The Democratic Convention – An Experiment of the Civic and Political Alliance of Post-communist Romania

Abstract

Our research interest focuses on the political dimension of democratic transition. We believe that the emergence of political parties and how they interact will count in the further development of the country. The object of our research is limited in time and space - we consider the time between the violent removal of the totalitarian regimes, in December 1989, and the first peaceful alternation in power, in 1996, to be defining for the political and social future of the country. We analyze the dynamics of the party system in post-communist Romania, and in particular, the uniqueness of the political party called the Democratic Convention (CDR). We want to show that CDR functioned as a social and political myth, as defined by Georges Sorel (Sorel, 1961:50), in terms of the logic of political action.