{"id":8621,"date":"2025-06-11T09:45:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/expert-opinion-why-romanians-working-in-europe-support-a-sovereignist-project-2\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T08:39:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T08:39:48","slug":"opinia-expertului-de-ce-romanii-care-lucreaza-in-europa-sustin-un-proiect-suveranist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/opinia-expertului-de-ce-romanii-care-lucreaza-in-europa-sustin-un-proiect-suveranist\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinia expertului: De ce rom\u00e2nii care lucreaz\u0103 \u00een Europa sus\u021bin un proiect suveranist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A particularly striking element has been the strong support coming from the European diaspora for candidates promoting national-sovereignist views and anti-EU rhetoric. Alina Dolea, head of the Department of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University (UK), and a specialist in communication and diaspora studies, offers a lucid and nuanced analysis of this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are Romanians living in Europe voting for a sovereignist project?\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s the question which prompted a wide-ranging answer from Alina Dolea. One of the underlying explanations is the disenchantment with Western Europe. Once idealized in Romania as a land of prosperity and opportunity, the West has, for many Romanian migrants, become the stage for overlapping crises: economic, social, post-pandemic, and geopolitical.<\/span><\/p>\n

This encounter with reality \u2013 often lacking any institutional support to help navigate cultural differences \u2013 leads to disappointment, frustration, and ultimately a retreat into identity: a symbolic return to \u201chome\u201d and <\/span>a growing support for political messages centered around sovereignty<\/span><\/a>, protection, and roots.<\/span><\/p>\n

The need for belonging and the impact of propaganda<\/b><\/p>\n

In the diaspora, Dolea explains, the need for belonging intensified during the isolation brought on by the pandemic. In a context of social exclusion or anti-immigration rhetoric in host countries, some Romanians sought refuge in a national-identity-based \u201cshelter.\u201d Here, Russian propaganda found fertile ground. Anti-Western, conspiratorial, and anti-diversity messages were pushed by algorithms that reward negative emotions and polarization.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the midst of a hybrid war,\u201d warns Dolea, \u201cand the weapons are narratives \u2013 anti-European, anti-science, anti-human rights \u2013 circulating on TikTok, Telegram, and Facebook.\u201d These narratives exploit the traumas of migration and post-communist transition, the romanticization of the past, and unresolved cultural rifts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Culture, identity, and the failure of the Romanian State<\/b><\/p>\n

Another key factor is the absence of a coherent public strategy to support cultural integration. The Romanian state has failed to offer information campaigns, civic and media education, psychological support, or tools for intercultural negotiation to its diaspora. In this vacuum, the Church \u2013 especially in the diaspora \u2013 has filled the symbolic space of identity, but often in a conservative key, reinforced by fear of otherness and closed worldviews.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dolea points out that the forced \u201cRomanianization\u201d of the past has erased not only cultural diversity but also the capacity to understand and manage difference. As a result, many Romanian migrants not only fail to integrate \u2013 they no longer wish to: they retreat into an imaginary project of a \u201cpure\u201d Romania, untainted by the values of liberal Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

What can be done?<\/b><\/p>\n

Faced with this complex landscape, any solutions must be multidimensional: media literacy programs, the development of intercultural competencies, mental health support, civic education, and genuine reconnection between the Romanian state and its citizens abroad \u2013 whether temporarily or permanently.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need programs that inform Romanians about their rights and responsibilities in the countries where they live,\u201d says Alina Dolea, \u201cas well as civic education and the development of intercultural navigation skills \u2014 skills that help Romanians preserve their identity through interaction with other identities, ethnicities, and cultures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Romanians in the diaspora are not simply \u201cmanipulated\u201d; they are reacting to direct experiences of alienation, to unresolved crises, to a lack of support and meaning. Understanding this dynamic is essential for anyone seeking to build a functional democracy and an authentic relationship between the state and its people \u2013 wherever they may be.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A particularly striking element has been the strong support coming from the European diaspora for candidates promoting national-sovereignist views and anti-EU rhetoric. Alina Dolea, head of the Department of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":7379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_formats":[664],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","post_formats-articole"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8622,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8621\/revisions\/8622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8621"},{"taxonomy":"post_formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=8621"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulse-z.eu\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}