Search

This article discusses Romania's burgeoning development aid policy to the post-colonial space. By leveraging its expertise in petroleum extraction to forge a strategic relationship with India in the 1950s, Bucharest was able to gain a strategic foothold as oil assistance provider to the non-aligned countries. This text details Romania's efforts to help build India's national oil industry by bringing into focus the broad nexus of forces at play in such process. It therefore aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of 'the Second World's Third World' by discussing the ideological and geopolitical considerations of both East-East and East-South relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter explores the processes of privatisation of higher education in Chile (after 1981) and Romania (after 1989), focusing on the emergence of private institutions, the expansion in enrolments in these institutions, and the relative increase in private sources of funding for the post-secondary sub-sector. Attention is also given to related trends in higher education in these two countries: domestic marketisation (a strengthening of an orientation toward selling programmes/commodities to students/consumers within the country) and international commercialisation (an expansion of initiatives by domestic and foreign institutions to provide distance education, study abroad/exchange, and foreign site-based degree programmes). Of importance to an understanding of globalisation, these two societies, which at the time exhibited similar economic systems but had different political systems and were situated in different regional contexts, experienced remarkably similar processes of and outcomes from privatisation, marketisation, and commercialisation. In both cases these processes were promoted by 'internal' political actors but also shaped by 'external' forces, notably the World Bank's higher education policy recommendations and the conditionalities included in the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes 'negotiated', respectively, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in order to obtain loans. As a result of these processes--occurring prior to and during the emergence of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a component of the World Trade Organization (WTO)--higher education institutions in both Chile and Romania are much more vulnerable to foreign influence/domination, although they also have somewhat greater opportunities to broaden their role in the global 'business' of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elements of mission command can be found in successful styles of leadership both in military and in business environments, as it is based on empowering subordinates or employees to make decisions, encouraging their confidence and creativity to solve problems/achieve objectives. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential advantages and drawbacks of applying this concept to the field of defence resources management, by analysing the common areas between these approaches. The research hypothesis is that the concept of mission command can be approached as a management process aimed at achieving clearly identified objectives, similar to the processes of project management, programme management, or defence resource management in general. The paper uses qualitative research methods, based on the analysis of existing specialised literature regarding the concept of mission-based command, the concept of defence resource management, and on an exploratory research, based on unstructured interviews with specialists in the two fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of labour arbitrage, Romania became home to an expanding nearshoring business service sector. Many graduates work in 'call centres': a generic term for various types of customer-oriented services associated with different employment regimes and company structures. This research examines the discursive construction of compliance to precarious work, largely centred on managerial perspectives. Based on in-depth interviews with managers, HR staff, call-centre operators and through the thematic analysis of managerial outlets and career events, the paper unpacks several mechanisms, metaphors, and symbols that maintain young people's adherence to the demands of work. It is argued that the repertoire of neo-liberal tropes (authenticity, personal development, growth) creates legitimacy for an (arguably) precarious sector in an emerging economy, and ultimately crafts individual-ized working narratives. The paper suggests that young employees appropriate the related structures and the master narratives, whilst lacking a solid repertoire to critically engage with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'sea of plastic' in Almería, Spain, is a 450km2 area devoted to intensive greenhouse farming managed by 10,000 small farmers who employ a labour force of 50,000 workers, mostly immigrants from Africa and eastern Europe. Romanian immigrants arrived at the beginning of 2000s and have occupied various positions within this agro-industrial district. Some started their own businesses in greenhouse reparation and construction employing fellow Romanians. They seized the market, providing more stable jobs through their transnational networks, and extending their businesses nationally and internationally. This paper analyses the global processes 'from below' that explain the occupation of specific economic spaces by transnational migrant entrepreneurs. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and social network analysis, the paper shows how the seasonal mobilization of a workforce through a transnational social field connecting Romania and Spain provided a competitive advantage to these entrepreneurs to start investing in their ventures and acquiring new markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As music remains one of the most popular activities of everyday life, this paper builds on critical and popular geopolitics to introduce music as a key endeavour in teaching such topics. The paper attempts to go beyond scrutiny of the popular music by connecting it with the historical strings of geopolitical evolution and their current re-representation. It communicates how music may assist students in understanding geopolitics. Surprised at first by music's relation with geopolitics, students can delve into more complex questions that allow them to scrutinize the forces, institutions and theoretical frameworks that shape geopolitics. Mediated by music, teaching may provide a way to deconstruct geopolitical imaginations and empower students to reflect beyond the texts, and popular contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global sex industry has undergone a tremendous transformation, and many different forms of commercial sex have emerged with the growth of digital media. The advent of 'platform work' in diverse fields, including sex work, has affected digital workers' experiences dramatically. Combining insights from literature on labour platforms' proliferation with online sex work that entails new forms of exploitation, this paper introduces the concept of flexi(nse)curity to describe the tension between work arrangements and insecurity narrated by Romanian women working as webcam models. In doing so, the article places webcammers' narratives in the structural and cultural context dominated by neoliberal post-socialist reforms and strong religious interference in both State affairs and people's private lives. Alongside the relevance of country scale, in which cultural and structural features shape the size and challenges of adult webcamming, our article examines how place-bound insecurity is narrated in online discussions as a multi-faceted and multi-layered experience co-produced through the intersection of online platforms and material spaces where webcammers perform (i.e., models' home bedrooms and webcam studios). Challenging the popular view of webcamming as autonomous and flexible work, this paper reveals sex workers' vulnerabilities by applying a feminist geographical lens to webcammers' narratives from an online discussion forum. The findings suggest that there are diverse flexi(nse)curity patterns that are contingent on the intricacies of platform capitalism and emerging work arrangements in online sex work marked by an upsurge in webcam studios in which webcam models occupy a vulnerable position in asymmetric staff power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of otherness in the social construction of ethnicities and rural multiculturalism has long attracted the attention of scholars. By following a postcolonial background, this paper investigates the social construction of Roma as 'other' in a multicultural landscape (the Romania-Serbia border) using interviews with participants of different ethnic groups. This paper addresses the following questions: (i) Is the Roma population in this area completely spatially segregated? (ii) How do different kinds of prejudice against Roma operate within this multicultural context? (iii) How does discrimination against the Roma interface with power relations, in particular political power in the area? The findings indicate that, alongside ethno-nationalist racism, Roma face prejudice from apparently more 'progressive' groups, who accept multiculturalism, yet blame the Roma for their own disadvantaged social and economic position on the grounds of a failure to integrate that is pictured as 'backward'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the two case studies of Greece and Romania where national policies and strategies for Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism (P/CVE) are non-existent or suffer from a deficiency in implementation. The analysis begins with a diagnosis of each country's history and reaction to different types of violent extremism and attempts to highlight the ways in which each of them has dealt with this phenomenon. Both in Greece and Romania, the task has fallen into the hands of civil society to lead and develop local, regional, and national P/CVE programs. This is examined in this article, followed by an in-depth analysis of local action against radicalisation and VE in two cities in Greece and Romania. The paper also takes the perspective of education and social cohesion in analysing the issues at hand. The results of the analysis showcase that both countries lag in realising effective P/CVE strategies, with Greece having the institutional infrastructure – relevant agencies and local actors – albeit remaining inactive, and Romania still struggling to recognise the potential threat of radicalisation and violent extremism in the country – exemplified by the lack of open conversation at the level of government and public information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores and documents the Eocene limestones from the Albeşti village (Argeş County, Romania) in terms of the relationship between geology, geoheritage and cultural heritage. Known as the Albeşti Limestone/Stone, this rock, extracted from small quarries, has been used for centuries in the construction of an impressive number of public buildings, monuments, houses, etc. Nowadays, many of them are on the List of the Historical Monuments of Romania; one is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site (Horezu Monastery, Vâlcea County). The findings of this research are synthesized and presented in several maps resulted from integration of published and unpublished data with our field survey. The study emphasis the Albeşti Limestone both as an important geoheritage (the Albeşti Nummulitic Limestone Nature Reserve, established in 1954) and a significant heritage stone of national interest that could have a substantial role in heritage preservation, geoeducation, and geotourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A leverage points perspective recognises different levels of systemic depth, ranging from the relatively shallow levels of parameters and feedbacks to the deeper levels of system design and intent. Analysing a given social-ecological system for its characteristics across these four levels of systemic depth provides a useful diagnostic to better understand sustainability problems, and can complement other types of cause-and-effect systems modelling. Moreover, the structured comparison of multiple systems can highlight whether sustainability challenges in different systems have a similar origin (e.g. similar feedbacks or similar design). We used a leverage points perspective to systematically compare findings from three in-depth social-ecological case studies, which investigated rural landscapes in southeastern Australia, central Romania, and southwestern Ethiopia. Inductive coding of key findings documented in over 60 empirical publications was used to generate synthesis statements of key findings in the three case studies. Despite major socioeconomic and ecological differences, many synthesis statements applied to all three case studies. Major sustainability problems occurred at the design and intent levels. For example, at the intent level, all three rural landscapes were driven by goals and paradigms that mirrored a productivist green revolution discourse. Our paper thus highlights that there are underlying challenges for rural sustainability across the world, which appear to apply similarly across strongly contrasting socioeconomic contexts. Sustainability interventions should be mindful of such deep similarities in system characteristics. We conclude that a leverage points perspective could be used to compare many other types of social-ecological systems around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, researchers working on the nexus between migration and politics in countries of origin have started to pay more attention to the local level, but important empirical and theoretical gaps remain. By drawing upon semi-structured interviews, field observation and documentary research, this paper presents the exploratory case study of the 2012 local elections in Borșa, Romania, when an emigrant became mayor due to the mass mobilisation of the diaspora. Our analysis makes a three-fold contribution to the emerging literature on the impact of migration on local politics. First, it provides fresh empirical evidence from the largely underexplored context of intra-EU mobility. Second, it proposes an inductive classification of the factors and mechanisms at micro-, meso- and macro-level that allowed for the political change in Borșa in 2012, thus providing the basis for a framework of the prerequisites for migrant-led political change at the local level. This includes recognising ad hoc transnational mobility as a distinct mechanism of migrant political mobilisation. Third, by identifying also some of the post-election challenges faced by the migrant political actors, we extend Danielson’s (2017) framework of ‘acceptance’, ‘rejection’ and ‘integration' by proposing the category of ‘negotiated political integration’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the stories of women migrants from Latin America who found themselves living precarious lives and struggling to sustain former idealised notions of their racial and class identities in London. Dispossessed of previous class membership due to an onward feminised precarity, a diminished social capital, undocumented legal statuses, and menial stigmatised jobs, women clung to an idealised perception of social status (shaped by white Eurocentric aspirations) to negotiate and reconfigure class and racial anxieties in London. They engage in various strategies that include processes of whitening through marriage and children, performances of taste and beauty, and negotiating their racialisation at work. These cases reflect the relevance of the coloniality of power, its influence in the subsistence of racial and class ideologies in Latin America, and in a global economy of care that produces and reproduces postcolonial forms of intersectional racialised and gendered exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plans to open a globally significant gold mine at Roşia Montană, in the Transylvanian region of Romania, have led to decades of controversy and struggle. This paper explores different understandings of extraction amongst advocates for and opponents of the mine over the last two decades. We discuss the shifting roles of capital, the state, civil society organizations, and the local community over time, arguing for the need to distinguish between their different positions on mining. In particular, we contend that the understanding of extraction promoted by the owners of the mine, and by the local community, is fundamentally different in terms of cultural, social, and economic priorities. The local community argue for a traditional type of mining, embedded in local ownership and established labor identities, whereas the neoliberal vision of capital for the Roşia Montană site is that of a globally competitive, technologically advanced form of extraction. In uncovering and developing these hermeneutic differences, the paper reveals that pro-traditional development attitudes among economically marginalized groups are not necessarily attuned to the material global interconnections shaping neoliberal capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Eastern European Economics consists of articles by economics and business researchers at Babes-Bolyai University and their collaborators from other universities. Using moderation analysis, they find that tax literacy is one of the key elements shaping tax compliance. The level of tax literacy was estimated using a tax literacy index created for this purpose. [Extracted from the article]

Geographers have studied memory for decades, but there is currently a renewed interest in places of postmemory: sites to which memories of a past are connected, that engage those who have no living memory of the past in question. By combining a process-tracing approach to several post-communist surveys with in-depth interviews with members of the younger generation about their postmemories of the communist past, this paper explores places associated with postmemories of communism amongst young people in contemporary Romania, focusing on two types of place: (1) mega-constructions, prisons and deportation sites; and (2) sites connected to everyday life (home, shops, hospitals). The findings suggest that "postmemories in places" are reproduced and co-produced by younger people in a nuanced and complex way. Spatial postmemories of communism are not simply formed by parental or grandparental experiences of communism itself, but are also shaped by experiences of the initial post-communist period. Younger people's complex range of "postmemories in places" toward the communist past are politically multivalent: postmemory of specific sites related to the cultural welfare of the communist past did not necessarily indicate a political commitment to its restoration amongst interviewees; and postmemories of political violence associated with particular sites did not preclude unilateral pride in national achievements prior to 1989. Furthermore, "postmemory in place" is not a passive process, but one that is shaped by both a critical attitude to the responses of older generations toward particular places, and the challenges of the capitalist present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Service Industries Journal is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the two most relevant minority groups living on the two sides of the Ukrainian--Romanian borderland of Bukovina. This research inquires from a comparative perspective how Romanians in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Romania (confined to the region of Bukovina) position themselves in relation to the state of their ethnic origin and to the current state of their residency. The paper argues that the self-identification of each ethnic minority with the present home state hinges more on the economic and political conditions existing in the respective state rather than on cultural bonding or loyalties to their kin-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the interplay between economics and the politics of state-owned enterprises confronted with changes concerning the value of environment under post-1990 transformations. It examines the value of the environment as a result of state-public firm relations grounded on the multiple and often conflicting demands within the changing context and requirements of the EU environmental policy. By process-tracing two Romanian SOEs in the coal energy industry, the paper looks into: i) the hierarchical coordination and negotiation systems of state and SOEs in relation to the environment; ii) how the economic and political elites deal with the competition on free markets and use various mechanisms to empower the survival of SOEs that eventually translate into economic performance and environmental behavior. The findings suggest the salient decapitalization of SOEs due to the state behavior embedded in confusing procedures and actions that made room for political maneuvering. Also, the organizational culture of working in a "closed circle" may have strengthened the liabilities accrued to SOEs and undermined their capacity to deal with environmental requirements. Hence, a double-layered "dissonant" environment stems from the opposition between the requirements of the EU environmental policy and the commitment of domestic economic and political elites to support the survival of energy SOEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potentials and limits of using European structural and investment (ESI) funds for rural development in one of the least developed areas of Central and Eastern Europe: Romania's Sălaj county. The research draws on peripheralization as a key theoretical concept and on frame analysis as a heuristic framework for understanding the effects of policy instruments on development capacities in peripheral places. Desk research and semi-structured interviews reveal how local leaders identify the challenges they face and how they articulate development perspectives in relation to available policies. The key findings are twofold. First, that ESI-funded rural development instruments tend to favour place-blind interventions that do little to address peripheries' economic weakness and lack of institutional capacity. Second, it can be observed that the implementation of ESI funds has so far only marginally stimulated new styles of policy action that shift local actors' behaviour and expectations of the development policy system. To address growing intra-regional disparities, the case is made for more reflective policy design for strengthening institutional capacities and better integrating peripheries within their regional economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the analytical data collected from the analyses of several cauldrons with cross-attachments, perhaps better known under the German name Kreuzattaschenkessel. The analyses seem to confirm the hypothesis that these distinctive artifacts had been produced in two different periods and areas and show different characteristics. The chronology of the vessels is still not defined with certainty, but different shapes, different details, and different compositions seem to suggest that also in the later period there were two or more production sites. The implications of this fact and the related problems are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training (VET) is linked to many social and economic goals. Yet despite the high policy ambitions, it often remains a sector with a low(er) social standing. This paper is based on empirical data collected through interviews and focus groups with over 250 young women and men aged 16–18 in 34 VET schools in Romania. It aims to gain a better understanding of their perceived reasons for being in VET and seeks to find out the extent to which VET involved an element of choice. The paper explores a large array of circumstances that bring young people into VET, which are not limited to the need to acquire skills. These issues include localism, family obligations and the priorities of powerful 'others': schools, employers, etc. It argues that, despite young people actively searching for elements of choice, VET in Romania is more a story of capability deprivation. This paper questions a policy discourse that prioritises the need for skills at the expense of engaging meaningfully with young people's social worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tax administration reform is a top priority to address large tax compliance gaps in emerging Europe. This paper uses an indicator based on objective criteria to assess the strength of Romania's tax administration relative to peer countries. In doing so, it illustrates various ways in which Romania could boost tax efficiency and thereby tax collection by improving key organizational and operational aspects of its tax administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the recent debates on the benefits of European economic integration, the purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of EU membership on the migration process in the case of Romania. The paper focussed on two directions of research: comparisons with neighbouring countries that are not member or candidates for EU and the explanation of the remittances based on the economic situation in the destination countries. The approach based on comparisons used difference-in-difference estimator as quantitative method, while the approach based on economic factors in destination countries employed mixed-effects models. The results based on these two approaches indicated that Romania did not send more migrants abroad in the period 2002–2017 compared to Ukraine and Republic of Moldova due its EU membership. On the other hand, Romania gained around 2.5 percentage points more remittances due its EU membership compared to Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. However, the unemployment and the GDP per capita in the destination countries are more important determinants of remittances rather than EU membership in the period 2010–2017. The results reveal that the remittances of Romanian migrants are conditioned by labour market issues in the destination countries, the unemployment in host country having a greater impact on remittances compared to GDP per capita and EU membership. It is expected that a future economic crisis will reduce remittances gained by Romania from other EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has highlighted agriculture's contribution to the Romanian bioeconomy growth at the level of each territorial administrative region (NUTS 2). This paper analyzes the relevant socio-economic indicators of the bioeconomy in Romania's regions. We use Eurostat and the National Institute of Statistics from Romania (NIS) database for selected indicators. Cluster analysis using the SPSS software was chosen as a research method. Results revealed disparities between development regions. The article concludes that regional policies and investments from government and private firms have an essential role in developing agriculture and the bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-socialist countries, suburbanisation of metropolitan areas has been the main pattern of urbanisation since 1990, especially under the form of urban sprawl by residential development. Privatisation processes, deregulation of the real estate market and greater sovereignty of local administrative units have led to specific challenges for post-socialist countries when managing suburbanisation. While specific case studies have been used to highlight the dynamics of urban areas in these countries after 1990, there has been little research done at a national level focusing on urbanisation patterns in post-socialist metropolitan areas. Using Romanian metropolitan areas as a case study, this paper proposes a ranking of metropolitan areas based on the dynamics of artificial surfaces and housing units. An analysis of 1990– 2018 CORINE Land Cover and Use Change data was carried out nationwide using ArcGIS Spatial Analyst tools, along with an analysis of ancillary data from the National Institute of Statistics regarding housing. The results illustrated that suburban development is concentrated around the largest Romanian cities, declared National Growth Poles during the programming period 2007–2013, also highlighting some limits in using CORINE data for 1990 and 2000. The proposed ranking of metropolitan areas could aid the design of tailored development policies and planning instruments for the most dynamic urban areas. Such analyses have the potential to be replicated in other post-socialist countries, as well as in countries experiencing metropolitan suburbanisation irrespective of their recent political history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic context of Romanian higher education music lecturers has not yet completely overcome the influence of the socio-political scenario from before the fall of the communist system. This contributes to the international isolation of Rumaniańs higher music education, marginalising its institutions from the European Higher Education Area. This paper presents a study featuring the opinions of 470 Romanian university lecturers at eight higher institutions regarding the overall situation of higher music education. About seventy percent of participants stated that the current higher education system is worse than 30 years ago. A cluster analysis showed that the most important challenges facing the Romanian education system are insufficient funding and the need to promote more postgraduate studies. The situation described could be useful to revise the curriculum in order to align Romanian higher music education with the standards of the European Higher Education Area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, the tourism market saw the growth of national and regional brands based on characters and places promoted through movies and TV series. One of the most notorious tourism brands based on fictional works is represented by Dracula. With a constantly expanding coverage on entertainment channels, Dracula became widely popular and strongly associated with Romania. However, its capitalization by national tourism actors lacks synergy and integration of spatial features. In this paper, we use an original cartographic approach combining the spatial distribution of Dracula attractions and online data regarding tourist behavior aimed to set up a decision-making toolkit for the enhancement of brand management. The results confirm the existence of a spatial pattern in the distribution and differentiation of Dracula attractions, which affects the overall tourist behavior and satisfaction. The paper provides several recommendations for national actors in order to upgrade the tourism management of Dracula's image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry is responsible for 36% of the European Union's greenhouse gas emissions. The main goal of the EU in the last decade has been to boost energy efficiency and expand the use of renewable energy in buildings. Ground-to-air heat exchangers may be a solution to reduce the use of primary energy in buildings from nonrenewable sources. The study in this paper deals with an evaluation of the heating and cooling energy potential of a ground-to-air heat exchanger (GAHE), serving a pilot energy-efficient building in Romania. The research follows a comparison between the experimental behavior of GAHE, evaluated based on measured outlet temperatures for two full years, and theoretical behavior, assessed using two computational models following EN 15241:2007 (Model 1) and EN 16798-5-1:2016 (Model 2). A comparison is made between the energy potential calculated using temperature measurements and the energy potential determined based on calculated outlet temperatures using the two models. The assessment is performed as well for conventional climate corresponding to the building location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The newly arrived Roma Slovak community in a large urban city in the north of England has been widely perceived as having a myriad of social problems and there is a conflict with the wider community. This paper presents the results of a project to explore barriers and possibilities for the social and educational integration of newly arrived Roma Slovak migrants in the UK. The research carried out ethnographic fieldwork in a post-16 service for young people, using a CRT approach based on Yosso's community cultural wealth model. The paper also applies an intersectional analysis and problematises assumptions that portray Roma communities as homogeneous, marginalised, and uncritically family oriented. The findings recover the voices and perspectives of the Roma Slovak community from a critical, though positive, perspective. The Roma Slovak students' stories that emerged from this research are in stark contrast to the negative stereotypes commonly shared about the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging the changes that have occurred over the past years in the geopolitical milieu of Eastern Europe, this paper looks at how Romania frames its foreign policy and security role towards its eastern neighbours, as reflected in the country's official discourse. This study shows how Romania's external behaviour has been impacted at the discursive level by membership in NATO and the EU. While it finds that a congruence between public discourse and external actions generally exits in the case of Moldova, this is only partial in relation to Ukraine. The paper employs discourse and content analyses to identify the main narratives employed by Romania vis-à-vis the two eastern neighbours over a ten-year timeframe, 2009–2019, and examines whether the country's official discourse has been followed by concrete foreign policy actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the significance of higher education among 53 young people from Romania who received prizes in technical competitions, mainly for innovations in robotics and IT. Findings suggest they held strong views on higher education. For some, the conventional roles of university were still, pertinent. However, opting out university or dropping out as a choice were unanticipated findings. This research tentatively suggests that – at least in Romania – higher education in general and technical universities in particular, may fail some young people who are innovative and highly able. The paper communicates to the international literature on university dropout by signaling that the conventional view framed by a sense of failure or social disadvantage, may not always hold. It argues that the social inclusion focus of the 'widening agenda' cannot entirely account for some recent transformations in young people's sense of self and their personal notions of achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Financial Crisis ushered unorthodox financial policies that would have been unfathomable before 2008. Perhaps unexpectedly, some of the boldest measures on this unorthodox spectrum were adopted in semi-peripheral and therefore theoretically vulnerable countries such as some of the European Union's new member states from East-Central Europe. Why did policy makers in some of these countries (Hungary, Romania) embark on rolling back financialization and resort to financial repression in ways that targeted foreign banks in contexts in which this seemed a very risky strategy? Why did such bold moves generally re-established state-finance relations in some countries (Hungary) while comparably milder ones left them generally unaltered in others (Romania)? Finally, why have some countries refrained altogether from such forms of financial unorthodoxy (Latvia)? The paper explains the varieties of policy responses in these countries, with three factors: the role of finance in the national growth model, the capacity of the state to protect itself against adverse bond market reactions and international constraints and opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While populism is one of the most analysed aspects of contemporary politics, we know little about its interaction with religion and about motivations leading political parties to oppose or support a secular appropriation of religious themes and symbols beyond any spiritual or doctrinal dimension. This paper aims to disentangle the intersection of religion and populism in Romania with regard to the concept of family, by exploring how parliamentarians use religious symbols and contents within their speeches during the debates preparing the 2018 referendum on family in Romania. The analysis is based on a dataset of parliamentary debates covering the adoption of the referendum in the Parliament (2012–2018) and the follow-up period (2018–2020). We aim to provide a nuanced understanding of how political actors conceive and represent religion and gender in contemporary politics based on a case-study in which overtly populist parties remain isolated in the extra-parliamentary arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comăneşti, a small town in Romania's Moldova region, has been significantly affected by migration to Western Europe over the last decades. Yet, the development of the city cannot fully be grasped with the notion of 'shrinking'. As migration is often temporary and as migrants maintain multiple ties with their place of origin, they rather forge a specific temporality of urban development that is shaped by rhythms of absence and presence; that is oriented towards future returns; and that echoes the cycles of transnational labour markets as well as immigration policies of destination countries. This paper, on the one hand, shows how the temporality of Comăneşti is constituted and stabilised by temporal facets of labour migration practices. On the other hand, the paper illustrates how Comăneşti's temporality infra-structures the economic and social life of the city and materialises in its urban space. In so doing, the paper does not only seek to contribute to the debate on time, urban development, migration and peripherality by turning to the 'departure cities' of transnational migration, but also seeks to advance the idea of 'time as infrastructure' by illustrating how it is maintained and reproduced in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, heating and ventilation air conditioning system (HVAC) dataset for a medium-large size building in Romania has been used. It has been collected in one year. Linear state-space model of each air handling unit (AHU) has been estimated using two methods. Recursive extended least squares (RELS) algorithm has been used to estimate the state-space model in one year and seasonal form in the first method. In the second method, a linear time-series neural network has been used for estimating the state-space model in one year form. The constrained distributed model predictive controller has been applied to each AHU state-space model that was estimated before. Every AHU unit energy consumption has been calculated after applying DMPC controller and PI controller on estimated models using simulation results. Results have been compared with energy consumption calculated using the dataset. The mean of energy consumption reduction with 2 approaches is about 36.94%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant popular perception in contemporary Romania is that its people have strong, persistent and genuine Christian beliefs that are the main source of their attitudes towards death and of their representations of the afterlife. Questioning this assumption, this paper is based on two exploratory studies consisting of 80 semi-structured interviews and aims at investigating the features of personal representations related to death in contemporary Romania. It highlights the emergence of new patterns of representation and new and unexplored attitudes towards death, dying and the afterlife, identifying three categories of interviewees: the believers, the personalists, the atheists. The paper pleads for further study of Romanian beliefs and representations related to the topic of death from a sociological perspective. As it is the case with the majority of Romanian post–communist studies on death and dying, elements related to religion and folklore should not be considered the only ones that matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction provides some insights on this special issue of Mortality, entitled Dying and Death in Former Communist European Countries, setting the issue against the general background of death studies and, more specifically, of death studies in eastern European countries. Some relevant references to the Dying and Death in 18th-21st Century Europe International Conference, organised in Romania, at the '1 Decembrie 1918ʹ University of Alba Iulia, Romania, between 2007 and 2019, are also made. The rationale and also the limitations of this special issue are brought into attention. The papers that form this issue are briefly presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metropolitan planning has been a dominant trend in spatial development for decades. In this context, Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) have emerged as a concept to illustrate the economic interdependencies between an urban core and its hinterland, being typically determined by commuting patterns or accessibility criteria. In Romania, FUAs were defined for the county capitals (40 cities) as areas where urban development projects could be financed from regional development funds. This paper analyzes the territorial dynamics in one of Romania's fastest-growing functional urban areas, Cluj-Napoca, using a comparative analysis of satellite images and selected indicators. The results demonstrate the spatial impact of economic development in the past 20 years, revealing expanding boundaries of artificial surface and housing units in FUAs. Unfortunately, the current fragmented territorial configuration is unable to manage the new functional relationships generated by real estate dynamics. Therefore, we support the need to introduce a normative territorial plan at the intercommunity level to correlate the spatial development vision between the main city and its fast-growing suburban areas. Such an instrument will not only support an efficient land-use management and enhanced living conditions, but it will also provide a framework to systematically integrate territorial investments around major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crucial in any military conflict, information warfare has proved to be a distinguishing characteristic and an essential strategic means in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Both sides have invested in advancing narratives that can facilitate and support their version of truth and that can make a difference in winning the war. Publishing open source and declassified intelligence has been employed as a tactic in an unprecedented way, one that has stimulated an intense debate over the reconceptualisation of intelligence and the new role intelligence needs to play in a larger social context. Due to its novelty and potential, this major shift requires further attention. Additionally, its meanings and reflections deserve deciphering in other national contexts that are relevant for understanding the role of intelligence in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The paper looks at the particular case of Romania, whose relevance is determined mostly by its geographical proximity to the conflict area. By using qualitative research, it aims to investigate the perceptions of two types of respondents: Romanian experts in intelligence, security and strategic communication, and students taking intelligence and security-related study programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the creation of a historical reference map of the mid-southern region of Transylvania (nowadays in central Romania) in 1848. This area was shaped by the presence of the Transylvanian Saxons, the ethnic German descendants of the settlers invited here by the kings of Hungary during the High Middle Ages. Transylvania became part of the Habsburg Empire at the end of the seventeenth century and was elevated to the status of a Grand Principality in 1765. The map is primarily based on historical cartographic documents and written publications, but also integrates digital geo-spatial datasets. It was produced at a scale of 1:400 000 and includes the hydrography, the administrative boundaries, the main roads, the postal stations and all the settlements attested in the Transylvanian Saxon administrative subdivisions before the mid-nineteenth century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in the Black Sea region since 2014 have combined to transform Romania into the Western alliance's linchpin in southeastern Europe. Regrettably, successive Romanian governments have underfunded defense and the modernization of the armed forces, leaving them with incoherent capabilities. This essay examines the Romanian defense institution on four levels. First, outputs of the armed forces are examined in a critical light. Second, key inputs into defense execution are assessed. Third, the paper proposes a different manner by which to examine these challenges with the objective of finding practical solutions. The fourth and final section examines the critical issue of finding the necessary resources to fund increased training, maintenance, and modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates built-up areas expansion after the 1990 in one of the highly urbanized regions of Romania - Romanian Plain, in order to explore the urban sprawl phenomena and its temporal and regional disparities in relation to some of the main distance driving factors. The research uses Landsat 4/5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery to derive built-up areas and quantify their expansion over time in relation to fourteen distance explanatory factors: i.e. previous built-up areas, main road infrastructure, Bucharest city's boundary, location of the urban centres classified according to demographic size and main economic function, forest land and water bodies. To estimate the influence of the predictors, the binary logistic regression was applied. Furthermore, to estimate the effectiveness of the predictor set in the variation of built-up areas expansion, the pseudo R2 was calculated and discussed. Moreover, to understand the future potential trend of urban sprawl and its spatial pattern, the probability maps were generated by integrating the regression coefficients of the statistically significant predictors into the spatial modeling. For the results performance assessment, the statistic Receiver Operating Characteristic and the pixel-based comparison between the real and predicted data were used. To assess possible differences at spatial and temporal scale, the analysis was carried out at regional level, for two periods: 1990–2002 and 2002–2018. In general, our findings show inverse relationship between the distance driving factors and built-up areas expansion, but the estimated predictive power suggests important disparities within the study area over the analysed periods. Overall, the statistical analysis indicate that the distance to previous build-up areas, distance to road infrastructure, distance to Bucharest and other large urban centres, and distance to urban centres with dominant industrial and service functions were more influential to urban sprawl after 1990. Furthermore, the predicted spatial data shows the highest potential of urban sprawl in the future around Bucharest, in the proximity of existing built-up areas and road infrastructure. Because of its predictive character, the present study is to be a useful tool for land managers and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines anti-Semitism in Romanian Orthodoxy prior to World War II and during the Romanian Holocaust. Romanian religious ethnonationalism articulated by hierarchs, clergy, and theologians provided the ideological backdrop for government anti-Semitic measures, underpinned the ideology of a violent religious-fascist organisation, and fostered a social ethos and suspension of morality which facilitated participation of Orthodox clergy and faithful in the mistreatment of Jews. Subsequently, the Church sought to conceal its role in the persecution of the Jews, portraying itself as a powerless victim of fascism. The paper advances a fivefold typology of a majority church behaviour towards religious and ethnic minorities, and concludes that the attitude of the Romanian Orthodox Church towards Jews in the 1930s and during World War II was largely one of approval, connivance, and collusion with discrimination and violence, to the detriment of the universality of the Gospel and the Church, and Christian charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the trade performance of Romania, a representative country for the Central and Eastern European region, strongly connected with its European partners in global value chains and thus affected by any change in these countries' relationships with the rest of the world in general and China in particular. Using panel data gravity models for the 2008-2019 period, we find that Romania's exports are significantly influenced by the demand of its major trade partners in the EU, and imports from China and the rest of the world. In addition, exports are vulnerable to the effectiveness of the government in relation to the other countries, corruption control and cultural values such as collectivism. We also assess the capacity of Romanian exports to regain their ascending trend displayed before the COVID-19 pandemic by using simulation forecasting scenarios based on the shape of the economic recovery and the type of shock transmission across economies. We observe a sharp decrease in 2020 followed by an important recovery in 2021 in a V-shape scenario and uniform transmission of the pandemic shock in the internal demand and in the foreign trade, or followed by a very slow recovery in 2021 (in a U-shape scenario and non-uniform transmission type in the two previously mentioned elements), especially when the global relation with rest of the world is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between Romania and the World Cup and finds this relationship to be influenced by the achievements of the 1990s. That decade, an exception in a rather poor World Cup history of Romania, set too high expectations for the Romanian football fans from the subsequent generations. A division was created between the so called 'Golden Generation', which in fact was nowhere near winning a trophy, and the following ʿwasted generationsʾ. The myth of the Golden Generation sought materialization in the power struggles within Romanian football, yet with little success. It also explores Romania's most significant football rivalries, with neighbouring countries, and their cultural and political causes. The perception of issues in the 2018 Russia World Cup (dual-nationality players, French team's 'African-ness', political instrumentalization) was impacted by specific factors (mistrust of minorities, ethnic conception of the nation), yet the 'political' dimension of the tournament was all but wasted on the Romanian audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the more conventional approaches of volunteering, by looking into the experiences of young people involved in long-term cross-border volunteering in Romania. Drawing on qualitative interviews with European Voluntary Service volunteers, the paper examines how this experience is intersecting their learning trajectories. The research argues that volunteering is more complex than previously assumed and calls for a way to overcome the inertia that positions it as inherently altruistic. It argues that hosting organisations and young people may hold different expectations and notions of volunteering. Whilst organisations seem to understand volunteering as a ‘gift of time’, for young people volunteering is rationally driven and instrumental for learning. The paper argues that cross-border volunteering has a silent educational potential that remains underutilised and grounded in an established rhetoric of learning as inherent when volunteering. Ultimately, the article calls for organisations to be proactive in enhancing their educational potential and to embrace deliberate strategies that support volunteers learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how political priority was generated for comprehensive reforms to address inequitable access to high-quality primary health care (PHC) in Romania. We apply John Kingdon's model of political agenda setting to explore how the convergence of problems, solutions, and political developments culminated in the adoption of a government program that included critical PHC reforms and approval of a results-based funding instrument for implementation. We draw on a review of the gray and peer-reviewed literature and stakeholder consultations, and use content analysis to identify themes organized in line with the dimensions of Kingdon's model. We conclude this paper with three lessons that may be relevant for generating political priority for PHC reforms in other contexts. First, national PHC reforms are likely to be prioritized when there is political alignment of health reforms with the broader political agenda. Second, the availability of technically sound and feasible policy proposals makes it possible to seize the political opportunity when the window opens. Third, partners' coordinated technical and financial support for neglected issues can serve to raise their priority on the political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the Europeanisation of Romanian minority rights policy within the context of the EU's enlargement process. It restricts itself to a top-down approach, focusing on both processes of EU conditionality building and domestic reactions towards Europeanisation. Within this approach, the paper proposes a comparative conceptual and theoretical framework. The main contribution of the essay lies in linking the concept of Europeanisation within an encompassing threefold neo-institutionalist framework for analysis in order to organise the empirical findings of the case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to compare the sensitivity of a government's fiscal policy and a central bank's monetary policy, which are in Nash equilibrium in the case of a non-cooperative game between the government and the central bank in Czechia, Hungary, and Romania. The analysis for each country is conducted from the date of its accession to the European Union. The research period for Czechia and Hungary includes the quarters 2004Q2-2019Q2, and for Romania, 2007Q1-2019Q2. The study has demonstrated that in Romania the government's response to interest rate changes is the strongest and the central bank's response to changes in the budget deficit turned out to be the weakest. On the other hand, the strongest response of the central bank to changes in the budget deficit turned out to be in Hungary, which means that the central bank in Hungary makes a significant correction of interest rates as a result of changes in the budget deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]