ROMANIAN REVIEW OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS/ABSTRACTS NO.1,2 2008

ABSTRACTS

No1/2008

 

POLITICAL CULTURE, ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

 

 

COMPORTAMENTO ASSOCIATIVO IN UN CAMPIONE DI DONNE DI CONDIZIONE ECONOMICA PRECARIA

 

                                                                                                            MARTA GIL LACRUZ

 

Abstract. Surprisingly, studying welfare one can infer interesting aspects concerning participation and the associative behavior. Participation via democratization could be considered as an important Welfare State achievement. It is a way to reach citizen equality. But, on the other hand, the associative behavior frequently depends on economic and social factors (for example: social class and sex). In this research, we interviewed 3700 Spanish family units in precarious economic conditions. Results reveal that low class women are the inferior average group as regards knowledge, collaboration and act in the associations. This situation reflects a significant difference in the social public and private services access and in the process of integration into the community.

 

 

AU DELÀ DES MÉTHODES DE RECHERCHE SUR LA CULTURE POLITIQUE EN ROUMANIE

 

LORENA PĂVĂLAN STUPARU

 

Abstract. This article is a methodological approaches to political culture within the frame of the analysis entitled „Characteristics of political culture in Romania”, a recent research project completed for the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Romanian Academy. The author suggests a hypothesis on the political culture of inadequacy perceived as a “ mix”  political culture: a mélange of a political culture of the violence and a political culture of the tolerance, and, a political culture of the obedience (to historical and political imperatives) associated with a political culture of the opportunism, a “ minor”  culture, marked by major personalities.

 

 

THEORETICAL ASPECTS

REGARDING THE ROMANIAN INSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

 

                                                                                    VIORELLA MANOLACHE

                                                                                    HENRIETA ŞERBAN

 

Abstract. Our hypothesis launches the idea according to which the Romanian political institutions are engaged in certain transformation processes placed under the sign of the retro-institutionalization, as a characteristic of transition, phenomenon which, on the one hand, implies the general opposition to the institutionalization and, on the other hand, the pressure towards institutionalization. The diagnosis of this transitional syndrome provides evidence as to the obstructive regulative bureaucracy aggravated by legislative hesitations. Furthermore, such hesitations are accompanied by lack of any control mechanisms towards sustaining a correct institutional functioning.

 

 

 

POLITICAL CULTURE: FORMS OF MANIFESTATION

 

 

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE DURING THE COMMUNIST PERIOD.

ION D. SÎRBU, “LETTERS TO GRACIOUS GOD”

 

ANTONIO PATRAŞ

 

Abstract. Ion D. Sîrbu’s letters strike the reader’s eyes, as the sender is prone to drawing up balances, perhaps a sheer consequence of the “obsolete” feelings, turned into a real “backwardness” complex, when the comparison with generation fellows is in question. In their main features, Sîrbu’s letters breathe a tolerant attitude towards the addressees, even though among their opinions there is complete remoteness. The writer is convinced that “an authentic dialogue can be established anytime between divergent spirits” if they share the same ethical ideal. Originating from a left-ist family who nurtured him, by means of education, with the socialist ideals, Sîrbu was a left-wing intellectual who strongly disagreed with any kind of tyranny, either from the left or from the right side of the political spectrum.

 

 

KULTURPOLITIK UND ZENSUR ALS BEGLEITER DES LITERARISCHEN PHÄNOMENS IN RUMÄNIEN (1957 -1990)

DIE REZEPTION DEUTSCHSPRACHIGER LITERATUR IN DER ZEITSCHRIFT SECOLUL XX

                                                                                                            Maria Sass

Abstract.This study refers to a particular aspect of a literary phenomenon in Romania, namely the reception of foreign, especially German, literature during the period of communist dictatorship, through exemplification on the basis of the periodical “Secolul XX”, which is well-known both in Romania and abroad. The study relies on the research of the journal between 1957 and 1990 whereas the issues published between 1957 and 1960 were considered “specimen issues”. Neither the culture policy of the totalitarian period, nor the communist censorship period could be eluded, since they have not only influenced the reception of literature, but they have also played a decisive role in determining which authors and works were to be “imported” and presented. The censorship contributed to the installation of the “self-censorship” under the impact of fear as well for the writers who were publishing in the journal as for the translators and reviewers of literary works. Such phenomena led to the “mutilation” of many literary works, namely by cutting out passages which didn’t correspond to the socialist realism or which were considered to be “harmful” to the ideology of the multilateral developed society.

 

 

NEW ELITES:

THE ANTICULTURE OF THE ROMANIAN POLITICS

 

 

                                                                                                VIORELLA MANOLACHE

 

Abstract. The idea according to which communism, as a social-political ideology, manifested itself in the under-developed countries, in its Leninist-Bolshevist version (of socialist revolution), paradoxically, as the “weakest link of the chain”, becomes today more and more difficult to accept. As compared to the Western model, communism signified a type of accelerated development (with forced, quickened steps) and of modernization through the “dissolution of the intermediate steps” (which implied also a challenge to the social order itself and to the genesis of the social reality). Nowadays, the Romanian political “development”, seen as the parting of the ways against modernity, corresponds to a sort of ecumenism, which is rather a vague development, opened both to the Western values and to the present-day experiences.

 

 

 

CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY

 

 

 

L’EPOCA NEOLIBERALE: RIVOLUZIONE PASSIVA O CONTRORIFORMA?

 

CARLOS NELSON COUTINHO

 

Abstract. Today neoliberalism is in crisis and the neoliberal “unique way of thinking” is rejected with increasing facility. The cult of bourgeois democracy as a universal value, however, is still hegemonic, even among left-wingers. Reformist, but consistent, this study aims to resuscitate the Gramscian theory establishing an up-to-date, relevant and recuperating point of view.

 

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM AND CULTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

                                   

 

                                                                                                            IRINA STOICA

 

Abstract. The political culture of the European Union attempts to make a complete picture out of the main wheels which turn the European “machine” – the EU government, its politics and its policies. A condition for the existence of a political system is that the outputs of the political system – the collective decisions of the institutional setting – have a real impact on the distribution of economic resources and allocation of social and political values in a society. That is the reason why the policies created the by-product of European institutions’ activities (executive, legislative and judicial) are important for analyzing the state of the European Union and questioning its political future.

 

 

 

IN FOCUS

 

L’HERMÉNEUTIQUE  DE   LA CONFIANCE  ET  L’HERMÉNEUTIQUE  DE  LA  SUSPICION

LORENA PĂVĂLAN STUPARU

 

Abstract .This paper (“The Hermeneutics of Trust and Distrust”) consists of a series of reflections regarding some possible heuristic results of the comparative approach relating Ricoeur’s hermeneutic orientation and Eliade’s hermeneutic and creative method of analyzing religious symbols. As the symbol, the text becomes accessible through a hermeneutical interpretation. Yet, hermeneutics as a rigorous approach, does not exclude the creative experience. Eliade both inherited and advocated the tradition of hermeneutics, advancing a hermeneutics applied to an object which is formed using other signs these included in a written text – the formula for a  “ hermeneutics of trust”: the trust in the existence of a meaning, even when this questionable. On the other hand, the “hermeneutics of distrust” (Paul Ricoeur) is either destructive or « creative » in a different order of meaning.

 

 

ABSTRACTS

ROMANIAN REVIEW OF POLITICAL SCIENCES…

No.2/2008

 

THE PARLIAMENT AND THE EXECUTIVE WITHIN THE FUNCTIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

ARISTIDE CIOABĂ

 

Abstract. The study analyzes the role and the scope of the tremendous effort of institutional reconstruction within the Romanian transition to democracy, with a special attention given to the Parliament and the Executive. The relationships among these two crucial democratic institutions are examined, within the Romanian constitutional frame. The place and the role of the Parliament and government within the democratic system in a process of consolidation are evaluated, an endeavor confronted with the complex transition from the old totalitarian regime to a democracy of liberal structure.

 

 

 

GENESIS OF THE PLURALIST PARTY SYSTEM AND THE DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESSES

 

CONSTANTIN NICA

 

Abstract. The study investigates the explanatory aspects concerning the genesis, evolution and characteristics of party pluralism in Romania after 1989. Starting from the collapse of the unique party system, the author analyzes the particularities of political pluralism in transition as well in the Central and Eastern Europe as in Romania. Thus, the rebirth of democracy in Romania is seen in close relationship with the reactivation of the pluralist party system within a transition towards the “open society”.

 

 

THE REFORM OF THE ROMANIAN ELECTORAL SYSTEM

 

 

BOGDAN POPESCU, CRISTIAN-ALEXANDRU LEAHU

 

 

Whether the electoral system will succed to produce a real reform of political class, whether it will make the act of gouverning efficient in Romania, are rather questions that only the electoral practice of several electoral cycles will provide an answer. In this respect, maybe it should be mentioned that countries with democratic tradition like Italy, for example, did not succeed so far to find a stable „solution” of an electoral system.

 

QUELQUES PARTICULARITES DE L’EVOLUTION DE LA CLASSE DIRIGEANTE EN ROUMANIE

LORENA PĂVĂLAN STUPARU

 

The study advanced a historical view of the Romanian rulling class. It is concentrated, first of all, on the main theoretical and political structures, on relations between them and the values that inspire and legitimate them. The rhythm, the duration and the content of the historical changes  as well as the political system degree of functionality and consolidation are the „barometers” which suggests answers regarding the situation of the Romanian political system, proposing another theoretical direction…

 

 

 

POST COMMUNIST RECOVERIES IN EASTERN EUROPE-

TYPICAL AND ATYPICAL FORMS OF POLITICAL ELITE

 

 

 

                                                                                             VIORELLA MANOLACHE

 

 

Abstract. The post-communist examples viewed as a typical Eastern-European form of getting out of communism, can be added to the idea of global transition to democracy, by emphasizing the technical solutions proposed for the economical, social and political difficulties occurred. The theory of the political capitalism launches a hypothesis according to which the communist anti elite has become the new economical bourgeoisie of the post communist society. The corpus of the post communist power is not a new class, nor an old one; it is formed of the ones who seek to accomplish a project of power. The intelligence, as a seemingly central piece of a post communist political puzzle has failed along with the techno bureaucratize, in her consolidation as a class which possesses and administrates the political capital.

 

 

GRAMSCI E I SUD DEL MONDO: TRA ORIENTE E OCCIDENTE

 

 

CARLOS NELSON COUTINHO

 

 

 

 

Abstract. Concepts like passive revolution, historic bloc, north and south, Orient vs. Occident are the pretext for this study to extend gramscian theory according it to the new concepts as peripheral Occident, rethinking, in fact,  the idea of democracy. The study proposes to develop new idea for moving beyond the limits of the consecrated theories about Antonio Gramsci.

 

 

 

THE POSTMODERN DIAGNOSIS OF A GENERATION:

GENERATION’80

 

                                                           

                                                                                    GHEORGHE MANOLACHE

 

 

Abstract. The historiographical metafiction of the ’80s generation adopts the post-modern ideology of plurality and of accepting the difference. “The 80s generation textualism” was a “new ingredient”, a magma in which there were boiling at the same time “Wittgenstein’s tractatus logico-philosophicus”, the practise and the philosophy of the Tel-Quel, and also the personal achievements of theoretical linguistics and of semiology. The (provisory) conclusion is that Romanian postmodernism is (up to the end of 1989) mainly a cultural project in which the fiction writers, acting “fair play”, lure us (with their texts) to be their accomplices in the “obscure relation” between writing and reality!

 

 

 

THE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) PROCESS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERREGIONALISM

 

 

 

ZHU GUICHANG

 

 

Abstract. The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) was established in 1996 with the aim of strengthening political dialogue, economic cooperation, and social and cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe. Given its interregional nature, ASEM has been regarded as a kind of interregionalism or even “new interregionalism” and therefore has been studied from the theoretical perspective of interregionalism. Following this suit, this paper will explain and examine ASEM in the theoretical framework of interregionalism. This paper will not discuss the theoretical issues of interregionalism in detail but will draw some insights of interregionalism to make an assessment of the ASEM process.

 

ESSENCE DES SANCTION INTERNATIONALES

 

 

NARDJES FLICI

 

 

Abstract. Under the aegis of the UN and in the name of the international law, the states have the right, through the bodies of the UN in order to avoid all infringements, to inflict international sanctions against the states which do not abide by the laws of the international law and constitute a danger for the international peace, stability and security, but such practices are most frequently used by the most powerful states to impose their own rules and to protect their interests. Constituting a border between the diplomatic practices and the beginning of the hostilities, the international sanctions became a weapon of pressure, intimidation and punishment; while in fact these practices have been always present in the relationships among the states, yet, in different degrees, given that this phrase, “international sanctions”, had different evolving meanings in time that created a consensus ruling and formalizing the different forms of the international sanctions and their field of action. Within the UN, the UN Security Council is the guardian of the international peace and security, responsible for inflicting and applying international sanctions, with the possibility for the General Assembly or the International Court of Justice to intervene in precise but unforeseen cases.

 

 

CULTURAL DIPLOMACY AS SECURITY POLICY

 

 

L. JORA

 

Cultural diplomacy is a matter of mutual knowlege and communication, which is meant to create community of trust and understanding. It ,obviously, contributes to predictability, an important asset in international relations, particularly in the security area. However, the mutual knowledge of each other culture, does not, per se, create trust.

 

 

 

LA REFORMA POLÍTICA EN AMÉRICA LATINA EN LOS AÑOS 90

ESTUDIO DE CASO SOBRE URUGUAY Y BOLIVIA

 

RAZVAN PANTELIMON

 

 

               Abstract. The economic, social, cultural and political changes confirm that Latin America is experiencing the manifestation of region-wide perspectives. This article reviews by looking at the emergence of new political trends Latin American integration. Dealing with the combination of local and foreign efforts to influence government policy that may have the most impact on the design of new Latin American political standards, the article focuses on Uruguay and Bolivia as a political Cross-Country Review.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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