Theodor Tudoroiu
Biographic Data
| ID | 4075062 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Theodor Tudoroiu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Theodor |
| FAMILY NAME | Tudoroiu |
| SIGNATURE | TUDOROIU T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the West Indies |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
China’s Two Identities
The Geopolitics of China's Belt and Road Initiative
This book argues that China’s Belt and Road Initiative should be seen more as a geopolitical project and less as a global economic project, with China aiming to bring about a new Chinese-led international order. It contends that China’s international approach has two personas – an aggressive one, focusing on a nineteenth century-style territorial empire, which is applied to Taiwan and the seas adjacent to China; and a new-style persona, based on …
China's Globalization from Below
This book analyzes the Chinese-centered globalization ‘from below’ brought about by China’s entrepreneurial migrants and conceived of as a projection of Chinese power in the Belt and Road Initiative partner states. It identifies the features of this globalization ‘from below,’ scrutinizes its mutually reinforcing relationship with China’s globalization ‘from above,’ and shows that these two globalizations are intrinsically related to the construc…
China’s international socialization of Caribbean state-society complexes
Using the case study of Trinidad and Tobago, this article analyzes the process of reciprocal international socialization that allows Beijing to construct a cognitive and normative space conducive to a new regional order in the Caribbean which should be politically friendly, economically profitable, and socially open to its government, companies, and citizens. We argue that there has been a shift in the identity of Trinidad's state-society complex…
No, Prime Minister
Based on a public office definition of corruption, this article uses the case studies of doctoral plagiarism of German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Hungarian President Pàl Schmitt, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to show that, by shattering citizens’ confidence in and respect for political class, political parties, state institutions and rule of law, academic plagiarism of hig…
Transit Migration and “Valve States”
This article introduces the concept of a “valve” state as an instrument in the study of transit migration. A “valve” state is defined as a transit state that, due to its geographical position, to a specific regional political and geopolitical configuration and to key changes in its migration control policies, can play a decisive role in significantly shaping regional transit migratory flows. The case study of the 2015 Balkan migratory wave is use…
Taiwan in the Caribbean
The rich and complex recent International Political Sociology (IPS) literature on state recognition has completely ignored the process of de-recognition. The present article uses the case study of Taiwan’s efforts to preserve its ‘diplomatic allies’ in the Caribbean in order to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the IPS development of the constitutive theory of recognition, it introduces and analyses the concept of state de-recognition while emph…
Fidel Castro and the Radicalization of Non-Alignment
This article tries to advance the theoretical study of non-alignment through the use of a political psychology-based approach related to the important but seldom mentioned influence of political leaders’ personality traits on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Key non-aligned leaders were highly charismatic and voluntaristic individuals whose personality features clearly impacted the creation and development of the NAM. The article analyses the case…
Unfreezing Failed Frozen Conflicts
The dispute for regional influence between Russia and the European Union has resulted in dramatic events in Ukraine. Less visibly, a similar situation has developed in the southern Moldovan autonomous region of Gagauzia. In the context of Moldova’s signing of an EU Association Agreement in June 2014, calls were made to take up arms and erect barricades. Independence was to be proclaimed one day after – and because of – that signing. This was avoi…
Democracy and state capture in Moldova
In power since 2009, Moldova's pro-democracy and pro-European ruling coalition has been unable to implement effectively much-needed reforms. Presenting the details of recent key events and using quantitative assessments, this article argues that the main cause of Moldova's present problems is state capture. Cynical elites have engaged in a fierce competition for the capture of state institutions and for the control of policymaking in order to pro…
The reciprocal constitutive features of a Middle Eastern partnership
Using the concept of reciprocal socialization, this article argues that the Damascus–Moscow partnership has been since 1970 a reciprocal constitutive relation that has influenced considerably the actions, interests, and identities of the two partners. During the last two decades of the Cold War it represented an almost ideal-type example of a relationship between a super-power and its regional ally that, through its complex consequences, shaped s…
Defining the Revolutionary Totalitarian Personality
This article compares the surprisingly similar personalities and political trajectories of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro in order to define a specific, ‘revolutionary totalitarian’ type of personality. This is a union of authoritarian personality, revolutionary tendencies, and genuine charisma. Moreover, it can develop only in a modern context allowing the creation of an effective personality cult. Politically, its outcome is a revolutionary tran…
The Regional Foreign Policies of Black Sea “New Populist” Leaders
This article compares the regional foreign policies of the four Black Sea non-great power post-communist states. It is argued that the prominent roles played for a time by Georgia and Romania and their unprecedented influence on Black Sea political and security developments were due to foreign policy options stemming from the “new populist” character of national leaders. The latter took advantage of post-9/11 US regional involvement in order to e…
Social Media and Revolutionary Waves
This article argues that during the Arab Spring social media served as a tactical tool of mobilization, communication, and coordination; as an instrument of domestic and international revolutionary contagion; and, critically, as a means of enhancing pan-Arab consciousness which, in turn, was fertile soil for that contagion. These three interrelated functions are best analyzed using a revolutionary wave theoretical approach. In its absence, the Ar…
The Arab Spring
Using the Regional Security Complex Theory and developing its regime-related dimension, this article analyses the involvement of external powers in Arab Spring conflicts. Libya, Syria and Bahrain are used as case studies showing that Western support for the incumbent regime or for its adversaries was not based on a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it was motivated by a pattern of amity and enmity inherited from the Cold War …
Red Seas
This article tries to identify the key elements that determine the success or failure of revolutionary contagion processes. Using three case studies of mutinies that took place in the first half of the twentieth century aboard fleets operating in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, it concludes that the result of the revolutionary contagion depends mainly on the quality of the ideological and organizational effort undertaken by the prima…
Conceptualizing BRICS
Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa (BRICS) is a popular yet poorly conceptualized group. This article builds a parallel between BRICS and OPEC in order to assess the former using a weak cognitivist version of the regime theory. The five countries created an international regime whose members cooperate in view of acquiring, collectively and individually, increased influence in international financial and economic institutions. As they do not c…
Communism for the Twenty-first Century
For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Party of Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive political skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engaged in a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004–5 and an ideological transformation in 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party. Dur…
Structural factors vs. regime change
This article examines the state of and perspectives on democracy in the Republic of Moldova. The fall of its communist authoritarian regime in 2009 – sometimes compared to a colour revolution – went against the trend toward heavy authoritarianism now visible in the Commonwealth of Independent States. However, the regime change in Moldova does not necessarily imply a process of genuine democratic consolidation. This article argues that the future …
The European Union, Russia, and the Future of the Transnistrian Frozen Conflict
In recent years, increased European Union interest in its eastern “neighborhood” has been hailed as a possible solution of the Transnistrian frozen conflict. The fall of the communist authoritarian regime of Chişinău and the internal crisis of the Smirnov regime in Tiraspol also modified the conditions of the nineteen-year conflict. However, the European involvement in Moldova is perceived by the Kremlin as an intrusion in its own domaine réservé…
The Neo-Communist Regime of Present-Day China
Assessing Middle Eastern trajectories
This article assesses Egypt's chances of democratization. A parallel is drawn between the processes of civil society mobilization that led to the overthrow of the authoritarian regimes of Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In the latter case, democratic, secular civil society has to compete with the larger, better organized and more efficient Islamic civil society. The internal dynamics of the Muslim Brotherhood, secular civil s…
Ultra-Nationalism and Geopolitical Exceptionalism in Mečiar's Slovakia
Vladimír Meciar used a geopolitical theory positing Slovakia's unique strategic importance to support his ultranationalist regime. He believed that Slovakia could ignore EU and U.S. democratization demands because it would be the linchpin of a new Russo-German axis
From Spheres of Influence to Energy Wars
Since the fall of communism and its replacement with a pro-Moscow neo-communist regime in December 1989 the question of Russian influence has been a sensitive matter for most Romanians. Accession to NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007) seemed to distance Romania from the Russian sphere of influence. However, the bitter dispute between President Traian Băsescu and Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu that led to the breakdown in 2007 of Rom…
Rose, Orange, and Tulip
In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakn…
Democracy and state capture in Moldova
In power since 2009, Moldova's pro-democracy and pro-European ruling coalition has been unable to implement effectively much-needed reforms. Presenting the details of recent key events and using quantitative assessments, this article argues that the main cause of Moldova's present problems is state capture. Cynical elites have engaged in a fierce competition for the capture of state institutions and for the control of policymaking in order to pro…
Rose, Orange, and Tulip
In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakn…
Social Media and Revolutionary Waves
This article argues that during the Arab Spring social media served as a tactical tool of mobilization, communication, and coordination; as an instrument of domestic and international revolutionary contagion; and, critically, as a means of enhancing pan-Arab consciousness which, in turn, was fertile soil for that contagion. These three interrelated functions are best analyzed using a revolutionary wave theoretical approach. In its absence, the Ar…
The European Union, Russia, and the Future of the Transnistrian Frozen Conflict
In recent years, increased European Union interest in its eastern “neighborhood” has been hailed as a possible solution of the Transnistrian frozen conflict. The fall of the communist authoritarian regime of Chişinău and the internal crisis of the Smirnov regime in Tiraspol also modified the conditions of the nineteen-year conflict. However, the European involvement in Moldova is perceived by the Kremlin as an intrusion in its own domaine réservé…
Structural factors vs. regime change
This article examines the state of and perspectives on democracy in the Republic of Moldova. The fall of its communist authoritarian regime in 2009 – sometimes compared to a colour revolution – went against the trend toward heavy authoritarianism now visible in the Commonwealth of Independent States. However, the regime change in Moldova does not necessarily imply a process of genuine democratic consolidation. This article argues that the future …
Unfreezing Failed Frozen Conflicts
The dispute for regional influence between Russia and the European Union has resulted in dramatic events in Ukraine. Less visibly, a similar situation has developed in the southern Moldovan autonomous region of Gagauzia. In the context of Moldova’s signing of an EU Association Agreement in June 2014, calls were made to take up arms and erect barricades. Independence was to be proclaimed one day after – and because of – that signing. This was avoi…
Taiwan in the Caribbean
The rich and complex recent International Political Sociology (IPS) literature on state recognition has completely ignored the process of de-recognition. The present article uses the case study of Taiwan’s efforts to preserve its ‘diplomatic allies’ in the Caribbean in order to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the IPS development of the constitutive theory of recognition, it introduces and analyses the concept of state de-recognition while emph…
The Regional Foreign Policies of Black Sea “New Populist” Leaders
This article compares the regional foreign policies of the four Black Sea non-great power post-communist states. It is argued that the prominent roles played for a time by Georgia and Romania and their unprecedented influence on Black Sea political and security developments were due to foreign policy options stemming from the “new populist” character of national leaders. The latter took advantage of post-9/11 US regional involvement in order to e…
The Arab Spring
Using the Regional Security Complex Theory and developing its regime-related dimension, this article analyses the involvement of external powers in Arab Spring conflicts. Libya, Syria and Bahrain are used as case studies showing that Western support for the incumbent regime or for its adversaries was not based on a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it was motivated by a pattern of amity and enmity inherited from the Cold War …
Assessing Middle Eastern trajectories
This article assesses Egypt's chances of democratization. A parallel is drawn between the processes of civil society mobilization that led to the overthrow of the authoritarian regimes of Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In the latter case, democratic, secular civil society has to compete with the larger, better organized and more efficient Islamic civil society. The internal dynamics of the Muslim Brotherhood, secular civil s…
Ultra-Nationalism and Geopolitical Exceptionalism in Mečiar's Slovakia
Vladimír Meciar used a geopolitical theory positing Slovakia's unique strategic importance to support his ultranationalist regime. He believed that Slovakia could ignore EU and U.S. democratization demands because it would be the linchpin of a new Russo-German axis
No, Prime Minister
Based on a public office definition of corruption, this article uses the case studies of doctoral plagiarism of German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Hungarian President Pàl Schmitt, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to show that, by shattering citizens’ confidence in and respect for political class, political parties, state institutions and rule of law, academic plagiarism of hig…
The reciprocal constitutive features of a Middle Eastern partnership
Using the concept of reciprocal socialization, this article argues that the Damascus–Moscow partnership has been since 1970 a reciprocal constitutive relation that has influenced considerably the actions, interests, and identities of the two partners. During the last two decades of the Cold War it represented an almost ideal-type example of a relationship between a super-power and its regional ally that, through its complex consequences, shaped s…
Conceptualizing BRICS
Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa (BRICS) is a popular yet poorly conceptualized group. This article builds a parallel between BRICS and OPEC in order to assess the former using a weak cognitivist version of the regime theory. The five countries created an international regime whose members cooperate in view of acquiring, collectively and individually, increased influence in international financial and economic institutions. As they do not c…
Communism for the Twenty-first Century
For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Party of Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive political skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engaged in a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004–5 and an ideological transformation in 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party. Dur…
Rose, Orange, and Tulip
In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakn…
From Spheres of Influence to Energy Wars
Since the fall of communism and its replacement with a pro-Moscow neo-communist regime in December 1989 the question of Russian influence has been a sensitive matter for most Romanians. Accession to NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007) seemed to distance Romania from the Russian sphere of influence. However, the bitter dispute between President Traian Băsescu and Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu that led to the breakdown in 2007 of Rom…
Ultra-Nationalism and Geopolitical Exceptionalism in Mečiar's Slovakia
Vladimír Meciar used a geopolitical theory positing Slovakia's unique strategic importance to support his ultranationalist regime. He believed that Slovakia could ignore EU and U.S. democratization demands because it would be the linchpin of a new Russo-German axis
Communism for the Twenty-first Century
For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Party of Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive political skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engaged in a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004–5 and an ideological transformation in 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party. Dur…
Structural factors vs. regime change
This article examines the state of and perspectives on democracy in the Republic of Moldova. The fall of its communist authoritarian regime in 2009 – sometimes compared to a colour revolution – went against the trend toward heavy authoritarianism now visible in the Commonwealth of Independent States. However, the regime change in Moldova does not necessarily imply a process of genuine democratic consolidation. This article argues that the future …
The European Union, Russia, and the Future of the Transnistrian Frozen Conflict
In recent years, increased European Union interest in its eastern “neighborhood” has been hailed as a possible solution of the Transnistrian frozen conflict. The fall of the communist authoritarian regime of Chişinău and the internal crisis of the Smirnov regime in Tiraspol also modified the conditions of the nineteen-year conflict. However, the European involvement in Moldova is perceived by the Kremlin as an intrusion in its own domaine réservé…
The Neo-Communist Regime of Present-Day China
Assessing Middle Eastern trajectories
This article assesses Egypt's chances of democratization. A parallel is drawn between the processes of civil society mobilization that led to the overthrow of the authoritarian regimes of Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In the latter case, democratic, secular civil society has to compete with the larger, better organized and more efficient Islamic civil society. The internal dynamics of the Muslim Brotherhood, secular civil s…
Red Seas
This article tries to identify the key elements that determine the success or failure of revolutionary contagion processes. Using three case studies of mutinies that took place in the first half of the twentieth century aboard fleets operating in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, it concludes that the result of the revolutionary contagion depends mainly on the quality of the ideological and organizational effort undertaken by the prima…
Conceptualizing BRICS
Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa (BRICS) is a popular yet poorly conceptualized group. This article builds a parallel between BRICS and OPEC in order to assess the former using a weak cognitivist version of the regime theory. The five countries created an international regime whose members cooperate in view of acquiring, collectively and individually, increased influence in international financial and economic institutions. As they do not c…
The Arab Spring
Using the Regional Security Complex Theory and developing its regime-related dimension, this article analyses the involvement of external powers in Arab Spring conflicts. Libya, Syria and Bahrain are used as case studies showing that Western support for the incumbent regime or for its adversaries was not based on a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it was motivated by a pattern of amity and enmity inherited from the Cold War …
Defining the Revolutionary Totalitarian Personality
This article compares the surprisingly similar personalities and political trajectories of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro in order to define a specific, ‘revolutionary totalitarian’ type of personality. This is a union of authoritarian personality, revolutionary tendencies, and genuine charisma. Moreover, it can develop only in a modern context allowing the creation of an effective personality cult. Politically, its outcome is a revolutionary tran…
The Regional Foreign Policies of Black Sea “New Populist” Leaders
This article compares the regional foreign policies of the four Black Sea non-great power post-communist states. It is argued that the prominent roles played for a time by Georgia and Romania and their unprecedented influence on Black Sea political and security developments were due to foreign policy options stemming from the “new populist” character of national leaders. The latter took advantage of post-9/11 US regional involvement in order to e…
Social Media and Revolutionary Waves
This article argues that during the Arab Spring social media served as a tactical tool of mobilization, communication, and coordination; as an instrument of domestic and international revolutionary contagion; and, critically, as a means of enhancing pan-Arab consciousness which, in turn, was fertile soil for that contagion. These three interrelated functions are best analyzed using a revolutionary wave theoretical approach. In its absence, the Ar…
Unfreezing Failed Frozen Conflicts
The dispute for regional influence between Russia and the European Union has resulted in dramatic events in Ukraine. Less visibly, a similar situation has developed in the southern Moldovan autonomous region of Gagauzia. In the context of Moldova’s signing of an EU Association Agreement in June 2014, calls were made to take up arms and erect barricades. Independence was to be proclaimed one day after – and because of – that signing. This was avoi…
Democracy and state capture in Moldova
In power since 2009, Moldova's pro-democracy and pro-European ruling coalition has been unable to implement effectively much-needed reforms. Presenting the details of recent key events and using quantitative assessments, this article argues that the main cause of Moldova's present problems is state capture. Cynical elites have engaged in a fierce competition for the capture of state institutions and for the control of policymaking in order to pro…
The reciprocal constitutive features of a Middle Eastern partnership
Using the concept of reciprocal socialization, this article argues that the Damascus–Moscow partnership has been since 1970 a reciprocal constitutive relation that has influenced considerably the actions, interests, and identities of the two partners. During the last two decades of the Cold War it represented an almost ideal-type example of a relationship between a super-power and its regional ally that, through its complex consequences, shaped s…
Fidel Castro and the Radicalization of Non-Alignment
This article tries to advance the theoretical study of non-alignment through the use of a political psychology-based approach related to the important but seldom mentioned influence of political leaders’ personality traits on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Key non-aligned leaders were highly charismatic and voluntaristic individuals whose personality features clearly impacted the creation and development of the NAM. The article analyses the case…
No, Prime Minister
Based on a public office definition of corruption, this article uses the case studies of doctoral plagiarism of German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Hungarian President Pàl Schmitt, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to show that, by shattering citizens’ confidence in and respect for political class, political parties, state institutions and rule of law, academic plagiarism of hig…
Transit Migration and “Valve States”
This article introduces the concept of a “valve” state as an instrument in the study of transit migration. A “valve” state is defined as a transit state that, due to its geographical position, to a specific regional political and geopolitical configuration and to key changes in its migration control policies, can play a decisive role in significantly shaping regional transit migratory flows. The case study of the 2015 Balkan migratory wave is use…
Taiwan in the Caribbean
The rich and complex recent International Political Sociology (IPS) literature on state recognition has completely ignored the process of de-recognition. The present article uses the case study of Taiwan’s efforts to preserve its ‘diplomatic allies’ in the Caribbean in order to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the IPS development of the constitutive theory of recognition, it introduces and analyses the concept of state de-recognition while emph…
China’s international socialization of Caribbean state-society complexes
Using the case study of Trinidad and Tobago, this article analyzes the process of reciprocal international socialization that allows Beijing to construct a cognitive and normative space conducive to a new regional order in the Caribbean which should be politically friendly, economically profitable, and socially open to its government, companies, and citizens. We argue that there has been a shift in the identity of Trinidad's state-society complex…
China's Globalization from Below
This book analyzes the Chinese-centered globalization ‘from below’ brought about by China’s entrepreneurial migrants and conceived of as a projection of Chinese power in the Belt and Road Initiative partner states. It identifies the features of this globalization ‘from below,’ scrutinizes its mutually reinforcing relationship with China’s globalization ‘from above,’ and shows that these two globalizations are intrinsically related to the construc…
The Geopolitics of China's Belt and Road Initiative
This book argues that China’s Belt and Road Initiative should be seen more as a geopolitical project and less as a global economic project, with China aiming to bring about a new Chinese-led international order. It contends that China’s international approach has two personas – an aggressive one, focusing on a nineteenth century-style territorial empire, which is applied to Taiwan and the seas adjacent to China; and a new-style persona, based on …
China’s Two Identities
Political science (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Politics (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Economics (13 works) · Democracy (10 works) · Authoritarianism (7 works) · Geography (7 works)