SOVEREIGNTIST PARTIES IN ROMANIA DURING THE 2024 ELECTIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbeuropaea.2024.2.19Keywords:
Sovereignism, populism, representative democracy, AUR, S.O.S. Romania, PYPAbstract
Sovereigntist claims are increasing in the USA, in Europe, and, implicitly, in Romania due to the rise of existential anxieties and ontological insecurities. The rise of illiberal democracies, the economic challenges, the war in Ukraine and Gaza, etc. have created a fertile ground for virulent reactions, leading to sovereigntist claims of ‘the people’ to ‘take back control’. In Romania, during the last three rounds of elections (European, local and national parliamentary elections) which took place in 2024, the main populist parties launched a self-proclaimed sovereigntist movement, including three parties, The Alliance for the Union of Romanian, S.O.S Romania, and the Party of Young People, with a combined result of 33% of votes. To what extend the ideology of these parties is a rebranding of good-old-fashioned authoritarian populism, or Romanian sovereigntist parties had built a new message, grounded in the trumpist ideology, having added ideological elements? What is the common fundament and particularities of the three parties in terms of political objectives, ideology and prospects? Sovereignty has been under-theorized by Romanian scholars dealing with populism, as the connection between the two addresses difficulties for comparative politics. The extensive use of the populist label, linked to disparate parties in the Romanian context after 1989, challenge the discourse over its connections with suvereignism itself. The article presents an endeavour to examine the typology of the Romainian sovereigntist parties, establishing a framework for empirical analysis, particularly concerning traditional themes in comparative politics such as the political elites, the people, and the crisis of representative institutions.
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