皇家华人

The villagers of *Sateni鈥� in NE Romania deeply distrust others outside a moral circle focused on the family, close kin, and friends. Suspicion accompanies most social interactions, there is no sense of 鈥漜ommunity鈥�, while cooperation is scarce and fraught with bitter tensions. Despite widespread corruption, neglect of public goods, and dysfunctional administration of the commons, the political life of the village is governed by stability and reproduction, without no long-term conflicts or entrenched polarisation. Based on two-year ethnographic fieldwork documented in my recent book (Living with Distrust. Morality and Cooperation in a Romanian Village, OUP 2022 ), I will analyse local elections and the workings of village administration to propose some explanations of the social stability of moral fragmentation. I will argue that intense moral familism, flexible kin identities, transactional social relationships, legitimate and long-term distrust of the state, and the cognitive short-termism of historical deprivation prevent the emergence of stable political coalitions or ideological antagonism. Instead, political entrepreneurs vie for power using bribes, ritual kinship, experience with organised crime, and patron-client relationships with national political leaders. Social arrangements are always open-ended, as political allies constantly turn into enemies - and the other way around. The failure of collective projects (such as common pasture management) and the scorn addressed towards honest politicians continues and is informed by the history of oppressive collectivised farming during socialism and land tenure before it. To echo Carl Schmidt, Sateni villagers have met their political enemy, and it is themselves.