Articles by Silvia Marton
Ayer. Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 2019
The meaning, practice, denunciation and utility of electoral fraud represent the nodal points for... more The meaning, practice, denunciation and utility of electoral fraud represent the nodal points for understanding the nature of the Romanian political regime after 1866. This article analyses an apparent paradox of the simultaneous strong normative condemnation and systematic practice of electoral corruption by the two main political parties, and explains it by the king’s and the parties shared interest to consolidate their control of the representative institutions, of the state and its bureaucracy, all while giving a high moral sense to their common endeavor of political modernization. Eschewing a moralizing condemnation of corruption, the article examines the social role, utility and rationality of discursive and political practices that allow both the pragmatic institutionalization of the political parties and the normative legitimization of the new state. http://revistaayer.com/articulo/1366
Revue d'Histoire du XIXe siècle, 2018
Comment gère-t-on la mémoire du long XIXe siècle en Roumanie ? Et surtout comment écrit-on son hi... more Comment gère-t-on la mémoire du long XIXe siècle en Roumanie ? Et surtout comment écrit-on son histoire ? Comment écrit-on l’histoire de 1918 ? Ce sont des questions d’une grande actualité en cette année du centenaire. En 1918, par l’incorporation de provinces roumanophones, sur les ruines des empires austro-hongrois et russe, la Roumanie double de superficie et de population. Depuis, la mémoire et le récit officiels mettent en avant non la rupture qu’a représentée la guerre, mais la continuité : l’union de 1918 est considérée comme l’achèvement du projet national, poursuivi au moins depuis 1848, à savoir l’unification sur des critères ethniques de tous les Roumains au sein d’un seul État.
How can we grasp the memory of the long nineteenth century in Romania? And how can we write its history? How can we write the history of 1918? In this centennial year, these are highly relevant issues. In 1918, Romania doubled in size and population by incorporating Romanian-speaking provinces from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. And yet, ever since 1918, official memory and narrative alike have chosen to emphasize continuity, rather than the disruption brought about by the war. The union of 1918 has, accordingly, been framed as the completion of a national project pursued at least since 1848, the unification of all Romanians in a single state, according to ethnic criteria.
Il n’y a pas qu’en France que la moralisation de la vie publique est devenue une urgence civique.... more Il n’y a pas qu’en France que la moralisation de la vie publique est devenue une urgence civique. Partout en Europe scandales et affaires déstabilisent les régimes démocratiques depuis 1989. La lutte contre la corruption supplanterait-elle les anciens clivages idéologiques ?
The paper analyzes the debates in the Romanian Constituent Assembly of 1866 on article 7 of the C... more The paper analyzes the debates in the Romanian Constituent Assembly of 1866 on article 7 of the Constitution that excludes non-Christians (notably Jews) from political rights. By drawing mainly on the parliamentary archives and the press, it also examines governmental regulations, legislation, questions to ministers and parliamentary deliberations on the discriminations and violence against Jews during the years 1867-1869. The legislative and administrative measures following the adoption of article 7 of the Constitution create the 'Jewish question', that is anti-Jewishness as expression of anti-alien sentiment and of national preservation, elevate it to an international issue, and account for much of the internal governmental instability of the period. Anti-Semitism in that period is as much about Romanians and how they can consolidate their nation-state, as it is about the Jews and those who hate them. The paper holds that during the 1860s-1870s, anti-Jewish sentiment, not yet coherent and programmatic, tells less about anti-Semitism, and more about the nature of Romanian nationalism, as a modern variant of state-led xenophobia, eager to demonstrate state capacity. Romanian politicians want to build very quickly both the state and a homogenous nation, and the Jews (and other foreigners) are there to show that none is yet ready.
Book chapters by Silvia Marton
Corruption, Anti-Corruption, Vigilance, and State Building from Early to Late Modern Times, 2024
Silvia Marton, ”Hopeless Corruption? Negotiating modernity in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 1830s... more Silvia Marton, ”Hopeless Corruption? Negotiating modernity in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 1830s”, in Ricard Torra-Prat, Joan Pubill-Brugues, Arndt Brendecke (eds.), Corruption, Anti-Corruption, Vigilance, and State Building from Early to Late Modern Times, Routledge, 2024, p. 251-267.
In 1829, General Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov (or Kiseleff) (1788–1872) was appointed plenipotential president of the Divans of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, the consultative assemblies of the powerful landed aristocracy, the boyars. The General became a de facto governor for five years (from 1829 to 1834), after yet another Russian-Ottoman confrontation leading to Russia’s victory and military occupation of the two provinces. By looking more closely at General Kiseleff’s discourse, some of his reforms, and his interactions with the boyars, this chapter highlights the surprising centrality of the language of (anti)corruption in Russia’s endeavors in the two provinces and the major political and institutional changes these territories underwent. It shows that both Russia’s representative and the boyars leveraged the denunciation of corruption for their own advantage and to pursue their own goals, simultaneously deploying the idea of “modernity” and of a more rational and efficient administration. They also implicitly (re)defined “corruption”. Russia’s goal was to assert its claim of political legitimacy over the occupied Wallachia and Moldavia and its civilizing and modernizing mission. The boyars’ aim was to assert their autonomy as a group against the ruling princes (hospodar) as well as their various external patrons, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, or the other great powers. The chapter privileges historical debates on “corruption” as a means of analyzing the elaboration of public norms on good government and the common good during the “age of revolution”.
„Postface: Retour sur une étude pionnière de sociologie électorale”, în Mattei Dogan, Analyse sta... more „Postface: Retour sur une étude pionnière de sociologie électorale”, în Mattei Dogan, Analyse statistique de la « démocratie parlementaire » de la Roumanie, trad. du roumain, étude introductive et notes par Cristian Preda, Paris, Editions Le Manuscrit, 2022, p. 151-165.
Mattei Dogan a étudié les mécanismes électoraux qui ont favorisé la constitution de majorités toutes puissantes dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres et y ont réduit l’opposition parlementaire à l’impuissance. Il a conclu son livre par ce verdict : « Toute la puissance publique de l’État était exercée exclusivement par le gouvernement, ce qui signifie qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une alternance électorale entre deux partis politiques, ni d’une dictature imposée à tour de rôle, mais d’une alternance gouvernementale au profit de deux partis, qui se succédaient au pouvoir avec une certaine régularité » . En 1946, lorsqu’il publie son ouvrage, de nombreuses voix dénonçaient la domination exercée par le gouvernement sur le parlement et les élections. Dogan lui-même en donne quelques brefs aperçus dans ses notes de bas de page. L’originalité de l’analyse du jeune Dogan résidait avant tout dans sa méthode. Il était l’un des pionniers de la sociologie politique et électorale en Roumanie . Il a utilisé les statistiques pour comprendre le profil socio-économique des parlementaires, leur activité législative et leurs comportements lors des votes dans le Parlement, et pour observer minutieusement le fonctionnement de l’institution parlementaire et son rapport aux gouvernements. Chiffres à l’appui, il a étudié le comportement des électeurs et il a réfléchi sur les partis politiques, leurs adhérents, leurs militants et leur fonctionnement comme machines électorales. Quelques brèves considérations sur la structuration du champ intellectuel et des disciplines universitaires de Roumanie permettront de mieux saisir l’originalité et les faiblesses de cette œuvre de jeunesse de Mattei Dogan.
„Política «oculta»: Publicidad, secretismo, transparencia e inteligibilidad en la Rumanía de fina... more „Política «oculta»: Publicidad, secretismo, transparencia e inteligibilidad en la Rumanía de finales del siglo xix” (with Andrei-Dan Sorescu), in Frédéric Monier, Lluís Ferran Toledano, Joan Pubill and Gemma Rubí (eds.), "Las sombras de la transparencia. Secreto, corrupción y "Estado profundo" en la Europa contemporánea" / "The Shadows of Transparency. Secret, Corruption and "Deep State” in Modern Europe" (Editorial Comares), 2022, p. 21-43.
The present chapter sets out to examine two interrelated case studies of “occult” politics in late nineteenth century Romania, focusing on historical actors’ perceived connection between partisan dynamics and the dangerous secrecy. Firstly, we will analyze a discourse of denunciation centered around raising public awareness of the so-called Oculta, a cabal alleged to have directed the policy of the Liberal Party. This was, as we shall see, framed as a transgression against the logic of the party’s internal functioning, but also against that of how parliament, government, and administration were supposed to allocate resources and provide accountability. Secondly, our chapter will offer a close reading of a pamphlet purporting to uncover the workings of a conspiracy uniting Russia and the Romanian Conservatives in a bid to destabilize the country by means of agrarian unrest. Claiming that the state, captured by the Conservatives, had been criminal in the willful mismanagement of a peasant uprising and had actively suppressed evidence of collusion with pan-Slavic interests, the pamphlet provides a complementary perspective on the breadth of narratives associated with the conspiratorial and its (in)visibilities at the time. As such, although the lexical presence of the ‘occult’ in our corpus is uneven, our inquiry is underpinned by the same overarching issues of what was to be made public, and who the “public” was assumed to be, as preconditions of historicizing reflections on secrecy and transparency.
„Wandel und Kontinuität in der rumänischen Außenpolitik” in Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Hg.), Nationsb... more „Wandel und Kontinuität in der rumänischen Außenpolitik” in Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Hg.), Nationsbildung und Außenpolitik im Osten Europas. Nationsbildungsprozesse, Konstruktionen nationaler Identität und außenpolitische Positionierungen im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert, Osnabrück, Fibre Verlag, 2022, p. 651-677
Jens Ivo Engels, Frédéric Monier (eds.), History of Transparency in Politics and Society, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht unipress, Goettingen, 2020, p. 35-51, 2020
This chapter contributes to the study of “transparency” and its changing
contents and meanings fr... more This chapter contributes to the study of “transparency” and its changing
contents and meanings from a historical perspective. The context of this case study is Romania at a time of accelerated state- and nation-building in a heavily agrarian society. In contrast to contemporary views on "transparency”, the term is used here as an analytical tool for understanding the meaning of voting and (corrupt) electoral practices in a census-based electoral system, reluctant to expand the franchise and political representation to a broader public. This article shows that demands for the intelligibility of rules and procedures had both power
stabilizing goals and effects as well as dissuasive effects on opposing political actors. Such demands did not serve to increase representation or electoral and political participation. More generally, the study of elections in 19th century Romania examined through the lens of “transparency” contributes to the understanding of liberal parliamentarism in the pre-democratic era and of voting before universal suffrage. It also allows us to grasp electoral practices and their discursive packaging, out of which the sense of a (limited) public emerged.
Silvia Marton, Frédéric Monier et Olivier Dard (dir.), Moralité du pouvoir et corruption en France et en Roumanie, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2017, pp. 7-19, 2017
Brave New Hungary: Mapping the “System of National Cooperation”, János Mátyás Kovács and Balázs Trencsényi (eds.), Lexington Books (Rowman and Littlefield), p. 357-378, 2019
CONTRIBUTIONS BY GÁBOR EGRY; ZSOLT ENYEDI; GÁBOR HALMAI; MIKLÓS HARASZTI; STEPHEN HOLMES; JÁNOS K... more CONTRIBUTIONS BY GÁBOR EGRY; ZSOLT ENYEDI; GÁBOR HALMAI; MIKLÓS HARASZTI; STEPHEN HOLMES; JÁNOS KÖLLŐ; JÁNOS MATYAS KOVÁCS; FERENC LACZÓ; BÁLINT MAGYAR; RADOSŁAW MARKOWSKI; SILVIA MARTON; ATTILA MELEGH; PÉTER MIHÁLYI; VIRÁG MOLNÁR; JAN-WERNER MÜLLER; DOROTTYA SZIKRA; BALAZS TRENCSENYI; RENÁTA UITZ AND BALÁZS VÁRADI
Brave New Hungaryfocuses on the rise of a “brave new” anti-liberal regime led by Viktor Orbán who made a decisive contribution to the transformation of a poorly managed liberal democracy to a well-organized authoritarian rule bordering on autocracy during the past decade. Emerging capitalism in post-1989 Hungary that once took pride in winning the Eastern European race for catching up with the West has evolved into a reclusive, statist, national-populist system reminding the observers of its communist and pre-communist predecessors. Going beyond the self-description of the Orbán regime that emphasizes its Christian-conservative and illiberal nature, the authors, leading experts of Hungarian politics, history, society, and economy, suggest new ways to comprehend the sharp decline of the rule of law in an EU member state. Their case studies cover crucial fields of the new authoritarian power, ranging from its historical roots and constitutional properties to media and social policies. The volume presents the Hungarian “System of National Cooperation” as a pervasive but in many respects improvised and vulnerable experiment in social engineering, rather than a set of mature and irreversible institutions. The originality of this dystopian “new world” does not stem from the transition to authoritarian control per se but its plurality of meanings. It can be seen as a simulacrum that shows different images to different viewers and perpetuates itself by its post-truth variability. Rather than pathologizing the current Hungarian regime as a result of a unique master plan designed by a cynical political entrepreneur, the authors show the transnational dynamic of backsliding – a warning for other countries that suffer from comparable deadlocks of liberal democracy.
Corruption et politique en Europe. Enjeux, réformes et controverses, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2019
"Ce chapitre examine les raisons de la dénonciation des libéraux et des conservateurs et leur con... more "Ce chapitre examine les raisons de la dénonciation des libéraux et des conservateurs et leur consensus sur le bien-fondé de la dénonciation. L’explication avancée ici est qu’il leur faut préserver l’idée de la légitimité du régime politique dont ils sont à la fois les auteurs et les protagonistes. Ils pensent tous que ce régime est une condition pour l’émancipation étatique et nationale, alors que les partis et les élections sont des instruments nécessaires, même si imparfaits. A leurs yeux, la dénonciation révèle que le régime lui-même doit être essentiellement légitime : le régime est bon, les pratiques sont mauvaises. On démontrera que, loin d’être une fiction, le parlementarisme, avec toutes ses contradictions, a bel et bien une réalité, en dépit de la rhétorique dénonciatrice. On verra également que les libéraux et les conservateurs condamnent unanimement la transgression électorale, une vision idéalisée du vote à l’appui, mais qu’ils l’acceptent comme un outil pragmatique et politique. L’invocation ostentatoire, par les acteurs politiques, des standards de moralité en matière électorale et l’accord sur le principe de la liberté du vote sont en contraste avec leurs buts pragmatiques et politiques. Comme ailleurs en Europe à la même époque, en Roumanie aussi ce sont les élites politiques qui dénoncent la corruption électorale plus que les électeurs eux-mêmes, elles attribuent la pratique de la déviance aux mœurs mauvaises des votants plutôt qu’à leur propre comportement douteux et le motif principal de leur dénonciation n’est que très marginalement moral, mais plutôt la lutte pour le pouvoir.
Ce chapitre affirme que la déviance électorale a une signification politique et qu’elle ne peut pas être réduite à une violation de la législation électorale, ce qui revient notamment à dire qu’elle a une histoire et qu’elle est inséparable du lien politique. "
Mareike König, Oliver Schulz (Hg.), Antisemitismus im 19. Jahrhundert aus internationaler Perspektive/Nineteenth Century Anti-Semitism in International Perspective, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht unipress, Goettingen, 2019
"Parlament, discurs parlamentar, reprezentare și vot în cea de-a doua jumătate a secolului al XIX... more "Parlament, discurs parlamentar, reprezentare și vot în cea de-a doua jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea", inLiliana Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu, Mihaela-Viorica Constantinescu (dir.), Discursul parlamentar românesc (1866-1938). O perspectivă pragma-retorică, Ed. Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2018, p. 19-38
« Identité nationale, territorialité et régime politique en Roumanie », dans Eric Anceau et Henri... more « Identité nationale, territorialité et régime politique en Roumanie », dans Eric Anceau et Henri Temple (dir.), Qu'est-ce qu'une nation en Europe ? : Hier, aujourd'hui, demain, Sorbonne Université Presses, Paris, 2018, p. 243-257
in Cesare Mattina, Frédéric Monier, Olivier Dard et Jens Ivo Engels (dir.), Dénoncer la corruptio... more in Cesare Mattina, Frédéric Monier, Olivier Dard et Jens Ivo Engels (dir.), Dénoncer la corruption. Chevaliers blancs, pamphlétaires et promoteurs de la transparence à l’époque contemporaine, Demopolis, Paris, 2018, p. 95-115.
in Silvia Marton, Frédéric Monier et Olivier Dard (dir.), Moralité du pouvoir et corruption en Fr... more in Silvia Marton, Frédéric Monier et Olivier Dard (dir.), Moralité du pouvoir et corruption en France et en Roumanie, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2017, pp. 97-110.
in Judit Pál, Vlad Popovici (eds.), Elites and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (1848-1918), Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2014, pp. 267-280
This study analyses the professionalization of political actors and the electoral procedures in l... more This study analyses the professionalization of political actors and the electoral procedures in late-nineteenth century Romania, understood as the two main dimensions of “modern” politics accompanying the formation of modern political parties. Analysis is based primarily on prefects’ reports during parliamentary elections, on the press, the parliamentary archives and the archives of the Ministry of Interior.
The article is part of a wider inquiry into the nature of Romania’s political regime from 1866 to 1914, the formation of modern political parties, and the degree of “professionalization” in politics.
in Frédéric Monier, Olivier Dard et Jens Ivo Engels (dir.), Patronage et corruption politiques da... more in Frédéric Monier, Olivier Dard et Jens Ivo Engels (dir.), Patronage et corruption politiques dans l'Europe contemporaine, Paris, A. Colin, coll. Recherches/ Les coulisses du politique à l'époque contemporaine, t.2, 2014, pp. 141-166
in Catherine Durandin et Cécile Folschweiller (dir.), Alerte en Europe: la guerre dans les Balkan... more in Catherine Durandin et Cécile Folschweiller (dir.), Alerte en Europe: la guerre dans les Balkans (1912-1913), L’Harmattan, Paris, 2014, pp. 55-83
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Articles by Silvia Marton
How can we grasp the memory of the long nineteenth century in Romania? And how can we write its history? How can we write the history of 1918? In this centennial year, these are highly relevant issues. In 1918, Romania doubled in size and population by incorporating Romanian-speaking provinces from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. And yet, ever since 1918, official memory and narrative alike have chosen to emphasize continuity, rather than the disruption brought about by the war. The union of 1918 has, accordingly, been framed as the completion of a national project pursued at least since 1848, the unification of all Romanians in a single state, according to ethnic criteria.
Book chapters by Silvia Marton
In 1829, General Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov (or Kiseleff) (1788–1872) was appointed plenipotential president of the Divans of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, the consultative assemblies of the powerful landed aristocracy, the boyars. The General became a de facto governor for five years (from 1829 to 1834), after yet another Russian-Ottoman confrontation leading to Russia’s victory and military occupation of the two provinces. By looking more closely at General Kiseleff’s discourse, some of his reforms, and his interactions with the boyars, this chapter highlights the surprising centrality of the language of (anti)corruption in Russia’s endeavors in the two provinces and the major political and institutional changes these territories underwent. It shows that both Russia’s representative and the boyars leveraged the denunciation of corruption for their own advantage and to pursue their own goals, simultaneously deploying the idea of “modernity” and of a more rational and efficient administration. They also implicitly (re)defined “corruption”. Russia’s goal was to assert its claim of political legitimacy over the occupied Wallachia and Moldavia and its civilizing and modernizing mission. The boyars’ aim was to assert their autonomy as a group against the ruling princes (hospodar) as well as their various external patrons, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, or the other great powers. The chapter privileges historical debates on “corruption” as a means of analyzing the elaboration of public norms on good government and the common good during the “age of revolution”.
Mattei Dogan a étudié les mécanismes électoraux qui ont favorisé la constitution de majorités toutes puissantes dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres et y ont réduit l’opposition parlementaire à l’impuissance. Il a conclu son livre par ce verdict : « Toute la puissance publique de l’État était exercée exclusivement par le gouvernement, ce qui signifie qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une alternance électorale entre deux partis politiques, ni d’une dictature imposée à tour de rôle, mais d’une alternance gouvernementale au profit de deux partis, qui se succédaient au pouvoir avec une certaine régularité » . En 1946, lorsqu’il publie son ouvrage, de nombreuses voix dénonçaient la domination exercée par le gouvernement sur le parlement et les élections. Dogan lui-même en donne quelques brefs aperçus dans ses notes de bas de page. L’originalité de l’analyse du jeune Dogan résidait avant tout dans sa méthode. Il était l’un des pionniers de la sociologie politique et électorale en Roumanie . Il a utilisé les statistiques pour comprendre le profil socio-économique des parlementaires, leur activité législative et leurs comportements lors des votes dans le Parlement, et pour observer minutieusement le fonctionnement de l’institution parlementaire et son rapport aux gouvernements. Chiffres à l’appui, il a étudié le comportement des électeurs et il a réfléchi sur les partis politiques, leurs adhérents, leurs militants et leur fonctionnement comme machines électorales. Quelques brèves considérations sur la structuration du champ intellectuel et des disciplines universitaires de Roumanie permettront de mieux saisir l’originalité et les faiblesses de cette œuvre de jeunesse de Mattei Dogan.
The present chapter sets out to examine two interrelated case studies of “occult” politics in late nineteenth century Romania, focusing on historical actors’ perceived connection between partisan dynamics and the dangerous secrecy. Firstly, we will analyze a discourse of denunciation centered around raising public awareness of the so-called Oculta, a cabal alleged to have directed the policy of the Liberal Party. This was, as we shall see, framed as a transgression against the logic of the party’s internal functioning, but also against that of how parliament, government, and administration were supposed to allocate resources and provide accountability. Secondly, our chapter will offer a close reading of a pamphlet purporting to uncover the workings of a conspiracy uniting Russia and the Romanian Conservatives in a bid to destabilize the country by means of agrarian unrest. Claiming that the state, captured by the Conservatives, had been criminal in the willful mismanagement of a peasant uprising and had actively suppressed evidence of collusion with pan-Slavic interests, the pamphlet provides a complementary perspective on the breadth of narratives associated with the conspiratorial and its (in)visibilities at the time. As such, although the lexical presence of the ‘occult’ in our corpus is uneven, our inquiry is underpinned by the same overarching issues of what was to be made public, and who the “public” was assumed to be, as preconditions of historicizing reflections on secrecy and transparency.
contents and meanings from a historical perspective. The context of this case study is Romania at a time of accelerated state- and nation-building in a heavily agrarian society. In contrast to contemporary views on "transparency”, the term is used here as an analytical tool for understanding the meaning of voting and (corrupt) electoral practices in a census-based electoral system, reluctant to expand the franchise and political representation to a broader public. This article shows that demands for the intelligibility of rules and procedures had both power
stabilizing goals and effects as well as dissuasive effects on opposing political actors. Such demands did not serve to increase representation or electoral and political participation. More generally, the study of elections in 19th century Romania examined through the lens of “transparency” contributes to the understanding of liberal parliamentarism in the pre-democratic era and of voting before universal suffrage. It also allows us to grasp electoral practices and their discursive packaging, out of which the sense of a (limited) public emerged.
Brave New Hungaryfocuses on the rise of a “brave new” anti-liberal regime led by Viktor Orbán who made a decisive contribution to the transformation of a poorly managed liberal democracy to a well-organized authoritarian rule bordering on autocracy during the past decade. Emerging capitalism in post-1989 Hungary that once took pride in winning the Eastern European race for catching up with the West has evolved into a reclusive, statist, national-populist system reminding the observers of its communist and pre-communist predecessors. Going beyond the self-description of the Orbán regime that emphasizes its Christian-conservative and illiberal nature, the authors, leading experts of Hungarian politics, history, society, and economy, suggest new ways to comprehend the sharp decline of the rule of law in an EU member state. Their case studies cover crucial fields of the new authoritarian power, ranging from its historical roots and constitutional properties to media and social policies. The volume presents the Hungarian “System of National Cooperation” as a pervasive but in many respects improvised and vulnerable experiment in social engineering, rather than a set of mature and irreversible institutions. The originality of this dystopian “new world” does not stem from the transition to authoritarian control per se but its plurality of meanings. It can be seen as a simulacrum that shows different images to different viewers and perpetuates itself by its post-truth variability. Rather than pathologizing the current Hungarian regime as a result of a unique master plan designed by a cynical political entrepreneur, the authors show the transnational dynamic of backsliding – a warning for other countries that suffer from comparable deadlocks of liberal democracy.
Ce chapitre affirme que la déviance électorale a une signification politique et qu’elle ne peut pas être réduite à une violation de la législation électorale, ce qui revient notamment à dire qu’elle a une histoire et qu’elle est inséparable du lien politique. "
The article is part of a wider inquiry into the nature of Romania’s political regime from 1866 to 1914, the formation of modern political parties, and the degree of “professionalization” in politics.
How can we grasp the memory of the long nineteenth century in Romania? And how can we write its history? How can we write the history of 1918? In this centennial year, these are highly relevant issues. In 1918, Romania doubled in size and population by incorporating Romanian-speaking provinces from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. And yet, ever since 1918, official memory and narrative alike have chosen to emphasize continuity, rather than the disruption brought about by the war. The union of 1918 has, accordingly, been framed as the completion of a national project pursued at least since 1848, the unification of all Romanians in a single state, according to ethnic criteria.
In 1829, General Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov (or Kiseleff) (1788–1872) was appointed plenipotential president of the Divans of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, the consultative assemblies of the powerful landed aristocracy, the boyars. The General became a de facto governor for five years (from 1829 to 1834), after yet another Russian-Ottoman confrontation leading to Russia’s victory and military occupation of the two provinces. By looking more closely at General Kiseleff’s discourse, some of his reforms, and his interactions with the boyars, this chapter highlights the surprising centrality of the language of (anti)corruption in Russia’s endeavors in the two provinces and the major political and institutional changes these territories underwent. It shows that both Russia’s representative and the boyars leveraged the denunciation of corruption for their own advantage and to pursue their own goals, simultaneously deploying the idea of “modernity” and of a more rational and efficient administration. They also implicitly (re)defined “corruption”. Russia’s goal was to assert its claim of political legitimacy over the occupied Wallachia and Moldavia and its civilizing and modernizing mission. The boyars’ aim was to assert their autonomy as a group against the ruling princes (hospodar) as well as their various external patrons, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, or the other great powers. The chapter privileges historical debates on “corruption” as a means of analyzing the elaboration of public norms on good government and the common good during the “age of revolution”.
Mattei Dogan a étudié les mécanismes électoraux qui ont favorisé la constitution de majorités toutes puissantes dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres et y ont réduit l’opposition parlementaire à l’impuissance. Il a conclu son livre par ce verdict : « Toute la puissance publique de l’État était exercée exclusivement par le gouvernement, ce qui signifie qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une alternance électorale entre deux partis politiques, ni d’une dictature imposée à tour de rôle, mais d’une alternance gouvernementale au profit de deux partis, qui se succédaient au pouvoir avec une certaine régularité » . En 1946, lorsqu’il publie son ouvrage, de nombreuses voix dénonçaient la domination exercée par le gouvernement sur le parlement et les élections. Dogan lui-même en donne quelques brefs aperçus dans ses notes de bas de page. L’originalité de l’analyse du jeune Dogan résidait avant tout dans sa méthode. Il était l’un des pionniers de la sociologie politique et électorale en Roumanie . Il a utilisé les statistiques pour comprendre le profil socio-économique des parlementaires, leur activité législative et leurs comportements lors des votes dans le Parlement, et pour observer minutieusement le fonctionnement de l’institution parlementaire et son rapport aux gouvernements. Chiffres à l’appui, il a étudié le comportement des électeurs et il a réfléchi sur les partis politiques, leurs adhérents, leurs militants et leur fonctionnement comme machines électorales. Quelques brèves considérations sur la structuration du champ intellectuel et des disciplines universitaires de Roumanie permettront de mieux saisir l’originalité et les faiblesses de cette œuvre de jeunesse de Mattei Dogan.
The present chapter sets out to examine two interrelated case studies of “occult” politics in late nineteenth century Romania, focusing on historical actors’ perceived connection between partisan dynamics and the dangerous secrecy. Firstly, we will analyze a discourse of denunciation centered around raising public awareness of the so-called Oculta, a cabal alleged to have directed the policy of the Liberal Party. This was, as we shall see, framed as a transgression against the logic of the party’s internal functioning, but also against that of how parliament, government, and administration were supposed to allocate resources and provide accountability. Secondly, our chapter will offer a close reading of a pamphlet purporting to uncover the workings of a conspiracy uniting Russia and the Romanian Conservatives in a bid to destabilize the country by means of agrarian unrest. Claiming that the state, captured by the Conservatives, had been criminal in the willful mismanagement of a peasant uprising and had actively suppressed evidence of collusion with pan-Slavic interests, the pamphlet provides a complementary perspective on the breadth of narratives associated with the conspiratorial and its (in)visibilities at the time. As such, although the lexical presence of the ‘occult’ in our corpus is uneven, our inquiry is underpinned by the same overarching issues of what was to be made public, and who the “public” was assumed to be, as preconditions of historicizing reflections on secrecy and transparency.
contents and meanings from a historical perspective. The context of this case study is Romania at a time of accelerated state- and nation-building in a heavily agrarian society. In contrast to contemporary views on "transparency”, the term is used here as an analytical tool for understanding the meaning of voting and (corrupt) electoral practices in a census-based electoral system, reluctant to expand the franchise and political representation to a broader public. This article shows that demands for the intelligibility of rules and procedures had both power
stabilizing goals and effects as well as dissuasive effects on opposing political actors. Such demands did not serve to increase representation or electoral and political participation. More generally, the study of elections in 19th century Romania examined through the lens of “transparency” contributes to the understanding of liberal parliamentarism in the pre-democratic era and of voting before universal suffrage. It also allows us to grasp electoral practices and their discursive packaging, out of which the sense of a (limited) public emerged.
Brave New Hungaryfocuses on the rise of a “brave new” anti-liberal regime led by Viktor Orbán who made a decisive contribution to the transformation of a poorly managed liberal democracy to a well-organized authoritarian rule bordering on autocracy during the past decade. Emerging capitalism in post-1989 Hungary that once took pride in winning the Eastern European race for catching up with the West has evolved into a reclusive, statist, national-populist system reminding the observers of its communist and pre-communist predecessors. Going beyond the self-description of the Orbán regime that emphasizes its Christian-conservative and illiberal nature, the authors, leading experts of Hungarian politics, history, society, and economy, suggest new ways to comprehend the sharp decline of the rule of law in an EU member state. Their case studies cover crucial fields of the new authoritarian power, ranging from its historical roots and constitutional properties to media and social policies. The volume presents the Hungarian “System of National Cooperation” as a pervasive but in many respects improvised and vulnerable experiment in social engineering, rather than a set of mature and irreversible institutions. The originality of this dystopian “new world” does not stem from the transition to authoritarian control per se but its plurality of meanings. It can be seen as a simulacrum that shows different images to different viewers and perpetuates itself by its post-truth variability. Rather than pathologizing the current Hungarian regime as a result of a unique master plan designed by a cynical political entrepreneur, the authors show the transnational dynamic of backsliding – a warning for other countries that suffer from comparable deadlocks of liberal democracy.
Ce chapitre affirme que la déviance électorale a une signification politique et qu’elle ne peut pas être réduite à une violation de la législation électorale, ce qui revient notamment à dire qu’elle a une histoire et qu’elle est inséparable du lien politique. "
The article is part of a wider inquiry into the nature of Romania’s political regime from 1866 to 1914, the formation of modern political parties, and the degree of “professionalization” in politics.
au CNRS, professeur à l’Université de Californie à Los Angeles, Mattei
Dogan (1920-2010) a joué un rôle majeur dans le développement de
la recherche comparative internationale en sciences sociales.
Issu d’un colloque international organisé par la Fondation Mattei
Dogan en coopération avec le New Europe College – Institut d’Études
avancées de Bucarest, cet ouvrage collectif retrace les grandes étapes
de l’itinéraire et de l’oeuvre interdisciplinaire de ce scientifique
exceptionnel.
Mişcările antidinastice şi republicane iniţiate de liberalii radicali munteni («roșiii») relevă, de fapt, existența unei profunde crize constituţionale. Prin ideile-cheie pe care le apără cu convingere – supremaţia constituţiei, dreptul poporului de a se opune despotismului, suveranitatea poporului, limitarea prerogativelor executivului, responsabilitatea miniştrilor în faţa majorităţii din Cameră, legislativul monocameral, urgenţa unui nou 1848 la 1870, garantarea libertăţilor politice, neamestecul străinilor în afacerile interne şi afirmarea suveranităţii interne şi externe a statului –, «roșiii» cultivă conflictul şi îl consideră legitim. Ei nu sunt teoreticieni ai politicului, dar gândesc politic, dezbat politica și sunt oameni ai acțiunii.
«Republica de la Ploieşti», punctul culminant al seriei de acţiuni republicane, devine astfel revelatorul unui anumit tip de republicanism parlamentar și al unei dinamici instituționale și electorale ce permite așezarea parlamentarismului. De aceea, nu putem reduce ideile actorilor de la 1870 şi practicile lor electorale la simple interese conjuncturale și nici la registrul comic al lui Caragiale. «Roşiii» merită cu prisosinţă să fie luaţi şi în serios.
Politicians, scholars, and popular writers between 1750 and 1850 routinely characterized South-East-Central Europe as a corrupt political space. A wide range of foreign observers portrayed graft, nepotism, and bribery as endemic. Indigenous critics echoed many of these assessments. Regional insiders and outsiders alike mobilized commentaries on “corruption” for their own political, professional, and personal ends, claiming they could run more honest and efficient administrations, military regimes, and commercial operations than those in power. These notables linked “corruption” to the region’s supposed cultural backwardness and economic under-development. In doing so, public figures naturalized notions of “corruption,” making it appear both widespread and organic in the region—popularizing tropes that have endured right down to the present. Yet, “corruption” is a historically specific concept. TransCorr seeks to construct a history of the idea of “corruption” in Central-South-East Europe in conjunction with the rise of modernity. It demonstrates how in the context of new ideas about modernity emanating from West Europe, regional leaders reframed a host of traditional customs and practices as corrupt. It examines how Great Power attempts to transform these borderlands into formal and informal imperial provinces further entrenched novel understandings of “corruption”, often pejoratively associating them with the Ottoman legacy. By tracing out this history, TransCorr reveals a genealogy of ideas, discourses, and attitudes that continue to inform analyses of and discussions within the region today. The project brings the study of this geographic area into greater dialogue with a global story of modernization and aligns the region’s historiography with new innovations in the scientific literature. It also reframes contemporary debates on patronage and graft, and reconfigures broader understandings of center-periphery relations within the region and across the continent.
The project examines the historical relevance of transportation infrastructure for the self-imaginings of nation-building and the narratives of modernization in the Romanian Principalities/Romania. Its team members investigate “colonial anxieties” over the possibility that Romania would be subject to economic and even demographic colonization, fears generated by asymmetrical political and economic interactions with Europe’s Great Powers and neighboring empires. The project also studies the corruption scandals surrounding infrastructure construction that generated and constantly reshaped colonial anxieties in the process of nation-state-building and modernization, when faced with perceived imperial and colonial aspirations of political and economic influence. Furthermore, it also seeks to historicize the semantic usages of “colonialism” and “corruption” and their inherently political uses for both nation-building and the process of infrastructure construction, extending as a salient and recurring discursive nexus well into the interwar period.