On November 16, 2014 the second round in the Romanian presidential elections ended with the upset victory of an ethnic German candidate from the provinces. These surprising results defied nationalist mobilization and the current government’s administrative control of the electoral process. In spite of pollsters’ and analysts’ predictions, Klaus Iohannis, the candidate with fewer votes in the first round came from behind and succeeded in taking the presidency over the leading candidate, the sitting Social Democratic Prime Minister, Victor Ponta. A new electoral pattern emerged around two related phenomena: the Romanian diaspora mobilized and transformed an ordinary election into a transnational event, while new media and online social networks played an important role in mobilizing these voters.

Marius Lazăr is Fulbright Visiting Scholar at CREES and Associate Professor of Sociology at „Babes-Bolyai” University of Cluj, Romania. He is a cultural sociologist and author of Paradoxes of Modernity: Elements for a sociology of cultural elites (Paradoxuri ale modernizării. Elemente pentru o sociologie a elitelor culturale, 2002). His current research is in the sociology of literature and of ethnic relations.