NEITHER HOSTILE NOR FRIENDLY: ROMANIAN-BULGARIAN VICINITY AND ITS MEDIA REPRESENTATION

Annemarie Strihan ()
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Annemarie Strihan: Bükreº sk. 4, Ankara, Turkey

Management Research and Practice, 2014, vol. 6, issue 3, 5-27

Abstract: Since 2007 the border between Romania and Bulgaria has become an internal border of the European Union. Although there is a strong political commitment toward cooperation on both border sides, the cross-border cooperation framework, initiated in 1999 under the pre-accession funds, has had weak results, that is few durable cross-border networks, except for the top-down driven partnerships. The prevalence of formal institutions and the shortage of informal networks suggest that the border communities need formal regulations to cooperate. From the multiple causes of this need, this research assumes that the lack of trust hampers, at a significant extent, the cross-border networking in the Romanian-Bulgarian case. Thus, this research explores, by means of discourse analysis tools, reciprocal representations of the neighboring communities in order to highlight underlying clichés leading to indifference and distrust. These representations fall under four themes: imagined opportunities related to the other border side, imagined threats coming from the other border side, perceptions of cooperation, and stereotypes. Considering that each scientific explanation contains to some extent practical implications, this research points out that a crucial field that should be targeted by the regional policies in Romania and Bulgaria is the creation of a culture of trust, by means of changed discourses and informal networks.

Keywords: Bulgaria; Romania; Cross-Border Cooperation; Discourse analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rom:mrpase:v:6:y:2014:i:3:p:5-27

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