Interview Dimitar Bechev (North Carolina)
Interview with Dimitar Bechev, research fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and non- resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. In 2017, he published “Rival Power. Russia’s Influence in South- East Europe” at Yale University Press.
By Bogdan Dima | Bucharest
The present article is built on two core assumptions.
The first is that populism refers to a specific understanding of political power which tends to be similar across liberal democracies around the world. If we reduce this concept to its essence, it reveals an anti-pluralist political ideology favouring the concentration of political power in the hands of a political leader or political party which wins free elections, be they presidential or parliamentary.
By Codru Vrabie | Bucharest
Since the early 2000s, the influential heads of the Romanian executive have attempted to amass more power. Former PM Năstase (2001-04), former President Băsescu (2005-14, especially in partnership with PM Boc, in 2009-11)
and former PM Ponta (2012-15) sought to either bypass the legislature, or to subordinate the judiciary. By trial and error a strategy emerged, to the apparent benefit of the ruling Social-Democrats’ current chairman Liviu Dragnea (since 2015).
By Dani Sandu | Florence
One of the more intense and inconclusive debates of recent years has focused on the underlying causes for the rise in anti-establishment political figures, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, but more recently in much more
economically advanced societies as well. While these debates have featured both academics and policy practitioners, the results have been far from conclusive, and at times even contradictory.