Irrespective of the level of analysis, identity remains a vague concept, slippery, and insufficiently elaborated and defined. Be it individual or collective, ethnical or social, local or general, regional (e.g. the EU) or global, identity is a recurrent subject in political debates. Situated on the edge of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, and psychology it increasingly becomes a leading paradigm in the area of social sciences. Starting from the broader European perspective, this volume has a multidisciplinary approach and gathers relevant works of internationally renowned scholars who tackle questions related to the Romanian identity: Who are the Romanians? What is the essence of their identity and how has it evolved along history? What are their primary qualities and flaws? How do Romanians perceive their Europeanness and how do they assume their European condition? With no claim to unique answers, the book provides a multi-layered view of what Romanian identity means in contemporary period and how it develops in the broader European context. By challenging the common sense understanding of identity, we raise even more questions to be anasered by further research.
About the Author: Vasile Boari is Professor at Department of Political Science, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, the Director of the Centre for Political Analysis from the same academic institution, and the founding director of Europolis and East, two international journals. He authored The Philosophy and the Moral Condition of the Politics, The Dialectics of the Moral Conscience - Political Conscience Relationship. A Philosophical Perspective, Introduction in Political Science, Introduction in the Theory of Political Values, and The New Europe and the Quest for Identity. He coordinated and edited numerous volumes of Philosophy and Political Science, and published multiple articles in specialized journals. Sergiu Gherghina is PhD Researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His fields of interest are political parties, democratization, and legislative behavior. He authored and coordinated nine volumes on party politics, EU institutions and policies, political studies, and public opinion. He published several articles in international journals, being the managing editor of two international peer-reviewed journals (CEU Political Science Journal and Europolis) and publication director of the Centre for Political Analysis from Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca.