Browsing by Author "Sultănescu, Dan"

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Atitudini și discursuri populiste în România. Dinamici în 2019-2021 și posibile explicații ale impactului AUR = Populist attitudens and discourse în Romania. Evolutions in 2019-2021 & possibile explanations of the impact of the AUR party
(Polis Revista de Stiinte Politice, 2021) Sultănescu, Dan; Teodorescu, Bogdan; Sultănescu, Daniela
Evaluating the populist phenomenon in a country like Romania is a complex research objective and requires an important distinction between two dimensions – effectively measuring the public’s populist predispositions, regardless of party affinities, and evaluating the ideological discourse of the main parties as well as the relationship between these ideological approaches and the populist attitudes in society. In this study, we evaluated the current state of the populist inclinations of the voting-age population in Romania, and also the ideological mechanisms that have recently stimulated these populist attitudes. We analyzed whether we can observe a rise in populist attitudes in Romania in recent years, especially in the context of the emergence of a new political force with populist and ultra-nationalist discourse. We also evaluate the evolution of this type of ideologic discourse during the last year, as well as its relation to earlier populist political discourses in Romania. We operate on the premise that parties can have populist approaches independently from the ideology they support, and also that understanding the relation between (political) discourse and populist orientation (of the public) is relevant.
Feeding the troll detection algorithm: Informal flags used as labels in clșassification models to indentify perceived computational propaganda
(University of Illinois at Chicago University Library, 2020) Achimescu, Vlad; Sultănescu, Dan
The authenticity of public debate is challenged by the emergence of networks of non-genuine users (such as political bots and trolls) employed and maintained by governments to influence public opinion. To tackle this issue, researchers have developed algorithms to automatically detect non-genuine users, but it is not clear how to identify relevant content, what features to use and how often to retrain classifiers. Users of online discussion boards who informally flag other users by calling them out as paid trolls provide potential labels of perceived propaganda in real time. Against this background, we test the performance of supervised machine learning models (regularized regression and random forests) to predict discussion board comments perceived as propaganda by users of a major Romanian online newspaper. Results show that precision and recall are relatively high and stable, and re-training the model on new labels does not improve prediction diagnostics. Overall, metadata (particularly a low comment rating) are more predictive of perceived propaganda than textual features. The method can be extended to monitor suspicious activity in other online environments, but the results should not be interpreted as detecting actual propaganda.
Measuring Likely Voters. A Model for Predicting Electoral Participation in Romanian Presidential Elections
(2022) Sultănescu, Dan ; Buti, Daniel; Sultănescu, Daniela
Predicting voter turnout by estimating the proportion of likely voters as accurately as possible is a challenging task and it is debated both in literature and among experts actively involved in the field of sociological research and polling organizations. While there are several variables that influence turnout, and also several methods and models that have been put into practice over time, in reality there is no magic formula for correctly measuring, before an election, the percentage of individuals that are most likely to vote. Each national context comes with particular variables, as well as historical factors and demographic dynamics that need to be taken into account. We propose a model built on pre-election survey data and on past official election statistics, which has been tested and proven viable in the context of the 2019 Romanian presidential election.
Mişcarea Legionară, între istorie și percepții actuale. Amestec de fascism și atitudini populiste
(2022) Teodorescu, Bogdan; Sultănescu, Dan
The Legionary Movement (called also the Iron Guard) was a special political phenomenon, which appeared in a special socio-economic and geopolitical context, in interwar Romania. As some of the elements of this context seem to repeat today (the reappearance of regional conflicts, the fear of world wars, multiple economic and social crises, the rise of anti-system populist attitudes and anti-Semitism in social media, multiple feelings of frustration for large social categories), the analysis the phenomenon of the Legionnaire Movement is more actual than ever. And the way in which this political message is perceived, not only in historiography, but also among the voting population nowadays, is becoming more and more relevant. This analysis combines a historical approach, to explain the phenomenon of the Legionary Movement from the interwar period, with a sociological one, to evaluate today’s public perceptions towards this phenomenon, one that is part of the family of Eastern European fascisms, but also of a form of anti-system approach, stimulating populist attitudes, as they are defined today.
The path from distrusting Western actors to conspiracy beliefs and noncompliance with public health guidance during the COVID-19 crisis
(Taylor & Francis Online, 2021-06-15) Achimescu, Vlad; Sultănescu, Dan; Sultănescu, Daniela
Global crises provide a fertile environment for the proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy narratives that feed on the people’s distrust of institutions. We investigate perceptions and beliefs related to COVID-19 in Romania during the lockdown and the state of alert (April and July 2020) using survey data. Building on measures tested in previous research, we identify the public’s vulnerability to conspiracy narratives and its willingness to comply with public health guidance. We test whether individuals exhibiting pro-Russian or anti-Western attitudes believe more strongly in COVID-19 conspiracy narratives compared to the rest of the population. Then, we check if those believing conspiracy narratives are less susceptible to comply with public health recommendations. We find an indirect relationship between distrusting Western actors and noncompliance with COVID-19 guidelines. Thus, pro-Russian and anti-EU, U.S. and NATO attitudes are linked to stronger conspiracy beliefs, which relate to lower levels of concern and knowledge regarding the virus, which in turn are associated with reduced compliance with official guidelines. This suggests that openness to anti-Western narratives may have behavioral consequences. The findings highlight potential sources of unsafe behaviors during the pandemic, especially in the young democracies of Eastern Europe.