A General Perspective On The Meanings Of The Socio-Demographic Indicators In The Danube Counties Of Oltenia

The transition from a totalitarian and centralized regime to a democratic and liberal one raises a series of challenges for the societies that were part of the communist bloc. Thus, the harmonization of all components in the social environment implies a major effort to adapt to the global evolution of economic and social phenomena. In the case of Romania it can be noticed that the application of standardized public policies did not generate similar effects in all development regions. Internally, one can easily see that there are significant gaps between development regions, detailing those related to the different capacity to exploit the local potential. This article is based on a research carried out from European funds aimed at identifying the development potential of the economic development sectors along the Danube. The secondary analysis of the research, focused on three counties in the Oltenia region, which are riparian to the Danube (Dolj, Mehedinți and Olt), this reveals that the local potential assumed by the Danube river is neglected and the dynamics of the social and economic phenomena unfold in imitation of models from the Western countries, which favors undesirable phenomena such as social polarization. The need for competitiveness is characteristic for areas of activity with a high level of technology, evolving through the individual capacity to impose on the specialized markets the economic agents. Internally, there are neglected public policies that identify the existing potential of exploiting the existing resources in the three counties and the consequences are in the social polarization, the marginalization of certain categories of persons and the exposure to the international economic fluctuations.