0000000000597857
AUTHOR
Cristina Stănuș
The Architecture of a Complex System: The Oradea Metropolitan Area in Romania
This chapter approaches the experience of inter-municipal cooperation in the metropolitan area corresponding to one of Romania’s largest cities. It shows that, in a national context not yet ready for the notion of metropolitan authority, making metropolitan cooperation work and achieving palpable results in terms of economies of scale and scope in service delivery require the setting up of a very complex structure. This complexity poses challenges in terms of decision-making and inter-sectoral coordination, while at the same time creates favourable premises for the political accountability of inter-municipal cooperation arrangements. This complexity has also proven to be the seed for volunt…
Local State-Society Relations in Romania
The chapter on Romania illustrates the working of networks of local state-society relations in a top-down context where the central government mandates the creation of networks and local governments are supposed to initiate and operationalize them. The chapter discusses two collaborative networks—local action groups and community consultative structures for child protection—and two self-reflective networks—local working groups on Roma issues and consultative committees on youth issues. The networks analyzed vary in terms of policy field coverage (broader vs. narrower field of activity), territorial coverage (single vs. multiple municipalities), and perceived stability in time. The analysis …
The Politics of Media Law in Romania. From Authoritarian to Non-Authoritarian
English Abstract: The paper approaches the issue of media instrumentalization/control in Romania and focuses on media law as an instrument of political control. It starts with the assumption that, based on the instruments used, we can distinguish between authoritarian and non-authoritarian control of the mass media. The analysis focuses on media law as well as cases of pressure exerted over journalists. Is shows that from 1990 to 2004 there is a slow move from using explicit legal instruments of media control, characteristic of authoritarian systems, to using structural and economic instruments, characteristic of non-authoritarian systems. Romanian Abstract: Lucrarea abordeaza problema inst…
Territorial fragmentation in post-communist Romania: the not so curious case of a de-amalgamation reform
Abstract The efficiency-driven trend towards amalgamation characterising local government reforms in Europe seems to have escaped Romania, which displays a significant increase in the number of local governments post-1989. This is the result of rural first-tier local governments splitting into smaller units. The paper examines objective factors and subjective motivations that have shaped the behaviour of both national and local actors in dealing with territorial reform. First, it explores the rationale and rationality of a central government initiative to facilitate municipal splits against a set of criteria derived from the literature. Second, it examines the municipal splits occurring bet…