DRIIE-International relations

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Browsing DRIIE-International relations by Author "Cucută, Radu Alexandru"

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    Book review: Andrew Roberts, 2014, Napolon: A Life, Viking, USA, 926 pages, ISBN13: 9780670025329
    (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2018) Cucută, Radu Alexandru
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    Book review: Flogging the geopolitical horse. Alexander Dugin. 2015. Last War of the World-Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, Arktos Media Ltd., 166p, ISBN: 978-1-910524-40-4.
    (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Department of International Relations and European Integration, 2015) Cucută, Radu Alexandru
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    Liminality and fashionable concepts : the use of international relations theories and concepts in Romania's strategies
    (Civil Szemle Foundation, 2023) Cucută, Radu Alexandru
    The paper argues that the employment of fashionable concepts, such as resilience and hybrid warfare, is increased in conditions of liminality. Romania’s geographic liminality, political liminality and epistemic liminality favors the employment of fashionable concepts and theories. Successive cycles of intellectual fashion do not result however in the replacement of older concepts and theories by newer ones, but in a multi-layered intellectual architecture. By analyzing the Romanian National Defense Strategy, the Romanian Military Strategy, the Defense White Paper, the paper attempts to trace out a map of the successive theoretical and conceptual influences exerted on Romanian strategic planning, to identify the meaning attached to these concepts and theories and the relation between them. The faults, inconsistencies and conceptual problems highlighted by the paper can be seen as the result of the vagueness inherent in fashionable concepts and theories, as well as of their use in a self-perceived liminal position, which leaves little room for an effective role of civil society in influencing public debates or actual public policies.
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    Reconfiguring EU peripheries : political elites, contestation, and geopolitical shifts
    (Helsinki University Press, 2024) Butnaru Troncotă, Miruna ; Özçelik, Ali Onur ; Cucută, Radu Alexandru
    Reconfiguring EU Peripheries explores the diverse nature of the European Union’s interactions with its peripheries. Focusing on a period of rising regional tensions marked most recently by the war in Ukraine, the volume casts new empirical and conceptual light on the diverse motivations that underpin the political elites’ attitudes towards the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Türkiye and Ukraine. The volume engages with various understandings of the EU’s interactions with its different peripheries and shows how these dynamics are closely related to the self-perceived nature of the societies in question in relation to the EU. The impact of recent crises and conflicts underscore in some cases the need for strengthening solidarity and for ‘more EU’, whereas others highlight the doubts and disappointment over the challenges these societies have faced over recent years. The empirically rich case studies enable both interpretations of and debates on the EU integration processes. A comparative exploration of countries at different stages in the EU accession process and the various political elites’ attitudes towards the EU outlines the essentially constructed nature of peripherality. By challenging the conventional understanding of contestation and peripherality, this volume is a worthwhile first step towards looking at the EU and the peripheries it creates from an alternative, and sometimes ignored, point of view.
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    The path of good intentions : civil society’s role in Romania’s National African Strategy
    (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration - Faculty of Political Sciences, 2024) Cucută, Radu Alexandru
    The paper discusses, from a social constructivist theoretical perspective, the manner in which Romania’s African Strategy, Romania–Africa: A Partnership for Future through Peace, Development and Education, envisions civil society’s role. The paper tries to identity the political, theoretical and ideological underpinnings of the document’s view of civil society, by analyzing not only its content, but its position within the wider context of Romania’s foreign policy. The ambiguous or rather limited role that civil society is expected to play is explained as a result of the two rather conflicting views of international politics which the document tries, albeit unsuccessfully to reconcile: an understanding of international politics, focused on the distribution of power and centered on the privileged role states play in international politics, stemming from a historical sense of vulnerability exacerbated by the War in Ukraine, which cannot be reconciled with a view of international relations focused on the role of international institutions and Romania’s historical support for decolonization. In addition to the interaction between these perspectives, both views, however, prescribe a subordinate role for civil society.