Gender Equality Policies, Social Citizenship and Democratic Deficit in the Post-communist Romanian Society

Abstract

During the last twenty years, studies on democracy have shed light on the issue of social inequalities, which are a challenge for all democratic societies and which are configured based on gender, age, socio-professional status, religion or ethnicity. These analyses not only refer to democracy as a type of government but also investigate its deeper meaning, the one related to equal opportunities, social justice and social citizenship. In the absence of functional mechanisms able to lessen social disparities and to increase the level of inclusion, the quality of life, guaranteeing social rights and equal access to opportunities/resources, contemporary societies are challenged by a major democratic deficit. This research approach starts from the premise that political democracy (as a representative democracy) is not enough to talk about real democracy, because it needs to be supplemented by economic and social democracy. The paper advances a new correlation between social development indicators, social rights/social citizenship and the quality of democracy. Recent research in political sciences (G. Abels and J. M. Mushaben, 2012) shows that viewing the European Union through a gender lens exposes its double democratic deficit – one involving women's underrepresentation across EU institutions and decision-making institutions, the other reflecting the lack of gender sensitivity in EU policy-making. The paper interrogates the democratic deficit in the Romanian society placed in the actual European context. The analysis of family policies, of labour market or social security policies, from the perspective of their correlated effects on the dynamics of gender relationships, offers relevant indicators with regard to the welfare regimes and quality of democracy/democratic deficit in the post-communist Romanian society.