The revenge of civil society

This article argues that any analysis of the Romanian parliamentary elections of late 2024 should proceed by acknowledging the deep inequality that characterizes the contemporary Romanian society, and not least the rise of a middle-class of sufficient avoirdupois with local constituencies to seek public office. If over the last three electoral cycles four new political parties managed to enter parliament with relative ease, this might very well be due to middle-class political entrepreneurs finding it hard to penetrate the networks of patronage arranged for by established parties. This transformation, the article further claims, should be understood in terms of civil society, once a fashionable notion across post-socialist East Central Europe, yet one that has to be repurposed (and indeed rethought) to account for the consolidation of a well-to-do middle-class bent on hunting public office.