ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the internationalisation of social sciences in the late 1960s changed national research practices and professional hierarchies in Romania at a time when industrial expansion was still the urban development paradigm. It analyses how the socialist state rethought its urban development strategies in the 1970s because of increasing engagement with transnational knowledge flows. This angle is critical given the disjuncture between Western and Romanian paths (and discourses) of (industrial) development that became apparent in the second half of the 1970s. While in capitalist countries the paradigm of industrial growth eroded and gave way to concerns about deindustrialisation, the Romanian government industrialised further to boost the momentum of national development. The chapter draws primarily on the activities of the Centre for the Study of Youth Issues (CSPT), a research institution founded in 1968 shortly after the rise of global student movements. It argues for a more thorough examination of processes of knowledge production and implementation to better understand the Romanian approach to industrial cities in the early 1970s, highlighting the successive changes in urban conceptualisations but also assessing actors’ practices in relation to state-building strategies.
