Romania – Weak Social Movement with a Strong Impact?

Political participation and social movements have long been left out the equation in the transition process of Eastern Europe. Since 2012 we can observe a growing wave of protests throughout Central and Eastern Europe, even in marginalized countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Bulgaria. Most impressive are the growing protest movements in Romania, that have brought down governments in 2012 and 2014, and maybe in 2017. In my paper, I will deal with political transformation from two cross-sectoral approaches: (i) area-studies – the transformation of post-socialist countries and (ii) political participation research. Especially the later stresses the relevance of participation for the functioning for democracy, implying that state actors are supportive of such actions. Research on post-socialism deals e.g. with questions of functioning of democratic institution and procedures. Starting from the conceptual differentiation of claimed, closed and invited space (Gaventa), I will analyse the interaction and struggle between state and political actors and citizens protesting. While on the one hand we can observe a strong impact (stopping a gold mining project, fracking, and legalization of various forms of abuse of office) and growing numbers of protesters, on the other hand, political actors and state authorities try to contain various forms of political participation and protest activities by imposing fines. My research is based on interviews with activists, legal proceedings against demonstrators, official declarations of political actors and reports by NGOs. My underlying assumption is: what we can observe in the Romanian case is not an isolated development but fits into an overall picture in democracies facing growing protest such as Hungary and Poland. This challenges not only our normative assumptions about political participation but also displays worrying tendencies in European democracies.