Sociologie Românească (Romanian Sociology Review)
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Bureaucratic Spleen: Europeanization and Resistance to Change in Romanian Public Administration
No full textIn this paper, we analyse the way in which positive communication of European knowledge produces a series of perverse effects at the level of Romanian public administration, effects that take the form of an avoidance strategy. In other words, confronted with certain change requirements, Romanian public institutions react by decoupling the structural aspects from their specific activities. This form of resistance is unconscious, passive and continuously interiorized through the relationship and interaction with the elements of change. Instead of dislocating an inertial state of mind which is specific to the ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy, the positive communication regarding europeanization and the formal embracement of all its components and regulations, does nothing else but consolidate and even resuscitate this state of sufficiency and passive compliance. In order to better understand the Romanian public administration’s reaction to change, we introduce the concept of bureaucratic spleen. This oxymoronic concept points out the apparent paradox of simultaneous acceptance and rejection, change and resistance to change, and that of a cognitive tacit state of mind that is antagonistic to its own explicit dimension, all of these manifested along an emotional background of melancholy and assumed sufficiency, in the context of a major change process, the Europeanization of Romanian public administration
The Roma Elite as an Upper Social Segment and its Role in Changing the Style of Life within Roma Population Communities
Get PDFThe present study wants to bring a new approach of studying the Roma community based on a shift of perception which will end up depicting a completely new image of this population. We hoped that this survey of the upper social segment of the Roma – intellectuals, community leaders, and businessmen – would make a contribution to changing the negative perception of the Roma by the majority population. The objectives of my paper are closed related with some more important reasons of my previous survey approach of the Roma population: First, we wanted to create a more balanced and complete (self-) image of the Roma population and to change the perception of the majority population on the Roma people. This survey produced a more realistic and comprehensive image of different life situations present in the Roma community. Second, we wanted to create more optimism regarding the possibility to improve the life of the Roma and to motivate their actions towards overcoming underdevelopment using the power of their elite group. According to the C. Wright Mills ‘definition for the power elite, the success stories can become social models for the rest of the Roma community, proving the actual possibility of social mobility and success among Roma population. In this way, C. Wright Mills pointed out: “The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences” (Grusky and Szelenyi, 2007, 87). The success life stories can become social models for the rest of the Roma community, proving that social mobility and success are possible among the Roma. Third, the strategy of success by modernisation might consolidate the Roma's educational and professional outcomes, an important predictor of personal success in their professional career towards a highly desirable social status
Types of Internet Usage among Higher Education Students in the Romanian-Hungarian Cross-border Area
Get PDFThe present study aims to fill the existing gaps in the Eastern European empirical analyses, providing a descriptive and explanatory image of the university students’ Internet usage patterns. We used the data collected within an international research project on higher education students in the Romanian (n=1,323) – Hungarians (n=1,295) cross-border area. Overall, Hungarian students spend more time online daily (a median of 120 minutes/day) than their Romanian counterparts from the same region (a median of 100 minutes/day). We found that university students’ Internet consumption patterns are differently affected at country level by gender, residence, financial situation and parents’ education level. Based on a factorial analysis, we differentiate three types of online activities of the students: for academic purpose, for entertainment and consumption, and for information and communication. Subsequently we examined the socio-demographical correlates of the amount of these types of activities. Overall, we found that Hungarian students use more the Internet for academic purpose than Romanian students. For the last subsample, the academic usage of the Internet is the less frequent online activity. Romanian students tend to be involved in entertainment, communication and leisure online activities in a larger measure than the Hungarian in the investigated area. This was explained by students’ residence, marital status, and by their parents’ educational level and financial situation
Sănătatea populaţiei şi accesul la serviciile medicale din România: Population Health Status and the Access to the Medical Services in Romania
No full textThis article shows some of the contrasts among the Romanian quality of health services and that from European Community. Through its medical practices and critical health state of its population, Romania seems deeply dissociated from European Union realities in this respect. Since two decades, the Romanian public health system is situated at the tail-end of the European systems in what concerns social prevention, care for population’s health, application of some sanitary public programmes and performances of the medical services providing. And all these after about twenty years of health services reform, and multiplying of public health care spending of five times. The article includes two chapters focused on some health and demographic indicators, and on the existing difficulties in accessing public health services encountered by various disadvantaged categories of population – with an accent on some new research data concerning the access of the Rroma ethnic group to the public health services. There are used data published by Eurostat, but also from the national and territorial health statistics.
 
Conferința Internațională „Cultura europeană a drepturilor omului. Dreptul la fericire”, 13-15 Decembrie 2012, Bucureşti: International Conference „The European Culture for Human Rights. The Right to Happiness”, December 13-15, 2012, Bucharest
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