For things to remain the same, things will have to change. Party regulation as a form of engineering party competition and political legitimacy in Romania

In post-communist Romania, the legal provisions on political parties have changed quite a lot between 1990 and 2016. Yet, their spirit and motivation have remained largely the same. This observation finds resonance in a famous line from the 1958 novel written by the Sicilian writer Tomasi di Lampedusa. Reflecting on the inevitability of adaptation to the revolutionary changes of the 19th century, one of the main characters of The Leopard argues that change may be seen as an opportunity for a renewed continuity. What seems to be a paradox becomes a cynical exhortation to survival. In order to preserve the acquis one has to envisage changes, promote or even embrace alterations of present settings knowing that once the fizz disappears the situation returns to the previous normality. We argue that fundamentally party regulations have been seen by all actors involved as powerful means to bring legitimacy, first to political parties as institutions of representative democracy and later on to the specific slate of existing parties (Popescu and Soare 2014), as well as to define the space of political competition including during the latest mass-elite interaction reforms.