My project intends to explore the question of knowing to what extent part of the Romanian reaction to the pandemic, one very much focused on military action, can be seen as an expression of ‘penal populism’. If so, I seek to identify several factors that might explain the emergence of penal populism in addressing the coronavirus crisis. Alongside remnants of the authoritarian past, I hypothesize that Romania’s anti-corruption fight might have played a role in cultivating a criminalizing ethos on the part of the state. This seems to respond to a correlative demand on the part of the public. Given the background of Romania’s undeniable progress against corruption, it is worth asking whether penal populism can constitute in fact an advantage in building solid institutions. However, when prosecuting comes to be seen as setting the country straight, a cure to all evils, doesn’t this positive penal populism risk converting itself into negative penal populism? Thus, I seek to show how such a penal populist attitude affects the rule of law, especially in times of crisis when the country tends to be governed by exceptional powers, including military ones as in the case of the pandemic’s management.
Alexandra Mercescu is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the West University of Timisoara (Romania) where she teaches comparative public law, legal philosophy and academic writing. She is also an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory of the University of Wrocław (Poland) and a board member of the Central and Eastern European Forum of Young Legal, Political and Social Theorists.
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