ACCESS TO WRITTEN CULTURE AS INDICATOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE URBAN-RURAL INTERFACE OF BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Written culture was always considered an indicator of civilisation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the distribution of development and of accessibility to written culture in the urban-rural interface (U-RI) of Bucharest, Romania, to assess their correlation and the impact of the current pandemic crisis. Based on the population's perception regarding their accessibility to written culture through the application of over 200 questionnaires, the analysis showed that bookstores and libraries are mostly competitors. The number of readers and read books is decreasing in the U-RI due to the lack of prioritisation of these services by the local authorities, as reflected in a general decreasing trend of the number of written culture users. The consumption of literature in new formats contributes to less place-dependent cultural services, especially in the high-income areas, while the Principal Component Analysis of cultural data demonstrates a clustering of localities in the U-RI that is strongly correlated with the economic and demographic characteristics of those areas. However, despite the increased accessibility to online, non-place-dependent written culture, the numbers of books read and bought in both physical and digital format had a generally decreasing trend during the pandemic.

CHINA – EU'S "SIGNIFICANT OTHER"?: NOT A CHESS GAME STRATEGY

Following the idea of the "other" in the work of Ernesto Laclau and the perspective of post-foundational discourse analysis, the study focusses on Chinese strategical internal and external pre- and post-Covid-19 political specifics and policies and how they interact (or contradict) with the "European" vision of the world and most importantly itself. As Laclau says, "the notion of "constitutive outside" emphasizes the always present possibility that differential relationship between an entity and its "constitutive outside" turns into antagonism." For more than three decades, the EC/EU has been steadily building up its foreign relations architecture and has proven its desire to project its ideals and values worldwide. However, during the same period, after "the century of humiliation," China has also reached a point in its history where it wants to see the world according to its national interests and views. This work attempts to analyze some key features inherent to both the EU and China, such as strategies, relation with other countries, typical governmental architecture, and some aspects of identity, which could help in better understanding the possible contradictions and areas of cooperation in their way of conceptualizing themselves as key players on the world stage. This will reflect the need for greater European civic awareness in the upcoming decades, as suggested by the author.