ANALYZING THE ROMANIAN GOVERNMENTAL SCENE THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES ALEXANDRA IONASCU PhD Candidate, University of Bucharest and Université Libre de Bruxelles (CEVIPOL) [email protected] Abstract Introduction This paper aims to emphasize some theoretical and methodological difficulties The political regime change that occurred in analyzing post-communist countries in Romania after the fall of Communism through a case study concerning the elicited a process of emergence of new professionalization of governmental elites political elites and new patterns of and the development of decision-making practice in the functioning of political procedures in the cabinets of post- institutions. But new political elites do not communist Romania. Are the existing emerge ex nihilo and institutional changes theories applicable to the Romanian case? are in practice slower than the ambition of What methods can we apply in order to change. At the political level, the first capture the function of government, and phase of transition was characterized by a what are the limitations they imply? The process of diffusion of power and by a paper will show that only a research multiplying effect in the decision-making design both quantitative and qualitative in process. However, the fact that transition nature can respond to the challenges is accompanied by political raised by a post-communist country. The reconfiguration raises a valid scientific study is constructed on two main axes. question. When does the transition end? The first one concerns an analysis of the When is it possible, without the risk of 1 governmental personnel and the decision- being accused of conceptual stretching , to making process through quantitative discuss post-Communist political systems methods, and the second axis concerns the with the theoretical and methodological same analysis, but from qualitative perspective. The last section of the paper 1 Giovanni Sartori, “Bien comparer, mal presents a discussion about the research comparer”[Good comparison, Bad Comparison] , approaches, emphasizing the importance Revue Internationale de la Politique Comparée 1(April 1994) :19. One of the causes of the of a hybrid methodological research conceptual errors resides in conceptual stretching, design in order to understand the which implies a definition of the concepts which Romanian case, as an image of the reduces them to a series of conceptual notes (attributes) that do not identify it and which analysis of a transitional country. produce a great flexibility of the concept. 38 tools applied to the Western European a post-communist country. Consequently, democracies? when studying the transitional countries, localism (the proliferation of concepts This paper aims to emphasize some describing similar phenomena) can be theoretical and methodological difficulties avoided by using adequate research in analyzing post-communist countries designs and thus intermingling different through a case study concerning the levels of analysis. professionalization of governmental elites The research will focus on ministers and and the development of decision-making 3 procedures in the cabinets of post- secretaries of state as political appointees communist Romania2. It will be shown and on the mechanisms of decision- that only a hybrid research design both making in the post-communist cabinets. quantitative and qualitative in scope can The choice of these two dimensions deal with the difficulties raised by the allows us to analyze not only the coexistence and functioning of formal and professionalization process, but also the informal mechanisms that characterize the relationships created between these actors political sphere of a transitional country. at the decision-making level, because they can create and implement policies with an The end of transition in this particular 4 case would theoretically mean that the impact at the national level . Two main concept of “professionalization” (seen as reasons explain our focus on the the creation of stable political careers) and governmental level: (1) the decline of the analysis of the procedures of decision- parliaments and the process of delegation of competences towards the executive making can be explained by the existing 5 conceptual frameworks, and by the branch ; and (2) the limited magnitude of quantitative or qualitative methodological this population, their importance in the tools available. Although the decision-making procedures, and the multiplication of concepts creates the exponential dimension of the political possibility of capturing the sui generis system, created by the fact that the character of the transitions, the study function of governmental is conceived as upholds that only a hybrid research design, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, can have sufficient 3 Blondel/ Cotta The nature of party government. explanatory power to understand the 14; Alain Eraly, Le pouvoir enchaîné – Etre evolutionary process which takes place in ministre en Belgique[The chains of power – Being a Minister in Belgium], Bruxelles: Labor, 2002; Mattei Dogan , “Sociologia elitelor politice,”[The 2 In our study we employ a wider definition of the Sociology of Political Elites] in Sociologie politica. government, by including in our analysis not only Opere alese[Political Sociology], Bucureşti: the ministers but also the secretaries of state and Alternative, 1999. leaders of the state agencies (political appointees). 4Robert Putnam, The Comparative Study of See Jean Blondel and Maurizio Cotta eds., The Political Elites (New Jersey:Prentice-Hall, 1976). 6. nature of party government - A Comparative 5 Mattei Dogan, The mandarins of Western Europe. European Perspective (London:Palgrave, 2000), The Political Role of the Top Civil Servants (Sage Chap. I, Introduction. 14. Publications, 1975) 7. 39 the summit of a political career6. In the governments. Meanwhile the ten percent Romanian case, although the Constitution initiated by the MPs were concerned adopted in 1991 and its revised form mainly with marginal topics such as the (2003) established several mechanisms reconfiguration of the statute of a village allowing for equilibrium between the or of a town or ceremonies. Furthermore, legislative and the executive branches7, in there was an extended use of legislative practice an imbalanced relationship was delegation (art 114, 1991). In this way, established, favoring the executive area. since 1992 until 2005 the Romanian cabinets adopted 1581 decisions that were Looking at the ways in which the supposed to appear only in extreme cases. relationship between the Parliaments and In its turn, the Parliament never cabinets was shaped in the Romanian successfully used its forms of control, case, we can realize the extended role such as sanction over cabinets. No cabinet played by the executive power. Several has been dismissed as a result of elements suggest this situation. During the parliamentary actions. Consequently there period from 1990-2005, out of 4822 law is a certain tendency towards projects that became laws after the concentration of power at the legislative procedures were accomplished, governmental level. This transfer of power 8 (89.88%) were initiated by the towards the executive branch can be placed at the political or at the bureaucratic level. Taking into account the 6 Jean Blondel, Government Ministers in the high degree of politicization of the civil Contemporary World (London: Sage, 1986). 16 and 9 24., Jean Blondel et Maurizio Cotta eds., Party and servants in Romania , this population is to Government. An Inquiry into the Relationship be considered in consistence with the Between Governments and Supporting Parties in concept of “political bureaucracy” Liberal Democracies(London: MacMillan Press LTD,1996). 249 and 252. 7 The cabinet is responsible in front of the parliament (according to part 102 of the 1991 Constitution/part 108 of the revised constitution). 9 The politicization of high civil servants in There are also several forms of parliamentary Romania is signaled by the Support for control such as motions, interpellations or questions Improvement in Governance and Management in (art 111-112, 2003). Furthermore the Parliament Central and Eastern European Countries (SIGMA) controls the nomination of the Prime Minister and REPORTS concerning the functioning of the in certain conditions can depose a motion to dismiss Romanian administration as well as by the the government in function (art.113, 2003). While commission reports. These general reports are the role of the Parliament regards the creation of sustained by the declarations of central actors of the laws, the role of the cabinets is to conduct internal administration: chiefs of the Civil Servants Agency, and external policies and to control the central trade union leaders of the civil servants as well as administration (art.101, 2003). Nevertheless the some central administration high civil servants as Romanian legal framework stipulates that the resulted from a survey conducted during January- cabinets also beneficiate from some leverage in February 2006. For further information see order to balance the parliamentary power. Alexandra Ionascu, “The Evolution of Parties 8Data obtained as a result of centralization and Supporting Government Forms of Patronage In reconfiguration of the information provided by the Post-communist Romania”, Paper prepared for site of the Deputies Chamber. www.cdep.ro ECPR joint Sessions, (April, Nicosia, 2006). 40 developed