Ban in FT: Romania Needs Social Leadership
On Nov. 16, Klaus Iohannis was elected in a close victory to the Presidency in Romania. The former physics teacher earned his reputation as a crusader against government corruption as leader of the National Liberal Party, and campaigned on a platform of improving the economy.
But a narrow focus on transparency would be a disservice to the varied social needs of the Romanian people.
In a letter to the editor for the Financial Times, Cornel Ban, assistant professor for International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, encourages president-elect Iohannis to take a wide view when establishing the direction of his term in office.
“Contemporary Romania is among the EU’s worst performers in terms of the government’s willingness and capacity to tackle striking poverty, inequality, education, and environmental and heath challenges that impair its development,” said Ban in the op-ed. “The president has the power to do more to deal with these scourges.”
Ban, who is also the co-director of the Global Economic Governance Initiative, said that Romania had deep needs for transformative public sector tax investments.
You can read the entire letter here.
“There is overwhelming evidence that without extensive tax-financed public investments in public goods, Romanians will continue to be stuck in the trap of low wages, low benefits, thin safety nets, decrepit education and crumbling health systems,” Ban said.
Ban is currently completing a book manuscript on the political economy of crises, with a focus on the role of economic ideas and the interaction between international and domestic actors. Before joining BU in 2012, Ban was a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.