"Partidele au murit, trăiască partidele!": apariţia "partidului-cartel" în România

This article try to observe if some concepts which was used in order to explain the changes in the western party systems can be use for the Romanian case too. We concentrate our analyze on the concept of "cartel party" and his emergence in the Romanian political space. The Democratic Party was chose as a study case because we think that this political organization illustrate very well our hypothesis that in the last years, in Romania we pass from a model of mass parties to catch-all parties and cartel parties. We must clarified that this concept of "cartel party" can be understood only if we have in mind that the hole party system is subjected to the same cartelization logic. The author focuses his analysis on the evolution of the Democratic Party between the two electoral moments of 2000 and 2004, whit a special attention on the modalities for establishing the lists of candidates, the discussion about the internal reforms and organization. An important part of the article is dedicated to the political migration of the members of Democratic Party, a very often practice for the Romanian political system

"Unitatea politică a clasei muncitoare": agitaţie şi propagandă în Ialomiţa, 1944-1948

The unification process for the workers' movements was the final step for the communists in their effort to gain total control of the political power. The tactics of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) were labeled "the salami tactics" because the party progressively eliminated all their enemies and used conjectural allies -such as the social democrats (PSD)- in order to reach their aim. This article describes the process whereby the organization of the PCR in alliance with the PSD obtained political power in the period 1945-1948 in the Ialomiţa county. The author focuses his analysis on two types of actions: the violent overtake of the local power (including mayors, police officers, governmental representatives, etc.) and the unification of the PCR and PSD in order to achieve a Single Workers' Party, in which the communists prevailed. As a result of the unification process, according to the official records, almost 7% of the population in this county was a member of the Single Workers' Party in February 1948. The Ialomiţa County is a very interesting, yet paradigmatic case, because in that period the region was a predominantly agricultural, with a small working class (2%), and the communists could not seize power by legal means. The study mainly relies upon local archival documents and upon the contemporary local media reports, which are carefully examined to discern between actual relevant data and their propagandistic content

Modern American populism: Analyzing the economics behind the Silent Majority, the Tea Party and Trumpism

This article researches populism, more specifically, Modern American Populism (MAP), constructed of white, rural, and economically oppressed reactionarianism, which was borne out of the political upheaval of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement. The research looks to explain the causes of populism and what leads voters to support populist movements and politicians. The research focuses on economic anxiety as the main cause but also examines an alternative theory of racial resentment. In an effort to answer the question, what causes populist movements and motivations, I apply a research approach that utilizes qualitative and quantitative methods. There is an examination of literature that defines populism, its causes and a detailed discussion of the case studies, including the 1972 election of Richard Nixon; the Tea Party election of 2010; and the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In addition, statistical data analysis was run using American National Election Studies (ANES) surveys associated with each specific case study. These case studies were chosen because they most represent forms of populist movements in modern American history. While ample qualitative evidence suggested support for the hypothesis that economic anxiety is a necessary condition for populist voting patterns that elected Nixon, the Tea Party and Trump, the statistical data only supported the hypothesis in two cases, 2010 and 2016, with 1972 coming back inconclusive. The data also suggested that both economic anxiety and racial resentment played a role in 2010 and 2016, while having no significant effect in 1972 in either case. This suggests that further research needs to be conducted into additional populist case studies, as well as an examination into the role economic anxiety and economic crises play on racial resentment and racially motivated voting behavior

Hugo Chávez’s Political Regime a Case of Delegative Democracy?

This article is starting from the “delegative democracy” concept, originally proposed by Guillermo O’Donnell in 1994 and intent to prove the hypothesis that there are cases where delegative democracies do not start necessarily from authoritarian regimes, but can also start from what is customarily called a typical democracy. In terms of methodology, this paper will be structured around a case study typology – the analysis will focus on Venezuela and the changes brought by the Hugo Chávez’s Political Regime as proof for the hypothesis. Some of the theoretical characteristics for delegative democracy are analyzed and applied to Venezuela in an effort to prove the delegative nature of the state and its evolution to this point from a non-authoritarian, arguably more democratic background