LOCAL DEMOCRACY BAROMETER IN ROMANIA, 2012

Reaching its second revised edition, the Local Democracy Barometer builds on the assumption that Romanian democracy is rather inconsistent, and varies from one locality to another. Some of these differences find explanations in the economic and social structuring that causes variations in the quality of democracy within the boundaries of a state, from one region to another, and from one locality to another. A well-established democracy comes along with correlative fundamental rights and obligations, that both the citizens and the State feel obliged to abide by, and safeguard. But where the State's institutions are rather fragile, or have been built in the aftermath of collapsed authoritarian regimes, the critical stage of the State safeguarding the rights and freedoms becomes a challenge. The key elements of any democracy, such as elections, access to information of public interest, and efficiency of local public administration given the needs of citizens, should all be monitored, as democracy shortcomings come into shape at local level. Overlooking the local level is a mistake for democracy development. As a rule, comparative studies rely on reviews of large cities, or tend to take closer looks into democracy as appearing in the capital city, whereas the local level is captured only in case studies or overall surveys that aim to measure public participation. The utility of the Local Democracy Barometer can be defined firstly by reference to citizens. Citizens are currently missing a tool they could use to assess and audit the community they belong to, and compare it against the performances of other counties. Under such circumstances, the Barometer provides contextualized information for each individual locality. (Bucharest, Brasov, Constanta, Giurgiu, Piatra Neamt, Braila, Iasi, Cluj, Craiova, Timisoara)

ISR-Forschungsberichte

2011

In Romania, the 2008 local elections were held based on a new electoral law. The main changes concerned the election of chairpersons of county councils by uninominal voting, shifting of the general and presidential elections and the introduction of a uninominal voting system for parliamentary elections, with a correction of the total number of seats according to the total number of votes obtained by each party on national level. Voting behavior in local elections on 1st June 2008 was primarily determined by political reasons (loyal voters) and was influenced by the effect of the local leaders and the noise produced by ethnic vote. For all parties, prominent leaders drew votes. Inertia in voting behavior (electorate's fidelity) influenced all parties' results and the ethnic behavior had a strong effect on nationalist parties. At regional level, the electoral impact of economic variables was marginal.

2005

EAST EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW, 2003

Space and Polity, 2011

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2010

One of the explanations of the voting behaviour in Romania refers to the differentiations between rural and urban electorate as part (or not) of the territorial and functional cleavages induced by processes taking place before or after the changing of the political and economic regime. No particular functional cleavage or interests between urban and rural population can be noticed in the post-communist period, but only a spatial differentiation of electoral behaviour in Western Romania and in the Old Kingdom as concerns the attitude and the availability for reform of the rural electorate. The party system in Romania, as in most countries, came as a result of political development in Europe, an evolution influenced by three fundamental processes, namely the national, industrial and international revolutions, each of them leading to two main social, cultural, economic or political cleavages on two main conflict axes, one territorial and the other functional (Rokkan & Lipset 1967, John...

Forum geografic, 2014

In the countries with a consolidated democracy, but also in postcommunist Romania, the turnout has experienced a downward evolution. The difference lies in the fact that while in Western European countries the turnout is higher as the economic and educational level is higher, in Romanian during the last general elections (2008), the turnout was higher in rural areas (traditionally more precariously from the economic and educational point of view than the urban areas). In this way, the article strives to identify to what extent there is a causal relationship between the development index of the rural localities and the turnout, the descriptive statistics highlighting a relevant aspect: there is a higher turnout in the less developed counties than in the developed ones.

Universe International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research , 2020

A political change had observed instead of political development (nation-building, membership of the political parties, constitutional practices, emergence of strong civil society-lack of political development). Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic had consolidated democracy (more than 60 percentages of democrats' people). The article aims to know about the social, economic and political changes in post-Communist European countries (1989-1998 and further) and to share with others for knowledge and education. The outcome of the article has been achieved by the exploration of various indexes that helped for a liberal society and economy based on freedom, dignity and human rights in the regions. Feature question is, how neo-liberalism worked in the regions? More articles will be written in the future.

2020

Romania, like other countries in Eastern Europe, has gone from a totalitarian, communist, to a democratic political regime. This change in the political regime has also brought opportunities regarding the election of the president. After 1989 the presidential elections in Romania have had different orientations of the population regarding the political membership of the candidates. The study follows these mutations regarding the results of the presidential elections, in the two rounds, placing the political belonging of the candidates in the final round in the middle of general attention. The result highlights the relationship between those who have given a negative vote to a candidate, who has reached the final round, and those who gave a positive vote to the candidate they have simply chosen out due pure political beliefs. Within the 30 years since the change of the totalitarian political regime, the population of Romania has reached a major political change, oriented towards liberalism, in a very convincing percentage. These changes are based on a number of factors, which the study has analyzed on each geographic-historical province and, on each administrative unit, it has analyzed the componence of these provinces. The analysis has been made from the point of view of population structure by age group or socio-professional analysis, as well as from the level of education by historical provinces and therefore it explains the result obtained in the presidential elections.