Central European Public Administration Review, 2019
The article analyses the implementation of the transparency law and investigates whether its adop... more The article analyses the implementation of the transparency law and investigates whether its adoption generated more citizens' participation in the decision making process at municipal level in Romania. The research consisted of an analysis of the transparency reports that municipal authorities need to compile every year. We analysed the reports compiled by 28 cities and 5 sectors of the Bucharest municipality for the years 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Additional information about the challenges of the implementation of the law was collected from previous studies conducted by nongovernmental organizations on this topic. The research showed that public institutions increased the transparency of the decision making process by disclosing draft normative proposals and the documents the proposals were based on. The level of citizens' participation in the consultation and deliberation stages of the decision making process remained low over the period analysed, even though a small increase could be observed. The number of recommendations received on draft nor-mative acts was low. The research showed that citizens' suggestions had higher chances to be included in final decisions if they were voiced during Local Council meetings. Besides providing empirical insights in the implementation of the transparency law in Romania, the article provides the researchers with evidence that increased decisional transparency does not automatically lead to greater citizens' involvement in the decision making process.
Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 2018
Researches have highlighted the importance of social capital existing in a community for post-dis... more Researches have highlighted the importance of social capital existing in a community for post-disaster recovery and therefore for strengthening the social infrastructure of a community in order to increase the level of resilience to hazards. The article analyzes the manifestations of cognitive social capital before, during and after a disaster, with the aim of identifying whether communities where people tend to help each other more are perceived to be more resilient in the case of natural and human caused disasters. The analysis is based on a research conducted at the national level on a sample of 277 City Halls from Romania between September and November 2016. The fi ndings of the research show that people provide help to others with which they are emotionally connected, such as relatives and neighbors. Residents tend to provide help in the form of sharing information and contributing to saving lives and the belongings of other people; they provide emotional support and carrying for children, disabled or elderly people. The research found an association between different forms of community support and the perception on community resilience.
The paper aims to unfold the intangible elements that form the industrial culture based on the an... more The paper aims to unfold the intangible elements that form the industrial culture based on the analysis of two former mining communities from Romania. Research conducted in 2014 in two former mining cities located in the northern part of the country highlights their particular characteristics and the strategies employed by individuals to cope with mine closure. The research found a strong occupational identity among former miners, which affected the way they perceived themselves, the surrounding environment and the opportunities they had after restructuring. The self-perception of what people could work hindered the economic redevelopment process. We found that after living and working for many years in a state-led regime, people expected the state to take care of them and to create new jobs in their communities. Even though many stakeholders acknowledged the importance of preserving industrial heritage for collective memory, few projects were implemented, and no mining museum was built. In both cities, a large number of people migrated abroad or returned to their hometowns to compensate for the job scarcity. Miners coming from other regions to work in younger mining communities experienced a lower level of community integration. Highlights for public administration, management and planning: • Mining communities have particular characteristics, such as mono-industrial character, location in remote areas, and overdependence on the mining company, which make them more difficult to redevelop. • Mining communities need to develop projects that strengthen the solidarity among people who originate from different regions to enhance their attachment to the community. • Rehabilitation of the built heritage is important for the preservation of community identity and for advertising the unique character of the area. • Restructuring strategies should be planned well in advance, even during the profitable stage of the mining activity, to minimize the social impact of mine closure and to prevent migration of young people out of the community.
The paper aims to analyze the evolution of mining communities from Romania after 1997, period in ... more The paper aims to analyze the evolution of mining communities from Romania after 1997, period in which most of the mining exploitations were closed. We analyzed the influence of five factors on the change of population and number of employees between 1996 and 2015, namely: share of area covered with agricultural land in 1996; 2) area covered with forest, 3) distance from county seat; 4) share of young people (between 0 and 19 years old) in the total population in 1996; and 5) share of public housing in 1993. The analysis of statistical data was conducted for 383 mining communities. In addition, we conducted a qualitative analysis in two former mining communities of Maramureș County, namely Borșa and Cavnic, in order to grasp a better understanding of how the mining communities changed over time and identify the factors that influenced their evolution. The results indicate that share of youth in total population, area covered with agricultural land and forest, distance from county seat, and share of public housing do matter for the redevelopment of a mining community; however, the intensity of their influence depends on the conditions existing at local level.
The article discusses the concept of procedural administrative transparency and aims to investiga... more The article discusses the concept of procedural administrative transparency and aims to investigate the extent to which the legal provisions of Law no. 52/2003 on transparency in decision-making are actually implemented by the local administrations from the rural communities in the Transylvania region, Romania. The main research questions are: Where are the weaknesses in the implementation of Law no. 52/2003 in the rural settings in Romania? Why do they occur? What could be changed to alleviate these weaknesses? Based on a mixed method approach – surveys followed by direct observation and informal interviews – we determined that the implementation of procedural transparency requirements is low and in many cases local public authorities comply only ‘for the record’ with the provisions of the law. The main challenge with regard to implementation is the existence of universal provisions for all local public authorities, irrespective of their administrative capacity, existing cultural a...
The paper analyses the pattern of business distribution in city of Cluj-Napoca with an emphasis o... more The paper analyses the pattern of business distribution in city of Cluj-Napoca with an emphasis on tendency of businesses to cluster together. In Cluj-Napoca there is a perceived movement of stores selling similar or complementary products to locate nearby, and to create areas with strong retail identities. Such examples would include gold jewelry dealers, wedding dresses shops, interior decoration shops (furniture, appliances, lighting fixtures, paintings tools, curtains etc.) and car dealers. Even though it seems counterproductive to clump businesses together because they would create too much competition, we will investigate the advantages that outweigh the extra competition as well as the effects of agglomeration. In addition, we will attempt to map business agglomerations existing in Cluj-Napoca, to describe their configuration and relationships existing between businesses, and to identify the factors that drove their formation. The analysis of business distribution is valuable in making more efficient and productive decisions about how to increase economic vitality of a city.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the resilience of former mining communities from Romania... more The purpose of this study was to analyze the resilience of former mining communities from Romania and to identify the factors that influenced their trajectory after the restructuring of the mining sector. Several topics were analyzed in the paper in order to shape the framework in which this type of communities operate, namely: their particular characteristics, strategies that can be adopted for their redevelopment, factors that influence their resilience, factors that caused the closure of mining in Romania and program that have been implemented to support communities overcome the crisis of job loss. I also tried to collect as many case studies of former mining communities that have managed to become successful after mine closure, and based on their experience to identify the factors that influences their degree of resilience.
Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 2007
The primary goals of this paper are to analyze the nature and the scale of brownfield sites in Ro... more The primary goals of this paper are to analyze the nature and the scale of brownfield sites in Romania and to make policy recommendations on how to redevelop them. The paper addresses primarily the Romanian land use planners, in order to provide them with a better understanding of what brownfield site are, their unique characteristics and the barriers to their redevelopment. The final part of the paper attempts to recommend financial and non-financial incentives to stimulate brownfield redevelopment in Romania.
The article examines the aspects related to citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process ... more The article examines the aspects related to citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process at local and county levels in Romania from the point of view of the top level civil servants and public officials. The research interest for this issue is part of a larger research effort aiming at determining the main patterns of decision-making process in the Romanian public institutions, including the characteristics of the interactive decision-making models. Our paper seeks to find out who are the policy actors that participate in different stages of the decision making process, the level of their involvement and the degree of citizens’ involvement in public decisions making. The research was conducted on a representative sample at the national level and the sample included top level civil servants and public officials working in county councils and local councils from county seats, municipalities, cities and communes. The response rate was approximately 30% and it is based on 381 questionnaires filled in and sent back by the respondents. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that only local public institutions were analyzed and that we focused exclusively on the public officials’ and top level civil servants’ perception about citizen participation. The research shows a low level of citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process, even though public institutions from local and county level provide them with the necessary means for participation. However, when the citizens submit suggestions in the policy formulation stage, their suggestions are taken into consideration by the public officials. The research provides us with enough evidences to characterize the public participation in Romania at local and county level as a form of consultation according to the Arnstein’s ladder of participation. Even if citizens have a chance to be heard, the political elected officials hold the control over the decision-making process.
The article analyzes how the industrial heritage is capitalized in Romania, with an emphasis on t... more The article analyzes how the industrial heritage is capitalized in Romania, with an emphasis on the heritage of former mining areas. The mining sector in Romania was downsized seriously after the fall of the communism regime and especially after 1997. In this context the article attempts to identify and analyze projects developed around industrial tourism in former mining areas. In addition of including in the development strategies of counties with a large mining sector in the past of ideas for developing cultural tourism around mining heritage, no such proposals came to life yet in Romania. However, the characteristics of salt mines created the favorable conditions for transforming them into important tourist attractions, with well-known examples of Salt Mines from Praid and Turda. In addition, salt lakes which were formed through the collapse of the walls of former salt exploitations became popular as weekend destinations especially in those cases when important investments were made to put them in usage (the case of salt lakes from Beclean). However, the chances for the development of industrial tourism in Romania are small due to large amounts of financial resources required to develop them and to the competition coming from other forms of tourism which are more popular and more developed in Romania.
The article aims to present the problems faced by countries whose income depends on exporting nat... more The article aims to present the problems faced by countries whose income depends on exporting natural resources. Even though the general expectation is that these countries are considered to be rich, dependency on the export of natural resources can cause many problems to national economies. There are several concepts used to describe the problems faced by these countries, such as „resource curse”, Dutch disease and banana republic. The goal of this article is to describe these situations and to analyze how they can be prevented in order to prevent serious damages to national economies. The strategies are analyzed depending on the level of development of the countries and the problems they are facing.
Central European Public Administration Review, 2019
The article analyses the implementation of the transparency law and investigates whether its adop... more The article analyses the implementation of the transparency law and investigates whether its adoption generated more citizens' participation in the decision making process at municipal level in Romania. The research consisted of an analysis of the transparency reports that municipal authorities need to compile every year. We analysed the reports compiled by 28 cities and 5 sectors of the Bucharest municipality for the years 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Additional information about the challenges of the implementation of the law was collected from previous studies conducted by nongovernmental organizations on this topic. The research showed that public institutions increased the transparency of the decision making process by disclosing draft normative proposals and the documents the proposals were based on. The level of citizens' participation in the consultation and deliberation stages of the decision making process remained low over the period analysed, even though a small increase could be observed. The number of recommendations received on draft nor-mative acts was low. The research showed that citizens' suggestions had higher chances to be included in final decisions if they were voiced during Local Council meetings. Besides providing empirical insights in the implementation of the transparency law in Romania, the article provides the researchers with evidence that increased decisional transparency does not automatically lead to greater citizens' involvement in the decision making process.
Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 2018
Researches have highlighted the importance of social capital existing in a community for post-dis... more Researches have highlighted the importance of social capital existing in a community for post-disaster recovery and therefore for strengthening the social infrastructure of a community in order to increase the level of resilience to hazards. The article analyzes the manifestations of cognitive social capital before, during and after a disaster, with the aim of identifying whether communities where people tend to help each other more are perceived to be more resilient in the case of natural and human caused disasters. The analysis is based on a research conducted at the national level on a sample of 277 City Halls from Romania between September and November 2016. The fi ndings of the research show that people provide help to others with which they are emotionally connected, such as relatives and neighbors. Residents tend to provide help in the form of sharing information and contributing to saving lives and the belongings of other people; they provide emotional support and carrying for children, disabled or elderly people. The research found an association between different forms of community support and the perception on community resilience.
The paper aims to unfold the intangible elements that form the industrial culture based on the an... more The paper aims to unfold the intangible elements that form the industrial culture based on the analysis of two former mining communities from Romania. Research conducted in 2014 in two former mining cities located in the northern part of the country highlights their particular characteristics and the strategies employed by individuals to cope with mine closure. The research found a strong occupational identity among former miners, which affected the way they perceived themselves, the surrounding environment and the opportunities they had after restructuring. The self-perception of what people could work hindered the economic redevelopment process. We found that after living and working for many years in a state-led regime, people expected the state to take care of them and to create new jobs in their communities. Even though many stakeholders acknowledged the importance of preserving industrial heritage for collective memory, few projects were implemented, and no mining museum was built. In both cities, a large number of people migrated abroad or returned to their hometowns to compensate for the job scarcity. Miners coming from other regions to work in younger mining communities experienced a lower level of community integration. Highlights for public administration, management and planning: • Mining communities have particular characteristics, such as mono-industrial character, location in remote areas, and overdependence on the mining company, which make them more difficult to redevelop. • Mining communities need to develop projects that strengthen the solidarity among people who originate from different regions to enhance their attachment to the community. • Rehabilitation of the built heritage is important for the preservation of community identity and for advertising the unique character of the area. • Restructuring strategies should be planned well in advance, even during the profitable stage of the mining activity, to minimize the social impact of mine closure and to prevent migration of young people out of the community.
The paper aims to analyze the evolution of mining communities from Romania after 1997, period in ... more The paper aims to analyze the evolution of mining communities from Romania after 1997, period in which most of the mining exploitations were closed. We analyzed the influence of five factors on the change of population and number of employees between 1996 and 2015, namely: share of area covered with agricultural land in 1996; 2) area covered with forest, 3) distance from county seat; 4) share of young people (between 0 and 19 years old) in the total population in 1996; and 5) share of public housing in 1993. The analysis of statistical data was conducted for 383 mining communities. In addition, we conducted a qualitative analysis in two former mining communities of Maramureș County, namely Borșa and Cavnic, in order to grasp a better understanding of how the mining communities changed over time and identify the factors that influenced their evolution. The results indicate that share of youth in total population, area covered with agricultural land and forest, distance from county seat, and share of public housing do matter for the redevelopment of a mining community; however, the intensity of their influence depends on the conditions existing at local level.
The article discusses the concept of procedural administrative transparency and aims to investiga... more The article discusses the concept of procedural administrative transparency and aims to investigate the extent to which the legal provisions of Law no. 52/2003 on transparency in decision-making are actually implemented by the local administrations from the rural communities in the Transylvania region, Romania. The main research questions are: Where are the weaknesses in the implementation of Law no. 52/2003 in the rural settings in Romania? Why do they occur? What could be changed to alleviate these weaknesses? Based on a mixed method approach – surveys followed by direct observation and informal interviews – we determined that the implementation of procedural transparency requirements is low and in many cases local public authorities comply only ‘for the record’ with the provisions of the law. The main challenge with regard to implementation is the existence of universal provisions for all local public authorities, irrespective of their administrative capacity, existing cultural a...
The paper analyses the pattern of business distribution in city of Cluj-Napoca with an emphasis o... more The paper analyses the pattern of business distribution in city of Cluj-Napoca with an emphasis on tendency of businesses to cluster together. In Cluj-Napoca there is a perceived movement of stores selling similar or complementary products to locate nearby, and to create areas with strong retail identities. Such examples would include gold jewelry dealers, wedding dresses shops, interior decoration shops (furniture, appliances, lighting fixtures, paintings tools, curtains etc.) and car dealers. Even though it seems counterproductive to clump businesses together because they would create too much competition, we will investigate the advantages that outweigh the extra competition as well as the effects of agglomeration. In addition, we will attempt to map business agglomerations existing in Cluj-Napoca, to describe their configuration and relationships existing between businesses, and to identify the factors that drove their formation. The analysis of business distribution is valuable in making more efficient and productive decisions about how to increase economic vitality of a city.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the resilience of former mining communities from Romania... more The purpose of this study was to analyze the resilience of former mining communities from Romania and to identify the factors that influenced their trajectory after the restructuring of the mining sector. Several topics were analyzed in the paper in order to shape the framework in which this type of communities operate, namely: their particular characteristics, strategies that can be adopted for their redevelopment, factors that influence their resilience, factors that caused the closure of mining in Romania and program that have been implemented to support communities overcome the crisis of job loss. I also tried to collect as many case studies of former mining communities that have managed to become successful after mine closure, and based on their experience to identify the factors that influences their degree of resilience.
Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 2007
The primary goals of this paper are to analyze the nature and the scale of brownfield sites in Ro... more The primary goals of this paper are to analyze the nature and the scale of brownfield sites in Romania and to make policy recommendations on how to redevelop them. The paper addresses primarily the Romanian land use planners, in order to provide them with a better understanding of what brownfield site are, their unique characteristics and the barriers to their redevelopment. The final part of the paper attempts to recommend financial and non-financial incentives to stimulate brownfield redevelopment in Romania.
The article examines the aspects related to citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process ... more The article examines the aspects related to citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process at local and county levels in Romania from the point of view of the top level civil servants and public officials. The research interest for this issue is part of a larger research effort aiming at determining the main patterns of decision-making process in the Romanian public institutions, including the characteristics of the interactive decision-making models. Our paper seeks to find out who are the policy actors that participate in different stages of the decision making process, the level of their involvement and the degree of citizens’ involvement in public decisions making. The research was conducted on a representative sample at the national level and the sample included top level civil servants and public officials working in county councils and local councils from county seats, municipalities, cities and communes. The response rate was approximately 30% and it is based on 381 questionnaires filled in and sent back by the respondents. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that only local public institutions were analyzed and that we focused exclusively on the public officials’ and top level civil servants’ perception about citizen participation. The research shows a low level of citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process, even though public institutions from local and county level provide them with the necessary means for participation. However, when the citizens submit suggestions in the policy formulation stage, their suggestions are taken into consideration by the public officials. The research provides us with enough evidences to characterize the public participation in Romania at local and county level as a form of consultation according to the Arnstein’s ladder of participation. Even if citizens have a chance to be heard, the political elected officials hold the control over the decision-making process.
The article analyzes how the industrial heritage is capitalized in Romania, with an emphasis on t... more The article analyzes how the industrial heritage is capitalized in Romania, with an emphasis on the heritage of former mining areas. The mining sector in Romania was downsized seriously after the fall of the communism regime and especially after 1997. In this context the article attempts to identify and analyze projects developed around industrial tourism in former mining areas. In addition of including in the development strategies of counties with a large mining sector in the past of ideas for developing cultural tourism around mining heritage, no such proposals came to life yet in Romania. However, the characteristics of salt mines created the favorable conditions for transforming them into important tourist attractions, with well-known examples of Salt Mines from Praid and Turda. In addition, salt lakes which were formed through the collapse of the walls of former salt exploitations became popular as weekend destinations especially in those cases when important investments were made to put them in usage (the case of salt lakes from Beclean). However, the chances for the development of industrial tourism in Romania are small due to large amounts of financial resources required to develop them and to the competition coming from other forms of tourism which are more popular and more developed in Romania.
The article aims to present the problems faced by countries whose income depends on exporting nat... more The article aims to present the problems faced by countries whose income depends on exporting natural resources. Even though the general expectation is that these countries are considered to be rich, dependency on the export of natural resources can cause many problems to national economies. There are several concepts used to describe the problems faced by these countries, such as „resource curse”, Dutch disease and banana republic. The goal of this article is to describe these situations and to analyze how they can be prevented in order to prevent serious damages to national economies. The strategies are analyzed depending on the level of development of the countries and the problems they are facing.
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Papers by Bianca Radu