Dear CAS Fellows and colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to a guest seminar. The lecture will take place at the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia on 7 July 2026, Tuesday, at 16:30 GMT+3. The address is 7B Stefan Karadzha St, entr. 3, 2nd floor.

Dr Blagoy Blagoev (Institute for Work, Organization, and Transformation at the University of St.Gallen) will give a talk on the topic:

Organizations, Political Ideology, and Authoritarian Drift

Abstract: This talk will outline an ongoing, early-stage research project that interrogates the mechanisms, dynamics, and effects of the ideological encoding of organizational practices. The basic premise of the project is that political ideologies, such as neoliberalism, become encoded in apparently «neutral» or purely «rational» organizational practices, such as performance management or meritocracies. These practices, in turn, shape the dispositions and desires of organizational members in ways that might, paradoxically, lead to an authoritarian drift: the desire for strong, charismatic leadership that should «fix a broken system». Overall, the project aims to examine how political ideologies are constituted and negotiated at work, and specifically within organizations.

Bio: Blagoy Blagoev is Professor of Organization Studies and Director at the Institute for Work, Organization, and Transformation at the University of St.Gallen (Switzerland). He holds a doctoral degree from Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Blagoy’s research draws on a temporal lens to examine the interplay of people, organizations, and society in the context of current technological, ecological, and cultural transformations. He has received multiple awards, grants, and fellowships, including the Ernst Reuter Prize, the Governing Responsible Business Fellowship at Copenhagen Business School, as well as scholarships by DFG and DAAD.