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Open Access Journal focused on International Relations Yearly issue: ISSN: 2067-1253

Presentation of the journal by university professor Ioan Horga, PhD
A New Beginning!

Analele Universităţii din Oradea Seria: Relaţii Internaţionale şi Studii Europene

For the young group at the Department for International Relations and European Studies at the University of Oradea, the release of this journal is a new challenge. After five years of fruitful academic and scientific activity with “focus” research in the field of International Relations and European studies, the management of great scientific events and publishing their results in scientific proceedings, this group attempts at making their concerns known in other fields than the study of Europe’s current and future borders semantics, a topic confirmed by the Eurolimes journal. It is the fourth year and eighth issue of this journal with a good international estimate (EBSCO, Copernicus, GESIS, etc.).

The pages of the journal will approach not only new topics. They will also set to the foreground the work and activity of colleagues who start to have a word in the field they have specialised in on a scientific level. Such a focused topic greatly developed in Oradea by Prof. Ioan Horga in the context of the establishment of the Institute for Euroregional Studies, a “Jean Monnet” Centre of Excellence” in 2005 would be the place of subnational stakeholders (local communities, regions, etc.) in the environment of the pluralism promoted by the Global International Society. These subnational stakeholders will be some of the most actively involved in international society thus validating Holsti’s thesis according to which international relations are social relations reaching power distribution worldwide (K.J.Holsti, 1992:22). One of the priorities of this orientation for the following years will be the structure, work and results that European Groups for Territorial Cooperation will have on the level of European area postmodernist architecture plan once the functional legitimacy of transnational, interregional and cross-border cooperation units.

The topic of the international relations communication that was a focus in Oradea as early as 2001 with four volumes published as a result of conferences organised here (see references) are actually promoted due to the endeavours of Mrs. Luminita Soproni, who has made up a network of collaborators in the country and abroad. They will be present with surveys and articles in each issue of the journal. One of the priorities of this orientation is represented by the role of mass media as a communication vector in international relations.

The topic of European security in international context that is still at the beginning, yet based on adjacent concerns of our group particularly from a historical perspective are about to be consecrated due to our colleague Dorin Dolghi, who has concerns in the field of security regional organisation, as well as our group of collaborators with concerns in the issue of strategic partnerships and political analysis of regions in instability areas. This topic has many opportunities to swiftly develop considering the Master’s degree in European Security.

The topic of internal power relations and political leaders in international relations is still at the beginning and is to be developed by our colleague Cristina Dogot. We know that classic and neo-classic theories stress the role of internal power relations and political leaders in international decision-making from the perspective of the motivation of certain group or state interests (Ph. Braillard, 1977: 120). In the pages of this journal, there will be topics relating to this general issue and other particular aspects, such as countries’ geostrategic position, the nature of internal political system, the ideology of governments and types of diplomacy.

Due to the concerns of Prof. Barbu Stefanescu, the field of cultural anthropology in international relations will acquire more than an integrating perspective in the pages of our journal due to the interference with other research topics of our group; it will also acquire a particular perspective considering the plurality of the international scene and its dynamics and foundations. The association of young researchers from Oradea, Romania and abroad to focus on this generous topic will be the setting of a fruitful development of this research topic in the national and international study of international relations.

The demographic aspects in international relations debated through the contribution of our colleague Mircea Brie particularly from the perspective of the relationship between ethnie and confession as a foundation of conflicts will acquire new qualities once certain research topics are brought together, such as: social violence geopolitics, migration and socio-professional integration, interculturality, social and demographic community and national policies.

Specific topics in the field of international law and particularly community law applied to cross-border relations that have been researched by our colleagues and others will be proposed by our colleague Adrian Popoviciu. He is currently setting up a network of collaborators with concerns in the field of law and cross-border public managements. They will contribute with punctual articles in the journal.

The conceptual and methodological dimension of research sources in international relations, a steady concern of our colleague Sorin Sipos, will acquire new opportunities in our journal either by proposing new documents or new investigation methods, or by critically assessing certain sources. Our colleague will watch over conceptual accuracy, methodology and sources used by the authors of surveys that are to be published in the pages of our journal.

The eight focus research topics that the editorial committee propose to readers will not exclude other topics with impact. Yet we will attempt to thoroughly focus the informational flow towards the aforementioned topics. At the same time, there will be situations when one or more research topics will not be in each issue leaving room to more fruitful directions; there might also be topic issues on scientific events organised by the editorial staff.

Each issue of the journal will introduce the most important events organised by the Department for International Relations and European Studies. It will also comprise the introduction of a scientific personality relevant to teaching and researching international relations.

Ioan HORGA