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The article surveys the various stances taken in interwar Romania towards the contemporary international - particularly French - trends of legal and political theory meant at counteracting the shortcomings manifested by the legislative patterns of Napoleonic provenance when confronted with the exigencies of expanding associational life and the need of growing state intervention in the sphere of the relations between economic factors. The crisscrossing visions of federalist syndicalism and, respectively, juridical socialism - exposed most conspicuously by the legal philosophers Léon Duguit and Emmanuel Lévy - are shown to receive various evaluations in the local milieu, from the part of authors connected with the leading journal of the Romanian Social Institute and otherwise (and always by reference to the predicament of social reform in the national space). It is highlighted that the impact of the ideas involved in the debate was broader and more diffuse than one could assume when taking into consideration only the outspoken - and partly obsolete - objectives and premises of the argumentations in question.

The paper explores the merits of Protagoras' view of politics as a possible intellectual source of the post-communist theory of democracy. Unbeknownst to themselves, Romanian politicians and political scientist tend to understand the function of politics in the footsteps of Plato and Lenin, as an art, or science of leadership. Interested mainly in the effectiveness of government, they give no significant heed to the issue of rights and liberties. The great discourse of Protagoras of Abdera could supply, in a normative way, the conceptual tools for a different approach to politics, as a pedagogical rhetoric of legal and political equality.

The trans-ethnic voting ant the current cooperation between the Saxon and the Romanian communities in Sibiu/Hermannstadt could easily make believe in a perennial peaceful cohabitation. But the ethnic relations at the beginning of the XXth century are rather dissimilar, since they are marked by the strong affirmation of the Romanian community - especially by its political and cultural values - in the cadre of a multi-ethnic state - as Austria-Hungary - and of a Saxon dominated city - as Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The conflict between elites is pointed out by the prejudices enounced and by the symbolic weight of the disputes. More deeply, there is a conflict between two diverging political projects: the preservation of autonomy and of collective rights by the Saxon community, and the political, economic and cultural integration of the city into the recently made Romanian National state, in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Treaties. The two political projects originate -in fact- into distinctive models of citizenship: an exclusive citizenship, promoted by the Saxon community as a heritage from the Middle Ages; an integrative citizenship, preferred by the Romanian state in order to obtain a full allegiance from the new citizens. Since Romania has unexpectedly become a multi-ethnic state and minorities were more educated, urbanized and politically active, supporting the Romanian element became vital. The unsuccessful political strategies of Romanian elites, before 1920 -and of Saxon elites afterwards- lead to external sources of power: the Romanian National state and Nazi Germany. Whether Romanian authority proves to be quite successful, the German influence has disastrous consequences for the Saxon community. The persecutions and vexations following the German defeat in 1945 mark out the beginning of the great migration for the German community in Transylvania, following eight hundred years of coexistence.

The author sketches a vivid intellectual history of the content and bearing of Raymond Aron's work, particularly with respect to the great scholar's analyses of totalitarian regimes and of Marxism as a "Christian heresy". He describes the dominant themes of the French philosopher, political scientist, sociologist, historian and journalist from The Opium of the Intellectuals, to Progress and Disillusion: the Dialectics of Modern Society, or Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations; from De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews to Politics and History, or to Main Currents in Sociological Thought; from Marxism and the Existentialists, to Introduction to the Philosophy of History: An Essay on the Limits of Historical Objectivity; and from In Defense of Decadent Europe, to the Memoirs and to the Committed Observer… and this list is not an exhaustive one. He writes about the most prominent of Aron's contemporaries, and about his most enthusiastic followers, particularly in the Western world. As an autobiographical detail, Tismăneanu does not fail to mention Aron's readership among the Romanian students before the fall of the Berlin wall, a triumphant moment which the great champion of "methodological doubt" and the enemy of total metaphysics and ideological orthodoxies did not live to witness.

The article takes issue with the deeply entrenched historical conception about the shaping of social policies in pre-communist Romania, which indicates socialist politics and socialist-enlisted worker trade-unionism as the only significant agents of change, also depicting the non-socialist political forces of the time as participating to the process by merely employing the strategy of stern resistance and piecemeal concessions. The alternative view offered stresses the pivotal roles performed in the context by the ideological trend of socially-minded liberalism, by the movements of professional representation with petty entrepreneurial and white-collar constituencies and by the corporatist design for the representation of professional interests. The successive stages of the inquiry leading to the formulation of such interpretative theses - and inaugurated as a research on the relation between fascist modernism and the corporatist vision of rapid economic growth under an authoritarian political cover in the local milieu - are disclosed all throughout.

The history from ancient times to the present has demonstrated the inherent conflict in inter-human relations. Conflicts are a result of the interaction and communication of individuals, so they persist as long as man is. At present, conflicts are greatly influenced both by the nature of the people and by the specific nature of the work of social-political organizations and institutions. The issue of conflicting conflicts and situations has become a key issue for many philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, etc. But regardless of the high interest and long history there is no unanimously accepted understanding of the essence and nature of the conflict. The political sphere is a specific area that has a permanent and obviously conflictual character compared to other spheres of social life. Its origin is in the very nature of political relations, as relations of power, which presuppose the leadership of some and the subordination of others. That is, the power relations are based on the dominance of some people and their interests over others, which gives birth to clashes and confrontations. Political conflicts are a consequence of confrontations in a complex and multi-level system of leadership and subordination. This article will determine the conceptual, functional and structural dimention of conflicts, in particular will analize the multitude of theories that explane the expression of the conflicts in social and political life, constructive and negative approaches on functions of conflicts, dynamical dimension and paerticularites of political conflict management.

In the article the author tackles a contemporary issue that is important for institutional strengthening of the Republic of Moldova. Developing a mechanism for efficient interaction of institutions of state power with political parties, ruling ones and in opposition, with the groups of interests, especially those institutional and associative, represents a strategic objective for the Republic of Moldova. Assessing institutions with "rules of the game", the contemporary political science updates the significance of the Constitution for organisation and good unfolding of the political process, for ensuring stability and at the same time dynamism of the socio-political system. The conclusions of the investigation of complex issues like dynamic political processes, functionality of political institutions in conditions of instability / political crisis, contain an educational, instructive message, important for the political actors of the Moldovan society.

This article explores the emergence and development of anarchist ideas and groups in Romania in the period 1880-1945. Western revolutionary trends such as socialism had permeated, by the 1880s, the Romanian cultural-political space. Socialism has been studied extensively and it only seems reasonable to extend the scope of previous research to other revolutionary movements or ideologies of the same period that have not benefitted from much or any scholar attention. To this date, researchers in the fields of history or political science have not provided any comprehensive study on Romanian anarchism and, consequently, the aim of the following endeavor is to offer a first sketch of the history of Romanian anarchism. This article is based on information drawn from primary sources such as radical journals of the epoch discussed, documents belonging to state institutions charged with surveillance of radical political activity, as well as memoirs; it is also based on works by western scholars that have focused on European anarchism.

In the conservative imaginary, at least in the cases of Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary, France was not deemed a functioning political model (i.e., a political or constitutional regime) that Romania should have followed. Compared with the English political model (or rather with the Anglo-Saxon one, since the reference sometimes included the United States of America) and with the Belgian regime, France was certainly a less favoured option. However, without exception and despite all discursive artifice, in the perspective of these two politicians, who were evidently Francophile, both by education and by cultural affinities, France undeniably remained a landmark of civilization or administrative and economic efficiency, and sometimes a beacon of legal inspiration. It must be said that the latter perception was in no way related to Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary's conservative convictions. It was commonplace in the local cultural imaginary, which, regardless of one's political, social or cultural affiliation, repeated the encomiastic mantra dedicated to imperial France, to whom the Romanians were convinced that they owed the existence of their nation. In fact, one should not overlook another typical belief of this political imaginary, which is illustrated in our case by Alexandru N. Lahovary: the Romanian politicians were persuaded that the ideals included in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were exclusively due to the France of 1789.

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.