ELECTORAL ATLAS OF ROMANIA: 1990-2009
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Iatu, C.; 2Alupului, C.
1ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA UNIVERSITY OF IASI Email: corneliu.iatu@gmail.com
2ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA UNIVERSITY OF IASI Email: cip_al@yahoo.com
Abstract
Atlasul electoral al României: 1990-2009/ Atlas électoral de la Roumanie: 1990-2009/ Electoral Atlas of Romania: 1990-2009 Corneliu Iaţu (coord.), Ionel Boamfă, Ciprian Alupului, Sebastian Năstuţă, Silviu Petru Grecu, Romeo Asiminei, Raluca Ioana Horea-Şerban, Voicu Bodocan, Aurelian Giugăl, Cătălin Timofciuc | 2014 | 754 pages This study was projected as an enterprise of electoral mapping, from the basic level to other administrative divisions, so that electoral reality could cease to be fiction and fiction might not change into electoral reality. Electoral Romania is a construction which reflects history, mentalities, inheritances, influences, frustrations, desires and dreams. The experience of almost 50 years of communism influenced people’s way of thinking, introduced barriers (including ideological ones), and distorted what was called democracy and pluralism. How is this mirrored in the electoral field? Through the presence of extreme influences, through the continuing existence of certain status quos, through the urban-rural cleavage, through the electorate’s unwillingness to move to a real participatory democracy, through the lack of control that the electorate and civil society have over those elected to public office, through the absence of some kind of clear political balance sheets by means of which politicians could be made to take responsibility for unfulfilled promises and failures. The analysis of Romanian voting system demonstrating that within a relatively short period of time there was a shift from a property-qualification-dependent and partial suffrage to a partial suffrage, next to a quasi-universal suffrage and then a false universal suffrage, and finally, after 1989, to a genuine universal suffrage. All these changes that took place during the past decades have had major repercussions for election results. The present atlas is intended as a tool for the broader public, but not only for them. We preferred to present the material in this way in order to make it as readable as possible. Furthermore, we opted for a trilingual version to make it easier for foreign readers to become acquainted with Romanian electoral geography and to better understand what has happened to date with the aid of a study. Although an atlas, by definition, implies maps, graphs, cartograms etc., on this occasion we have chosen to complement them with a comprehensive analysis (quantitative and qualitative). The step-by-step investigation of the results of all electoral processes since 1989 (presidential, parliamentary and local elections, referenda and Euro parliamentary elections), as well as of the reasons for these results, represents the main body. We trace the development of electoral alliances and the geographical particularities of different ballots, the information being accompanied by and given visual expression in a large number of color maps (over 500 maps). Moreover, the atlas highlight the political and economic circumstances in which the various elections took place, the way in which electoral campaigns were mounted, the geographical distribution of the vote, and regional variations, doing this for every set elections. Another main component is devoted to the presentation and analysis of the political orientation of parties and alliances, together with all the changes that have taken place over time, with an emphasis on the long period of official prohibition of political parties during the years of totalitarianism. The Electoral Atlas of Romania is a first attempt of this type in Romania. Starting from the experience we have acquired in the course of hundreds of hours of research, representing our findings and asking questions, we will be able to refine and continue our approach to the electoral process in further papers. We intend within a relatively short time to draw up a comprehensive atlas in which we will attempt to reformat the electoral cartography of Romania by using statistical applications.
Keywords
Romania; elections atlas; political geography