The article examines a few episodes during the 1866-1871 legislatures of the Romanian Parliament. The debate on the annual budget for 1867 represents a good opportunity for the members of the Parliament to define politics as a matter of opinion, with negative connotations, in opposition to the face-value and clearness represented by the mathematical percentages and figures. The latter ought to guide, in their opinion, good governance, which does not belong to the realm of politics. According to such a mental scheme, the members of both Chambers of the Parliament appear to be convinced that majoritarian politics and the fragmentation of the political parties must be utterly rejected in order to adequately realize representation. The difficulty of the Romanian members of the Parliament to define politics influences their difficulty to define their own role, namely the nature of political representation.
In: Analele Universității București: Annals of the University of Bucharest = Les Annales de l'Université de Bucarest. Științe politice = Political science series = Série Sciences politiques, Band 14, Heft 2, S. 87-95
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.
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 article examines the evolution of inter-party mobility in the post-communist Romanian Parliament, confirming that the practice has been a constant phenomenon, growing continuously after 1992. Political mobility is analysed from a double perspective, that of political representation and that of political parties. The case study on the 2008-2012 legislature reveals that beyond the quantitative aspect, the mobility of MPs became a real factor of instability, changing the majority in the Parliament and, as such, triggering the government's dismissal. Deputies and senators changing party affiliation produced, for the first time after the fall of the communist regime, an alternation of power between elections.
The article explores the way political participation, representation and governance are conceptualized and rationalized by the Romanian legislation on parties. The plurality of parties was initially set up as a way to discipline and organize the political pluralism manifest in society in order to contain it within the boundaries imposed by the Constitution. This disciplinary vocation of parties was confirmed and reinforced by the laws enacted in 1996 and 2003 that embedded parties into a functional vision of democracy where they were explicitly endowed with the public mission of ensuring the political integration of Romanian citizens. The detailed rationalization of parties' mission to organize citizens' political participation and to contain the expression of their political will contrasted sharply with both the ambiguity of their governmental role within the "eclectic" institutional design of the Constitution, and with their organizational friability.
Conceptual-typological Aspects of Local Electoral Systems A democracy cannot be built unless it is based on free elections. Elections are a sine qua non condition of democratic governance. Elections are the central procedure of representation in modern democracies, and our generation has made substantial progress in understanding how voters come to make decisions. The elections were imposed in the constitutional history of the world as activities whose social and political effervescence in society is specific, competitions in which the best ones win. In fact, we make the first finding: the local electoral system is a fundamental area of society, the way it is managed and carried out, it reflects the level of development of democracy. The country's implementing bodies are chosen and this is why it is so important that it is organized and carried out correctly, transparently and democratically. The local electoral system is essentially created for citizens and must represent their interests, which we must recognize, often in practice does not happen very often. The actuality of the theme of this article starts from the premise that an electoral system is closely linked to democracy, because it expresses its values, thus constituting an indicator of the democratic character of a society and, at the same time, it contributes to the strengthening of democracy. Although there are different realities, and the electoral procedures differ from state to state, however, it can be said that, depending on how the mandates for the eligible positions are distributed (won), there are three modalities of electoral system: majority electoral system; proportional electoral system; mixed electoral system.
By analyzing the parliamentary debates of 1866-1867 on foreigners' (notably Jews) requests for naturalization and property rights, this article tries to identify the parliamentarians' answers to the following questions: On what grounds were foreigners accepted as Romanian citizens? How did the parliamentarians define the foreigner? What was required from a foreigner in order to become a citizen? The overall objective is to identify some major themes that preoccupied the representatives of the nation, circumscribed around the primordial character of the "union" and of "nationality", with a special focus on the solutions proposed by the liberals. The argument is that the Parliament, by its vote, instead of granting citizenship rights, merely established the conditions according to which one could become a Romanian. In other words, the Romanian legislators considered it to be of outmost importance to recognize the quality of being a Romanian, that is, a member of an ethnic body, and not to define citizenship as a legal membership. "To be a Romanian" was more of an ethnic belonging, a "given", than citizenship or civic loyalty, defined through political and civic rights. It seems that citizenship was crushed by the primordial character of ethnic loyalty and by the weight of the state as expression and guarantor of the Romanian nation. In engaging the parliamentary debates about naturalization, the article attempts, first, to draw more nuanced conclusions about the lately much-debated character of citizenship in Romania and Eastern Europe during the mid-19th century. And second, such an analysis may provide a better understanding of the nature of political representation during the same period.
The phenomenon we have tried to approximate in our work is that of Romanian inter-war spirituality. The "protagonists" of this research belonged to the so-called "young generation" or "generation 27", that is "The Criterion group": Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Constantin Noica, Mircea Vulcanescu, as well as other two representatives of a different generation: Nae Ionescu and Nichifor Crainic. The first chapter, entitled "Steps and traps in the perception of Romanian inter-war spirituality" stipulates the topic of our research. The novelty of the approach lies in our desire of deciphering the way in which these persons had perceived themselves and their role in what we are going to refer to as the great inter-war experiment. We intend to regard reality as the sum of various images, arising from different layers of perception, coming from the respective personalities, their critics and exegetes. These images overlap to an extent that does not justify the metaphor of a "mirror broken into pieces" and reconstructed; they merely form a sort of kaleidoscope whose images are recomposed in ever changing pictures every time the object one looks through revolves. In the same time, we make a starting point in an idea suggested by social psychology, which leads to our belief that the way in which the protagonists under discussion perceived themselves was defined by their representations on the events of the time, a sort of intellectual projection of collective consciousness. We made clear some terms such as "post-event perception": the type of cognitive reflection upon a cultural background that occurs under the circumstances imposed to the subject, situated at considerable distance in time, capable of placing him in a favorable position – as the absence of subjectivism cannot contaminate direct, synchronic perception of events; possible reiteration of the moment achieved by means of reading, an experiment possessing the supplementary cognitive charge of an anticipatory knowledge of the denouement, as well as a series of disadvantages – such as the informational deficiencies caused by the passing of time, the reality of events being an indirect, secondary one; the contamination of hypothetical decisions and post-event judgments by the bulk and value of information on the events, as well as their subsequent evaluation, jeopardizing the accuracy of perception. Evaluating the working hypotheses we notice that there is a considerable difference between the way in which we, who were not directly involved in the events, perceive the "epoch", and the way it was perceived by the persons whose intentions we are striving to decipher, together with the ideas and attitudes they shared, the people they came into contact with, the events they took part in or carried them along a sometimes disagreeable, often ungrateful History. Our protagonists observed that whatever culture consecrates or recovers is in possession of another type of reality. It is a relatively continuous reality; even if it becomes the subject of ever renewed evaluation, it constantly perpetuates a series of values, while history is anthropophagous, swallowing in an equally inconsiderate manner both geniuses and jesters, bringing together in its terrifying ignorance both illustrious characters and the most ordinary of all people.
Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; CONSILIUL ȘTIINȚIFIC: prof. univ. dr. Ștefan Afloroaei (Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" din Iași ; România) ; prof. univ. dr. habil. Constantin Chiriac (Universitatea "Lucian Blaga" din Sibiu ; România) ; prof. univ. dr. Petr Kopecký (Universitatea din Leiden ; Germania) ; prof. univ. dr. Mihaela Miroiu (Școala Națională de Studii Politice și Administrative ; România) ; acad. pr. prof. univ. dr. Mircea Păcurariu (Academia Română) ; acad. prof. univ. dr. Ioan-Aurel Pop (Academia Română) ; conf. univ. dr. Marci Shore (Universitatea Yale ; Statele Unite ale Americii) ; prof. univ. dr. Stefan Sienerth (Universitatea "Ludwig Maximilian" din München ; Germania) ; prof. univ. dr. habil. Andrei Terian (Universitatea "Lucian Blaga" din Sibiu ; România) ; acad. prof. univ. dr. Alexandru Zub (Academia Română). REDACȚIA: Redactor-șef: Radu Vancu ; Redactori: Dragoș Varga ; Vlad Pojoga. Secretar de redacție: Ștefan Baghiu. ; Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 cuprinde următoarele articole: ISTORIE ŞI STUDII CULTURAL • HISTORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES »» Ioan Stanomir ; Gherea: în preajma revoluţiei. • Gherea – In the Eve of the Revolution. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 1-3 ; Paul Brusanowski ; Mişcări naţionale separatiste în Austro-Ungaria în anii primului război mondial (O cronologie a Unirii Transilvaniei cu România după presa vremii. I). • National Separatist Movements in Austro-Hungaria during World War I (A Chronology of the Union Between Transylvania and Romania in the Papers of the Time. I). În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 4-12 ; Dan Popescu ; Mihail Manoilescu. Schiţă de portret. • Mihail Manoilescu – Portrait Outline. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 13-20 ; Raul-Marian Todor ; Concursurile sportive interşcolare de la Blaj în perioada interbelică. • Inter-School Sport Contests from Blaj that took place during the Inter-War Period. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 21-26 ; Dionisie Vladimir Turcu ; File din istoria sportului școlar interbelic la liceul "Andrei Şaguna" din Braşov. • Snippets From The History of Interwar School Sport at "Andrei Șaguna" High School Of Brașov. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 27-33 ; STUDII LITERARE • LITERARY STUDIES »» Bogdan Creţu ; Povestea poveştilor sau desacralizarea sacrului. • "Povestea poveștilor" or the The Desacralization of the Sacred. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 34-39 ; Ovio Olaru ; Forever postmodern. Importul unui concept. • Forever Postmodern. Importing a Concept. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 40-46 ; Andreea-Maria Preda ; L'évasion impossible de Lena Constante – résistance et remémoration. • The Impossible Escape. The Political Prison for Women in Miercurea Ciuc 1957-1961" by Lena Constante – resistance and remembrance. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 47-51 ; Daniela Moldoveanu ; Max Blecher' Symbolic Embodiment of Textual Identity. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 52-56 ; Dragoş Varga ; A Cultural Obsession: the Foundation of Roumanian Clacissism. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 57-60 ; Anca Pirnoiu ; Empowering The Self: The Authority Of Identity in Matei Călinescu's "Un Fel de Jurnal". În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 61-65 ; Maria Fărâmă ; Fatalism şi mrejele (ne)istoricului în romanele "Laur" şi "Aviatorul" de Evgheni Vodolaykyn. • Fatalism and (Non)Historical Vision in "Laurus" and "The Aviator" by Eugene Vodolazkin. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 66-72 ; ŞTIINŢELE LIMBII • LANGUAGE SCIENCES »» Radu Drăgulescu ; O cercetare calitativă asupra învăţării limbii române ca limbă străină în context endo-lingvistic. • A Qualitative Research on Learning Romanian as a Foreign Language in Endo-linguistic Context. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 73-81: Laodamia Dascăl ; Power In Media Discourse and Media Structures: Power Relations in the Standardizing of Gender Representations in Romanian Mass Publishing. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 82-89 ; Oana-Maria Bîrlea ; The Transfer Of Power In Japanese Advertising Discourse. În: Revista Transilvania - serie nouă ; anul XLVII (CLI) ; nr. 1 ; 2019 ; p. 90-96.
