Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Political Science at the Dawn of the 21st Century
- Austria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Macedonia
- Moldova
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Political Science in Romania: Between Progress and Stagnation
- Russia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- Biographical notes about the authors
Political Science in Romania: Between Progress and Stagnation
from Romania
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Political Science at the Dawn of the 21st Century
- Austria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Macedonia
- Moldova
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Political Science in Romania: Between Progress and Stagnation
- Russia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- Biographical notes about the authors
Summary
Summary: Political science continued to establish itself as a field during the first decade of the 21st century, as Romania implemented the requirements of the Bologna process. Important changes affected the curriculum, the relationships within higher education institutions (between the university administration and the faculty members) and between them and the Ministry of Education, the way in which governments fund universities and recognize their activity, and the way faculty members’ performance is evaluated. However, important difficulties remain in the areas of fighting corruption, nepotism, and academic dishonesty, improving the allocation of available funds, emphasizing research over teaching, and connecting local political scientists to the international community. This chapter presents the Romanian political science university departments, their undergraduate and graduate programs, the number of students who seek admission, and the research profile and interests of their faculty members. It further identifies factors that limit the consolidation of political science as a field of inquiry in that country.
Introduction
Year 2000 marked important changes that affected higher education in Romania after the country embraced the Bologna process. These changes questioned the universities’ focus on teaching, modified the curricula and the structure of undergraduate and graduate programs, and allowed for increased autonomy and academic freedom from the Ministry of Education. This chapter first reviews the historical and institutional context in which political science reappeared in 1989 after decades of communist restrictions, and then details the structure, enrolment and recruitment patterns of the 13 public universities with political science departments. It argues that political science has become a respected academic field and a university programme popular among the country's best high school graduates. Unprecedented requirements introduced in 2005, which asked faculty members to test the value of their research by seeking publication in top peer-reviewed scholarly journals with international reputation in their fields, seek to connect Romanian political scientists with their peers abroad but are yet to make a real impact. Political science departments, as other fields of Romanian higher education, still struggle with inadequate funding, academic dishonesty, and parochialism of aging academics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Political Science in Europe at the Beginning of the 21st Century , pp. 401 - 424Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2015