and application of consumer law.

Sweden is widely regarded as a country with high profile in consumer protection policy and well functioning consumer law and institutions. The foundations of the legal and institutional framework of consumer policy were laid down already at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. This framework, with specialised consumer law statutes and prominent public institutions entrusted with the implementation and enforcement of consumer law and policy, has generally stood the test of time. Most of the original institutions, like the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket, KOV) with the Consumer Ombudsman (Konsumentombudsmannen, KO) and the Public Board for Consumer Complaints (Allmänna reklamationsnämnden, ARN), are still in place. There is furthermore remarkable continuity in the overall structure and general principles of consumer legislation. Certainly, in the course of the almost six decades of active consumer policy, some important changes in the approach to enforcement and more generally, to the governance of consumer policy have taken place in response to various political and societal developments. A particularly significant factor for change has been Sweden’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 1995 and the ensuing process of Europeanisation.

This chapter discusses the principles and methods for quality evaluation of legal research and legal publications in Sweden, reviewing the various contexts in which such evaluation takes place, from allocation of research funding to universities and law faculties to academic appointments and promotions. The chapter describes briefly the general system of research funding in Sweden, underlining the centrality of direct public funding set in proportion to the educational tasks of universities. However, the chapter also identifies a trend towards basing public funding more decisively on research quality, and a marked increase of the use of quantitative methods (i.e. bibliometric indicators such as number of publications and citations) for measuring research quality. While the use of metrics is viewed as an imperfect tool for assessing research quality, some quality-enhancing effects are nevertheless acknowledged, chiefly in terms of increased productivity and encouraging research collaborations, inter-disciplinarity and publications in leading international law journals. In addition, a sustained focus on research quality arguably makes legal scholars more acutely aware of the need to better explain their theoretical frames and methodological choices and revitalizes the debate on what defines good legal scholarship.

The question of respect for the rule of law in the member states of the European Union (EU) has come up high on the agenda of EU institutions. The background is well known and relates to the disturbing political trend of nationalist and populist forces either rising to power, or gaining increasing political influence across the European continent. While this trend can be discerned in a number of EU member states such as Italy, France, Finland and recently even Sweden, it has been most prominently visible in the ascent of self-proclaimed ‘illiberal democracies’ in Hungary and Poland.