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A New French Revolution? an Integrative Approach in the Analysis

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A New French Revolution? an Integrative Approach in the Analysis A New French Revolution? An integrative approach in the analysis of the Romanian transition A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Cand. Polit. Øyvind E. Lervik Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, Norway February 2001 Avdeling for forskningsdokumentasjon, Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen, 27.03.2001 SUMMARY This thesis has focued on the Romanian transition. The critical period concerned was from March 1989, with apparent signs of liberalisation, to the 1990 elections. Romania differed from the East and Central European transitions and the background of these cases. The Integrative Approach provided the analytical framework for relations between relevant structural characteristics and the violent revolution. An examination of several levels of aggregation gave actors’ preferences and the context of the transition, forming the basis for a game theoretic analysis. The issues justifying a transition questions and its proceedings were scrutinised. Selected theories in transitology were elaborated in light of these requirements. The study thus gave a methodological critique as well. The conclusions both gave insight into the forces that provoked the Romanian transition and illustrated how it was supervised. The observations provide contributions to generalisations on rational choices under transitions’ structural constraints, if supplemented with similar theoretical approaches to other cases. The Romanian transition was incomparable to the French revolution. Avdeling for forskningsdokumentasjon, Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen, 27.03.2001 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to the following people for contributing to my thesis: - The former dissidents, Laszlo Tökes and Doina Cornea, for receiving me and giving me invaluable information; - Tilda Bazqa for translating my conversation with Doina Cornea; - Associate Professor Stein Ugelvik Larsen at the Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, for his contacts and supportive attitude that gave me additional motivation; - Professor Vladimir Pasti for interesting interpretations. Avdeling for forskningsdokumentasjon, Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen, 27.03.2001 CHAPTER 1: Introduction The purpose of the analysis The Romanian transition involved violence and former communists were not only elected after the revolution but also re-elected a second time. Society was promised a peaceful and fair transition by the former nomenclaturists after Ceauºescu had been removed from power. As the nomenclaturists had secured sufficient power, however, they repressed the opposition. This thesis reveals how they supervised the process in order to seize power. Structural and actor-orientated research strategies aim at explaining when transitions take place and through which modes respectively. This analysis presents research traditions in transitology and elaborates on their ability to show when, why, and how transitions take place. None of them document satisfactorily the dynamics of interactions and the actors’ strategies and preferences, which are important for explaining how these interactions are knitted to structures, giving implications for transitions. The research focus is motivated by the following quotation: “A revolution is something that changes the political system, while a coup d’etat only changes the political leaders, but maintains the political system” (Pasti 2000, Appendix). This definition overlooks the fact that the change of a political system in a revolution must open up for a qualitatively new rule. Pasti used this definition as a basis for comparison with the French revolution. According to his interpretation, the population seized power and then the leaders emerged from the crowds, representing the interests of the population. In Pasti’s view, this is equivalent to the Romanian revolution. “The leaders are not important in a revolution but the political system is important” (Pasti 2000: Appendix). This distinction is insufficient: In order to understand a revolution one should take heed of the change of structures and the change of leaders. Structures must be changed in order to have those of a democratic state introduced. The leaders who have an interest in preserving the privileges of the former regime must be removed in order to give new forces room for competition. This leads to the question of enquiry: How are the roles of the Romanian transition’s leaders to be interpreted? Structures and interactions must be analysed in order to document the degree of unpredictability in the emergence of a leadership. For this purpose, hypotheses are given that examine such relations. Wood’s understanding of a revolution is worthwhile: It is not that men’s motives are unimportant; they indeed make events, including revolutions. But the purposes of men, especially in a revolution, are so numerous, so varied, and so contradictory that their complex interaction produces results that no one intended or could even foresee. (....) Historical explanation which does not account for these “forces”, which, in other words, relies on understanding the conscious intentions of the actors, will thus be limited” (Scocpol 1979: 18). The task is to elaborate whether no one really intended or could foresee the complex interactions by accounting for these forces. Scocpol’s distinguishing between social and political revolutions sheds light on these forces behind revolutions. She understood social revolutions as follows: They are “rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below”. Political revolutions “transform state structures but not social structures, and they are not necessarily accomplished through class conflict” (Scocpol 1979: 4). The analysis is based on an interpretation of classes as formed by dividing lines between those enjoying privileges from the non-democratic regime and those who do not. As a consequence, a change of power must necessarily involve an alteration of class structures. Elements of a social revolution must be included. As leaders belong to the class that receives privileges, they are important in the sense that they must open up for other classes if competition for power is to be fair. Numerous studies and observations have documented the failed attempts at giving rules for political development. Like traditional approaches, this thesis will show firstly why the transition took place. Secondly, it scrutinises how it proceeded through the relevant actors’ interactions. Alternative approaches to transitology and their conclusions are valued in light of their results. Generalising conclusions will not be provided. The results of this analysis, however, are comparable with analyses of transitions where similar theoretical approaches have been used and can thereby contribute to theory generation. The design of the thesis Chapter Two examines the modernisation paradigm as represented by Lipset (Lipset 1959) and Huntington (Huntington 1968). Both gave theories aimed at predicting the timing of transitions. Lipset elaborated on economic development as an independent variable for democratisation and Huntington focused on the relations between economic development and institutions. Thereafter, Linz and Stepan’s classification of different non-democratic regimes and their respective problems of democratic transition and consolidation associated with them are presented (Linz and Stepan 1996). Their theory did not belong to the modernisation paradigm. All these theories are criticised. The Integrative Approach (Ugelvik Larsen 2000) is presented as a synthesis. It includes the Funnel of Causality (Mahoney and Snyder 2000) that scrutinises the structural background of actors’ interactions. Different levels of aggregation are included as well as each level’s variance that the researcher regards as having had influence on the transition process. Variance reduction is extracted from each level through the path-dependent strategy. This methodology provides a framework for the transition and explains actors’ backgrounds. Thus the analyst can identify preferences and strategies. The focus is on the transition process and not on the consolidation phase. The first elections are defined as the dividing line between these phases. Game theory as a framework for analysing the transition process is presented in Chapter Three. Thus an integration of structural variables and action is provided. Rational actors act under uncertainty and try to attain their preferences through implicit or explicit use of threats. The works of Colomer (Colomer 1991), Karl and Schmitter (Karl and Schmitter 1991), Tsebelis (Tsebelis 1990), and Hovi and Rasch (Hovi and Rasch 1993) contribute to the theoretical framework. Chapter Four applies the funnel strategy to Romanian history. Geo-political position is the first variable. It extracts the variance in state/nation building and Warsaw Pact position that is regarded to have influenced the other variables and the transition itself. Next is economic development. The third variable, degree of coherence in pre-democratic institutions, is orientated towards the meso-level in analysing the Romanian Communist Party, the Securitate and the army. These institutions were important for sustaining the communist regime. Changes in these institutions were crucial for the transition to occur and proceed. The civil society variable addresses the role of, or lack of, societal organisations.
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