The World between Us: State Security and the Negotiation of Social Categories in Interwar Romania

Author:

Egry Gábor

Abstract

The concept of security and the security culture of the state are always social constructs reflecting the outcome of interactions between state and society. Key categories of security, like dangerous social groups and activities are usually negotiated through these interactions. Politicians, secret agents, gendarms, denunciators, journalists, or the indicted, all shape the broader social meaning in a dynamic way. While in Greater Romania the state attempted to extend its control to ever broader segments of society in order to fend off perceived threats it had to rely on its own personnel and on people who cooperated in this effort, creating room for maneuver for everyone involved in this process. Due to its scarce resources the state could not even control entirely its own representatives, who often pursued a personal agenda different from the state’s own goals. Irredentism, associated with ethnic minorities exemplifies this situation quite well. In an effort to preempt any threat from national minorities with a kin-state gradually led to the association of irredentism with ethnicity, without having control over the latter’s exact meaning. Thus, its practical application depended on a series of factors, personal and structural ones, that finally led to a confusion and to the emptying of the concept that was applied without consistency. It was exactly this development that reconstituted the gap between state and society that actively engaged each other in the resulting process of negotiation. Under the surface of the rule of law and against the backdrop of the image of an ever more powerful state security apparatus, state and society defined together those informal rules of everyday co-existence that were often meant to hide reality from the watchful eyes of Bucharest.

Publisher

Brill Deutschland GmbH

Subject

Sociology and Political Science,History,Cultural Studies

Cited by 3 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3