Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 354–366 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Public Relations Review Institutionalizing government public relations in Romania after 1989 Alina Dolea *,1 College of Communication and Public Relations, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, 6-8 Povernei Street, 010643 Bucharest, Romania a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Romanian public relations Institutionalization of government public relations Transition public relations Transformational public relations a b s t r a c t Public relations are a new profession in Romania, an Eastern European former communist country which changed to a democratic regime in December 1989. It is generally consid- ered to have emerged after 1990, although publicity and political propaganda preceded it (Rogojinaru in Sriramesh and Verˇ ciˇ c, 2009, p. 553). Although the Romanian practice of public relations evolved and developed quickly aligning with the international practice, several campaigns and programs receiving awards during the last editions of IPRA Golden World Awards, SABRE Awards, Cannes Lions Awards or European Excellence Awards, there is still very little focus on research and theory. Thus, there is no major study on the history of public relations in Romania prior to 1989 to either confirm or challenge the conclusion of Grunig, Grunig and Verˇ ciˇ c (2004) that there was no public relations in Eastern Europe before 1989 because the concept was not acceptable for socialism (p. 137). Even after 1989 while there is a growing body of literature on public relations in general published in Romanian, few studies addressed Romanian public relations which are more frequently described in practice than researched from the viewpoint of public relations theory. This exploratory research aims at identifying the characteristics of government public relations in Romania in 2011, the main stages in institutionalizing government public relations after 1989 and correlates them with the general evolution of public relations in Romania between 1989 and 2011. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction After the enthusiasm and the euphoria of the 1989 Revolution in Romania, the newly appointed government started managing the transition from an autocratic regime to a democratic one, which implied many structural changes and trans- formations in society in all areas of social, economic, political and cultural life. At the same time it had to face other challenges, too: while there was a need to explain internally to citizens the new and sometimes unpopular measures and their conse- quences for the Romanian society, the external re-mapping of Romania in the world started to emerge as a necessity. At first, immediately after December 1989, it was the increasing interest of the world to get to know this new Romania. Then, NATO and EU membership imposed as a constant theme on the internal and the external agenda of the Romanian government, with different intensity according to the changing status of Romania from a “country in transition” (1989–1999) to a “candidate country” (1999–2006) and finally to a “EU member country” (2007–onwards) (Beciu, 2007; Beciu & Perpelea, 2011). The * Tel.: +40 723880572; fax: +40 213117148. E-mail address: alina.dolea@comunicare.ro 1 Alina Dolea is a beneficiary of the project “Doctoral scholarships for the development of the knowledge-based society”, co-funded by the EU through the European Social Fund, SOP Human Resources Development 2007–2013. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.12.008