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At the 1914 Crown Council, which decided to keep Romania neutral in 1914, former Conservative prime minister Petre Carp offered his succinct and direct opinion about the direction of Romanian foreign policy in the opening days of the Great War. He admonished the Council that, if Romania wanted to remain among the 'civilized states' (statele civilizate) it had to follow Germany and Austria-Hungary into war immediately. The idea of 'civilized states' that dominated the remainder of the Crown Council was not merely an intersubjective social construction. It was a legal term of art in fin de siècle international law that could be applied in the real world. It was only the legally-civilized states that enjoyed the full panoply of rights, privileges, and protections under international law. This is a study of how Romania's policy-making elite, and Ion I. C. Brătianu's government, in particular, confronted the challenges of 'situational sovereignty'. It asserts that, during Romania's two-year Period of Neutrality (3 August 1914–17 August 1916), Brătianu initially used bilateral conventions as both a method to establish recognition of Romania's status (or at least a guarantee of territorial integrity) and as a litmus test to determine which (if any) foreign powers recognized Romania as a legal equal. Although he was able to achieve a short-term victory of having an equality clause inserted into the August 1916 political convention with the Entente, it is unclear if that clause could have been durable. Ultimately, Brătianu was trapped between a desire to secure Romania's recognition through international agreement, but confronted with the reality that Romania's lack of recognition as a legally-civilized equal meant those very conventions could be unenforceable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Romania's opposition to the attempts of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in the early 1970s to adopt a common trade policy towards the European Economic Community (EEC). The article covers the period between 1969, when the CMEA embarked on negotiations regarding the deepening of the intra-bloc cooperation and integration, and 1 January 1973, which is the date marking the end of the derogations that the Eastern European states received with regard to the implementation of the EEC's Common Commercial Policy. The article focuses on Romania's reasons and tactics of opposition, but it also outlines its views with regard to the EEC, in general, and the CMEA-EEC relations, in particular. Corroborated by findings involving studies in other Eastern European archives, this article will help to create a better understanding of the CMEA debates on integration, on the CMEA-EEC relations, in general, and on Romania's opposition to the CMEA's intended common policy towards the EEC, in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of electoral systems is being introduced which seeks to combine single-member districts with a proportional allocation of seats according to parties' national vote shares. One such system, that differed in its key features from many others, was introduced in Romania in 2008 and used in that year's general elections, when it performed reasonably well. It did not at the next elections in 2012, when an unforeseen consequence of a coalition winning more than half of the votes cast was that a number of 'overhang' seats was allocated to each house in the bi-cameral parliament, representing some 20 per cent of the total number of elected members. The system was then abandoned and replaced by the previously-used proportional representation system. This paper describes the system and its operation at the two elections, discussing the reasons for its introduction and later abandonment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the communist era, Radio Free Europe (RFE) was Romania's favorite radio station. This paper analyzes the role of RFE in everyday life in the strictly controlled Romanian communist state by looking at the broadcasts of RFE's Romanian Department, their audience, and their impact. Drawing largely on the RFE archives at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) and the former secret police files at the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS), it investigates how radio waves mediated and channeled information while preparing people to embrace political and cultural change. The paper focuses on the circulation of knowledge, media confluences, and human agency. The rituals that developed around the secrecy which governed the listening process, the personal requests, attitudes, and opinions expressed in letters to RFE, and oral and written testimonies, coupled with the disproportionate and, at times, extreme reactions of the communist state, together reveal the carving out of individual spaces that allowed for the preservation of the "self" during Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship. At such critical historical moments, the connection became visible. Through an analysis of recent media representations in which RFE figures, such as Cold Waves, this study also looks at how RFE shaped personal memories of communist times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of the special cluster titled Political Parties and Direct Democracy in Eastern Europe, guest-edited by Sergiu Gherghina. The relationship between political parties and referendums has been receiving increased attention in the literature. While most research has focused on the challenges faced by political parties, little attention is dedicated to the ways in which they can use referendums to serve their purposes. This article analyzes the seven national-level referendums organized in post-communist Romania between 1991 and 2012 and shows how referendums were not used primarily as a means to reflect citizens' opinions on policy issues. Instead, they were primarily used as electoral strategies for legitimacy purposes or to augment the popularity of the initiators or main supporters. In isolated instances, they were oriented against other competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the effects of candidate gender, incumbency, and local ethnic composition on the electoral performance of ethnic party candidates in mayoral elections in Romania and Slovakia. The results of my statistical analysis indicate that candidate gender has a minimal effect on electoral performance, whereas incumbency and local ethnic composition have a large and statistically significant effect. My findings also suggest that more experienced incumbents do not outperform less experienced incumbents, male and female incumbents enjoy a similar incumbency advantage, and ethnic party incumbents are able to attract voters from outside their target ethnic constituency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study highlights the main ideas that can be drawn from two notable works that focus on Romania's contemporary history, which saw the light of print at the Parisian publisher L'Harmattan. Yvonne Blondel's Journal de Guerre 1916-1917 (2001) is a genuine historical document, which describes the tribulations of the Romanian Army on the southern front, culminating in the abandonment of Bucharest and the withdrawal to Moldavia, seen through the eyes of a woman who belonged to the French aristocracy and diplomatic service. She brought her contribution in a field hospital that permanently accompanied the Romanian army. In his book, Un géographe français et la Roumanie: Emmanuel de Martonne (1873-1955) (2012) Gavin Bowd skillfully highlights the support brought by the French geographer Emmanuel de Martonne to the knowledge, understanding and support of Romania's claims to territorial unity. Romania and its century-long course (from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth) are described through the eyes of the French geographer and his French and Romanian disciples, with the entire corollary of episodes regarding the moments when the French-Romanian relations tightened or cooled off, the latter being caused by Romania's entry into the Soviet sphere of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a unique data set that combines legislative behaviour data and electoral results at two elections in Romania (2008, 2012) and one in Hungary (2014), the study assesses the overall electoral value of parliamentary questions dealing with local issues. Our multivariate regression analyses illustrate that the effect of constituency questions is distinguishable from that of the overall parliamentary effort of the MPs. Constituency questions brought Romanian MPs significantly more votes at each of the last two elections. In Hungary, where the scope for a personal vote was much more limited at the analysed elections, no effect is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic diversity is considered detrimental to national unity, especially if ethnicity is politically mobilized: Ethnic parties in electoral competition in particular are thought to increase the salience of ethnic differences and, with it, ethnic tensions. Yet the individual links of this psychological chain have only been examined cross‐sectionally, and never together. This article employs original longitudinal survey data to simultaneously assess changes in ingroup identification, outgroup aversion, and national identification over the election period within one diverse society: Romania. While ingroup identification does increase, ethnic relations do not worsen. On the contrary, outgroup aversion decreases while national identification increases, for minority and majority Romanian citizens alike. I explain these findings with the common ingroup identity model from social psychology: Elections in ethnically diverse societies may not only increase the salience of ethnic groups but also that of the superordinate, national identity. The findings question the often assumed automaticity of intergroup threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of the Administrative Code responds to a need recognized both by most scholars and by most governments in Romania, the purpose pursued being to systematize and rationalize the legal framework available in the field of public administration. Nevertheless, this normative act which is markedly important for the manner in which the public administration activity in Romania is carried out, must be the fruit of a consensus among all the political forces existing at a certain time in the state, precisely in order to produce the mentioned effects. Otherwise, there is a danger that this act will need to be changed frequently and consistently, which goes against the principles recognized at European level regarding the observance of the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of their extension in time (throughout a whole year), the Romanian protests of 2017 against the government's rules and regulations regarding the judiciary system caught the attention of the international media. Through content analysis of articles and headlines, the present paper tries to identify the representational devices used in portraying the Romanian protests of 2017 in several English and American newspapers. This study tries to suggest a typology of the representational devices to media coverage of the protests that started in Romania in January 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marie, former a Princess living in Edinburgh, became Queen of Romania in 1914. However her most significant role began with the country's entry into the First World War (WWI) in 1916 when, due to the defeats suffered by the Romanian army, the Government and the Royal House had to flee to Jassy, which through necessity, became the wartime capital. Soon, hundreds of thousands of refugees and injured soldiers fled to Jassy. Queen Marie organized the domestic front, showing exemplary dedication through direct and personal involvement. This paper aims to identify Queen Marie's strategy to successfully save the lives of Romanian soldiers and civilians alike and to organize the sanitary system that was at that time in a chronically bad state. Under such circumstances, a person with a profound sense of organization was needed and Queen Marie assumed this role. As patron of the Romanian Red Cross, she organized fundraising and called for volunteers to act as nurses in military hospitals. As a figure of royal authority, she was able to organize the ambulance service and hospitals, as well as the triage of wounded soldiers in the railway station of Jassy. With the help of Doctor Cantacuzino, she established hospitals centered on a single pathology such as infectious diseases, tuberculosis, eye diseases and trauma. She organized recovery centers for wounded soldiers and founded orphanages and canteens for the poor. As a sister of charity, she took care not only of wounded soldiers, but also of civilians. Though British by birth, Queen Marie was loved by her adoptive people for her contribution during the WWI. She was called the "Mother of the Wounded Soldiers", and her image in a Red Cross uniform remained in the heart of Romanians until today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new science of complex networks provides computational tools that are effective at analyzing big data sets from a wide array of scientific fields, ranging from medicine to engineering, technology, and social networks. Here, we explore the party co-affiliation networks of Romanian politicians who were in Parliament after the regime change in 1989, while focusing on individual party switchers. As such, we propose a set of three novel measures to understand the context of party switching, at both micro level (individual MPs' career choices), as well as macro level (the party performance of the receiving political organizations). We thus build a network in which nodes represent individual politicians, while links represent shared membership within the same political party over the same electoral cycle. We combine these insights with a centrality analysis of influential switchers during the period of 1990 to 2018. By applying the PageRank centrality in our network of Romanian politicians, we make explicit the link between heterogeneity of strategic party switching choices at the individual MP level and homogeneity and political fragmentation at the party level, as party switchers fill in structural holes in a multi-party system. Although the act of party switching is controversial at individual MP (micro) level, the dynamic movement of individual MPs across the political spectrum of parties appears to have unexpected consequences at the party system (macro) level. Our analysis has implications for party politics and the study of party systems, as well as for MPs' career development opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coalition governments are a regularly studied feature of parliamentary democracies. Debates still linger in the field as to what extent the outcomes of these studies are also applicable in determining who has the upper hand over coalition formation in semi-presidential regimes. This article explores the dynamics of government formation under semi-presidential regimes using evidence from Romania (1990–2016) and discusses the formal and informal potential of the president to shape coalitions. It covers a lacuna in qualitative studies by using evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with prime ministers, cabinet members, and key party decision makers and shows that under certain circumstances presidents can play an influential role in government formation, but these are rather the exception than the rule. Using a case that presents the incentives for an increase in the presidentialization of politics, I show that the mechanisms of a multiparty regime mostly limit the president’s exclusive bargaining advantage to nominating the prime minister and then, much as in a parliamentary democracy, render him or her dependent on the coalition potential of his or her own party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the economic setbacks inherited from the interwar period, Romania's inclusion into the Soviet Bloc triggered major transformations within its economy, marred by war reparations and forced industrialisation, as it has been investigated through qualitative analyses of literature and primary documents. The economic break-up from the URSS marked the evolutions of Romania in the 1960s and enabled it to seek some degree of closeness to China and, on the other hand, to the West, whilst building a particular model of nationalist communism. The fluctuating relations with Far-East countries failed to prevent the collapse of a regime that became obsolete after the hardships of the 1970s and 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to approach an important subject at global level, but a rather sensitive one for Romania: the rule of law. The paper will identify the rule of law characteristics as outlined by the legal doctrine and then determine their specific particularities in Romania. The political situation in Romania is important not only for its citizens, but also for its international partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to carry out an analytical and critical exploration of the state of some aspects of public administration in Romania, such as corruption and the gender balance in administration decisional levels. The first part of the paper is an overview of the concept of corruption. At the same time, knowing that the literature has debated the controversy linking between gender and corruption, we feel that it is a very sensitive one, requiring many scientifically validated studies. But this was the reason to track the presence of women in positions of public administration in our country. The second part of the paper makes a comparison between the above mentioned aspects from Romania with those of other countries. Our conclusions are that Romanian society has done some progress in fighting corruption but the Corruption Perception Index situates the country on an inferior position among UE countries, so it remains a major challenge. As positive aspects, we underline that Romanian women are well represented in top levels of non-political, administrative positions but this did not generate a significant reduction in corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to determine whether the regionalization presently occurring in Romania could be traced back to certain historical events of the 20th century, events which, summed up, could be seen more or less as a regionalization attempt. Our research looks at the interwar years, the Soviet-influenced postwar years, and the era of national-communism. After identifying facts and actions of economic, political or administrative relevance that illustrate and sometime epitomize the economic dimension of the regional evolution of the country, we conclude with some interrogations concerning the historical endogenous vs. exogenous grounds for establishing the proper coordinates of today's Romanian regionalization policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public procurement market in Romania has become increasingly important in recent years, in the context of the harmonization of the national legislation with the European one. Despite the progress made in recent years, public procurement in Romania continues to be a subject of concerns, due to frequent revisions of procurement regulations (secondary legislation). Absorption of EU funds is often delayed by the numerous complaints lodged by bidders. This paper aims at highlighting the features of the public procurement market in Romania, based on a complex analysis focused on the 2008-2016 period. The data analysis reveals the change in the structure of the public procurement market in Romania in the analysed period. We also notice a fluctuating dynamics of this market, under the impact of the economic factors, both internal and external. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how the right to free movement within the European Union is presented as a matter of obligation, a duty of the other EU member states, in the discourse of Romanian Presidents and Prime Ministers (2005-2015). An examination of speeches and other statements from these politicians illuminates Romanian political reactions during the period when Romania became an EU member state, and reflects perceptions of Europeanness and European agreements. These issues take on an additional contemporary significance in the context of the Brexit negotiations, and they also add to the broader debate on whether EU norms and obligations are seen as being both just and equally applied. By analysing different types of argumentative topoi, I examine the deontological (obligationbased) argumentation employed in the free movement context. Furthermore, I examine to what extent these arguments are invoked in support of the right to free movement and who this right applies to. I argue that for Romanian politicians, deontological free movement arguments are connected to other states' compliance with European treaties and to demands for equal application of European rules without discrimination, or the delegation of responsibility to others. This manifested itself most frequently in the calls for the EU and its member states to do their duty by treating Romanians equally to other EU citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking place in a complex political and diplomatic context, the Peace Conference which took place at the end of the Second World War had a difficult mission, to bring the long-awaited peace. Regarding Romania, the Peace Conference represented a complicated period from a diplomatic point of view, in which the main battle was for the Western borders of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transylvania is an ethnically mixed region. For both the Hungarian and Romanian peoples, Transylvania symbolizes the birthplace of their respective nations. At the end of World War I, Transylvania was highly contested between the Hungarians and Romanians, and this remains a difficult issue in Hungarian-Romanian relations to this day. Great Powers such as Germany under Adolf Hitler and the former USSR under Joseph Stalin used Transylvania as a means of compensation in order to maintain control over both Hungary and Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objectives of this paper are the studies of physic-chemical characteristics of traditional raw-dried salami, produced in the West part of Romania. During three experimental years (2013 - 2015) it have been analyzed several samples of raw-dried salami from the same producer from the West part of Romania, as follow: water content, nitrites, sodium chloride and oxidation stage of fats through Kreiss reaction. Measurements were carried out according to the standards SR ISO 17025/2005, ISO 1442/1997, STAS 9065/5-1973, STAS 9065/9-74, quarterly in the Laboratory of physicalchemical and bacteriological determinations at the same private producer. The results of the physical-chemical analysis of the studied raw-dried salami samples were in accordance with the legal requirements established by Romanian law. All samples of raw-dried salami have excellent nutritional characteristics being proper for consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Romania's adoption in May 2016 of legislation on public sector procurement, utilities procurement, concessions and remedies. Topics covered include targets established via the National Strategy on Public Procurement, the legislation's failure to capitalize on the key reformative implements offered by the European Union's (EU) 2014 package, and participation and performance guarantees required from small and medium enterprises (SME).

The question of why individuals vote, the so-called “paradox of voting”, has been a crucial debate within political science, conceived deductively as an interaction between costs, benefits, and, as some argue, duties. This article situates the question of why individuals vote within the context of extra-territorial elections, focusing on how and why those who acquire citizenship kin-states participate in kin-state elections following citizenship acquisition, while continuing to reside outside of the kin-state. The article uses the case of newly acquired Romanian citizens in Moldova, who have never resided in nor intend to reside in Romania, to unpack whether, how, and why individuals acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova vote in Romanian elections. The article uses an interpretive and inductive approach to explore from the bottom up both the experiences of and motivations for political participation of extra-territorial citizens. The article finds, unexpectedly, how those acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova are motivated by a duty to participate. Overall, the article argues for a relational and reciprocal understanding of citizenship and voting, which focuses on the relationship between the kin-state, facilitating citizenship as a right, and the kin-citizen, performing their duty to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To further advance the literature which contests the shift from national to post-national citizenship, the aim of this paper is to compare the experiences of two groups of migrants to reveal how national immigration policies remain influential and determine the employment and living conditions of migrants. Reporting evidence from Italy on the different experiences of non-European Union (Tunisian) and European Union (Romanian) migrants employed as seasonal workers in the agricultural sector in Sicily, the finding is that the degree of exploitation they witness in their working conditions is shaped by their citizenship entitlements. The outcome is that it is revealed that (European Union) citizenship status, rather than formal employment, provides greater belonging and security to economic migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first decades of the nineteenth century is, for the Romanian Principalities, not only the abandonment of the influence of Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, but above all, the initialisation of a process of political and institutional modernization, process that would culminate, in the second half of the century, with the first constitution debated and adopted by a representative body of the country and the organisation of the first political parties. This is the reason why, after the adoption of the constitution of 1866, Romania had to be called East Belgium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we would ignore the chronological rigors we could say, without fear of being mistaken, that in the Romanian Principalities, the nineteenth century lies between 1821 and 1918. The events in this period have been determined important changes in the political and economic life of romanian society, changes that would culminate with the great achievement of the entire romanian breath, the union from 1918. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the state representatives realise that the fiscal liabilities are too hard to comply with and the taxpayers are very temped to avoid the payments, alternative solutions might be used. In order to move on with their daily activities, the taxpayers need to ease tax burden and a solution to rebalance the general budgetary collect/spend mechanism is to consider an amnesty regulation. Some legally stated fiscal liabilities are to be cancelled, in order to facilitate the continuity of the activity of the taxpayers and to insure further payments to the budget, despite the present diminish of the budgetary incomes. The recent Romanian fiscal amnesty is analyzed, starting with its motivations, the applicable procedures and the possible misinterpretations. The fiscal authority role and actions are presented, in comparison with the action of the beneficiaries of the law. Also, the results amnesty generated and the influence on the taxpayers' activity are analyzed, through the relevant case law already generated on the topic. The negative influence of the tax amnesty is pointed out as a result of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to explore the norms that have regulated, over two and a half decades, the founding of political parties and the mechanisms by which we elect our representatives and militate for the necessity of harmonizing and unifying the procedures after which all the elections are organized into an electoral code. It should corroborate the provisions of electoral laws (for local, parliamentary, MEPs elections, the election of the President of Romania, the law of the referendum, etc.) with other laws that have an impact on elections (the law of political parties, their funding, public administration, etc.), bringing more transparency, professionalism and predictability in the organization of elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questioning on the notion of possible worlds brings forward a number of interpretations announcing the modal realism underlying the plurality of worlds and it often generates contradictions regarding the identity of the present world. By the nature of its construction, the political domain is located on the border of possible worlds, realizing the juxtaposition of the current dimensions with the potential ones. The political discourse is hidden in the model of an ideal world, which seems impossible to be assessed under these circumstances. This paper aims to analyse how the third age relates to the current political issues, recalling the past that becomes the reference for today's world. In this respect, reconstructing the past turns into a substitute for the present, which is full of memories and fantasies, regrets and projects, hopes and disappointments. The elderly use the past to build the future, to recreate the possible worlds, and these versions replace the world itself. The interest of the third age segment has its foundation in the accumulated values and experience, which enable them to assess the performances of the political actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Israel's turbulent relations with the Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War has one exception, Romania. Unlike other Warsaw Pact members, Romania did not sever relations with Israel following the 1967 war. Central to these relations was Romanian Communist leader Nicolai Ceausescu, who managed to establish himself as an important figure among both Arabs and Israelis. This article will examine Romanian–Israeli relations during the 1970s and especially Ceausescu's role in the Egyptian–Israeli peace negotiations. Recent Israeli and some Romanian documents released from the Israeli State Archive and the Begin Centre reveal much about Israel's attitude towards Romania and Ceausescu's involvement in the Middle East, and serve to shed light on a heretofore neglected aspect of Israeli foreign policy. Some of the main issues to be addressed are Ceausescu's influence on Egyptian and Israeli decision makers, Israel's prime motives in maintaining a close relationship with Romania, the importance of Romanian Jewry's position to Israel's policy vis-à-vis Romania and the extent to which these relations represented a back channel that facilitated some contact with the Kremlin. All these will be examined against the larger backdrop of the Cold War and the Arab–Israeli conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the literary scene in Romania focusing on the history of life writing works such as biographies, journals, and memoirs. topics include history of Romanian confessional literature, aftermath of communism, and history of Romanian politics. The article talks about Gabriel Liiceanu's "Scrisori către fiul meu", Mircea Cărtărescu's "Zen: Jurnal 2004–2010", and Gheorghe Florescu's "Confesiunile unui cafegiu". ,

The fundamental law represents, in an organization based on democracy and respect for principles, a normative act enjoying a higher degree of stability under a temporal aspect. A constitution produces legal effects and remains in force for a period of many years, and the revisions made through specific procedures are also rarely registered. The Romanian supreme law as well, although adopted a quarter of a century ago, has been subject only just one time to the revision procedure. However, through its initial provisions, the Constitution of Romania cannot be subject to legislative revisions if these aim any of the regulations that cannot be subject to revision. Consequently, four of the characteristics of the Romanian state, added certain other fundamental values: republican form of government, independence of justice, integrity of the territory, official Romanian language and political pluralism, as well as some conditionings connected with the contexts, according to which any alterations of the fundamental law concerning individual freedoms cannot be operated, all these cannot form the object of a constitutional law, altering or revising the present fundamental law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to clarify the notions regarding the Presidential Administration in Romania. We shall try to emphasize the difference between the political communication and the public communication of the Presidential Administration. Along with the two objectives that have already been mentioned, we shall also attempt to make a presentation of the Communication Department of the Presidential Administration, as well as of the means through which the President expresses his/her ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than ever, interconnections and interactions between people have increased; phenomena of acculturation have intensified, as have the exchange of values and cultural models, the dialog between cultures. Under these circumstances, we need intercultural education to create a favorable environment for peacefully living together, mutual respect, daily communication free of discriminatory prejudices. The study aims to reveal the vision of students preparing to become teachers in pre-primary and primary education, currently at the start of their initial training in intercultural education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teacher is one of the main influencing factors regarding the values of students, who are in a period of adjustments and axiologic configurations relating to themselves, to others, to their present and future, to life and their pursuits. He sets out his value system in front of the class, every day, more or less consciously. This axiologic universe cannot be overlooked when we consider building the personality of new generations. The study aims to reveal the main values of a sample of teachers in secondary education in Prahova County (teachers trained before and after 1990). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European states are of various ages. The formation of the statehood of some of them took place in the Middle-Ages, and they have existed in dynastic relations, though in different ways, ever since. Others are young states which have become independent statehoods in the 19th and 20th centuries, either by breaking away from earlier states or by transforming their dependent and partial statehood in opposition to power politics. Such areas in Europe are the Balkan and Eastern-Europe, among whose young states Romania stands out because of the special historical development of its statehood and its territorial changes. The Romanian state became an independent European state over several historical periods, by building from several territorial bases, and through various kinds of political dependence, at the end of the 19th century. Later on, it grew its territory several times as a result of its peculiar 20th century politics. Until the end of the 19th century, it had consisted of two similarly structured but separate principalities: Wallachia and Moldova. The historical periods of the Romanian statehood basically correspond to the political processes dictated by the power states of the Balkan, Eastern- and Central-Europe, as its territory had shaped in their buffer zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social systems undergo inevitable turning points in their evolution. These changes may be caused by either progressive accumulation or a major crisis. The latter applies to Romania, who - after being a communist country - grew into a democracy as a result of a popular uprising. The dictatorship and its effects became the favourite topic of discussion in many debates - political, economic, social, or cultural - whose protagonists asserted their various opinions in the name of democracy or general usefulness. The participation in these debates was also exceptional - from well-meaning but resentful people, lucid and/or visionaries, to crypto-communists, apocalyptic and even alienated people. That explains the absence of consensus. The respective period of time was coined as "an endless transition", a term which covered all the masked avatars of Romanian society (and of the literary phenomenon, too). Confrontations were particularly illustrative within the printed media in the field of culture, which beside tackling the general problems also focused on specific guild issues: the repercussions of the dictatorship on literary life, the writer's status, the effects of censorship and the freedom of expression, the ethical and moral criteria, the literary canon, the future of publishing houses and literary publications, the very existence of the Writers' Union of Romania, the literary exile and the 'inner exile' (of writers from the Republic of Moldova). The topics above polarized differently, in opposite directions, which could be summarized as follows: in our country, culture was as a form of resistance during communism when Romania was 'a Siberia of the spirit'. The passing of a quarter of a century from the 1989 popular uprising now facilitates a retrospective overview of those particular times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, pension funds face a series of difficulties due to the decrease of the dependence rate, as a result of the ageing phenomenon of the population, correlated with a decreasing birth rate. The present study aims at analysing to what extent the economic and social policies in Romania are able to counteract the difficulties of public pensions. Hence, we shall focus on the alternative of private pension funds, pillar II, as the main complement of public pensions in Romania, in order to ascertain whether a causality relation tends to occur on short-and-long term between one time series to another. The series of data consist of the total net assets and the weighted average rate of return for privately managed pension funds, for the period June 2010 - May 2015. Thus, we have applied the VAR/VEC estimation method, processed in the EViews program. Following our empirical research, the results obtained indicate that, at this moment, there is a causal relationship between net assets value and the weighted average rate of return in only one way: the return variable has a long causality on net assets. For a short horizon of time, if all circumstances are maintained, the forecast of the variables indicates that, whenever assets register a decreasing trend (due to government intervention), the weighted average rate of return follows an increasing trend (in relative terms). Long-term social policies are required to be applied in Romania, in order to mitigate the difficulties of the pension system and, furthermore to avoid the nationalization or the reduction of the second component of private pension funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory research is focused on two gender phenomena which can manifest in the public sphere (the glass ceiling and horizontal segregation), trying to connect these phenomena with the concept of representative bureaucracy in Romanian central public administration institutions. Using 2003-2015 data covering central public administration institutions (ministries and other government offices/departments) the analysis shows that the overall situation of women in these decision-making positions has improved considerably in 2011, ensuring the desideratum of gender equity (and possible fertile ground for a representative bureaucracy). However, the sudden shift observed in the data between 2010 and 2011 might be an unintended result of austerity pay cuts as men in decision-making positions migrated to the private sector due to financial reasons. Breaking down the data (according to the BEIS typology) provides (partial) evidence for the existence of sectorial segregation, as at the higher administrative ranks (level 1) there are more men than women in institutions with Basic functions (Government's Office, European Funds, Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Justice, National Defense), while the reverse is true for Socio-cultural institutions (Culture, Education and Scientific Research, Employment, Family, Social Protection and Elderly, Health, Youth and Sport). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]