The Loss of Property Rights and the Construction of Legal Consciousness in Early Socialist Romania (1950-1965)

Law & Society Review, Volume 48, Number 4 (2014)

22 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2014 Last revised: 18 Apr 2015

Date Written: October 28, 2014

Abstract

What happens to legal and rights consciousness when rights previously protected are taken away? In this article, I investigate the process of contesting urban housing nationalization in Romania in the early 1950s in order to understand how the loss of property rights led to new hybrid types of legal consciousness. I find that the construction of socialist legal consciousness was grounded in the interaction between the legally constituted selves of former owners and state bureaucrats who drew from distinct legal and property rights ideologies. This process underscores continuities in legal consciousness even under drastic regime changes, which in turn has implications for the construction of new hegemonic legalities and power regimes. The article is based on extensive document and archival research.

Keywords: law and society, housing nationalization, Eastern Europe, property rights, legal consciousness

Suggested Citation

Serban, Mihaela, The Loss of Property Rights and the Construction of Legal Consciousness in Early Socialist Romania (1950-1965) (October 28, 2014). Law & Society Review, Volume 48, Number 4 (2014), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2516867

Mihaela Serban (Contact Author)

Ramapo College of New Jersey ( email )

505 Ramapo Valley Road
Mahwah, NJ 07430
United States

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