This article examines electoral intimidation of voters at their workplace in contemporary new democracies. What is the relative importance of workplace intimidation in the broader portfolio of clientelistic strategies used by politicians at times of elections? What explains the subnational variation in the incidence of this electoral strategy? We answer these questions using empirical evidence from two East European countries – Romania and Bulgaria. We assess the prevalence of non-programmatic electoral mobilization in these countries by using list experiments, a survey methodology that elicits unbiased and truthful responses to sensitive political questions. We find that in both countries, workplace intimidation is an important component in the repertoire of non-programmatic mobilization used at election times. Workplace intimidation is especially pervasive in localities dominated by a small number of large employers. The importance of economic intimidation in the portfolio of clientelistic strategies declines as the economic heterogeneity of the locality increases.
This article examines the impact of the economic crisis and its aftermath on collective bargaining by comparing reactions to austerity policies of trade unions in healthcare and education sectors in Romania. It develops an encompassing theoretical framework that links strategies used by trade unions with power resources, costs, and union democracy. We argue that trade unions in the healthcare sector have successfully deployed their resources to advance their interests and obtain significant wage increases and better working conditions. We show that in a context of a tight labour market, generated by the massive emigration of doctors, trade union confederations in the healthcare sector have been increasingly successful in negotiating better pay. We also show that in the aftermath of the crisis healthcare trade unions have redefined their strategies and adopted a more militant stance based on a combination of local strikes, strike threats, and forging temporary alliances with various stakeholders. By comparison, we find that trade unions in the education sector have adopted less effective strategies built around negotiations with governments combined with national level militancy.
Civil society has proven outstanding capacities of involvement in the 2004 general elections in Romania and put a remarkable pressure on the political society. This paper aims to discuss the consequences of such involvement for both the political and civil society. We also investigate the conditions that have favoured a successful challenge of the main political actors by the most visible civic advocacy organizations. Further, we inquire how deep can an actor from the civil society go into the lands of the political society. In the end, we weight the achievements and the failures of civil society’s active involvement in the game of elections.
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