Research & Projects

Using Lasco and Curato's (2019) concept of Medical Populism, to analyse and discuss political discourse in Romania following the Colectiv fire in 2015, through the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2024.  This is a Critical Discourse Analysis, using the Discourse-Historical Approach on political party website and Facebook posts. 

Conference of the Standing Group of Extremism and Democracy: 9 – 10 June 2025. London; United Kingdom

Paper now under Review: 10.06.25 as: “Selective Irredentism in Romanian Populist Radical Right Discourse” 

Proposal Abstract:

Hungary and Hungarians have long been a target of ire for Romanian populists. Following 1989, Funar, Becali, Vadim Tudor and Diaconescu all heavily utilised anti-Hungarian rhetoric. Funar’s PUNR in particularly weaponised this, presenting itself as a barrier to Hungarian separatism in Transylvania. This continues to be present in the rhetoric of AUR and George Simion, showing opposition to Hungarian language and minority rights.

However, when looking further east to Ukraine and Moldova, Diana Sosoaca, George Simion, and Calin Georgescu have all suggested that historical territories should be returned - notably North Bukovina, now part of Ukraine. Similar opposition has been voiced to language and religious policies, including calling for Romanian language acceptance. 

Coming at a time in which Ukraine is under invasion from Russia, this irony is of note - Romanian populists are irredentists, yet they call for others to accept historical drawing of borders. Using content analysis methods, I will show how this contradiction is present in the foreign policy of Sosoaca and Simion, and is emblematic of their wider foreign policy perspectives including on Russia, NATO and the EU.

Society of Romanian Studies Conference, 29 - 31 May 2025. Cluj-Napoca; Romania

Proposal Abstract:

There has been significant work in recent years regarding COVID-19 Conspiracies in Romania, in terms of who believes them. There are however limited articles discussing the links to other, historical conspiracy narratives. Whilst there has been research tracking the evolution of these conspiracies over time elsewhere, there is little English or Romanian language scholarship discussing the historiography of medical/healthcare conspiracies in Romania, and the underlying antisemitism that is a repeat presence in these. 

My argument is as follows: I suggest that antisemitism has remained a constant feature of Romanian-language conspiracy narratives around healthcare, and apply Cohen’s concept of Moral Panics to this. By using the idea of Moral Panics, I explore how far right groups have consistently taken health and antisemitism in conjunction to create a moral panic around Jewish groups or individuals in Romania or its neighbouring states. I begin by discussing the Cluj Medical School in 1922, and exploring how the demands for Jewish students to be limited to the cadavers of Jews constituted a moral panic, in turn leading to the creation of the Liga Apdardarii National Crestine, and later the Iron Guard movement.

Following this, I argue that there is significant overlap in the present, with conspiracies around the COVID-19 pandemic often drawing on antisemitic tropes (such as George Soros being responsible for lockdowns), before being used in the political sphere by populist actors. It is my argument therefore, that it is important to identify the linked nature of antisemitism and health in moral panics in Romania, and that this has significant historical precedent worthy of further exploration.