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Sorin Ioniţă
Bucharest
sorin@ionita.eu
sionita@sar.org.ro

 

 

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    Research and publications
As a research director of SAR I have coordinated in the last years the production and editing of our regular publications

Policy Warning Reports (PWR)


Independent reports on the quality of governance aimed at providing the Romanian government with objective advice from independent sources. The goal of the program is to monitor the socio-political and economic developments in order to identify the situations with crisis potential, initiate a public discussion and offer recommendations for action. I contribute myself to these reports with sections on public sector reform, taxation and local issues.
See a sample of regular PWR here.
pwr
PolSci

Started in 1996 under the name Foreign Policy, the current PolSci is a Romanian peer-reviewed journal of political science edited and published twice a year by the Romanian Academic Society (SAR) on behalf of the Romanian community of political scientists. 

SAR also publishes issue-specific policy briefs with ad-hoc analysis of risky policies and proposals for remedial action. See a sample authored by myself here. PolSci The journal publishes a diverse range of political science articles, especially from fields neglected until recently in Romania, such as comparative politics, public policy, political economy, or political psychology, covering domestic or broader Central or South-East European issues. See more on PolSci here.


Other individual research projects and fellowships resulted in published papers, book chapters, and the co-editing of a Public Policy academic textbook. Below a complete list of publications with samples of the most relevant recent work.

       (co-author Alina Mungiu Pippidi)
  • Money for Our People? Fiscal Decentralization and Corruption in Romania" Public Administration and Development, no. 25, pg. 1-18, 2005
  • Vama Veche: a case study in local development. Teaching material for the LGI workshop in urbanism, Budapest, February 2005
  • "The failure of public governance in SEE", in Bryane Michael, Rainer Kattel, Wolfgang Drechsler (eds.) Enhancing the Capacities to Govern: Challenges Facing the Central and Eastern European Countries, NISPAcee, Bratislava, 2004.
textbook                      
  • Financial Transfers for Investments to Local Governments: the cases of the roads fund, housing policy and district heating reform policy. SAR working papers series no. 26. (with Csilla Kajtar)
  • "The cargo cult of democracy in Romania", in Thinking the Unthinkable: From Thought to Policy, UNDP Bratislava, 2003. 
  • Halfway There: An Assessment of the Fiscal Equalization System Reform in Romania. in S. Slukhai (ed), Equalization Systems in Transition Countries, LGI Budapest, 2003.
  • Fiscal Decentralization in Romania: Reform Strategies on the Short and Medium Term. Policy paper, RTI International, 2002. (co-author Thomas Spofford)
  • Grassroots of Government: Strategies, Attitudes and Effectiveness in the Romanian Local Administration, paper presented at the Kokkalis workshop on Southeastern Europe, Harvard University, February 2001
  • The Ever-Expanding Government: The Structural Instability of the Romanian Cabinets and the Failing Institutional Reform. Crisis Alert Papers Series, no. 1, Romanian Academic Society (SAR), Bucharest, January 2001.
  • In the Shadows: An Estimate of the Informal Economic Sector in Two Regions of Romania, Working papers series, no. 1107, SOCO Program, Institut fur Menschwissenschaften (IWM), Vienna, 2000. (co-authors Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Denisa Mandruta)
  • Non-Tax and Off-Budget Revenues in Three CEE Local Governments, Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest, 1999. (co-authors József Hegedüs, Jurij Navruzov and Orsolya Sebök)
  • Tax Awareness in Romania and the Costs of the Welfare State. Working papers series, no. 11, Center for Public Policy (CeRPP), Bucharest, March 1999.
  • Against All Odds: the Case for Introducing Study Fees in the Romanian Public Universities. Working papers series, no. 6, Center for Public Policy (CeRPP), Bucharest, September 1998.
  • Local Government Performance in Three Romanian Cities: A Pilot Study. Working papers series, no. 5, Center for Public Policy (CeRPP), Bucharest, June 1998.       (co-author Alina Mungiu-Pippidi)
  • The Real Parliament of Romania: Opinions About Free Market in the Lower Chamber. Working papers series, no. 4, Center for Public Policy (CeRPP), Bucharest, June 1998.     with the annnex The Future of Economic Policies in Romania: the Opinions About Economy of the Students in Economics, July 1998.               (co-author Dragos Aligica)
  • 'Populism, today', in: Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (ed), Contemporary Political Doctrines, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 1998
  • 10 arguments against the changing of the Romanian electoral system. Working papers series, no. 2, Center for Public Policy (CeRPP), Bucharest, February 1998.
  • 'Defending the Cabinet against the Contract with Romania: Fiscal Traps' - Sfera Politicii, Vol.5, No.51, August , 1997.
  • 'Illusions of the Gradual Reform in Eastern Europe' - Sfera Politicii,  Vol.5, No.48, April, 1997.
  • 'Romanian Capitalism: A Never-Ending Debate'. Revista de Cercetãri  Sociale (Social Research Review), Vol.3, No.1 (January), 1996.

 

Books translated (from English):

  • F. Hayek (ed), Capitalism and the Historians - London, 1954. Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998 (together with Dragos Aligica)
  • Norman Barry, Welfare (Social Science Concepts Series), Open University Press, 1992.  DuStyl Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998   - with an introductory study "Economy, philosophy and the welfare state"

© 2006 Sorin Ionita