The Institutionalization of Indoctrination: An Exploratory Investigation based on the Romanian Case Study

195 Pages·2022·1.959 MB·English

by  Paul Dragos Aligica, Simona Preda

The Institutionalization
of Indoctrination

The
Institutionalization
of Indoctrination
An Exploratory
Investigation Based on the
Romanian Case Study
Paul Dragos Aligica and Simona Preda
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aligică, Paul Dragoș, author. | Preda, Simona, 1978- author.
Title: The institutionalization of indoctrination : an exploratory investigation based on
the Romanian case study / Paul Dragos Aligica and Simona Preda.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021053137 (print) | LCCN 2021053138 (ebook) | ISBN
9781793635495 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781793635501 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Propaganda, Communist--Romania--History--20th century.
| Communism--Romania--History--20th century. | Romania--Politics
and government--1944-1989. | Romania--Social conditions--1945-1989.
Classification: LCC JN9632.Z13 P8525 2022 (print) | LCC JN9632.Z13 (ebook) | DDC
303.3/75094980904--dc23/eng/20211201
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053137
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053138
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
PART I: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF
PROPAGANDA AND INDOCTRINATION: THE
PHENOMENON THROUGH CONCEPTUAL AND
THEORETICAL LENSES 1
Chapter 1: Ideocracy, Totalitarianism, and the “New Man” 3
Chapter 2: The Functions and Logic of the Indoctrination and
Propaganda Institutions 19
PART II: THE ROMANIAN CASE (1948–1989):
DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE FACETS 41
Chapter 3: Indoctrination and Propaganda in Communist Romania:
An Overview of the General Patterns of Organization and
Evolution over Time 45
Chapter 4: The Ideological Worker: An Overview of Its Profiles
and Functions in the Context of the Romanian System 67
Chapter 5: The Ideological Turn in Higher Education: Further
Insights from the Romanian Case 99
PART III: EVOLVING FRAMEWORKS OF ANALYSIS
AND EMERGING RESEARCH AGENDAS 123
Chapter 6: A Failure of Institutionalization: A Key Insight from the
Case Study and the Challenges of its External Validity 125
v
vi Contents
Chapter 7: Research Directions in the Study of Indoctrination and
Its Institutionalization 147
Bibliography 157
Index 171
About the Authors 175
Acknowledgments
This book was made possible by the support offered by the Institute for
Humane Studies at George Mason University and the Center for Governance
and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. We acknowledge with grati-
tude the tremendous contribution of these two organizations. Jennifer Brick
Murtazashvilli deserves special thanks for her belief in this project, which
in fact started as a result of a series of conversations between her and Paul
Dragos Aligica regarding their parallel institutional experiences in the context
of contemporary academia. Her constant support, over the entire duration of
the project, is most sincerely and gratefully acknowledged. The investiga-
tion reflected in one chapter of the work was supported by a grant of the
Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI, project
number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020–1076, within PNCDI III. Paul Dragos
Aligica expresses his gratitude for the spillovers generated by that grant,
allowing a research investigation into the nature and resilience of a very
peculiar institutional structure.
This book also owes immensely to the advice and encouragement we have
received over the years from our colleagues at the University of Bucharest
and George Mason University. Special thanks to Richard Wagner, Peter
Boettke, Virgil Storr, and Dan Rothschild for creating a hospitable and
productive setting at Mercatus Center at George Mason University for an
entire research program, out of which this book is just a small contribution.
Individual chapters of the book or ideas and arguments now presented in sec-
tions and fragments of various chapters were read, discussed, and most help-
fully commented on by Richard Wagner, Robert Whaples, Eileen Norcross,
Marian Zulean, Marian Preda, and Eleanor Ealy. We thank them for their
generous feedback, criticism, and encouragement.
The book includes material published in Paul Dragos Aligica, “The
Ideological Commissar and the Institutionalization of Indoctrination,”
Independent Review, vol. 25, 2021. We thank the Independent Review for
permission to reprint this material.
vii
viii Acknowledgments
The invaluable help of Logan Hansen is gratefully acknowledged. Logan’s
help in revising and editing the first draft of the manuscript was decisive. His
competence, dedication, and professionalism are most highly and gratefully
appreciated. We also want to thank Miruna Voiculescu for her assistance in
translating from Romanian some parts of the text, and to Jonathan Plante for
reviewing them.
A different sort of debt is owed to three people at Lexington: Joseph Parry,
whose interest in and support of the project in the initial stages were crucial,
Sara Noakes, and Melissa McClellan. They supervised the project with pro-
fessionalism and dedication, easing the progress of the manuscript from sub-
mission to its publication. We remain responsible for any errors or omissions.
Introduction
This book is an exploratory contribution to the study of the social organiza-
tion of ideology and, more precisely, of the institutionalization of indoctri-
nation and propaganda. The diversity of ways political systems organize
and institutionalize their ideological functions seems to be a topic far from
neglected by both scholarly work and journalism alike. Yet, at a closer look,
the scholarly treatment of the ways of the ideological function gets organized
and embedded in institutionalized structures reveals massive lacunae. As one
becomes more familiar with the topic, it becomes clearer and clearer that,
in this case, the issue is not just about the proverbial “gaps in the literature”
that are to be filled. The reality is that, in order to put this research line on
solid footing, one needs to start with very basic, foundational questions:
How do we conceptualize and theorize about the social organization of
ideology? How should we think methodically—in theoretically and empiri-
cally informed ways—about the institutionalization of indoctrination and
propaganda? How should we conceptualize and theorize about the social and
political instrumentation of ideology in regimes or systems that assume that
historical missions of salvation or radical transformations are the stringent
organizing and legitimization principles of their very existence? What are the
best ways to document and study the specific domains of institutionalization
of indoctrination, like, for instance, the way it gets inserted and implemented
in education systems? This book is an attempt to outline several converging
and complementary venues approaching the responses to these and similar
questions. The exploratory investigations reflected in it, thus, have to be read
as a propaedeutic for better analytic engagement with the problem of indoc-
trination and its institutionalization.
It is commonplace within political science textbooks to note that modern
political systems have embedded into their structures distinctive organiza-
tional arrangements, whose function is to propagate, monitor, enforce, and
manage a set of ideological positions, which have a central role in both
defining and supporting the institutional architecture of those systems.
ix