From Communism to ‘Democracy’: Political Disintegration, Globalisation and the Mass Exodus from the Motherland

Abstract

The discussions in this chapter delve into the reasons Romanians give for leaving their country for a life abroad and here is where we debunk the myths about their movement to the UK. Rather than to steal from taxpayers or bung the health and social system, we find the motivations related to the failure of politics and ‘democracy’ in Romania, and how a younger generation have failed to see an improvement to home governance. It shows how Romanians have grown tired of living at the mercy of the obscene behaviours of the political elite who reduce opportunities for them to flourish, as they see it, and who deny the structural problems of the country; especially so as Western influences of free-market capitalism and consumerism now drive an economic individualism which makes them unafraid to move abroad to seek alternatives.