Dumitru Borțun: In search of the lost citizen (TEDx Brasov)

Dumitru Borțun is one of the most up-to-date voices in Romanian publicity. He always has interesting things to say. That’s why he is always invited to analyse national politics and social relations.

Borțun is a professor of communication at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies in Bucharest. This school prepares the country’s elite for leadership positions. Although he is a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy, his interests also include sociological topics such as modernisation, the conflict between town and village and many others.

During my meeting with him after the second round of Romania’s presidential elections on 16 November 2014, he introduced me to the essential cultural conflict in his country. According to Borțun, this conflict is between the culture of clientelism on the one hand and the urban culture of industrial relations and “ethics of responsibility” on the other. The first form of culture is represented by politicians such as former President Traian Băsescu (“a slick guy from Constanta”) and current Prime Minister Victor Ponta (“a slick guy from Bucharest”), while the second is represented by the ethnic German Klaus Iohannis, who during the elections appeared to “be able to offer” the ethic of responsibility. Before becoming president, Iohannis was the mayor of Sibiu – one of Transylvania’s major cities, which flourished under his leadership.

According to Borțun, the election results showed that both the Romans in Transylvania and Banat (i.e. the regions, which were under Austro-Hungarian control and have a tradition of bourgeois culture) and those in the industrial cities of southern and eastern Romania chose Iohannis. Which means in a sense that the election was a clash of mentalities.

The speech “In search of the lost citizen” was presented at the TEDx forum in Brasov in May 2015. It demonstrates the teacher’s ability to draw the lines of separation and contradiction in society and offer potential solutions for quality change.

Photo: Dumitru Borțun (source: YouTube)

Subscribe to the channel of the blog “The Bridge of Friendship” in YouTube, where a number of video and audio interviews are published! The blog can also be followed in Facebook and Twitter. Its Telegram channel is here. And here is its Substack account.

About Author

Vladimir Mitev

Vladimir Mitev is a Bulgarian Romanian-speaking journalist. He has interacted with many Bulgarian and Romanian media outlets, including Bulgarian National Radio, Mediapool, all major Bulgarian television stations, Darik Radio, and more (Bulgaria); Radio Romania, The Liberal Community 1848, all the major Romanian television stations; DoR; Libertatea; PressHub; and others (Romania); The Analysis, Acorn Radio (USA); Open Democracy (UK); voxEurop (France); the Observatory for the Balkans and the Caucasus; The Other News (Italy); The Institute for Central Europe (Poland); Argument (Czechia); Merce (Hungary); Bilten (Croatia); and Agora (the Republic of Moldova).
He promotes the idea of non-hegemonic, mutually empowering interactions in Central and Southeastern Europe that could contribute to the formation of a dynamic regional identity and connect citizens to the global community.

See author's posts