‘Democracy’ is often researched in political science as a particular form of political organization. But the word itself has become more of a ‘floating signifier’, with the ability to conjure a certain social imaginary. This imaginary relies however more on visual than textual narratives. My paper analyzes the visual discourse emerging during the 2017 anti-corruption protests in Romania, the largest since the country’s transition to democracy in 1989. The slogans and visual artifacts the protesters used are primary data for a paper asking how hegemonic reconfigurations of meaning blend with a new visual discursive reconstruction of the ‘people’.

Visionlinguistics: Panoramas of Languaging and visuality, DN29 DiscourseNet & The Open University, 13-15 September 2023

Dana S. Trif, Felipe Gonzales Santos and Dan Mercea were interviewed by Romanian newspaper “Adevărul” on the results of the Hungarian elections.

Cum l-a „ajutat” războiul din Ucraina pe Viktor Orban să câştige alegerile: „«Pacea» cu Rusia lui Putin, preferată de maghiari”

https://adevarul.ro/locale/cluj-napoca/cum-l-a-ajutat-razboiul-ucraina-viktor-orban-castige-alegerile-pacea-rusia-putin-preferata-maghiari-1_6280f9c95163ec42716e4415/index.html

Dana S. Trif, Diana Mărgărit and Toma Burean are co-organizing a Panel on Romanian protests, movement parties and social movements at the 2022 Society for Romanian Studies Conference, which takes place in Timișoara between 15 – 17 June 2022. The panel will discuss the relationship between large scale protests and democracy in Romania. Do protests strengthen or weaken democracy? Do movement parties play a role in making the Romanian government more responsive to new political demands? How have social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram shaped large scale protest events? For answers to these questions and many more, join our discussion at the SRS Conference in June!

The ProDem team presents at the ECPR General Conference September 2021 a joint paper. This conceptual exploration of how the triple interaction between citizens, social movements, and movement parties influences democratic quality in Europe lays out the theoretical groundwork for the Consortium’s future research. By placing the triple interaction between protest and institutional arenas, ProDem theorizes democratic quality as comprising the dimensions of participation, competition, and responsiveness. This analytical framework allows us to assess how the triple interaction influences: a) democratic participation by institutionally and extra-institutionally mobilizing citizens who were previously disengaged from politics; b) competition by polarising public debates on sensitive issues by delegitimising traditional sources of information in the media, as well as linkages to political elites and movement actors; and c) responsiveness of political institutions and the media including new political demands. This novel understanding of democratic quality between protest and institutional arena may contribute by insights into the interaction of citizens, social movements and movement parties and parliamentary politics. In doing so, it will enable us to assess democratic quality in the current turbulent climate where extra-institutional participation may play an increasingly important role.