ELECTORAL REGIONALISM: CASE OF DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE OF HUNGARIANS IN ROMANIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17072/2218-1067-2022-1-31-39Keywords:
Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania; Transylvania; Hungarian minority; regionalism; Romania; Euro-pean UnionAbstract
The article analyzes the dynamics of the regionalism strategy of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians of Romania (UDMR), representing the interests of the Hungarian minority, in the 1990s-2010s. The study uses official policy documents and manifestos of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, official electoral data, materials of coalition interactions and parliamentary debates, along with materials from the Manifesto Project Database. The results of the analysis show that the strategy of the regionalist party is transforming: from the rigid and consistent ethnolinguistic regionalism of the 1990s-2000s, in the 2010s the party is shifting to a more flexible adaptive strategy, which is a synthesis of moderate regionalism and competent positioning of the party as a coalition partner with a centrist social-economic agenda. The regionalist agenda is used by the party during the years of electoral activity, which serves as a tool for achieving institutional opportunities for participation in the national political process (shared-rule). The UDMR intention to expand the party's political subjectivity is not the main aim but the tool and opportunity for lobbying the interests of the regional community. The turn of the Hungarian regionalists from a strategy of confrontation with the Romanian unionist parties to a strategy of bargaining and cooperation is also the result.References
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