“Thirty Years of Capitalist Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe: Inequalities and Social Resistance”, organized by Babeș-Bolyai University and the Institute for Social Solidarity, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 20 – 22 May 2021.

A recent panel co-organized by Diana Mărgărit, with the participation of Dana S. Trif and ProDem expert Henry Rammelt, analyzed the unexpected rise of Romanian social movements. The panel – Social Movements and Counter-Movements in Times of Crisis – organized within the framework of the conference Thirty Years of Capitalist Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe: Inequalities and Social Resistance, Cluj-Napoca, 20-22 May 2021, discussed the most recent, and by some accounts the only post-1989 wave of social protests leading to the emergence of Romanian social movements and movement parties. Beginning in 2013 and reaching their highest moment of intensity in January/February 2017, these mass demonstrations energized a whole new generation of political activists, effectively stopping Romania’s slip towards illiberalism.