THE POLITICS OF DEMOCRATIC EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION
THE POLITICS OF DEMOCRATIC EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION

Summary/Abstract: I will begin with three stories – all of them are “ancient history” and all concern this Faculty and University – as a way of paying tribute and giving acknowledgement to friends and colleagues. I arrived in Cluj for the first time in January 1995. I had been sent by the Fulbright Association to lecture on research methods to the first graduating class in Political Science. At that time, Political Science was not part of an independent Faculty, nor yet even a department. It was a small branch of the Department of Contemporary History, within the Faculty of History and Philosophy. I arrived with suitcases and boxes of books, and was met at the airport by a young assistant who drove me to my flat (on a street that was not yet paved), showed me how to light the gas heater without blowing myself up, and then took me out for a pizza at New Croco Restaurant. This young assistant has since devoted his attention to other pursuits, far “inferior” to his role as scholar and teacher. But I think we will forgive Emil Boc, and we will be kind to him when we see him in the mayor’s office.

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