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Südosteuropa 57 (2009), H . 2/3, S . 284-304 DEMOCRACY AND MARKET ECONOMY WIM VAN MEURS Romania: New Membership and Old Habits? Abstract. Political developments in Romania as well as the resulting deficits in transition management since EU accession raise a number of fundamental but difficult questions . Should Romania’s “old habits” be thought of as a Huntingtonian blend of the country’s pre-communist political institutions and political culture mixed with “Ceauşescuism”, that is, Romania’s exceptional type of state socialism, sometimes dubbed “sultanism”? Or should these “old habits” actually be explained in terms of an event as recent as Romania’s EU accession process – and thus be seen as a sort of “post-accession syndrome”? Or should at least some part of the supposed Romanian or Balkan exceptionalism, to which Romania’s “old habits” are often attributed, be viewed in comparison with recent trends in the political culture – that is, the democratic attitudes of the citizens and the informal rules of the political process – in West European polities? Questioning path-dependencies cannot alleviate the problems caused by the obvious flaws in Romania’s political process, but thinking through negative pan-European trends does imply rethinking stereotypes about the Balkans . Wim van Meurs is an Associate Professor at the History Department of Radboud University, Nijmegen . History and Characteristics of Transformation Historically, Romania has been characterized by a modernization gap between its southern and eastern regions, which remained under Ottoman rule until 1878, and its more modern, urbanized western and northwestern regions, which were under Habsburg rule until 1918 . In the interwar period, the newly unified Romanian state underwent a process of a political and economic modernization in dependency, a process that continued the trend initiated in the mid-nineteenth century . Western models of statehood, democracy and market economy were grafted onto a Romanian society rooted in heterogeneous tra- ditions . The result was a quasi-democracy dominated by small political and economic elites; a political model that did not allow for the representation of wider societal interests or the internalization of the concept of popular sover- Romania 285 eignty . Nationalist mobilization became a substitute for modernization and the further integration of Romanian society .1 Despite some breakthroughs after the communist takeover in 1945-1947, the new regime failed to solve many of the problems of the prewar period . In fact, many of these problems were further accentuated during the last decade of Ceauşescu’s rule . Once again, an external model of modernization was grafted onto a Romanian reality . Political elites continued to perceive the state and the bureaucratic apparatus as their property rather than a policy instrument . This perception resulted in rampant nepotism, etatism and simulated reforms – even during the more liberal decade after 1965 2. By the early 1980s, the combination of an autonomous foreign policy and Stalinist approaches to modernization and domestic affairs had run its course . The result was nationalist mobilization and economic decay 3. Lacking a substantial, outspoken and influential opposition – partly because the Ceauşescu clan monopolized national(ist) mobilization and repressed organ- ized dissent and independent voices within the party – the revolution of 1989 was essentially a power struggle among different segments of the nomenklatura rather than the beginning of a widespread political transformation . Thus, although Romania was the only country in Eastern Europe to witness a violent end to communism, the net outcome of Romania’s 1989 is generally considered to have been more of a “palace revolution” than a clear break with the past 4. Be- ing highly distrustful of market economics and pluralist democracy, and facing some distinct disadvantages in comparison to most of the other East European states on the path towards EU accession, Romania increasingly fell behind its neighbors in the reform process of the 1990s 5. When the democratic opposition finally won the presidential and parliamentary elections in 1996, expectations were quite high . The new center-right government under President Constantinescu and the Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR) initiated the restructuring of heavy industries and the min- ing sector, liquidated economic black holes, consolidated the banking system, privatized several large state-owned enterprises, liberalized most input prices 1 Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania . Regionalism, Nation-Building and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930 . Ithaca/N .Y . 1995, 1-28 . 2 Michael Shafir, Romania: Politics, Economics and Society: Political Stagnation and Simulated Change . London 1985 . 3 Avner Ben-Ner / J . Michael Montias, The Introduction of Markets in a Hypercentralized Economy: The Case of Romania, Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (1991), n . 4, 163-170 . 4 Anneli Ute Gabanyi, Die unvollendete Revolution . Rumänien zwischen Diktatur und Demokratie . München 1990 . 5 Tom Gallagher, Modern Romania . The End of Communism, the Failure of Democratic Reform, and the Theft of a Nation . New York 2005 . 286 Wim van Meurs and established the full convertibility of the Romanian currency .6 Yet, the vari- ous DCR-led governments lacked political coordination and failed to settle their internal political differences . For these reasons,he t DCR lost both the presidency and the parliamentary majority in 2000 . Ion Iliescu was elected (again) as president and, under Adrian Năstase, a Social Democratic Party minority government supported by the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania entered office7 . As a result, the same members of the former nomenklatura who had taken power following Ceauşescu’s ouster during the December 1989 revolution took office once again . The ambitious but somewhat amateurish politics of President Constantinescu and the center-right Democratic Convention (1996-2000) created a sense of reform fatigue and political disillusionment among the electorate . A broad impression of policy failure, although only partially justified, added to the extreme uncertainty and hardship among the losers of the transition process 8. While many politicians from the first and second Iliescu presidencies (1990– 1996) returned to power “sadder and wiser” in 2000 after four years in the opposition, most political parties now featured younger cadres for the first time since the revolution of December 1989 . The stability of the political system, however, was deceptive and based on shrewd control and clientelism rather than a culture of constructive policy-making . Simulated reforms, etatism, occa- sional bouts of nationalist rhetoric, incomplete separation of powers and blurred distinctions between the state, parties and the private sector still ran high in Romania 9. Overall, the new leftist government did better than most analysts expected, probably because popular expectations were at an all-time low and because the process of EU integration provided much-needed assistance as well as the basic framework and incentive for reforms . Somewhat surprisingly, the re-labeled Social Democrats were especially successful in their attempts to achieve macroeconomic stability . Their control of public expenditure left the country with very low deficits at the end of 2004 . The Social Democrats also managed to conclude all the acquis chapters negotiated with the European Union, albeit with notable red flags concerning the judiciary, the fight against corruption and institutional preparedness for EU funds . Consequently, the EU relegated Romania (and Bulgaria) to the second phase of its Eastern enlarge- ment and installed safeguard clauses and the post-accession Cooperation and Verification Mechanism to assuage the concerns of skeptical member states .10 6 Ibid ., 142-210 . 7 Marina Popescu, The Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in Romania, November 2000, Electoral Studies 22 (2003), n . 2, 325-334 . 8 Gallagher, Modern Romania (above fn . 5), 239-266 . 9 Open Society Institute, Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policy in Romania, Monitoring the EU Accession Process: Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policy . Budapest 2002, 451-515 . 10 Dimitris Papadimitriou, Romania and the European Union: From Marginalisation to Membership . London 2008, 54-63 . Romania 287 In the 1990s, Romania’s economic reforms suffered from disadvantageous framework conditions, including erratic management, and wavering popular support for economic and political transformation . The size of the national economy, the predominance of the poorly mechanized agricultural sector, and Romania’s run-down, obsolete industrial complex have made transformation particularly challenging . Ceauşescu himself created some of these problems by striving for autarky and by paying off foreign debt at the expense of domestic consumption and investment in capital goods during the 1980s .11 Successive governments were reluctant to implement reforms that would impose transition hardships and erode pro-reform constituencies . Price liberali- zation and employment reduction have produced legacies of bad credit, back- logs in large-scale privatization processes and pseudo-employed workforces . The changes of government and the absence of a coherent reform concept with enough public and political support have resulted in erratic transformation policies, especially those regarding privatization or restitution

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