România și Marele Război: realism, balansare și aliniere. O perspectivă teoretică
Romania and the Great War: realism, balancing and bandwagoning a theoretical perspective

Summary/Abstract: This paper represents a short theoretical analysis of Romanian foreign policy during World War I, mainly in the period of Romanian neutrality. It could be a starting point for a book. We attempted to articulate and elaborate a solid theoretical framework concerning our approach. The Romanian political class aimed the achieving of the national interest. The national interest represents one of the key-concepts for the realist school of thought in international realations and for neorealism as well. We took also into account the game theory, belonging to the strategic realism. We have demonstrated that the Romanian state has performed as a rational actor of the international arena, deliberately delaying the intervention in the war. For a while Romania played the role of a balancer in the Balkan area. The president of the Romanian Council of Ministers, Ion I.C. Brătianu will adopt a bandwagoning behavior, deciding to enter World War I, alongside with the Entente at the moment he considered optimal. Usually, in their relations with Great Powers, the weaker states tend rather to bandwagoning than to balancing. In relations with actors with a similar power, these states will rather opt for balancing. Therefore regarding Bulgaria (a state with military capabilities quite similar to those of Romania) the officials of Bucharest preferred to opt for balancing. in its relations with Entente’s states, Romanian Kingdom naturally chose to adopt a bandwagong behavior. When a state actor or an alliance has the biggest chances to win in a conflict, the states tend to join the stronger camp than form coalitions. In these circumstances, the states will opt for bandwagoning.

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