How democracy ends,by David Runciman

In 2006, Poland and Romania embarked on renewed lustration programmes. These late lustration policies expanded the scope and transparency measures associated with lustration as a form of transitional justice. While early lustration measures targeted political elites, late lustration policies include public and private sector positions, such as journalists, academics, business leaders, and others in ‘positions of public trust’. Given the legal controversy and moral complexity surrounding lustration, why lustrate so late in the post-communist transition and why expand the policies? The dominant explanation is that lustration is a tool of party politics and is a threat to democratic consolidation. However, the late lustration programmes do not fit this hypothesis neatly. The new laws have been restructured and packaged with other reform programmes, specifically anticorruption programmes. Late lustration has evolved to include economic and social, as well as political concerns. As such, some post-communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe appear to be trying to use lustration as a way to further the democratic transitions by addressing remaining public concerns about corruption, distrust, and inequality.     

Creating a Business School in Romania: Made in the USA,Delivered in Romania

Abstract

This article describes the establishment and maintenance of a successful Executive MBA program in Central Europe funded initially by USAID. The dynamics of a society in transition to a free market economy create special problems of management that require the capabilities of skilled managers. We argue that Executive MBA programs are efficient and effective vehicles for developing managers with the requisite skills. As new conditions occur in rapidly evolving legal and institutional environments, however, the curriculum and organizational structure has to be continuously adapted to these new challenges.     

Between national and European foreign policy: the role of Latvia and Romania in the EU’s policy towards Central Asia

This article explores whether and to what extent new member states of the European Union (EU) seek to pursue their national foreign policy goals towards Central Asia through the EU rather than bilaterally. To do so, it focuses on Latvia and Romania. While the article finds evidence of Romanian attempts to project its interests in the region onto the EU level, Latvia appears to rely more extensively on the EU level to pursue its goals towards Central Asia. Using insights from the literature on Europeanization of national foreign policy, the article explains this finding with reference to four variables that determine whether a member state will seek to upload its national foreign policy preferences onto the EU level, namely the perceived salience of the policy goals, the extent to which member states can carve out a niche, their perceived capabilities and the level of Europeanization of their national foreign policies.     

Romanians’ current perception of threat from immigrants in a context of co-ethnic migration: assessing the role of intergroup conflict and active/passive contact

This paper investigates the predictors of natives’ perception of the immigrant threat in Romania, an interesting site given immigrants’ marginal presence in the total population and the sizeable proportion of co-ethnic immigrants. Yet the interplay between nationalism and religion shapes an ideological frame that favours unwelcoming attitudes towards immigrants that challenge the Romanian identity forged along ethnic and religious ties. The authors used regression to analyse immigrant threat according to several dimensions: cosmopolitanism, group conflict and intergroup contact. In order to reflect specificities of this particular context, the latter dimension is conceptualized so as to include active and passive contact with immigrants. This distinction is relevant because of immigrants’ low presence in Romania. Findings suggest that variables from conflict theory explain more of the variation in the perceived threat, while indirect contact through mass-media exposure to immigrant content has the potential to reduce the perception of immigrant threat.     

Exploring the failure to protect the rights of the Roma child in Romania

An important test of the progress of development management is its contribution to human rights, especially in transition economies. This article explores the failure to protect the rights of the Roma child in Romania, who are particularly vulnerable to abandonment and institutionalisation. 2008 witnessed the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several other related celebrations. Nevertheless, within EU borders, minority populations can still lead dismal lives. It is argued that although both the EU and the Romanian government made the Roma's social inclusion a top priority, they failed to bring about substantial improvement. The first contribution of the article is to reinforce the trend within development management of linking policy implementation to the specific needs of the local context. Contemporary policy reports and early empirical results from an exploratory study in Galati, mainly in the area of education, suggest several inter‐related causes of poor implementation, including the national political context, specific issues affecting the Roma and local implementation capacity. The second contribution suggests that ideas from business and management, specifically the notion of organisational receptivity to change, could increase the pace of change. Receptivity provides a framework for understanding local issues and how to manage them. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

罗马尼亚转型期的腐败现象及其治理

罗马尼亚长期以来一直受腐败问题的困扰,尤其是在行政、司法及医疗领域。为此,罗马尼亚政府在立法和机构设置上都采取了一些治理腐败的措施。但是,反腐败的政策和法规得不到落实、政府反腐败意志不够坚定以及有罪判决率低等多种因素制约了罗马尼亚政府的反腐败工作,致使其长期停滞不前。理性地分析罗马尼亚转型期显现的腐败现象及反腐败过程中出现的问题,对我国反腐倡廉建设具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Migrants and their families in the home country: a bi-directional influence on voting behaviour

ABSTRACT

The voting behaviour of migrants has been studied extensively but limited attention has been paid to how the discussion with families in the home country can be important. This article analyzes under what circumstances migrants influence or are influenced by their families in voting decisions. The analysis uses individual-level data from a survey conducted in 2018 on a sample of 1,839 Romanian migrants. The results indicate that most migrants are not engaged in acts of persuasion about voting. Those who influence their families have a direct interest in the election results, are informed about what happens in the country and are politically active. The migrants who are influenced by their families have limited experience in the countries of residence and strong ties to their home country.     

The unmarried couple in post-communist Romania: a qualitative sociological approach

Over the last few decades, ‘new’ contemporary couple relationships have been at the heart of international research on the cultural meanings and reference values that organize life couple nowadays. What is the situation in Romania? After the fall of the communist regime, the rise and development of new forms of couple relationships (other than the legitimate nuclear family that was widely accepted during the former political regime) have become more and more visible. During the transition to a market economy and pluralistic democracy, the development of living together outside marriage and the progressive spread of democratic values, as well as the slow but deep redefinition of the institution of marriage, have been obvious. Yet there have been insufficient efforts in tracking and reporting these transformations. This article presents some results of the first qualitative sociological investigation dedicated to cohabiting unmarried couples in post-communist Romania. In order to have a greater understanding of cohabitation at a macro level, it first focuses on the way cohabitation is presented in the Romanian demographic literature. Second, the analysis is followed by a micro-level study based on qualitative field research conducted in Bucharest with young people living as part of cohabiting opposite-sex couples.