Moldova și regionalismul: note critice
Moldavia and Regionalism: Critical Remarks

Summary/Abstract: The present essay discusses the volume Regionalizarea. Către un model de bună guvernanță a României [Regionalization: Towards a Model of Good Governance for Romania], edited and coordinated by Alexandru Cohal, Dorin Dobrincu and George Țurcănașu (Iași, Polirom, 2023). The diversity of the volume’s ten contributions can seem, at first, disconcerting, as it covers various fields, ranging from historiography to legal issues, economics, ethnology and linguistics. This critical perspective mostly focuses on the way in which the volume’s chapters, despite their different emphases and disciplinary peculiarity, contribute to the current debates concerning regionalism, but also to the discussions relating to the attitudes and policies which might envisage endowing the region and regional consciousness with a more important role in the framework of national decision-making and the general organization of the Romanian state. In this respect, my approach aims to uncover and explain, first and foremost, the relevance of regionalism in its relation to the Romanian region of Moldavia. It specifically seeks to clarify, to what extent the region, as a particular territorial, administrative, and cultural entity, represents a possible, feasible, and desirable construct in Moldavia’s case. This analysis attempts to project the debates about regionalism into the broader context of the general political culture. It also addresses the tension between ‘statism’ (étatisme) and liberalism, a tension which becomes explicit due to the frequent use of certain normative concepts such as, e.g., centralism, local autonomy, self-govern-ment, or subsidiarity.

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