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Saved by the diaspora? The case of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Sorina Soare  and
Claudiu D. Tufiș
Sorina Soare*
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Florence, Via delle Pandette 21, 50127 Florence, Italy
Claudiu D. Tufiș*
Affiliation:
Facultatea de Științe Politice, University of Bucharest, Calea Plevnei 59, 010223 Bucharest, Romania
*
E-mail: sorinacristina.soare@unifi.it
E-mail: claudiu.tufis@unibuc.ro
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Abstract

This article analyses and explains the rapid electoral success of an emergent populist radical right party in Romania—the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). AUR’s definition of ‘a transnational people’ relates to a multi-layered community—native Romanians within Romania, co-ethnic communities in neighbouring countries, and Romanians living and working abroad—that create, together, a Romanianness in need of representation, and preservation. By focusing on AUR’s definition of ‘the people’ and on (trans)national mobilization, we unwrap a new dimension of populism which refers to broader fields of connectedness across borders in which bottom-up and top-down dynamics co-exist, acting as rhetorical and operational openings for the party’s development and success in the homeland arena.

Keywords

Transnational populismDiasporaActivismParty originMigrants

Information

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
European Political Science , Volume 22 , Issue 1: Diaspora Political Participation toward the Homeland Arena across Europe , March 2023 , pp. 101 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 European Consortium for Political Research

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Footnotes

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-022-00408-3.

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