Scientific Annals of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi (New Series) POLITICAL SCIENCE

What Four Romanian Intellectuals Want from the President of Their Country

2024-12-26T20:09:40+00:00

***

What Do We Choose: the Leaders, the Parties or the Ideologies? A Case Study for the 2016-2020 Local Elections in Romania, in Iași County

2024-12-27T18:59:55+00:00

The electoral behavior is influenced by a wide range of factors that can shape voters' decisions in different political and social contexts. Among them, there are psychological, socio-cultural, economic, and political elements (such as the way in which the candidate-leaders of political parties behave, the activity of political parties and the way in which they behave during electoral campaigns), implicitly the type of the electoral system (which determines or can determine the political dynamics of the parties and their leaders), each having a different impact on the electoral options.

The purpose of this article is to provide, on the one hand, a theoretical approach to electoral behavior, investigating the key factors influencing voters' choices. Special emphasis is placed on the determinants that can influence their decisions, in particular on the links between the political leaders and the parties to which they belong, and the way in which their political behavior can influence and determine the behavior and, especially, the electoral choice of those who have this right and exercise it.

In addition to this theoretical framework that identifies and catalogs possible determinisms on voters' behavior, the present analysis particularizes these possible determinisms on voters' behavior through an applied study on local elections, in this case those in Iasi County in 2020, trying to outline the impact that local leaders appointed for mayoral positions have on the electoral options regarding the election or not of the same party from which the political leaders come in the Local Council, as the dominant party.

John of Salisbury on the Role and the Limits of Political Power

2024-12-28T15:24:00+00:00

Usually, John of Salisbury is related to medieval hierocratic political reflection. However, the treatise Policraticus offers a much more nuanced analysis. The efforts that John makes to find the necessary conceptual tools for the moderation of power and to find it a legitimate space of existence are remarkable. Moreover, John of Salisbury is concerned with emphasizing harmony over hierarchy, liberty over rigidity, and social cooperation over coercion. Thus, there are arguments to be made that John of Salisbury is not only one of the main medieval writers, but also one who announces a new way of understanding politics.

Comments on „Romania's Integration into the Soviet Sphere of Influence (1944-1947)”, by Emanuel Copilaș

2024-12-28T15:37:25+00:00

This bibliographic essay was occasioned by what we consider to be one of the most significant editorial events of 2023, the publication of the book "Romania's integration into the Soviet sphere of influence (1944-1947). International and local perspectives", by Emanuel Copilaș. Although, apparently, there are few things left to research regarding the history of the period, Emanuel Copilaș's book draws attention to realities that are often passed over in silence and polemicizes with a historiographical direction that has become dominant within the boundaries of the Romanian post-socialist culture. This historiographical school of thought, encouraged by present day political education, tends to give the complex process of transition of the Romanian state from the capitalist monarchical regime to the communist government a much simplified representation, which hyperbolically depicts the conflicts between interests, intentions and motivations unfolding during the first post-war years in terms of a struggle between good and evil, without any attempt at contextualization. The questions raised within the pages of the book regarding the role of political interpretation of historical data open a difficult intellectual conversation, with numerous ramifications, which requires further research and inspire collateral reflections. Therefore, what was initially intended to be a simple review turned into an extended commentary, which goes beyond the boundaries of the book's subject matter and proceeds to exemplification by extensively citing various related sources.