The present thesis is premised on the claim that that there is an inescapable arrangement of the discipline around the concept of the state. IR theories, from rationalist to constructivist ones, dispute to different degrees the ontological and/or analytical utility of the concept. Yet none of them reject the assumptions of corporate agency (based on the assumption of personhood) when discussing the state as an agent internationally. This thesis advances the view that assumptions about the properties of biological kinds, such as unchangeable features, well-determined boundaries and unitary intentionality and agency, cannot be transferred to social kinds such as states. It constitutes a rejection of the essentialising and reifying moves characterising IR theories, while still arguing there are such things as structurally complex actors, and that the state is one of them. The thesis proposes a conception of the state as a relational, network and emergent actor. It argues that a combination between the relational ontology of networks with the emergent and nonlinear assumptions of complexity science constitute the basis for such a conception of the state. Specifically, the framework can account for the relationship between individual and state agency without collapsing the two analytical and ontological objects. It proposes a view of state agency as differentiated depending on the type of relationships within networks engaged in the constitution of the state. In this light, state agency is regarded as non-unitary and relational. Based on such a framework, the illustrative cases challenge the manner in which historical data has been put to work to explain the construction of the Romanian state in relation to specific historical events: i.e. the coup and change of regime after 1944; and within a specific period of modernity: i.e. from the 1960s to mid- 1980s. The analysis demonstrates that the Romanian state is more than the sum of powerful individuals, yet not a static entity with a clear distinction between its inside and outside. It also shows that, even for the personalistic dictatorship years (1960s - 1980s), overlapping and contradictory social relations and practices simultaneously constitute the state and state agency. This demonstration aims to reinforce the broader claim about the applicability of the framework across a range of types of states (in this case, totalitarian modern states) whilst allowing specific historical analysis of their constitution and agentic potentialities.

After the collapse of communism in Romania, in December 1989, nationalism played an important role in the development of political life. This thesis proposes an explanation for why this has been the case. I identify the Greater Romania Party as the most representative nationalist political formation in post-communist Romania and examine it as my case-study. My analysis distinguishes the core aspects of the PRM's ideology and studies how its discourse is constructed. In doing so, I argue that the success of the party could only be explained by the fact that it employs a nationalist discourse that has been consistently and continuously used over a long period of time in Romania. I begin by engaging with the debates about nationalism in order to establish a theoretical framework, which in turn provides my analytical device to examine Romanian nationalist movements in three different political, social and cultural time frames. I use this analytical tool to identify a set of themes that characterise the nationalist discourse in all the periods I examine, and to show that these themes cut across chronological sequence, political purpose and social and cultural contexts. Alongside with the continuity of the nationalist discourse across time, I argue that authoritarian tradition and the conditions of the transition from communism in Romania are also factors that contribute to the persistence of nationalist tendencies in post-1989 Romanian politics. The analysis of the case-study draws on these findings and shows that the same core ideological elements used effectively in the past are exploited again, by the PRM, in yet another context, with the same degree of success. The thesis, therefore, aims to examine the most significant nationalist party in post-communist Romania, to explain the background in which it operates and to focus on the ideological tools it uses in order to rally the support of the electorate, by mapping out the particular type of nationalist discourse, which recurs in different historical political and social circumstances in Romania.