Doctoral Dissertation Research: Surviving Property: Property Ideologies and Rights Consciousness in Communism and Post-Communism (Romania, 1944-2006)

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PI and Co-PI: Christine Harrington, Mihaela SerbanTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Surviving Property: Property Ideologies and Rights Consciousness in Communism and Post-Communism (Romania, 1944-2006)#0752404Project AbstractThis project investigates the extent to which past property regimes affect beliefs and everyday consciousness about law. In particular, the project examines how law mattered under communism, and explores the consequences for post-communism, focusing on houses that were nationalized and expropriated by the communist regime in the city of Timisoara, Romania. The research will concentrate on the coherence and consistency of the communist state's efforts to eradicate private property; the impact of these efforts on property ideologies and rights consciousness; and the consequences for the post-communist transition. The study will employ a combination of ethnographic methods, primarily document and archival research: laws, implementation policies and judicial decisions on nationalization, expropriation and post-1989 restitution; court observation at the Timis Tribunal; and interviews with former owners, socialist tenants, lawyers and state officials. Data analysis methods include legal analysis, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, and life histories. This interdisciplinary study contributes to socio-legal knowledge by clarifying the extent to which political structures determine legal culture in a non-democratic regime, and exploring the implications for the succeeding democratic regime. The study will also produce findings about the operation and effects of law in everyday life under communism, and explore continuities and discontinuities with the post-communist period. The broader impacts include offering a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges of current transitions from communism in the field of politics and property (e.g. China and Cuba). The research will broaden the sociolegal field in the United States by focusing on the impact of law in an authoritarian regime, in an underrepresented region and country. It will contribute to strengthening the links between American and Eastern European scholars through discussions of goals and methodology, presentation of findings, and translation and dissemination of the results in the United States and Eastern Europe.