Syria’s Global War and Beyond: Will the Balance of Power in the Middle East be Restored?

Author(s): Jörg Michael Dostal / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2018

This paper analyses the Syrian conflict since 2011 in the context of the larger Middle East, focusing on local, regional and global actors. The first section highlights some geopolitical and historical factors regarding Syria. The second part outlines post-Cold War US and Israeli strategic debates on Syria and the Middle East. It is argued that the behavior of the US in the Syrian conflict since 2011 underlines the continuing significance of US-led regime change agendas as initially associated with the so-called ‘neoconservatives’ and near unconditional US backing of Israel’s regional strategic objectives. The third section examines how local conflicts in Syria, since 18 March 2011, became transformed into a lengthy global war over world order during which the US challenged Russia’s long-standing geopolitical patronage of Syria’s political leadership. The interaction between military and political factors and the manner in which the crisis narrative was managed in the western media system is also sketched. Finally, the fourth section focuses on the theory of ‘peripheral realism’ and offers a discussion of this theory’s concept of state hierarchy applied to the Middle Eastern context. It is suggested that the war in Syria serves to destroy the existing regional state hierarchy and regional state’s potential capacity for upward mobility in the global state system.

Despre tiranie: Douăzeci de lecții ale secolului XX,

Author(s): Timothy Snyder / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Revizuirea Constituției României. Aspecte de politică externă și integrare euroatlantică

Author(s): Radu Carp,Iulia Matei,Gabriel Sarafian / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2003

After more than a decade from the elaboration of its Constitution, Romania is on the point to revise his Fundamental Law. This article focuses on the consequences that the new constitutional proceedings will have on the Romanian foreign policy. The issues that make the object of our research are grouped in five chapters: general principles regarding the balance of powers; the compatibility of the constitutional norms with the Council of Europe and the European Union's legislation; Romanian accession to the European Union; Romanian participation at the international security system; the relationship between international treaties and internal law. The main core of this article is the analysis of the relationship between the new constitutional provisions and the relevant Romanian and international legislation. Our general conclusion is that, even if the official purpose of this constitutional revision is to facilitate the Romania's integration into the euro-atlantic political structures, the hell norms were drew up in a manner that is sometimes in contradiction with the above – mentioned purpose.

L’activité parlamentaire des partis politiques roumains postcommunistes

Author(s): Irina Nicoleta Ionescu / Language(s): French Issue: 3/2003

Notre recherche se concentre sur les partis politiques pendant la période de dé­mocratisation postcommuniste, en particulier sur la manière dont ils participent au gouvernement des pays en transition. L'objet de la recherche est l'activité des groupes parlementaires des partis d'opposition - PNL, PD, PGR- pendant les trois premières sessions de la législature 2000-2004. L'objectif de la recherche est l'identification et l'analyse des thèmes qui structurent les actions et les interactions des partis dans leur activité parlementaire. L'enjeu est de voir la manière dont les partis d'opposition par­ticipent au processus de gouvernement, dont ils agissent afin de réaliser les priori­tés de leurs programmes politiques et dont ils arrivent à collaborer pour atteindre leurs objectifs.

Le poids du rapport au passé communiste dans la construction identitaire Le cas du Parti Social-Démocrate Roumain

Author(s): Alexandru Gussi / Language(s): French Issue: 3/2003

La naissance du système partisan roumain est marquée, comme c'est également le cas dans d'autres pays postcommunistes, par le clivage autour de la question de l'attitude envers le passé totalitaire. La spécificité roumaine consiste dans la forme révolutionnaire prise par la chute du communisme, avec l'apparente disparition de l'ancien parti unique. Cette étude essayera d'évaluer la mesure dans laquelle le prin­cipal acteur politique de la transition, l'actuel Parti Social-Démocrate (PSD), peut être défini, avant tout, par sa relation avec ce passé. Ce qui suppose de vérifier si la compréhension du processus de construction identitaire du PSD peut nous donner des réponses à la question de l'héritage politique du Parti Communiste Roumain.

Les changements structuraux et programmatioues de l’Alliance Démocrate des Roumania

Author(s): Réka Horváth / Language(s): French Issue: 3/2003

Cet article esquissera une grille de lecture permettant l'analyse de l'évolution de la représentation politique de la minorité hongroise de Roumanie. Cette minorité a été représentée depuis 1989-1990 par l'Alliance Démocrate des Hongrois de Roumanie (UDMR en roumain et RMDSZ en hongrois). Il me semble que l'une des pistes qui permet de comprendre l'évolution de l'UDMR entre 1989-2003 soit la suivante: l'ana­lyse parallèle des changements dans les programmes et dans l'architecture de l'UDMR et les oppositions au sein de l'élite politique hongroise de Roumanie. Les limites d'un article ne me permettent pas d'explorer cette piste en totalité. Toutefois cette étude analysera, dans la première partie, les changements dans les programmes de l'Alliance. La deuxième partie traitera des changements dans l'architecture de l'UDMR, tandis que la troisième comprendra les questions qu'on peut se poser pour une analyse parallèle des changements programmatiques et architecturaux.

Norberto Bobbio, filosofo del dubbio e delle domande radicali

Author(s): Michele Prospero / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2004

A eulogy of Norberto Bobbio, spotlighting the solitude of his liberalism in the Italian intellectual setting, tipically enticed by transformism and authori­tarianism.

„Democrația” înainte de partide

Author(s): Raluca Alexandrescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2004

The article portrays the main tendencies of the concept of "democracy" in the 19th century Romanian political thought, before the formal creation of the political parties. Using the methodological basis of conceptual history (Kos- selleck, Skinner, Farr etc.), the author follows the emergence of several meanings of "democracy", in the pre- and post-1848 cultural and intellectual context, related, at first, with the 17th century philosophical heritage (Descartes, Locke etc. ) and slowly translated into the 19th century philosophical language. The European invention of some fundamental concepts, such as "Revolution" and "Nation State", including some essential debates opposing democracy and equality and linking the democratic system with the idea of representation and universal vote, is also present in various ways in the Romanian political thought.

La construction du système partisan roumain entre sorties et entrées imprévues

Author(s): Sorina Soare / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2004

On the eve of the fifth postcommunist elections, the author proposes to inquire whether there has been a relevant change in the Romanian party system after the 2000 elections. The study abides by three measures - the quantitative and qualitative criteria of system classification, as well as precise socio-historical guidelines - to find that all the clamorous exits (that of the liberals in 1992, as well as that of the PNȚcd in 2000) and entries (the PRM in 2000) are merely peripheral to the established party system, and that Romania continues under the sign of dyadic artificial conflicts, in other words, a sign of a weak consolidation of the party system.

Modificarea componenței structurilor centrale de conducere ale PDSR/PSD

Author(s): Florin Ciornei / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2004

The article follows the evolution of political structures and leadership in the Romanian Social-Democrat Party (SDP), in the postcommunist political life and system. Founded by Ion Iliescu, now president of Romania, the "ancestor" of the SDP was the National Salvation Front, born during the revolutionary days of December '89. During the transitional years, the party suffered several transformations and mutations both on the structural and on the ideological level, but the central characters attached to the life of the party remained mainly the same. The study follows some of the major political changes reflected by the evolution of the party itself and the implications of some important political figures, as well as the changes of the parliamentary representation of the present SDP.

Cronologia vieții politice din România, 1 octombrie – 30 decembrie 2003

Author(s): Raluca Alexandrescu,Delia-Elena Mihart,Laura Popa Mare,Corina Rebegea,Cătălina Ciolan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2004

The chronology was made - under the coordination of Raluca Alexandrescu - by the following students of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bucharest: Delia-Elena Mihart, Laura Popa Mare, Corina Rebegea, who used as sources the written press ("Adevărul", "Curentul", "Evenimentul Zilei", "Național", "România Libera" and the magazines "22" and "Observatorul Cultural"), but also the TV news from Antena 1, PROTV and România 1.

Cronologia vieții politice internaționale, 1 octombrie – 30 decembrie 2003

Author(s): Silvia Marton,Ruxandra Ivan,Domnica Ciolan,Roxana Ligia Ciuciucu,Virgil-Alexandru Diaconescu,Sandra Dumitrescu,Andra Filatov / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2004

Under the coordination of Silvia Marton and Ruxandra Ivan, this chronology was made by Domnica Ciolan, Roxana Ligia Ciuciucu, Virgil-Alexandru Diaconescu, Sandra Dumitrescu and Andra Filatov. The sources used were: the main international news agencies (BBC, CNN, Reuters, RFI), the foreign policy pages of the Romanian principal dailies ("Adevărul", "Cotidianul", "Cronica Română", "Curentul", "Evenimentul Zilei", "Jurnalul Național", "Libertatea", "România Libera", "Ziarul Financiar", "Ziua"), the analysis of some think tanks (RAND), the online editions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (www.rferl.org), "The Guardian", "The Times", "The New York Times", "Le Monde", "Pravda", websites of international organizations (NATO, EU - www.europa.eu.int, www.euractiv.com -, UN, OSCE, Amnesty International etc.).

La stratégie du refus: les Églises néo-protestantes sous le communisme.Les Chrétiens d’après l’Évangile et l’Église Évangélique Roumaine

Author(s): Geanina Postelnicu / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2004

The article proposes to uncover the attitude of the communist regime towards religion. The author seeks to offer a more precise measurement of the distance between the official discourse of the time - seemingly very democratic in what concerns religious freedom -, and the corresponding abusive and restrictive political practice. A short historical overview of the neo-protestant cults in the communist period and of the persecution suffered by the neo-protestants shows that the communist regime was in fact extremely intolerant towards any pos­sible ideological current. Two interviews constructed and interpreted via qua­litative techniques allow a closer analysis of the different practices of resistance. The interplay of what was said and what was done made duplicity a sort of structural component, which characterized both the official and the private per­formance. The interplay of what was said and what was believed becomes a viable practice of taking one's distance from a totalitarian regime with an obsession to supervise and control. Although it initially shunned this premise, precise­ly to prevent any partisan investigation, the study concludes that, at least for the two religious groups under scrutiny, one can actually endorse the contention that resistance through religion was manifest in communist Romania.

The Failure of a Political Project. Bipartidism in Interwar Romania

Author(s): Stelu Şerban / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2004

The modernization of the traditional societies challenges the ability of the politi­cal élites to ensure political stability. Political stability can be achieved through a certain design of the party system, which could be dominated by a single party, or could be characterized by bi- or multipartidism. Maintaining politi­cal stability was also a priority for the political élites of interwar Romania, who wished to restore the model of the pre-war stable bipartidism. The electoral legislation of 1926 aimed to consolidate a two-party system, but in the long term it had the perverse effect of multipolarization. While painting a very de­tailed analysis of the interwar party system, the author argues that such effects are due to the influence of the very competitive political culture of the ideology- driven ruling class, a "political tradition", which undermined political stability. Moreover, while the electoral legislation introduced in 1926 was maintained, a new propensity to short-sighted bargaining and the paucity of the social issues raised by the parties marked the ever more complex party politics, as the effects of this socio-cultural context began to wane.

3 august 1944 - 30 decembrie 1947. Regimuri politice și regimuri constituționale

Author(s): Ioan Stanomir / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2004

The paper explores, from a constitutional angle, the political transformations taking place in Romania between August 23,1944 and the forced abdication of King Michael. By resorting to the reinterpretation of a number of legal docu­ments and political writings, the paper argues to what extent the apparent return to the 1923 Romanian constitution was essentially a deceptive one, since it is in this period that the foundations of a new totalitarian order were laid. A parti­cular attention is paid to the role played by Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, acting as Minister of Justice in the governments preparing the transition towards the imposition of the Soviet-style popular republic.

Cronologia vieții politice din România, 1 aprilie – 30 iunie 2004

Author(s): Raluca Alexandrescu,Dragoș Diaconu,Delia-Elena Mihart,Dan Negru,Andrei Poamă,Laura Popa Mare,Ioana Popescu,Corina Rebegea,Maria Toader,Mihaela Vlad / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2004

The chronology was made - under the coordination of Raluca Alexandrescu - by the following students of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bucharest: Dragoș Diaconu, Delia-Elena Mihart, Dan Negru, Andrei Poamă, Laura Popa Mare, Ioana Popescu, Corina Rebegea, Maria Toader, Mihaela Vlad, who used as sources the written press ("Adevărul", "Curentul", "Evenimentul Zilei"," National", "Romania Libera", and the magazine "22" and the "Cultural Observatory"), but also the TV news from Antena 1, PROTV and Romania 1.

Mineriadele și istoria Instrumente de legitimare sau delegitimare folosite în presa anilor ’90

Author(s): Cristina Avrigeanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2004

The coal miners' movements towards the capital constitute a pretext to exam­ine the confrontation of miners and journalists, perhaps the most important pressure groups in post-communist Romania. Considering the social structure of these groups, this divergence mirrors their conflicting reactions towards the political system that was instituted after December 1989. Yet, notwithstanding their separate perceptions of democracy, the author proposes to investigate the arguments used in this confrontation. The causes and evolution of the miners' visits to Bucharest as gauges in the evolution of the Romanian democracy, the legitimation and delegitimation of their actions since the events of June 1990 are thus traced in three daily newspapers, "Adevărul", "Romania Liberă" and "Dimineața", which the author monitored over the corresponding tidal periods: January- September 1990, September-December 1991, and January-March 1999. One method of undermining the other's legitimacy is that of twisting history through partisan interpretation or even by re-writing those historical events that shaped the adversary's particular identity. Such events that built the miners' image are the strike of 1929, which the communist regime considered an essential episode of the fight against the bourgeois oppression of the workers, and the strike of 1977, which, on the contrary, produced an anti-communist alibi. Nevertheless, the latter representation began to fade, especially after the events in June 1990, as some editorialists questioned the incomplete resistance of 1977, the miners' feeble participation in the uprising of December 1989 and their uncondition­al support for the communists who remained in office. The most striking case is that of the January 1999 miners' raid, when the strike of 1929 receives completely opposing connotations in "Romania Liberă" and "Dimineața".

Szeklerland and The Birth of a New Region in Europe: An Inquiry into Symbolic Nationalism

Author(s): Dragoş Dragoman,Sabina-Adina Luca,Bogdan Gheorghiță / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The recent symbolic affirmation of Szeklerland as a new region in Europe marks the deep change in the pattern of relations between ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Romanians in Transylvania. With the expansion of ethnic Hungarian cultural minority rights at their very limits during Romania’s post communist transition, the autonomy for Szeklerland is a step forward from cultural to territorial collective rights. Facing the strong opposition of ethnic Romanian parties to the reshaping of the territorial design along ethnic lines, ethnic Hungarian elites adopted a growing symbolic mechanism of identity promotion. The mechanism of ethnic symbolism unraveled by the article ranges from road signs and signboards marking the entry into Szeklerland, the presence of Szekler flag and coat of arms, commemorations and other public gatherings to organizing an unofficial referendum for the autonomy of the region. The symbolic affirmation of the region marks its entry in the list of symbolically disputed territories and the birth of a new region in Europe.

The Haunting Ghost and the Invisible Hand. Film Industry and Book Publishing Between State-Socialism and Market-oriented Cultural Production

Author(s): Claudiu Turcuş / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

This article introduces the topic of the transformation of the cultural industries in several former East European communist countries. In the first part it delivers a critical overview of the essential contributions to research in the field and outlines the historical and methodological context in relation to which the four articles in this special-themed issue have taken convergent or polemical stances. The second part offers a descriptive-correlative reading of the articles signed by Jan Hanzlík, Radu Toderici, Balász Varga, and Adriana Stan and Cosmin Borza, focusing on how they investigate the postsocialist transformations of several East European film industries and of the Romanian book industry. The answers that the four case studies try to provide to this wide phenomenon combine (1) an analytical approach to the ideological discourses that have formed the basis of the political agendas specific to the cultural field, and (2) an examination, from a cultural studies perspective, of the mechanisms of reforming the public institutions responsible for financing cultural production in Eastern Europe. The first component engages in a hermeneutic of debates (media, cultural, political) that have built a postsocialist imaginary predicated on synchronization with the socio-economic values of the West. The second part contains elements of political economy and explores, on the one hand, legislative changes in the public financing realm, and on the other hand, the way in which the capitalist reconfiguration of cultural institutions, privatizations, and the myth of the free market have created an impact on the production, promotion and distribution of films and books.

Technocrats and Politruks: Polish Ministers Between 2001 and 2020

Author(s): Radu DUMITRESCU / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Who has led Poland in the past 20 years, technocrats or politruks? Were those placed at the top of ministries merely party cadres, or were they experts in the domain of their ministerial activity? To uncover the answer, the present paper surveys 257 ministers spread across 10 governments and 19 years, starting with the 2001 government led by Leszek Miller and ending with the second Mateusz Morawiecki cabinet instated in November 2019. The findings suggest that the share of technocratic ministers – defined minimally as individuals who received formal education in the field of their ministerial activity – varied from 65% in 2001 to 35% in 2006, averaging at 50.19% in the entire period. 129 ministers have been technocrats and 128 politruks, as defined in this paper. The latter, however, have steadily increased their share since 2000. Consequently, half of the Polish ministers were politruks – creations of the political parties, non-experts that headed National Defense, Health, Interior, and other Ministries of paramount importance.