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New Publication October 2025

Liviu Brătescu

Civil Society and Political Actors in Romania

Achievements and Limits of Modernization

1866-1914

1^st Edition 2025, 256 pages, of which 16 are colored.

€ 49,80. ISBN 978-3-86628-848-5

The work comprises a series of studies with particular reference to Romanian associationism,

public opinion, and civil society in the Old Kingdom, as well as the relationship with political factors.

Their central topic is represented by a particular component of the modernization process in

Romanian society: extending the right to vote, encompassing electoral reform, agrarian reform,

economic or social reform, and modernization, as well as the relationship with alterity, among others.

Major topics such as those mentioned above are being raised by an increasing number of associations,

clubs, and societies, thus creating a veritable agenda that they bring to the attention of political

decision-makers through public meetings, conferences, manifestos, and, not least, press articles.

Beginning with an exploration of the interactions between the political class and civil society

(in its associative form) the chapters examine the dynamics of this relationship in relation to the

design and implementation of state reform. Attention is given to the key actors, strategic approaches,

and institutional mechanisms involved. While the political environment serves as the primary context

for identifying modernizing initiatives, the analysis focuses on the associative phenomenon and its

multifaceted contributions to the enactment of structural reforms.

Author:

Liviu Brătescu is a researcher at the A. D. Xenopol Institute of History in Iași, Romania.

As specialist in modern Romanian history, he has published numerous studies and papers

on political life in the second half of the 19th century, memory and commemoration in the

modern era, and Romanian foreign policy (1866-1914). His published works include: 

I.C. Brătianu and Romania's Foreign Policy (2013), 

Liberals versus Conservatives. Public Monuments and Competing Memories in Modern Romania (1866-1914) (2015), 

Romania at a Crossroads. The Year 1866 (2014).

Contents

Introduction

I. Civil Society and the Romanian Associative

Phenomenon in the Second Half of the

Nineteenth Century

II. Political Elite and the Development of the

Romanian Associationism Community. Objectives

and Mechanisms (Late Nineteenth and Early

Twentieth Century)

III. “The Peasant Question” in Romania and its

Valences (Mid-Nineteenth Century – 1914)

between Legislative Approaches and Civic

Initiatives

IV. The Nation and the Vote. Between Political

Reform and Civic Initiatives

V. Views and Actors of the Economic

Modernisation Process in the Second Half of

the Nineteenth Century

Conclusion

Annexes

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