Intelectualii şi tradiţia populismului în spaţiul românesc
Intellectuals and the Populist Tradition in Romania

Summary/Abstract: The central hypothesis of the article is that the attraction of authoritarianism on a populist background has a long tradition in Romanian society, particularly from the perspective of public intellectuals’ support for the holders of political power. The contribution highlights, using the methodological tool of ideology analysis, the influence that intellectuals have had on the development of a particular dominant political culture in Romania. I argue that the central elements of the Romanian political culture, to the social design, development and consolidation of which representative public intellectuals have contributed, over time, are the following: anti-individualism, anti-democratism and providentialism. These features have been grafted on a Manichean background driven by ethno-nationalism, which remains prevalent in contemporary Romania. Elements of this dominant political culture have been socially enacted and transmitted through the discourses, attitudes and behaviours of public intellectuals of different generations, most of whom have entered into the political arena. Thus, they have legitimized the various directions in which political populism has manifested itself over the last century. In the process, public intellectuals became propagandists for parties and/or political leaders who have presented themselves as providential harbingers of „change” or „reform”.

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