ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how Romanian officials have tried to present security-related issues in a specific way. It begins by discussing the concept of danger and the relationship between security and identity. The chapter explains that because the period 1990-2000 is part of an ongoing formative moment, the relationship between processes of securitization and processes of identification should be at the centre of the researcher's concerns. It argues that a formative moment is one in which the refashioning of identity is made possible by a lessening of the weight of constraint bearing on individuals. The chapter examines the constructions of 'Romania', 'Europe' and the 'West' that result from the security discourse of the post-communist period. Such a conceptualization of the Post-Cold War period orients this study towards interpreting Romania's security and foreign policy in terms of identity creation. The construction of state identity during a formative moment can be problematized as the effect of the practice of security.
