FSPUB, together with our partners from CEVIPOL (Centre for the Study of Political Life, Free University Brussels), begins the 2025-2026 academic year with an international workshop on party politics in post-communist Romania.
The 2024 elections in Romania marked a significant shift in party dealignment. Once at the fringes of party competition, sovereignist parties consolidated and diversified their electoral bases. High affective polarization and identity politics spiked both in presidential and parliamentary elections. The consolidation of the party competition on a cleavage of Europeanist vs neo-nativist positions took mainstream party politics by surprise.
What happened to explain the surprising demise of traditional party politics? The workshop aims analyze the frailty of the
Romanian parties and the vulnerability of party competition.

More details about the interventions, below:

9.00-11.00 Recent challenges in party politics
Discussant: Jean-Michel de Waele (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
– Andrei Taranu (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration) Romanian Parties in decline [Provisional title]
– Mihail Chiru (Oxford University), Social organisation ties, voter grievances and far-right success in Central and Eastern Europe
– Claudiu Tufiș (University of Bucharest), Trust in political parties in the European Union

11.00-11.15 Coffee break

11.15-13.30 Party revival vs. polarization in Romanian politics
Discussant: Mihai Chiru (Oxford University)
– Laurențiu Ștefan (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration), How to bring Romanian diaspora back politically, and not only on election days [Online]
– Alexandra Oprea (University of Bucharest), Corruption as a political divide: Partisan alignment in post-communist Romania
– Alexandra Iancu (University of Bucharest), The invention of ‘(anti-)globalists’: George Soros in the political narratives of the Romanian parties