Lucian-Dumitru Dîrdală[1]

Abstract

More than two decades after the collapse of the communist regime in Romania, the political events of 1989 remain salient for political scientists. Several approaches attempt to explain why in Romania the regime was ready to use violence against its opponents. The points of convergence suggest that there are significant bridges between the various research programs that investigate the collapse of East-European communism and the subsequent process of transition.

The main purpose of this article is to draw a parallel between three different types of theorizing that addressed the issue of regime change in Romania: Jonathan Eyal’s account of totalitarian (Stalinist-type) decay, the totalitarianism-cum-sultanism framework devised by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, and the legitimation crisis model developed by Leslie Holmes.

The conclusion of the study is that the efforts made by the Ceauşescu regime to gain legitimacy using official nationalism and the personality did not prevent the totalitarian decay, among others by the incorporation of sultanistic elements. In turn, this process increased the propensity of the regime to use force against society.

Keywords: communism; totalitarianism; sultanic regimes; post-totalitarian regimes; legitimation crisis; pluralism

[1] Dr. Lucian-Dumitru Dîrdală is a Lecturer at „Mihail Kogălniceanu” University, Iaşi, Romania

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