CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Niculae, Alexandra |
|---|---|
| Title | Nation in the Name of Faith: The Use of Orthodox Christianity in Shaping Romanian Identity |
| Summary | Framed as a spiritual battle between good and evil, Romanian politics has seen the rise of a new actor claiming divine legitimacy. The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) blends Orthodox Christianity with ethno-populism to construct a moralized version of politics that defends the sacred identity of the Romanian nation against moral decay. Religion, in AUR’s discourse, is more than a heritage – it is a political instrument that draws symbolic boundaries and justifies exclusion. Building on theories of civilizationism (Brubaker, 2017a), religious instrumentalization (Roy, 2016), and right-wing populism (Mudde, 2004; Wodak, 2020), this thesis identifies how Orthodoxy is instrumentalized through thematic and corpus-assisted discourse analysis of speeches from 2020 to 2024. Findings reveal how AUR constructs binaries of good versus evil, Romanian versus foreign, and sacred versus profane. This strategy positions the party as both protector and savior of faith, echoing historical patterns observed in interwar Romania and regional trends seen in parties like Fidesz and PiS. By framing politics as a spiritual struggle, AUR highlights the unique, powerful role Orthodoxy plays in Romania, which successfully mobilizes a large part of the electorate. |
| Supervisor | Sata, Robert |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/niculae_alexandra.pdf |
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