MINORITY ELITES AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN ROMANIA AFTER 1989. THE SELF-ORGANIZATION OF THE HUNGARIANS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. A CASE STUDY
MINORITY ELITES AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN ROMANIA AFTER 1989. THE SELF-ORGANIZATION OF THE HUNGARIANS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. A CASE STUDY

Summary/Abstract: This paper focuses on self-organization of the Hungarian minority in Romania and elite recruitment of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania after the 1989 revolution in Timisoara, a city in the Banat region of Romania. By analyzing events in a single town, it explores how the Hungarian elite was recruited and under which circumstances the self-organization of the community developed. Additionally, the paper compares its findings to the existing literature on elite-transformation and post-communist discourses in order to understand both the generalities and specificities of the analyzed case. I will argue that the self-organization of the Hungarian community was orchestrated primarily by the pre-1989 cultural elite and Hungarian members of the nomenklatura, as a result to their pre-revolution social networks and cultural capital. Moreover, I will claim that this kind of capital had become more relevant then the symbolic capital gathered by other actors from the revolution itself. Furthermore, I will present that as this elite recognized the newly formed organization’s legitimacy deficit, they tried to integrate people with revolutionary capital and sought the support of the local Hungarian community as well.

• Details
• Contents