The resurgence of ethno-centered, exclusionary types of nationalisms in Eastern Europe after the fall of the communist regimes in 1989 represents a multi-layered phenomenon with complex ramifications. The aim of this paper is to delve into an extremely complicated case surrounding a very peculiar minority -the Aromanians living in Romania. This analysis aims to show that although Romania's approach to minority representation is a non-essentialist one on paper, the reserved seat system is sometimes still laced with nationalistic overtones. As a minority with a highly debated historical legacy, the Aromanians lack legal recognition and are subjected to an assimilation process that is not always as soft as it might seem. If Romania is to continue its already protracted democratic transition solving the puzzle surrounding the Aromanians seems to be a key stepping stone.
After exhibiting one of the "hottest" instances of ethno-national related violence in all post-socialist transitions, early 90s Romanian society seemed to have "cooled" down in terms identitarian conflicts, hence making it even more surprising why an apparently small-scale debate concerning history textbooks quickly spiraled to the point of becoming a fully-fledged public scandal against a Government dubbed as "Anti-Romanian". The aim of this paper is thus to contribute to the overarching research question: Why did nationalism remain such a powerful force despite the fall of the Ceausescu regime? To provide a comprehensive answer the article looks at two, tightly interwoven, sides of cultural reproduction: the politics of history-teaching in Romanian high-schools and its more general background -historians' debates on nationalism. The conclusion reached through this analysis is that a conservation of ethno-centered nationalistic thinking about history was generated by a distorted understanding of professionalization of history qua science.
As one of the most potent hypothesis in political economy, the negative impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of public goods made the welfare state–nation state isomorphism seem a one-way connection. Against the grain of existing studies I argue, through a case-study of interwar Romania, that welfare states are constructed to proactively (re)build the nation, rather than retroactively emanate from it, once established. Rather than an ahistorical ethnolinguistic fractionalization, the article takes nationhood as historically fluid and contested because through institutionalized action, elites can and do proactively revamp the political arena, redistributing coalitions of winners and losers based on exogenously given criteria. The article therefore shows that nation forgers typically internalize the global social question through the topoi of local socio-economic problems construed as a national question. Because elites can pick and choose who becomes part of the national compact, the politicization of the perception of incomplete nationhood provides a sufficient ideational thrust for welfare policymaking, irrespective of pre-existing national solidarities. Consequently, welfare policies are typically layered as remedial or compensatory policies designed to foster a specific social mobility, deemed in a top-down fashion to be completing the nation.
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