SNSPA Digital Repository
Welcome to SNSPA Digital Repository, the institutional repository of the National University of Political Sciences and Public Administration.
The repository contains research produced by SNSPA academic staff, including journal articles, book chapters, books, working papers, conference papers, and more.
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Institutional Resilience and Democratic Sustainability in Post-Transition Europe: Lessons from Romania and Central-Eastern Europe
(2026) Pirvulescu, Cristian
This paper conceptualizes institutional resilience as a core condition of democratic sustainability in post-transition Europe. Building on neo-institutionalist approaches and recent scholarship on democratic resilience, we argue that democracies endure when three capacities align: policy coherence, procedural legitimacy, and civic/monitory participation. Using a comparative, theory-guided design, we analyze Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia (2007–2025), triangulating V-Dem/Eurostat indicators with documentary evidence (EU Rule of Law reports, CEPEJ) and interpretive analysis. Romania illustrates “reactive resilience” anchored in judicial independence and civic vigilance; Slovakia shows “restorative resilience” after corruption scandals; Poland exhibits “societal compensatory resilience,” where civic mobilization offsets institutional regression; Hungary demonstrates “instrumental resilience without democracy,” combining administrative capacity with normative decay. We integrate these findings into a three-dimensional model—institutional, normative, and communicative—showing how feedback loops convert crisis into learning. The paper concludes that sustainable democracy depends less on constitutional design alone and more on the institutionalization of learning: redundant veto points, impartial procedures that generate trust, and a monitory public sphere that sustains continuous accountability. For EU policy, the shift from conditionality to capacity (e.g., RRF) can foster endogenous resilience when supranational norms are domestically internalized rather than externally imposed.
Populism without history: Central and Eastern Europe and the case for a historical turn in populism research
(2026-05) Craciun, Claudiu
This article examines the dominant modes of conceptualising populism and critically engages with the ahistorical tendencies that have come to characterise much of the recent research in this field. Despite the robust historical reasoning and conceptual tools developed within comparative politics, populism research has largely avoided engaging with them. The article proposes an alternative analytical framework. In order to situate conditions, institutions, actors, and events within a single framework and across time, it advances the concept of populist configurations. These encompass populist actors, strategies, discourses, and styles, but also incorporate structural factors and transformations, such as degrees of sovereignty and socio-economic orders, as well as elite cohesion and responses, and critical junctures: significant events that alter power relations and shape the trajectories of (populist) politics. The article explores Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a region with contested geographical and historical boundaries that nonetheless shares a distinctive set of structural features. Its belated development and chronic exposure to external aggression and domination, a consequence of the relatively small size of its historical polities, set the conditions for the region’s uneven and conflictual transition to modern politics. The region also endured two world wars and a turbulent succession of competing political regimes, such as constitutional monarchies, military and royal dictatorships, socialist and communist republics, and parliamentary democracies, a trajectory that sets it apart in global historical comparisons and poses significant challenges to any account of its long-term political dynamics. In this long-term dynamic, it can be argued that populisms are rooted in early-modern contention and not electoral politics, and this contention was defined by the sovereignty—social reform uneasy ambivalence. Drawing on the Romanian case, the article develops a typology, a timeline, and an illustrative case of populist configuration—antisemitism, both to demonstrate the advantages of this research strategy and to call for a systematic historical turn in the study of populism.
The Future of Higher Education, Readiness for the Open Innovation Paradigm
(2025-10-09) Grigorescu, Adriana; Pirciog, Speranta; Mochnacs, Amalia-Elena; Sigurjonsson, Throstur Olaf
The open innovation (OI) paradigm has significantly impacted higher education, especially within the context of the global networks of societies. The COVID-19 pandemic spurred innovation, creating online educational communities and transforming the academic approach. While OI, the movement towards online learning, and the industry-academia cooperation for a better grounding in labor market demands have been discussed in previous studies, this quantitative study furthers the understanding of the preparedness and efficiency of the education system for the new labor market. This study investigates the potential correlation between the education system and various socio-economic indicators, such as education expenditure, mobility opportunities, digital inclusion, employment, and urbanization. The regression analysis was conducted on the dataset obtained from the open-access EUROSTAT database.
Military Virtues, Green Human Resource Management and Green Employee Engagement: An Echo from Sri Lanka Navy
(Elsevier, 2025-09-18) Iddagoda, Anuradha; Dassanaike, Hasantha; Dissanayake, Hiranya; Manta, Otilia; Grigorescu, Adriana; Palazzo, Maria; Jayasinghe, Madhura
This study aims to identify the mediating effect of green human resource management on the relationship between military virtues and green employee engagement. The sample size is 200 from the Sri Lanka Navy officers. This is a quantitative study. The unit of analysis is individual, and this cross-sectional study was completed in a non-contrived setting with minimal interference by the researcher. This study employs a partial least squares (PLS) regression model within the Smart PLS 4.0 software framework to investigate the underlying objectives. The primary focus entails a meticulous examination of the measurement model, ensuring the robustness of the questionnaire through a thorough assessment of reliability and validity. Subsequently, the study delves into a structural model, uncovering a significant partial mediation effect attributed to green human resource management in the interplay between military virtues and green employee engagement. The implications of these findings are twofold, valuable contributions to both theoretical understanding and practical applications in the domain of sustainable human resource practices. By elucidating the intricate relationships among these constructs, this research enriches the existing knowledge base and provides actionable insights for organizations seeking to foster environmentally conscious employee engagement.
Data protection officer. The new guarantor of freedom in the digital era
(Universul Juridic Publishing House, 2026-07-02) Coman, Cristian Gabriel Nicolae
In a digital landscape increasingly shaped by data-driven surveillance, the protection of fundamental rights is undergoing a systemic reconfiguration, with the Data Protection Officer (DPO) emerging as a key figure of resilience and institutional balance. This paper examines the evolution of the DPO role from a purely compliance-oriented function into a strategic pillar for safeguarding human dignity within public administration. Building on the DPO’s duty to monitor compliance with data protection law and relevant standards, the paper explores how the DPO operationalizes rights protection through assessment mechanisms such as DPIA, PIA, and LIA. These instruments function as safeguards designed to ensure that no administrative procedure unlawfully infringes or restricts citizens’ rights and freedoms. The study highlights the importance of the DPO’s independence, including a direct reporting line to senior management, as an essential condition for objective and impartial oversight. It also analyses the DPO’s advisory and training mission, aimed at embedding privacy and personal data protection values within the institution as intrinsic components of human rights protection. The findings suggest that, by liaising with supervisory authorities and overseeing information security, the DPO acts as an architect of modern public administration, in which technology both serves and protects human rights.