Faculty of Political Sciences

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Noul capitalism românesc
(Polirom, 2006) Pasti, Vladimir
In December 1989, for a plurality of reasons and in a special international conjuncture, Romanians overthrew the communist party from power, putting an end not only to an authoritarian political system, but also to the history of a form of social and economic organization, the communist one. Despite the fact that the Romanian revolution of 1989 was broadcast live on international television during the Christmas holidays, and enjoyed special attention from world public opinion, it was chronologically only one of the last such events to mark the end of political and socio-economic communism in Eastern Europe. 1989 can be considered the year of the victory of developed capitalism in Western Europe and North America in the "cold war" that lasted for almost half a century after the end of the Second World War. The confrontation between the Western world and the "socialist camp", which had been seeking an alternative civilization to capitalist civilization, ended with the political, economic and ideological-cultural victory of the West. The most important effect of this victory was the reorientation of the new, former communist societies towards a reconstruction of their own civilization. Recognizing not only their defeat, predominantly non-military, but also their inferiority to Western civilization, societies that had striven to build a communist civilization for over 7 decades in the case of Russia and over four decades in the case of its European satellites, made a huge turning point in their own history, opting politically for a complete social, economic and political reconstruction, that is, for the adoption of Western civilization.
Gen și interese politice : teorii și practici
(Polirom, 2007) Băluță, Oana; Dragolea, Alina; Iancu, Alice
What do citizens want from politicians? How do they allocate public goods? From whom and how would they take taxes if they so decided? Is it relevant whether citizens are women or men? The great grievances of the inhabitants of this country are related to the most underfunded areas of public interest: health, education, social protection, civilizing infrastructure. As in these areas, by political decision, the lowest salaries of all budgetary areas are practiced, women earn little, even if they have higher qualified professions. They are condemned to poverty and dependency not because they are idle, do not work and do not study, but because the policy of all governments has been constructed in such a way that public money is not allocated or is very little precisely for the work of raising, educating and caring for them. In this volume, the authors set out to present the theoretical tools underlying the gender analysis of political interests and to apply them in a few cases, in everyday life, in the labor market or in the study of social exclusion. (Mihaela Miroiu)
Entrepreneurship and education : the missing link in international development theory and practice
(Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, 2008) Aligică, Paul Dragoș; Florian, Bogdan
Education and entrepreneurship are commonly considered major factors of economic development. If that is the case, one would expect that the international development organisations give a special attention to initiatives promoting education on entrepreneurship (teaching entrepreneurial skills, attitudes and ideas) and entrepreneurship in education (promoting the entrepreneurial initiative in providing, maintaining and developing education services). The study finds that these organisations' agenda has not started yet to incorporate the basic insights regarding the link between the two factors and concludes that this situation creates opportunities for a rich analytical and policy agenda in the area of education and entrepreneurship.
Legitimitatea dizidentei : nesupunerea civica si ratiunea publica rawlsiana
(SNSPA, 2009) Dobrei, Nicolae
The tension between fundamental human rights and democratic (majoritarian) legitimacy is both critical and analytically rich for contemporary normative theories of democracy – and for the issue of morally acceptable civil disobedience as well. I briefly discuss the challenge this tension raises for three of the mainstream approaches to this issue, namely republicanism, liberalism and deliberative democracy. I move then to a detailed account of the early Rawlsian justification of civil disobedience, and in the third step of my argument I advance the idea that Rawls’ theory of public reason offers a particularly strong framework for understanding disobedience as an effective means for promoting justice and legitimacy in contemporary democracies.
Clauza culturală în jurisprudenţa penală din România : cazul mariajelor timpurii în comunităţile rome tradiţionale
(Centrul de Studii Internationale, 2011) Constantin, Măriuca Oana
The study raises the question of whether the cultural clause is applied in Romania despite the absence of a legal framework and shows that it operates de facto in criminal jurisprudence, being invoked before the courts and influencing verdicts and individualized sentencing. The research focused on 'early marriages' practiced by some traditional Roma communities, with criminal consequences. We developed an outline of the ethical-legal reasoning of judges in solving this problem and related it to the ethical criteria of admissibility of cultural derogations established by the theories that have tried to decipher the conflict between norms and customs. We have shown that in Romania an illiberal multiculturalism operates in relation to some cultural practices of certain traditional Roma minorities, customs that affect the freedoms and rights of some of their members. Through the conclusions of the study, signals are given to raise awareness of the profound and less visible effects of these patterns of verdicts, in the socio-political field.
Calitatea învăţământului superior din România : o analiză instituţională a tendinţelor actuale
(Polirom, 2011) Păunescu, Mihai; Vlăsceanu, Lazăr; Miroiu, Adrian; Florian, Bogdan; Voicu, Bogdan; Tufiș, Claudiu
The volume synthesizes the main results and trends in Romanian higher education, based on information collected over three years of sociological surveys, analysis of social documents, observations of various quality assurance processes. The obtained data are analyzed from an institutionalist perspective, detecting the expected consequences, but also the unexpected ones, often adverse effects, of policies, norms or practices of assessment, funding and accreditation in higher education. The validity of the analysis is ensured by triangulating data obtained from multiple sources, both objective and subjective perceptions and representations. The results constitute the foundation for the formulation of public policies based on comprehensive knowledge of Romanian higher education.
Liberalismul
(Polirom, 2012) Molocea, Andreea; Dobrei, Nicolae
Fundamentalismul religios
(Polirom, 2012) Dobrei, Nicolae
Women's social exclusion and feminisms : living in parallel worlds? : the Romanian case
(LIT Verlag, 2012) Iancu, Alice; Băluță, Oana; Dragolea, Alina; Florian, Bogdan
Eastern feminism and women living in Eastern Europe in the last twenty years have lived their specific distinct realities. While growing gender inequalities affected women during transition, Romanian feminists have faced specific difficulties of their own, both theoretical and practical. How to use Western perspectives to analyze a distinct Romanian gender reality, how to ensure the relevance of analysis through both theoretical positioning and empirical research, these were typical dilemmas during the transition.
Minori şi minorităţi : religie şi tratament medical
(Centrul de Studii Internationale, 2013) Constantin, Măriuca Oana
The study looks at religiously motivated refusals of medical treatment by parents in the name of their underage children, starting from an individual case. The internal restrictions of a cultural-religious minority come into conflict with an external, superior restriction – to not violate a non-derogable fundamental right. The hypothesis that the cultural exception clause operates in a Romania was only partially confirmed. The legislation doesn’t create mechanisms for turning such medical and moral situations into cases before a court. Hence, there is no jurisprudence of refusal of medical treatment by parents in the name of underage children under their guardianship. Potential cases disappear before getting to the courts, either because the parents are persuaded to consent to medical treatment, or the child dies and those responsible are not prosecuted when there is a link between this death and the refusal. Public authorities have a difficult time identifying cultural customs and hence can respond only to a limited extent. Only an extensive quantitative study can provide a global image of the situation in Romania, an image needed as a basis for the elaboration and promotion of a draft law that addresses the issue of cultural customs with negative consequences on the integrity of children.
Ranking the Romanian departments of sociology : comparative results of different evaluation methodologies
(Consiliul Agenţiei Române de Asigurare a Calităţii în Învăţământul Superior - ARACIS, 2013) Păunescu, Mihai; Hâncean, Gabriel
In this article we will discuss the ranking of the sociology higher education study programs in Romania, on the basis of departmental g-successive index. The need and consequences of rankings in higher education is a much debated topic. Thus, we will look a little bit into the assumptions and the logic that underpins any evaluation and ranking exercise. Having done so, we will stumble upon a specific ranking methodology that is largely based on g-index. We will nonetheless show that the alternative official methodology, based on a considerably higher number of indicators, though measuring more comprehensively the concept of quality, largely produces the same results. We will eventually discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using synthetic indexes (like g index for instance) comparing with evaluation exercises that take on board more numerous indicators and dimensions.
Students’ attitudes towards technology‐enabled learning : a change in learning patterns? : the case of a master’s course in political science
(Sciendo, 2013) Păunescu, Mihai
This article sets to explore the attitudes of higher education students enrolled in a political science programme at Master level towards e-learning facilitated by the introduction of a Moodle platform. The students have been surveyed at the end of public management course in the first semester of the programme asking them to evaluate both the contents (resources) available on the virtual learning environment, as well as the type of activities and the general interaction with technology. The objectives of our survey were twofold: first to carry a thorough evaluation of the course in order to collect evidence for further improvement, but also, more importantly, to unravel the established patterns of students’ learning and their attitudes towards a set of technology facilitated type of learning activities. We conclude that the implementation of a VLEs definitely not likely to immediately change existing learning/teaching practice. It is seen mainly as a support and complementing activity of face-to-face course deliveries, but does not yet change the pedagogical underpinnings of the learning practices. On the other hand, a thorough evaluation of students’ attitudes towards technology-enabled learning is crucial for consistently planning course designs and for embedding a quality culture at course level.
Romania : high rising inequalities over two decades of post-communist transformation
(Oxford University Press, 2014) Precupețu, Iuliana; Precupețu, Marius
In Romania, during the post-communist transition, inequality increased tremendously. While, in 1990, the value of the Gini coefficient placed this country at the level of Sweden, by 2007 Romania had become the most unequal country in Europe according to the same coefficient. Although Romania was an egalitarian country under communism, it was characterized by equality at a very low level of income and the population was generally poor and impoverished. Today, the country displays high levels of inequality while incomes continue to remain very low. The recent history of GDP growth can generally be described as having an up and down pattern. Economic recession started in the mid 1980s, became established and became further aggravated during the first years of transition. The year 1991 registered a record low of a 12 per cent contraction in economic output. The economy slowly started to recover in 1993 and a relative stabilization was noticeable, but only for four years. The output expansion was reversed by renewed economic turmoil in 1997 and 1998. In 2000, a new period of economic growth began, which seemed at the time to be on a more robust and sustainable path: in 2008, GDP registered a record high of 9.6 per cent growth. However, the positive
The resurrection of the radical political movements
(SNSPA, 2014) Țăranu, Andrei
In the last decade the radical political movements became a important threat to European democracies in the conditions of decline on popularity of main political ideological parties all across the Europe. Especially nationalist radical movements seems to became more popular between the citizens after they took from the populist parties the Euroskeptical message and the radical message against minorities or immigrants. The extremist message of those parties or radical movements it s pretty much the same even they are located in different counties or cultures. The radical message of Golden Dawn in Greece an Christian Orthodox culture is similar with the Magyar Hajnal (Hungarian Dawns) in Hungary a Catholic and Protestant culture or Progress Party from Norway a more secular culture than religious based. Our paper is focused on the origins of those parties in Europe and their radical message against immigrants or social/ethnic minorities. We argue that such parties succeed over the long term only when they both 1) build on pre-existing nationalist organizations and networks and 2) face a permissive rather than repressive political environment. Those parties develop themsleves on the fertile ground of far right wing populism and assume a very narrow to the fascist discourse of the beginings of the XXth century in order to contest the economical and democratic order. By adding factors such as historical legacies, party organization, and interactions between mainstream parties and far right challengers to the study of radical right parties, we can better understand their divergent trajectories"
Ranking Romanian academic departments in three fields of study using the g-index
(Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2015) Miroiu, Adrian; Păunescu, Mihai; Vîiu, Gabriel Alexandru
The scientific performance of 64 political science, sociology and marketing departments in Romania is investigated with the aid of the g-index. The assessment of departments based on the g-index shows, within each of the three types of departments that make up the population of the study, a strong polarisation between top performers (very few) and weak performers (much more numerous). This alternative assessment is also found to be largely consistent with an official ranking of departments carried out in 2011 by the Ministry of Education. To conduct the evaluation of departments the individual scientific output of 1385 staff members working in the fields of political science, sociology and marketing is first determined with the aid of the ‘Publish or Perish’ software based on the Google Scholar database. Distinct department rankings are then created within each field using a successive (second-order) g-index.
Chronic isolation : experiencing a cured disease at the leprosarium of Tichilești
(National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, 2015) Mihail, Andrei
The inhabitants of the Tichilești leprosarium experienced medical isolation caused by a medically cured body; once an individual was diagnosed with leprosy, he would be conined for his whole life inside this institution. hus, former leprosy suferers had to cope with the medicalization of their daily life while making sense of a socially incurable illness that disrupted their regular life-trajectories.
Family background, gender and reading achievement in Romania
(Fundatia 'Orient Expres', 2015) Țoc, Sebastian; Gheba, Andreea
In the last years, Romania formally tried to overcome the problems related to inequality of opportunity in education. This paper examines the role of home resources and gender in determining academic performance. Based on secondary data drawn from Progress in International Reading Literacy Study we suggest that both gender and home resources have a significant impact on the reading achievement of students. The existing work operationalizes the differences in reading achievement as an indicator for life chances, being proportional with economic success later in life. Our findings contradict ideas about equality of opportunity promoted by the official curriculum regarding the individual merit as the main factor that places students in privileged social positions.
Identitatea culturală : o posibilă circumstanţă atenuantă? : Admisibilitatea clauzei culturale în procesele penale din România
(Centrul de Studii Internationale, 2015) Constantin, Măriuca Oana
The paper defines the concept of cultural defense and identifies the challenges of its use in practice. Cultural defense means that the judge considers arguments related to cultural identity, in both criminal and civil trials, when either the parties or the facts are directly connected to a cultural background. The study only focuses on the cultural defense in the context of Romanian criminal law, where, despite the absence of a formal cultural defense, it might arise de facto as a request to mitigate or even to exonerate the lawbreaker from punishment. The paper examines the consequences of the indirect use of this defense and whether its formal regulation is ethically justifiable. Taking into account the fact that cultural identity is often used as an excuse for oppressive traditions against the most vulnerable members of certain communities, the study argues that the use of cultural defense in criminal law implicitly legitimizes the abusive practices and the proliferation of internal vulnerabilities.
Universitatea românească azi
(Tritonic, 2015) Miroiu, Adrian; Florian, Bogdan
The volume provides a comprehensive overview of essential features of higher education in Romania, such as : the quality of university programs, the quality of scientific research, university funding or equitable access to higher education. At the same time, it includes applied analysis of public education policies implemented in Romania in the last two decades. Combining an academic approach with the presentation of the authors' personal experiences in the process of formulating and implementing these public policies, the volume is addressed not only to specialists, but to all those interested in the way Romanian universities have evolved over the last decades, as well as in the role of politics and politicians in this process.
Political parties, women’s organizations and gender quota
(Tritonic, 2015) Dragolea, Alina
Across the world more and more states establish some form of gender quotas. Even in states that were reluctant to have any form of “preferential” treatment for women (such as were the Central and Eastern Europe countries) the combination between a favorable gender equality climate, women’s mobilization and political parties’ will has led to 15 states establishing quotas. Romania has only (inefficient) voluntary political parties’ quotas and one of the lowest levels of women elected worldwide. When quotas are needed who and why can be more successful in pushing for their establishment? This article’s thesis is that women’s organizations inside political parties can be successful in their mobilization to establish quotas because they can use both pragmatic and normative reasons.

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