Volum 23 Nr. 1 (2023): Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review
The end of the Cold War, and the extinction of communism both as an ideology and a practice of government, not only have made possible an unparalleled experiment in building a democratic order in Central and Eastern Europe, but have opened up a most extraordinary intellectual opportunity: to understand, compare and eventually appraise what had previously been neither understandable nor comparable. Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review was established in the realization that
the problems and concerns of both new and old democracies are beginning to converge. The journal fosters the work of the first generations of Romanian political scientists permeated by a sense of critical engagement with European and American intellectual and political traditions that inspired and explained the modern notions of democracy, pluralism, political liberty, individual freedom, and civil rights.
Believing that ideas do matter, the Editors share a common commitment as intellectuals and scholars to try to shed light on the major political problems facing Romania, a country that has recently undergone unprecedented political and social changes. They think of Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review as a challenge and a mandate to be involved in scholarly issues of fundamental importance, related not only to the democratization of Romanian polity and politics, to the “great
transformation” that is taking place in Central and Eastern Europe, but also to the make-over of the assumptions and prospects of their discipline. They hope to be joined in by those scholars in other countries who feel that the demise of communism calls for a new political science able to reassess the very foundations of democratic ideals and procedures.
Număr complet
Articles
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THE ELECTORAL SUCCESS OF THE (NORTHERN) LEAGUE IN ITALY (2008-2018). IS THE ECONOMIC DECLINE OR THE IDENTITARIAN ISSUES THE MAIN REASON FOR IT?
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This article aims to analyze the rise and electoral success of the (Northern) League in Italy, for the period 2008-2018. The purpose of this analysis is to determine whether the economic difficulties encountered by the electorate or other factors, such as political and cultural ones, have influenced the growth and electoral success of the League in Italy. By
analyzing both demand and supply-side data, the analysis shows that the League has had better electoral results in the years after the crisis when the economy has been improving than in the years when there has been a major economic shock. Regarding survey data on the supporters of the League, the analysis shows that the economy is among the least influential factors for them to support a right-wing populist party. On the contrary, the analysis shows that the main triggers for radical right populist mobilization have more to do with group values, identity issues, ethnic and cultural affiliation, xenophobic sentiments, skepticism towards foreigners, multiculturalism, and forms of Euroscepticism. -
THE STRATEGY PECULIARITIES IN THE PROTEST FOR SAVING URBAN FABRIC IN TBILISI
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After gaining its independence in 1991, Georgia faced significant challenges on all levels like all other post-communist countries. Therefore, against this background, care for urban historical and cultural heritage, and ecological health was less visible on the agenda. As a result of the Rose Revolution of 2003, various reforms were carried out. After strengthening state institutions, the re-urbanization of cities was gradually included on the agenda. At the same time, growing urbanization resulted in an acute shortage of green space and an uprising of the urban grassroots movements in Georgia. We have selected three cases of urban movement developed in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
“Save Gudiashvili Square,” “Defend Vake Park,”and “No to Panorama Tbilisi!”. Even though these cases occurred almost simultaneously, and the activists involved were quite the same, their achievements are different. The presented research attempts to determine the challenges that arose during the formation of the urban movement agenda
and study the activism strategy and how it influenced the results of the movements. By triangulation of multiple methods – analyzing primary and secondary sources and interviews of involved actors –, we argue that the strategy of the movements played an important role, while not crucial, with regard to the studied civic activism. -
WHY SHADOW ECONOMY AND INFORMALITY SHOULD BE SEPARATED AS CONCEPTS: RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE SHADOW ECONOMY SURVEY IN THE POST-SOVIET REGION
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The current article is intended to bring two contributions to the study of informality. Empirically, it shares the result of the shadow economy survey for the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years for Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine. These results are used to calculate the shadow economy index estimated as a percentage of the GDP. Already established as an annual exercise for Latvia and the Baltics since 2010, the survey has been applied to Moldova and Romania (since 2016), Poland (2015-2016), and Kosovo (in 2018). In the frame of the project “SHADOW: An Exploration of the Nature of Informal Economies and Shadow Practices in the Former USSR Region,” the scope of the survey was expanded to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, keeping the same methodology and used for direct measurement of underground activities.2 By doing this, we discuss the use of direct measurement approaches to suggest that, while quantitative approaches are useful to estimate the size of shadow economies, direct approaches can be used to integrate these data and look for deeper correlations between the persistence of shadow transactions and some societal tendencies that are not necessarily economic.
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SOFT POWER PROJECTION OF ASPIRING MIDDLE EASTERN POWERS TOWARDS YEMEN: THE CASE OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND IRAN
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The multiple hard power engagements of the aspiring Middle East powers (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Iran) in Yemen are self-evident. However, the disposition of foreign interference in Yemen is multifaced. Current research papers have primarily focused on using hard power military or economic tools, but soft power tools were left behind. Therefore, this article explores soft power’s nature influencing the countries above assert towards the Yemeni population. It focused on three ostensibly distinct areas of soft power – education, religion, and media – within each particular analysis since those three areas are key elements of the Saudi and Iranian soft-power toolkit. Multiple religious, educational, and media tools towards Yemen were detected in each case.
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SOME SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE GENESIS OF MODERN BELGIAN POLITICS
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This article discusses the symbolism of the year 1830 in the transition from the old political order to the establishment and gradual consolidation of the modern Belgian state. Modern constitutionalism was characterized by the struggle against monarchical absolutism and the concentration of political power in the hands of a single person. In addition, it supported the respect of civil rights and liberties, the individual being at the center of liberal philosophy, along with the idea of a representative government, the separation of powers in the state and the supremacy of the rule of law. The spread of the revolutionary wave from 1830 throughout the country opened a new period in the history of Belgium, in which the ideas of centralizing the state and asserting national independence merged with the urgency to give a direction to the state by choosing the representative monarchy as a form of governance and with the introduction of the Senate as an intermediate power. By analyzing the Belgian deputies’ speeches, this article aims to make an introduction in the way the deputies imagined the construction of the state and to advance the idea of a mutual trajectory of the Belgian society in accordance with the young European nations.
Annals
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CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIAN POLITICAL LIFE OCTOBER 1, 2022 ̶ MARCH 31, 2023
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CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIAN POLITICAL LIFE OCTOBER 1, 2022 ̶ MARCH 31, 2023
Book Reviews
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ANDRAS BOZOKI Rolling Transition and the Role of Intellectuals. The Case of Hungary, 1977-1994 Budapest-Vienna-New York: Central European University Press, 2022, 620 pp.
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Transition to democracy in Eastern and Central Europe occurred as a consequence of the way communist regimes dismantled. Not as a momentum, but rather as a continuous overlapping series of phenomena, events around 1989 happened because of the actors, especially the intellectuals, that created them. This is the main thesis of András Bozóki’s book published in 2022, Rolling Transition and the Role of Intellectuals. The Case of Hungary, 1977-1994. This work fills the gap in a literature that focuses mainly on the democratic transition in Eastern and Central Europe as a
unitary space or on the Ruling Elites in a newly capitalist system. More recently, political writings on Hungary discuss the democratic backsliding and the illiberal turns of the regime, including it in a regional framework affected by populism, and Euroscepticism. -
KACPER SZULECKI, Dissidents in Communist Central Europe. Human Rights and the Emergence of New Transnational Actors Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 242 pp.
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The book Dissidents in Communist Central Europe: Human Rights and the Emergence of New Transnational Actors, written by Kacper Szulecki, Polish professor, and researcher at Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, was published in 2019. As one of the few books to focus on such a topic, the piece dissects the conception and evolution of the phenomenon of “dissidentism” and its dimensions, in the context of Central European regimes during the Cold War.1 The author aims to provide the readers with a detailed narrative and analysis of four specific Central European states, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and East Germany, and the manifestations of dissidents and dissidentism in those countries. Szulecki makes use of historical sources, letters, and journals belonging to famous dissident figures, analyzing all four cases in parallel. The book consists of ten parts, the first being the Introduction, while the
following nine chapters are set in chronological order.
