BIG ISSUES AND BIG WORDS. EUROPE AND EUROPEANNESS IN THE ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE 1993-2007 - Iulia Ramona Chiriac

To be certain, there is a daily tabloid-type-of-interest in the life of Presidents and what they say and do (or don't). Even more so, in a paternalistic society, such as the Romanian one, where the father of the nation is a central figure and the reference to his actions and words is still strong. On the other hand, a scientific focus on the Romanian President himself is still missing to a very large extent. 
Few academic researchers have indeed focused their attention towards unveiling the making of the Romanian Presidents - understood as political products and as producers of meaning, as well - and towards deconstructing the concepts they employ to gain legitimacy and electorate. This book stands as an attempt to scrutinize the topic of the Romanian presidential discourse from a European integration studies perspective. I am confident that a research as such is powerful in the questions asked and in the new paths of scientific interest that it may open. The attempt of the political leadership to capture the nature of the EU and instrumentalize that construction to legitimize their political performance is at the heart of this analysis. To that end, discourse is an instrument of power, a tool to establish victories over meaning and over public policies that implement the meaning. In the mouths of the political leadership uttering it, discourse becomes a tool of power and control and an instrument of the social construction of reality. 
As elected representatives of the nation, the President stands out as a most important political figure, legitimate in expressing views on the fate of the nation, and instrumental in pursuing certain national goals. One such topic, the most significant on the Romanian public agenda for the timeframe under analysis - 1993 - 2007 - has been that of Romania's membership of the European Union. The Romanian Presidents - Ion Iliescu, Emil Constantinescu and Traian Basescu - that Romania has had since 1989 until the country's accession to the EU in 2007 have been key-actors in shaping the views of the Romanian people on this topic.