Suchergebnisse

The article investigates the political mechanisms specific to contemporary Romanian politics and political parties, as well as those social representations related to gender roles and the
definition of family that have contributed to maintaining a low level of women participation in
Romanian politics after 1989. In a first part, it sets the conceptual context through a review of the
main theoretical approaches for the political representation of women, with an emphasis on
gender studies' cognitive dimension. Second, it connects a quantitative evaluation of women's
presence in the Romanian post communist parliament with a qualitative analysis of public (i.e.
mass media) discourse of the rejected legislative proposal to introduce gender quotas in various
political and social processes. The author finds that, beyond the dynamics of political elites'
recruitment and the functioning of the political "game", the ideological options and social
representations that emphasize the differences between men and women, as well the central role
of family in building gender roles play an essential part in maintaining a low number of women
within the Parliament.

Grigore N. Filipescu, engineer and lawyer, was a controversial and inconstant politician in Interwar Romania. He had passed through many political parties until 1929, when he founded his
own political organization. He was also involved in other areas, being the president of the Romanian Telephone Company, conducting the construction of the Câmpina-Constanţa oil
pipeline and organizing the first international fencing contests in Romania.

The image of the European culture is given by the association of the concepts people – culture – history – territory, which provides certain local features. From this relation, we identify a cultural area with local, regional and national features beyond a certain European culture. Thus, we identify at least two cultural identity constructions on the European level: a culture of cultures, that is a cultural area with a particular, local, regional and national strong identity, or a cultural archipelago, that is a common yet disrupted cultural area. Whatever the perspective, the existence of a European cultural area cannot be denied, although one may speak of diversity or of "disrupted continuity".
The paper is a survey on the European cultural space in two aspects: 1. Europe with internal cultural border areas; 2. Europe as external cultural-identity border area. From a methodological point of view, we have to point out that despite the two-levelled approach the two conceptual constructions do not exclude each other: the concept of "culture of cultures" designs both a particular and a general identity area. The specific of the European culture is provided precisely by diversity and multiculturalism as means of expression on local, regional, or national levels. Consequently, the European cultural area is an area with a strong identity on both particular and general levels.

The article is an account of Romanian Marxist discourse between 1970 and 1980, one that was completely engaged in the justification and legitimation of the contemporary totalitarian political regime. Radu Florian's works, one of the most representative authors of this decade, are analysed via the conceptual lenses of Austrian economic theory. This methodological approach is quite fertile, since it generates clear explanations why Marxist theory and the communist state incarnating its teachings could not and cannot implement their claims. The samples of Romanian Marxist discourse under scrutiny are a showcase of philosophy invaded by rhetorics and converted into ideology. The author concludes that Romanian Marxism in the designated period represents a long line of contradictions resulting from the attempt to adapt a cruel reality to a generous and humane self-construction of a political programme.

This study proposes an analysis of how the National Liberal Party (PNL), the National Peasant Party (PNT) and the National Christian Party (PNC) used caricatures, lyrics or electoral posters to build a more favorable image of their own party or compromise the opponent. Based in particular on the sources existing in the official party press and the so-called independent one, we proceeded to a description of the three elements, including the meanings and messages intended for the electorate. With a predominantly rural population (over 80%), poorly educated in regard to civic issues, caricature and electoral lyrics were used in particular by the PNT and the so-called independent press to attack the ruling party, as well as the formation of A. C. Cuza and Octavian Goga, and to target those with a nationalist-peasant affiliation. Through the three types of confrontation, the parties in our study have endeavored to transmit as effectively as possible the eccentric populist and manipulative messages aimed at attracting thousands of voters. Although both the national and the nationalist-peasant press used caricature and versification as a political weapon, there are immense differences between the contents of the two camps, the caricaturist Petrică Lazar and the anti-Semitic poet Vasile Militaru - known also under the pseudonym of Radu Barda - preferring the construction of satirical images and poems that contained huge doses of grotesque, beliefs and prejudices about the Jewish minority.

Thanks to theoretical advances in the natural sciences and the decreased cost of computer technology, computational modeling is becoming an increasingly popular tool in the social sciences. Due to its relative novelty and somewhat marginal position in most disciplines, however, research of this kind has primarily focused on methodological challenges posed by applications to social phenomena. By contrast, the method's theoretical foundations are still relatively poorly understood and many theoretical possibilities remain unexplored by computational scholars. At the same time, social theorists, following in the footsteps of Georg Simmel's pioneering contributions a century ago, have developed a process-based research tradition that anticipates the scientific practices of today's computer-based research. In short, if the sociological process theorists have been computational modelers avant la lettre, the latter can be seen as process theorists "après la lettre".

The positive, unifying ideological resources of liberal and progressive Islamic interpretations deserve more than ever to be exploited in the contemporary socio-political context. Their conceptual tools, principles and theses could solve the conflictual cleavage, politically manipulated, between Islam and Western modernity, without repudiating the references to an Islamic paradigm. Therefore, liberal and progressive Islamic understandings could avoid the recent superficial oscillation between two ideological -artificially constructed- extremes, namely either confining the discussions to the secular, colonialist or postcolonialist perspectives, or promoting the defensive opportunist neotraditionalist Islamic approaches, specific to the nationalist movements of the last century so-called Islamic revival. Liberal Islam does not fully adopt all liberal theses and does not obediently imitate Western philosophy. Liberal Islamic understandings are defined by the opposition against teocracy and by supporting the democracy. Women, minorities and non-Muslims' rights in Muslim-majority countries, freedom of thought and trust in human progress, are other essential tenets that are fundamented on contemporary understandings of the major Islamic sources. Trying to correct some excesses that the liberal Muslims were accused of, but maintaining the reformist tendencies, progressive Muslims' approach is centered on a "multiple critiqueˮ ‒ a simultaneous critique of the diverse discourses and communities in which Muslims are situated. Not only the authoritarian constructions of literalist, puritanist Muslims, the violation of human rights, freedom of expression and of religion, the oppression of women in some Muslim countries are condemned and deconstructed, but also some political, economic, intellectual hegemonic Western aspects of modernity. In Romania these contemporary tendencies of interpreting Islam are not yet represented at a community level.

The last years of World War II have brought, per ensemble, complex problems for the "Regele Ferdinand I" University, which, after the Vienna Treaty of 1940, has been functioning in exile from Sibiu and Timişoara. From 1944 the model of the modern University of Cluj was brutally converted to an instrument of propaganda for a communist ideology, far fetched from its original nationalistic vocation. The period of transition from democracy to totalitarianism, 1944-1947, was marked by a series of events such as: the beginning of the process of politicization within the University of Cluj, the problems related to the foundation of "Bolyai" University, the return in 1945 of the University to its original sight from Cluj, the students strikes in January-June 1946, the university repression generally speaking, and particularly the repressions of students, and, last but not least, the debates of the University Senate concerning the politicization of the academic environment and the dismissal of some "compromised" members of the teaching staff. After 1944, the communists were interested in eliminating all political rivals, therefore the dismissal threats, followed by the contractions within the Departments of the University of Cluj, became a cruel reality between 1944-1948. Like all the other Romanian universities, the Cluj University began compiling "expurgation" dossiers for the so called "fascist" university professors, and substituting the old rectors and deans with new ones from amongst those who had adapted to the "new age". The public stand of the academics has gradually declined after 1944, when their life and activity has been brought to challenge, the changing values after March 1945 favouring the devotion towards the new regime, and praising less and less the academic fulfilment. On the background of "democratic" reforms, the new regime authorities have intensified the brutal isolation, especially of scholars among which a great number of university professors, by means of massive arrests. The most invoked reasons were: denigration of the power of the state, opposition to the construction of socialism, or the need to re-educate the "hostile" elements from within the Popular Republic of Romania.