Convingători în funcții publice? Opiniile românilor despre competența liderilor politici
Persuasive in Public Office? Romanian’s Opinions about the Competence of Political Leaders

Summary/Abstract: Political leaders are often in the spotlight, citizen’s having the opportunity to interact with them and analyze their profiles during and between electoral campaigns. Since COVID-19 forced the political leaders to focus on the health of citizens and to implement specific regulations, this article analyzes the citizen’s perspectives on four political leaders that were involved directly in managing the pandemic. The article aims to identify how Romanians’ opinions about the competence of political leaders are formed during the pandemic. The data includes 18 semi-structured interviews with different respondents, conducted in April 2022, who were asked about four political leaders: the mayors of respondents’ localities, the president of Romania (Klaus Iohannis), the president of the European Commission (Ursula von der Leyen), and the former chancellor of Germany (Angela Merkel). The main findings show that Romanians usually focus on the performance of political leaders, but in the case of European leaders they also refer to the image portrayed by mass-media and their capabilities to manage external factors that affect political decisions

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