Percepţii ale elitei politice parlamentare din România asupra rolului statului în economie înainte şi după alegerile prin vot uninominal
Perceptions of the Political Parliamentary Élites from Romania Upon the Role of State in Economy Before and After the Introducing of the Uninominal Vo

Summary/Abstract: The quality of a democracy is given by the quality of élites and their professionalism is a decisive factor in consolidating democracy. In Romania, the public space was dominated, in the first decade of the 2000s, by the problem of how are chosen the elites in Parliament. The election of the political parliamentary elites using the proportional representation electoral system with closed lists seemed to maintain the monopoly domination of the political parties. Therefore, the introduction of the “uninominal” vote was seen as the solution to increase the professionalism of the élites, and hence the quality of democracy, and to a greater proximity of voters to elected. 2008, the year of the introduction and use of the “uninominal” vote for parliamentary elections was regarded and considered as a turning point in Romanian democracy. The members of the last two legislatures of the Romanian Parliament are the product of a different type of voting: the members from 2004-2008 legislature (we called them old élites) were chosen by proportional representation, with closed lists, and the members from the 2008-2012 legislature (new élites) were elected using the “uninominal” vote. Thus, the object of analysis of this paper is the political parliamentary elites generated by the two type of voting. It examines, through a comparative approach, the political parliamentary élites value profile regarding the role of state in the economy related to the investigation of possible changes in the perception of the political elites and is trying to show to what extent the values shared by the new parliamentary elites are identical to the previous élites. In other words, it is wanted to investigate if the perceptions of the new élites differ significantly from the old élites. The results presented are part of wider research carried out in the Chamber of Deputies, Romanian Parliament, on two populations of deputies elected at two different chronological and political moments. The research is based on a sociological survey in which two questionnaires were applied to two samples of deputies. The questionnaires were constructed using a simple, ransom and crossed procedure on layers. The analysis and interpretation of data obtained from the research show that both the new and the old élites, despite the different voting system, share a common body of values, the differences of perceptions being insignificant.

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