How did the new Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) obtain 9% of the vote in the 2020 Romanian general elections? This article explores the fast rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties by examining the support for the AUR at the locality level in Romania during the coronavirus crisis. The AUR's discourse combined populism, nationalism and anti-masking rhetoric. The findings show great variation across the 3,181 localities, from 0% to 50% support for the AUR, and highlight the significant influence of local cultural and political factors, while economic explanations were not confirmed. The vote for the AUR was high in localities with low ethnic diversity and low voter turnout. This research underscores that national-level explanations obscure important dynamics of PRR support that take place at the subnational level. The rise of the AUR is important beyond the Romanian and European contexts and emphasizes the significance of local responses to global crises.

When and how do party politics matter in junior allies’ decisions to engage in multinational military operations? Developing a new role theory model of party politics and multinational military operations, we put forward a two-level argument. First, we argue that the rationale for military action is defined in a contest between political parties with expectations of what constitutes the proper purpose (constitutive roles) and functions (functional roles) of the state. Second, we hold that material and ontological insecurities reduce political space for contestation and debate, but that junior allies tend to focus on role demands for ‘good states’ and ‘good allies’ rather than the nature and aim of the military operation. To unpack our argument, we analyse the debate among political parties in Romania and Denmark leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Concluding our analysis, we outline the implications for the changing security order and current debates in NATO member states on how to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Maramures Basin, in the Carpathian mountain belt of northern Romania on the border with the Ukraine, belongs to the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin. In the study area, extensional tectonic movements during the Miocene were coeval with silicic and intermediate volcanism in the inner part of the Eastern Carpathians. Throughout this region, explosive events have resulted in the deposition of pyroclastic flows and ash-fall deposits interbedded with marine sediments.

Several tuff units of Badenian (15–13.6 Ma) age occurring throughout the area are extensively zeolitized. These rocks occur as massive homogeneous beds, white to pale greenish-blue, and are commonly extensively jointed. In the Bârsana-Calinesti area and along the Morii Valley, two conspicuous tuff units that can be traced over many km are separated by a calcareous sandstone bed. Most tuffs have a vitroclastic texture in which former glass shards are pseudomorphed by clay minerals and clinoptilolite. Opal-CT commonly occurs as clumps of radiating rods that produce a spherical morphology. Also, rare celadonite is found in the lower greenish tuffs. Pyrogenic crystal fragments are quartz, plagioclase and biotite. Folded muscovite plates and fragments of basement rocks are dominant among the lithic clasts. Above the Bârsana Formation, a second series of white zeolitized tuff, the Ocna Sugatag Formation, is represented by at least two different units overlying an evaporite salt deposit. A large outcrop of a massive white tuff at this locality contains abundant fine-grained clinoptilolite and cation-exchange capacity values of >160 meq/100 g. Clinoptilolite-Ca is also present in the Sighetu tuff unit in the northern part of the Maramures Basin where a distinctive horizon contains plant remains preserved in spherical concretions. Plant material and algal limestones in the same succession strongly suggest that the marine depositional environment was close inshore, and shallow-rather than deep-water conditions are inferred. A mineralogically similar, unaltered, volcanic tuff found in the Coas area suggests that the precursor glass was rhyolitic (72–74% SiO2) with a high-K calc-alkaline affinity. We conclude that pervasive zeolitization is due to the interaction between seawater and vitroclasts at an early stage after deposition.

The island-arc volcanics situated in the eastern part of the Căpîlnaş-Techereu nappe (South Apuseni Mountains, Romania) were studied to evaluate the temperature, fluid properties, and mineral chemistry during low-temperature metamorphism. Detailed observations of metamorphic mineral assemblages were conducted using powder X-ray diffraction and electron microprobe. The metamorphism involved albitization of plagioclase feldspar and the formation of mafic phyllosilicates, zeolites, and other hydrous Ca-Al-silicate minerals. Mafic phyllosilicates consisted of transitional dioctahedral-trioctahedral smectites, mixed-layer chlorite-smectite (C/S, 6–96% chlorite), and discrete chlorite. The zeolites were analcime, stilbite ± stellerite, heulandite, laumontite, epistilbite, and mordenite. Also present, as secondary minerals filling amygdales and veins, are prehnite, pumpellyite, and secondary amphibole. Two mineral assemblages were identified which provide important information about metamorphic conditions (temperature, reaction progress, and fluid properties): (1) heulandite + analcime + quartz; and (2) laumontite + albite + quartz + prehnite + pumpellyite ± amphibole. The types of and relations between minerals in the first assemblage suggest the occurrence of low-temperature hydrothermal metamorphism in the zeolite facies at ~125°C, whereas the second assemblage was metamorphosed at 200°C. The composition and variability of the mineral assemblages in the study area suggest that, due to slow reaction rates, the low-temperature transformations and mineral assemblages were influenced not only by temperature but also by local rock composition, fluid-rock ratio, and fluid chemistry.

What happens when nation-builders in an independent state imagine themselves to have fallen behind kinfolk living under imperial oppression, and how does this affect their vision of a future of national unity? This paper explores the shapes that critical self-comparison could take among Romanians in the Kingdom of Romania around the turn of the twentieth century by considering three interconnected vignettes. First, it outlines the context in which politicized notions of mutual interdependence between the Kingdom and Transylvania allowed for comparison as self-criticism to take root and gain salience in the public sphere. It explores the implications that comparison as self-criticism had on ascribing agency and apportioning blame for causes of the disparity between state and kinfolk. Second, it examines two Transylvanian travelogues produced by major political and cultural figures on the fringes of the Romanian establishment, and, in a reflexive move, contrasts their politics of comparison. Third, it offers a grassroots perspective on how the travelogues of teachers and priests, as rank-and-file nation-builders, expressed these topoi. The article contributes to the nascent trend of considering historical comparisons in actors’ own terms, and as historical processes unto themselves.

While there has been work on whether women are more tolerant of outgroups, the ethnic politics literature has generally overlooked the role of gender in explaining interethnic trust. Whatever attention exists often focuses on the gender of the subject—that is, who is doing the trusting—with mixed results. One reason is that the object being entrusted is either not specified or assumed genderless. In this paper, we call attention to the gender of an important entrusted object in interethnic relations: children. We argue people are less willing to have their daughters—compared to their sons—marry an ethnic outgroup. Additionally, this willingness declines as the cultural distance widens. We test this using a survey experiment in Romania where we leverage the diversity in ethnicity and a gendered language structure. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for gender-based differences in studying interethnic trust.

Scholars have treated images from the golden age of Transylvanian photography, recently elevated to prominence through the digitization of archives, as “authentic” portrayals of peasant culture. However, Hungarian, Romanian, and Saxon nationalists in Transylvania utilized photographs to brand place and nation in the global market, as well as to make claims to territory and assert competing national hierarchies. I examine here Saxon historian, folklorist and travel writer Emil Sigerus’ Durch Siebenbürgen: eine Touristenfahrt in 58 Bildern (Through Transylvania: a Tourist Trip in 58 Pictures), published repeatedly between 1905 and 1929. Sigerus’ photographic survey of Transylvania’s natural landscape, built environment and diverse populations branded Transylvania in general and Transylvanian Saxons in particular as a tourist destination unspoiled by the passage of time. Sigerus also projected an ethnically stratified social hierarchy on Transylvania’s heterogeneous population, with Saxons at the apex; asserted Saxon ownership of urban centers, thereby reinforcing Saxon claims to a “civilizing mission” in Transylvania; and laid claim to territory, simultaneously redirecting tourism from other parts of Transylvania to Saxon nationalists’ benefit. By careful curation, then, Sigerus projected a strong nationalist message often overlooked in the analysis of individual images as “objective” sources of evidence.

How was Romania able to borrow cheaply on the international capital markets before World War I? We explore this within the context of its three southeast European neighbours, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, using a novel dataset of monthly bond prices from the Berlin and London stock exchanges. A comparison of country characteristics and panel data analysis suggests that Romania was able to borrow under more favourable conditions due to its abundant natural resources and desirable exports.

Organic carbon and nitrogen fixed in illite (I) clays were identified in a hydrothermal breccia structure from the Harghita Bãi area of the Neogene volcanism of the East Carpathians. The potassium-illite (K-I) alteration related to an early magmatic-hydrothermal event (9.5 ± 0.5 Ma) was later replaced by ammonium-illite (NH4-I) (6.2 ± 0.6 Ma) owing to circulation of an organic-rich fluid. Several textural evolutions of breccia structures were recognized, such as ‘shingle’, ‘jigsaw’, ‘crackle’ and hydraulic in situ fractures. The high-field-strength element behaviours of the K-I and NH4-I argillic altered andesite are close to chondritic ratios, indicating no contribution of hydrothermal fluid, especially on NH4-I andesite alteration and the CHArge-and-RAdius-Controlled (CHARAC) behaviour within silicate melts. The rare earth element normalized patterns show two distinct trends, one with a Eu* anomaly (K-I) and the other with a Nd* anomaly (NH4-I), indicating a boundary exchange with the organic-rich fluid. The strongly depleted δ13C (V-PDB) measured for the NH4-I clays reflects values (−24.39 to −26.67 ‰) close to CH4 thermogenic oxidation, whereas the δ15N (‰) from 4.8 to 14.8 (± 0.6) confirmed that the N2 originated from post-mature sedimentary organic matter. The last volcanism (6.3 to 3.9 ± 0.6 Ma) and simultaneous volcano-induced tectonics in the proximity of the eastern Transylvanian basin basement increased the heat flow, generating lateral salt extrusion, diapirism and increased pressure in the gas reservoir. New pathways were opened that provided new circulation routes for basinal fluids to new and old permeable zones and expelled seeps from the biogenic petroleum system.