9s Conversations on Europe/CREES Lecture. "Plus ça change? The Romanian Revolution of 1989 and its Aftermath."

December 10, 2009
4:00PM - 5:30PM, 1636 International Institute/SSWB

Host Department: Center for European Studies - European Union Center (CES-EUC)

Grigore Pop-Eleches, assistant professor of politics and public and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Sponsors: CES-EUC, CREES, WCED.

Further Information

This lecture assesses Romania's transformation in the two decades since the dramatic events of December 1989. In particular, it tries to address the seeming paradox between the country's significant post-communist achievements, including the January 2007 EU accession, and the pervasive sense of cynicism and disappointment with the country's trajectory among Romanian elites and ordinary citizens. I argue that much of the frustration is due to the gap between unrealistic expectations – fueled by the hopes of a moral renaissance in the wake of the 1989 revolution and the growing salience of Western comparisons – and the much more mundane reality of a fledgling democracy that still bears noticeable traces of the country's difficult communist and pre-communist legacies.

 

Grigore Pop-Eleches is the author of From Economic Crisis to Reform: IMF Programs in Latin America and Eastern Europe (Princeton University Press 2009). He has published a number of journal articles about the role of historical legacies and international factors, including EU enlargement, in shaping post-communist political transformations in Eastern Europe. He is interested in the dynamics of political liberalization and deliberalizations in the post-Cold War era, and in the role of elections in triggering these changes. He is currently working on a book manuscript about the mechanisms through which the communist past affects post-communist political behavior, and is  involved in a series of public opinion surveys in Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria, which probe several distinctive features of post-communist politics, including the prevalence of protest voting and widespread distrust in political leaders and institutions.

 

Part of “The Nines: Brinks, Cusps, and Perceptions of Possibility—from 1789–2009”

Contact Information: ces-euc@umich.edu