Two different stories: Neoliberal Transformation in Romania and Hungary

• Date: 4-5 March 2023
• Venue: Tranzit.ro/Cluj, Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

Together with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Romania and the Új Szem Magazine based in Cluj-Napoca, we are organising  the event „Two different stories: Neoliberal Transformation in Romania and Hungary”. The two countries followed apparently different paths: while in 1980s Hungary neoliberal knowledge transfer, the so-called "market socialism", was commonplace, Romania, despite its special relationship with Western states and organisations, chose dogmatic isolationism. What are the similarities, despite the obvious differences, in the development of capitalism in the two countries? Do these make the significance of '89 as an epochal milestone in the life of the region expendable?

Programme:

4 March 2023, Saturday

10am-12:30pm - Lecture of Cornel Ban and Márk Áron Éber

Cornel Ban (associate professor of International Political Economy at Copenhagen Business School) - Comparison of the Romanian and Hungarian political economy

Márk Áron Éber (associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) - Capital, labor and the state: Changing relations and transforming class structure in the last 50 years -- the case of Hungary

15:00-19:00 pm Workshops:

The workshops will focus on the structures and institutions affected by the neoliberal transformation in Romania. Participants will have the opportunity to attend a total of 3 workshops. Please indicate your preferences in the form below by 24 February 2023.

1. András Borbély (poet, essayist, former coordinator of several Caritas-programmes for the inclusion of socially disadvantaged people in Gheorgheni and M. Ciuc) - How the social service market replaced social policy, and the NGO model and the Roma

2. Miki Branişte (assistant professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film at Babeş-Bolyai University, cultural manager, curator, president of Colectiv A Cluj art centre) - Independent cultural institutions and the neoliberal urban regeneration in Cluj

3. Sorin Gog (Sociologist, assistant professor at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) – How is neo-liberalism subjectified? On personal and spiritual development programs in Romania.

4. Örs Székely (poet, literary translator, editor of the magazine "új szem”) - The poetic economy of the '90s': the new literary aesthetic of the Transylvanian writers' group "Előretolt Helyőrség"

5. Tamás Kiss (sociologist, senior researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on Minorities Issues, Cluj-Napoca) - Stalled modernization - Hungarian reorganization in Transylvania on the path of restoration and reaction

6. Enikő Vincze (cultural anthropologist and housing activist, professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj, member of the Social Housing NOW! group) - The fiscalisation of housing and the smart city

Please indicate your preferences in the form below.

5 March 2023, Sunday

10:00 - 12:00
Guided tour of neoliberal Cluj organized and led by students of SZEMinárium.

Organisers: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Magazine "új szem"

Cooperating partners: Căşi sociale ACUM/Social Housing NOW,

National Institute for Minority Research (Romania), BBTE Institute of Sociology (Romanian branch), Tranzit.ro/Cluj