The Religious Discourse of New Parties in Romania: Faith-Based Narratives as Forms of Political Communication

Religion was an important resources for many parties and politicians in post-Communist Romania. They called on religion to argue ideas, political programs and justify decisions. From constructing the saviour and messianic profile of leaders, to the religious populism found among the ideas and political programs of parties and reason for "casus belli", extensive research highlights the importance of faith as a resource for political communication esepcially for the established parties. However, very little is known about the approaches used by the new parties on the political arena. This study aims to identify and show how new parties use religious based narratives to communicate with voters in Romania where the Romanian Orthodox Church is a socially and politically active actor in Romania, with a significant presence both offline and online. Several new parties such as S.O.S Romania, P.O.T and PNCR (Romanian National Conservative Party) got sizeable electoral support in the 2024 national legislative elections. The narrative analysis uses party documents and statements of party leaders, issued in January-December 2024. The results indicate the existence of three main narratives in the political discourse of these three new parties in Romania: a theologically based political discourse, a political discourse based on religious syncretism and a normative or ethical discourse.