Experts

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Gabriel Badescu

Gabriel Badescu is Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania. He has a BA in Mathematics, a BA in Sociology and received his doctorate in Sociology at the Babeş-Bolyai University. He held a Fulbright post-doctoral research fellowship, at University of Maryland, College Park, U.S. and an International Fellowship of Open Society Institute. Between 2009 and 2010 he coordinated the Romanian Agency for Governmental Strategies. He coordinated more than 10 major projects, out of which six are international or part of cross-national projects, and is the author or editor of six books and published more then 40 articles on democratic and economic transitions in Eastern Europe, civil society, social capital, educational policies, research methodology, income inequality and labor migration.

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George Jiglău

George Jiglău is Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department in Cluj and holds a PhD in the same field from the Babes-Bolyai University. He wrote and edited several books and articles on elections and electoral systems, parties and party systems, ethnic relations in postcommunist Europe, or the EU and the Europeanization process.

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Anca Sinea

Anca Sinea is an associated teaching assistant at the Political Science Department of the Babeș-Bolyai University. She holds a PhD in Political Science on the regional role Romania is playing in the broader framework of the EU energy policy. Anca has a double Bachelor’s degree in International Relations (from The National School for Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest) and Political Science (Université Paris X) and a Master’s diploma in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and the University of Vienna. Her subjects of interest include inter alia Resource Politics, Energy Diplomacy, Diplomatic Protocol, National Security. As a CSD fellow she owns the expertise in International Relations and National Security. In this position she coordinated the CSD’s/Political Sicence Department’s expert proposal for the National Defense Strategy of Romania 2015-2019. She also participated in various other projects and research initiatives in fields such as national security, electoral reform and the electoral behavior of Romanian voters.

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Toma Burean

Toma Burean is Assistant Researcher at the Political Science Department, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. His interests include political representation, political behavior, youth political attitudes and social trust.

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Paul Sum

Paul E. Sum received his PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University in 1996. He came to the University of North Dakota in fall 2000. Sum also is an accomplished international evaluator and consultant. Among others, he has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Bank, Council of Europe, OSCE, National Democratic Institute, International Research & Exchanges Board, and the American Council for Learned Societies. Sum's research agenda addresses the role of political culture and mobilizing efforts in processes of democratization. His region of expertise is post-communist Europe. His current interests explore determinants of generalized trust in terms of dispositions, experiences, and contexts. Sum maintains a special relationship with Romania. He held the position of Lecturer and Fellow at the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania (1996-1998) under a program funded by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since 2007, he has held an academic appointment at the same faculty for the Masters in Research Design and Data Analysis Program. In 2009-2010, Sum was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award to Romania where he lectured and conducted research. He is a board member for the Society for Romanian Studies (www.society4romanianstudies.org/).

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Levente Salat

Levente Salat is Professor at the Political Science Department, Babeş-Bolyai University, and Chair of the Board of the Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, an independent NGO based in Cluj, Romania. He holds a MSc in computer science and a PhD in political philosophy. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2010 at University of Maryland, College Park, US, and held scholarships of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2009 and 2011. His research focuses on political consequences of diversity, ethnic politics, Romanian–Hungarian relations. He published over 70 studies and articles in edited books and various journals. He has coordinated several national and international research projects.

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Cosmin Gabriel Marian

Cosmin Marian is assistant professor of political science at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He is specialized in research methods and data modeling in social sciences. He coordinates the Romanian Electoral Data project and he is the head of the Department of Political Science at UBB, Romania.

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Cornel Ban

Cornel Ban is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School for Global Studies. He is also a co-director of this university’s Global Economic Governance Initiative and a fellow at its Center for Finance, Law and Policy. Cornel has a double BA from Babes-Bolyai University (in Law and English) as well as a PhD from University of Maryland (College Park). Before taking up his position at BU in 2012, he served for four years as research fellow at Brown University and co-director of the Development Studies concentration there. Cornel won the Prat Career Award at Boston Univerity and secured large grants from Horizon 2020 and the Instutute for New Economic Thinking. He published extensively in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, Governance, Review of International Political Economy, International Migration and East European Politics and Society on such issues as international economic institutions, the politics of international financial crises, the political economy of development in Brazil, Spain and Romania, democratization in Southern and Eastern Europe and the economic aspects of transnational migration. His book Ruling Ideas: How Neoliberalism Goes Local is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in June 2016. In 2014 he published with Editura Tact an awarded book on Romania’s economic history (Dependenta si dezvoltare: Economia politica a capitalismului romanesc).

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Bogdan Radu

Bogdan Radu received his MA in European politics from the University of Manchester (MA) and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine, USA, in 2007. His research interests revolve around issues interconnecting religion and politics. He conducted research on religious values and political beliefs, for both adults and the youth, focusing on the relationships between religiosity and religious participation on the one hand, and political participation and support for democracy on the other hand. More recently, Bogdan became interested in studying the concept of public opinion in the realm of international governance, especially focusing on international development. He is committed to interdisciplinary approaches and the combined use of empirical and interpretive methods.

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Petruţa Mădălina Teampău

Petruţa Teampău is lecturer in the Department of Political Science since 2009. She has a BA in Political Science, and an MA in cultural anthropology. She is a doctor in anthropology at UBB since 2008. Her research interests include urban anthropology, gender studies and cultural studies. She has published books and articles on topics such as social memory and urban narratives, body as cultural representation, and gender ideologies and practices during communism and post-communism.

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Florin Feşnic

Florin Fesnic is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Democracy in the Department of Political Science, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj. His research interests include civic education, democratization, institutional design, political sociology, voting behavior, political parties and party systems, the determinants and political consequences of modernization, political paradoxes, and scientometrics. His recent publications include “The Democratic-Liberal Party as a Successful Catch-All Party” (2011), in Ronald King & Paul Sum (eds.), Romania under Băsescu, Lexington Books, “Can Civic Education Make a Difference for Democracy? Hungary and Poland Compared” (Political Studies 64, 4, 966-978, DOI: 10.1111/1467-9248.12215) and “This time it’s different? Effects of the Eurovision Debate on young citizens” (with Jürgen Maier, Thorsten Faas, Carmen Greab, et al. Journal of European Public Policy 25, 4: 606-629. DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2016.1268643).


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Georgiana Mihuț

Georgiana Mihuț is research assistant in Boston at the Center for International Higher Education and doctoral student in the field of higher education at Boston College University in USA. Georgiana graduated the Erasmus Mundus MA Program in Research and Innovation in Higher Education, the MA Program in Education and Globalization at Oulu University, Finland, and the BA program in Political Science at Babes-Bolyai University. Georgiana collaborated with institutions such as the World Bank, Erasmus Mundus Student and Alumni Association, Swedish Council for Higher Education, Parlamentul Germaniei, and the National Agency for the Ensurence of Quality in Higher Education in Romania.

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Daniela Angi

Daniela Angi is a researcher in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babes Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Daniela Angi has a PhD in Sociology from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw Poland. The chief research topic that grounded Dr. Angi’s research activity is civil society and the related issues of social capital and civic engagement of youth. In addition, her recent research (scientific and applied) covers issues related to citizenship and various topics related to education (civic education, education for a democratic citizenship and structural dysfunctions of the education system, such as inegualities and early school leaving).

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Laura Bretea - on leave

Currently works for the European Commission, her activity within the Center for the Study of Democracy is suspended on the duration of her contract.

Laura Bretea holds a BA from Paris X university and an MA in international relations from Paris I, Sorbonne. She is an electoral expert and works as consultant for the UN, the European Commission and international NGO's. With a 10 year experience, she observed elections in various states and more recently in Egypt, Nigeria or Afghanistan.

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Corina Murafa is an energy policy expert with several years of work experience in large multinationals, international organizations and think tanks. She worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Public Finance, having held positions with the Ministry of Energy, the United Nations Development Programme, Deloitte, OMV Petrom, the Romanian Academic Society, etc. Her main fields of expertise are European energy policy, the corporate governance of state-owned enterprises, energy consumer rights and natural gas policy. She studied in Bucharest, Berlin and New York, having a Master in Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. She is a PhD student at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, her research focusing on innovative financing instruments in the European energy sector.

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Dana S. Trif

Dana Silvina Trif is an Associate Researcher with the Center for the Study of Democracy. She has multiple research interests spanning several disciplines. Her field of expertise is International Relations (IR) with a focus on discourse theory, ideology, IR theory, international security, international criminal law, interpretive methodologies in the social sciences, qualitative research methods as well as the philosophy of social sciences. Dana Trif has a triple B.A. in social sciences, art, economics, and literature, a Master’s in International Relations (Bremen 2008) and, since 2015, a PhD in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin. Her dissertation, an analysis of hegemonization processes in the discursive space of international security policy, was distinguished with the Annual Prize of the Stiftung Überlebensrecht. Her projects have been financially supported, among others, by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and the Dahlem Research School.

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Mădălina Mocan

Mădălina Mocan is currently a PhD student in Political Sciences at Babeş-Bolyai University, (Cluj-Napoca) and has previously served as executive and development director of Ratiu Center for Democracy where she developed and pursued projects and initiatives in the fields of human trafficking, minority rights and accountability. She maintains an academic and civic interest in human rights issues, particularly victim’s coordinated assistance and compensation, multicultural policies, inequality, and transparency. Her current research interests relate to the role of national and international donors and grant givers in Romania’s civil society public agenda setting while continuing to advice and work with national and international partners in anti-human trafficking projects as well as consulting in civic sector related researches. She is Aspen Institute Romania fellow (2009), German Marshall Transatlantic Fellow (2014) and serves as a board member for Tech Soup Romania.

LinkedIn: Madalina Mocan

Twitter: MadalinaMocan

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Zoltán Levente (Lev) Fejes

A graduate of the College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences at Babeș-Bolyai University, Lev also holds an MA in Nonprofit Organization Management from the same institution of higher education. In 2016 he completed his PhD at the School of Criminal Justice within Michigan State University (MSU), and a research collaborator for the Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (A-CAPP) housed within MSU. He is also employed as a Senior Research Analyst at the Association for Community Relations with attributions in elaborating sustainability/non-financial reports for corporate entities based on widely used international standards.In parallel, Lev's dissertation research examines potential explanations of the volitional consumption of counterfeit goods in Romania as well as the implications for companies in fighting counterfeits. An enthusiast of research methods, his area of expertise includes anti-counterfeiting strategies, consumer behavior, corporate social responsibility and public policy. His main research interest is intellectual property, product counterfeiting, cue utilization by consumers and law enforcement in the detection of counterfeit products, the harmful effects of product counterfeiting on the global economy and public health. He is also interested in the development of public policy aimed at deterring the manufacturing and marketing, as well as of the consumption of fake goods.

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Sorana Constantinescu

Sorana Constantinescu holds a PhD in Sociology and an MA degree in Research and Data Analysis. Her academic interests include applied research methodology, gender stereotypes and gender studies.

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Carmen Greab

Carmen Greab is researcher and PhD candidate at the Political Science Department in Cluj. Her main research interests are civics education and its effect on the political socialization of young people, as well as the institutional tools of local democracy.

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Anatolie Coșciug

Anatolie Coșciug is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. His doctoral research on transnational trade with second-hand goods imported from Western Europe to Eastern Europe is supervised by Thomas Faist (Bielefeld University) and Alejandro Portes (Princeton University). He is also Research Assistant at the Department of Political Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, being involved in research projects on the Romanian migration phenomenon.

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Ovidiu Oltean

Ovidiu Oltean is PhD in Political Science, UBB. He works as researcher on the relation among ethnic migration from Romania, institutions and ethnic organizations, and social change.

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Andreea Vornicu

Andreea Vornicu holds a PhD in Political Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University. She holds a BA in Law and Journalism and a MA in International Development. Her research interests are related to institutional design and post-conflict reconstruction, rule of law and transitional justice.