Comparative Social History: The Formation of National Culture in Romania and Portugal
Comparative Social History: The Formation of National Culture in Romania and Portugal

Summary/Abstract: This article proposes a reconceptualization of how national culture is approached within comparative historical sociology, through an in-depth analysis of the cases of Romania and Portugal. The originality of the study lies in its rejection of essentialist or economically determinist explanations, in favor of an institutionalist and relational approach that examines how national culture is produced, transmitted, and contested in distinct historical contexts. The analysis follows processes of state consolidation, the symbolic strategies of elites, and the institutional mechanisms through which identity discourses were stabilized and disseminated. Unlike traditional comparisons, the study constructs an analytical architecture that avoids artificial symmetries and explores historical asymmetries between two European countries situated on the periphery of modernity. By focusing on schools, churches, and mass media as apparatuses of symbolic regulation, the research highlights the unstable dynamic between continuity and rupture in the construction of collective memory and national identity. Its contribution lies in a reflexive theoretical framework that redefines national culture as an institutionalized practice of symbolic inscription, with structuring effects on how societies negotiate their past, their belonging, and their internal distinctions.

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