Conflicts of interest in the restitution and privatisation of housing since the fall of socialism: the case of Central Timis¸oara city—a problem of democracy?

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Notes

The author is greatly indebted to and wishes to thank all the informants participating in the study, Sorina Voiculescu and Ioan Hat¸egan, indefatigable guides to the terrain, the Swedish Institute and the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography for kind financial support, and Go¨ran Hoppe, Ire`ne Nilsson, Ste´phane Ye´rasimos, Be´atrice Giblin and Lars Rudebeck for valuable academic guidance.

Comisia Nat¸ionala˘ pentru Statistica˘, Anuarul Statistic 1990 al Roma˘niei (Bucharest, 1990); Anuarul Statistic 2001 al Roma˘niei (Bucharest, 2001).

For further details see T. Georgescu, ‘Roma˘nia vrea˘ sa˘ blocheze procesele la Strasbourg’, Evinementul zilei, 19 July 2002, www.expres.ro/vest; and V. Surcel, ‘Roma˘nia ar putea fi confruntata˘ cu o avalans¸a˘ de procese la Curtea Europeana˘ a Drepturilor Omului’, Evinementul zilei, 8 March 2002, www.expres.ro/vest.

Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy, Participation and Opposition (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1971).

Thomas Carothers, ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, 13, 1, 2002, pp. 5–21; Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, ‘Towards Consolidated Democ¸racies’, Journal of Democracy, 7, 2, April 1996, pp. 14–33; Guillermo O'Donnell, ‘Illusions about Consolidation’, Journal of Democracy, 7, 2, April 1996, pp. 34–51; and Richard Gu¨nter, Nikiforos P. Diamandouros & Hans-Ju¨rgen Puhle, ‘O’Donnell's “Illusions”: A Rejoinder', Journal of Democracy, 7, 2, April 1996, pp. 150–159.

A. Marrie´, ‘Le paysage politique roumaine, ro˘le et limites des institutions politiques dans la «transition» vers la de´mocratie’, in Nicolas Pe´lissier (ed.), La Roumanie contemporaine, approaches de la transition (Paris, Editions Harmattan, 1995), pp. 137–177; C. Durandin & M. Cazacu, ‘La Roumanie: cap a` l’ouest?', in Michel Foucher (ed.), Transitions ge´opolitiques sur le Continent Europe´en (Paris, l'Observatoire Europe´en de Ge´opolitique, 1998), pp. 169–180.

Georgescu, ‘Roma˘nia vrea˘ sa˘ …’; Surcel, ‘Roma˘nia ar putea fi …’

See Fernand Braudel, L'Identite´ de la France. Espace et Histoire (Paris, Editions Flammarion, 1990); Paul Vidal de la Blache, Tableau de la ge´ographie de la France (Paris, Editions de la Table Ronde, 1903/1994), pp. 547–551; and Paul Claval, La Ge´ographie comme Genre de Vie. Un itine´raire intellectuel (Paris, Editions L'Harmattan, 1996), pp. 117–125.

Aura Junie, Municipiul Timis¸oara (Timis¸oara, Editura ‘Almanahul Banatului’, 2001).

Ibid.; Ioan & Rodica Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie (Timis¸oara, Editura Mirton, 2001), pp. 34–260.

Andrew Sayer, Realism and Social Science (London and New Delhi, Sage and Thousand Oaks, 2000), p. 111; see also pp. 109–120.

The author conducted the local field studies with financial assistance from the Swedish Institute and the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in the summer of 2001 and the autumn of 2002. Sorina Voiculescu, PhD in Geography, and Ioan Hat¸egan, PhD in History, University of the West, Timis¸oara, kindly provided assistance in the field.

The definition of geopolitics is based on Yves Lacoste, Dictionnaire de Ge´opolitique (Paris, Flammarion, 1995), pp. 3–35; John Agnew & Stuart Corbridge, Mastering space. Hegemony, territory and international political Economy (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), pp. 13–45; Gearo´id O´ Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics (London, Routledge, 1997), pp. 57–73, 253–256; and Peter J. Taylor & Colin Flint, Political Geography, World Economy, Nation-state and Locality (Prentice Hall, 2000), pp. 49–104.

Lacoste, Dictionnaire de Ge´opolitique, pp. 3–35; G. O´'Tuathail & J. Agnew, ‘Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American Foreign Policy,’ in Gearo´id O´'Tuathail et al., The Geopolitics Reader (London and New York, Routledge, 1998), pp. 78–91; O´ Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics, pp. 57–73, 253–256; G. O´'Tuathail, ‘Postmodern Geopolitics?’, in Gearo´id O´'Tuathail & Simon Dalby (eds), Rethinking Geopolitics (London and New York, Routledge, 1998), pp. 16–38.

Franc¸ois Thual, Me´thodes de la ge´opolitique (Paris, IRIS, ellipses, 1996).

O´ Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics, p. 60.

For a good overview of the geopolitical history of the Balkan region see Ste´phane Ye´rasimos, Questions d'Orient, Frontie`res et Minorite´s des Balkans au Caucase (Paris, Livres He´rodote, Editions la De´couverte, 1993), pp. 23–79.

P. Claval, ‘He´rodote and the French Left,’ in Klaus Dodds & David Atkinson (eds), Geopolitical Traditions, A Century of Geopolitical Thought (London and New York, Routledge 2000), pp. 239–265.

Ibid.; Thual, Me´thodes de la ge´opolitique, pp. 48–52, 64–69.

Stanley W. Page, The Geopolitics of Leninism. East European Monographs (Boulder and New York, Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 13–16, 164–181.

Mihai Opris¸, Timis¸oara, Mica˘ monografie urbanistica˘ (Bucharest, Editura tehnica˘, 1987), pp. 25–35, 105, 151–152, 175–192, 206; S¸tefan Pascu, Ioan Zahiu & Aurel T¸inta, Timis¸oara, Pagini din trecut s¸i de azi (Timis¸oara, Consiliul Popular al Municipiului Timis¸oara, 1969), pp. 408–422.

G. W. F. Hegel, ‘Political Writings’, in Allen W. Wood (ed.), Elements of the Philosophy of Rights. Cambridge texts in the history of political thought (Cambridge University Press, 1821/1991), pp. 73–103.

Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market. Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 100–191.

M. Harloe, ‘Cities in the Transition’, in Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe & Ivan Szelenyi (eds), Cities after Socialism (Oxford, Blackwell, 1996), p. 2.

P. Marcuse, ‘Privatization and its Discontents: Property Rights in Land and Housing in the Transition in Eastern Europe’, in Andrusz, Harloe & Szelenyi (eds), Cities after Socialism, pp. 119–191.

Elise´e Reclus, L'Homme et la Terre, redige´ par Be´atrice Giblin (Paris, La de´couverte & Syros, 1998), p. 327.

Braudel, L'Identite´ de la France …; Vidal de la Blache, Tableau de la ge´ographie …, pp. 547–551; Claval, La Ge´ographie comme genre de vie …, pp. 117–125.

See for example Przeworski, Democracy and the Market …; Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What Comes Next? (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1996); Andrusz, Harloe & Szelenyi (eds), Cities after Socialism; and A. A`gh, ‘Emerging Democracies in East Central Europe and the Balkans’, in Attila A`gh, Studies of Communism in Transition (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 1998), pp. 3–24.

Economic Commission for Europe, Housing finance, Key Concepts and Terms (New York and Geneva, United Nations, 1998), pp. 1–15.

The most recent figures in the table are for 1996 for Russia and 1997 for Hungary.

Austin J. Jaffe, Bengt Turner & Anders Victorin, Property Rights and Privatisation in the Baltic Countries, Nord 1995:25 (Copenhagen, Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995).

Mark Blacksell & Karl Martin Born, ‘Private Property Restitution: the Geographical Consequences of Official Government Policies in Central and Eastern Europe’, The Geographical Journal, 168, 2, June 2002, pp. 178–190.

Fritz Plasser, Peter A. Ulram & Harald Waldrauch, Democratic Consolidation in East-Central Europe (Basingstoke and New York, Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 11–50, 165–188.

Jaffe, Turner & Victorin, Property Rights and Privatisation in the Baltic Countries …; David Stark & La´szlo´ Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways, Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 51–105.

Blacksell & Born, ‘Private Property Restitution: the Geographical Consequences …’.

Georgescu, ‘Roma˘nia vrea˘ sa˘ …’

David Held, Democracy and the Global Order (London, Polity Press, 1995), pp. 49–97.

Ibid.; Durandin & Cazacu, ‘La Roumanie: cap a` l’ouest?'.

Frane Adam & Matevzˇ Tomsˇicˇ, ‘Elite (Re-)configuration and Politico-economic Performance in Post-socialist Countries’, Europe-Asia Studies, 54, 3, 2002, pp. 435–454.

Ibid.; see also Sorin Ionita & Ciprian Fartusnic, ‘Grassroots of Government’, Working paper No. 17, Romanian Center for Public Policy, Bucharest, Romanian Academic Society, 2000.

Dahl, Polyarchy, Participation and Opposition, p. 3.

Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington & Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy (New York University Press, 1975), pp. 3–9; G. Pridham, ‘Democratic Transitions in Theory and Practice’, in Geoffrey Pridham & Tatu Vanhanen (eds), Democratization in Eastern Europe (London, Routledge, 1994), pp. 15–37.

Linz & Stepan, ‘Towards Consolidated Democracies’.

Plasser et al., Democratic consolidation in East-Central Europe.

L. Morlino, ‘Constitutional Design and Problems of Implementation in Southern and Eastern Europe’, in Jan Zielonka (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 48–108.

Thomas Carothers, ‘Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad’, Working paper, Democracy and rule of law project, Number 34, January 2003, Carnegie endowment for international piece, Washington DC, p. 8.

Ibid.; Adam & Tomsˇicˇ, ‘Elite (Re-)configuration …’; Carothers, ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’.

A`gh, Studies of Communism in Transition; O'Donnell, ‘Illusions about Consolidation’.

Blacksell & Born, ‘Private Property Restitution: the Geographical Consequences …’

B. Rothstein, ‘Demokrati, fo¨rvaltning och legitimitet’, in Bo Rothstein (ed.), Politik som organisation (SNS Fo¨rlag, Kristianstads boktryckeri, 1991), pp. 42–84; Doh Chull Shin, ‘On the Third Wave of Democratisation’, World Politics, 47, October 1994–July 1995, pp. 137–170; O'Donnell, ‘Illusions about Consolidation’.

Rothstein, Politik som organisation.

H. Siedentopf & J. Ziller, ‘Framework of Analysis’, in Heinrich Siedentopf & Jacques Ziller (eds), Making European Policies Work (London, Sage, 1988), pp. 3–25.

Ye´rasimos, Questions d'Orient …; T. Gallagher, ‘The Balkans: Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and the Former Yugoslavia’, in Stephen White, Judy Batt & Paul G. Lewis (eds), Developments in Central and East European Politics 2 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1998), pp. 43–58.

Vladimir Pasti, Roma˘nia i˘n tranzit¸ie, Caderea i˘n viitor (Bucharest, Editura Nemira, 1995).

Keith Hitchins, Rumania 1866–1947 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 202–204.

Marea Adun. Nation., ‘Decret pentru nationalizarea unor immobile, Act normative numa˘rul 92 din 19/04/50’, Buletin Oficial, 1950, p. 1.

Surcel, ‘Roma˘nia ar putea …’.

Per Ronna˚s, Urbanisation in Romania (Stockholm School of Economics, 1984), pp. 77–79.

Ibid.

Comisia Nat¸ionala˘ pentru Statistica˘, Anuarul Statistic 1990 al Roma˘niei.

Ileana Budisteanu & Teodora Coman, ‘The Transition of the Housing System in Romania,’ paper presented at the Workshop on Housing Finance, Timis¸oara, Romania 30 January–1 February 2000, UN/ECE Environment and Human Settlements Division, URBAN PROIECT, Bucharest, 2000.

Ire`ne Nilsson, Ruma¨niens och demokratins fo¨rutsa¨ttningar (Stockholm, Carlsson Bokfo¨rlag, Elanders Gotab, 2002), pp. 29–30, 245–253, 295–297.

R. Weber, ‘Constitutionalism as a Vehicle for Democratic Consolidation in Romania’, in Zielonka (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 212–242.

Marrie´, ‘Le paysage politique roumaine …’

Parlamentul Roma˘niei, ‘Lege Nr.112/1995 pentru reglementarea situat¸iei juridice a unor imobile cu destinat¸ia de locuint¸e, trecute in proprietatea statului’, Monitorul Oficial al Roma˘niei, 279, 29 Novembier 1995.

Ibid.; Durandin & Cazacu, ‘La Roumanie: cap a` l’ouest?'.

Parlamentarul Roma˘niei, ‘Lege Nr.10/2001 privind regimul juridic al unor immobile preluate i˘n mod abuziv i˘n perioada˘ 6 martie 1945–22 decembrie 1989’, Monitorul Oficial al Roma˘niei, 75, February 2001.

Surcel, ‘Roma˘nia ar putea …’.

Comisia Nat¸ionala˘ pentru Statistica˘, Anuarul Statistic 1990, Anuarul Statistic 2001.

Georgescu, ‘Roma˘nia vrea˘ sa˘ . . ’.

Data provided by civil servants at Timis¸ county council, Timis¸oara, 2001.

As confirmed by Opris¸, Timis¸oara, Mica˘ monografie urbanistica˘; Pascu, Zahiu & T¸inta, Timis¸oara Pagini din trecut s¸i de azi; and Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, pp. 223–226.

Hunteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, p. 158.

Ibid., p. 226.

Eugen Dogariu, director at Timis¸ prefecture, interview with author, Timis¸oara, 2002.

Gheorghe Ciuhandu, city mayor, Timis¸oara city council, interview with author, Timis¸oara, 2002.

Lawyers at Timis¸ county council and prefecture, interview with author, Timis¸oara, 2001.

Ibid.

Dogariu, interview.

Ciuhandu, interview.

Lawyers at Timis¸ county council and prefecture, interview.

Dogariu and Ciuhandu, interviews.

S. Voiculescu, ‘Eglises et transformations urbaines: Timisoara (Roumanie)’, in Jean-Rene´ Bertrand & Colette Muller (eds), Religions et Territoires (Paris, Editions Harmattan, 1999), pp. 77–87.

Junie, Municipiul Timis¸oara.

Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, pp. 69, 84–86.

Catherine Durandin, Histoire des Roumains (Mesnil-sur-1'Estre´e, Socie´te´ Nouvelle Firmon-Didot, Editions Fayard, 1999), pp. 75–80.

Reclus, L'Homme et la terre, pp. 318–334.

Prima˘ria Timis¸oarei, 3 ani de gospoda˘rie, Raport al Prima˘riei Timis¸oara, Craiova, 1936, p. 194.

Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, pp. 153–154.

Ibid., pp. 148–150; Opris¸, Timis¸oara, Mica˘ monografie urbanistica˘, pp. 199, 206, 207.

Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, pp. 211–215.

Voiculescu, ‘Eglises et transformations urbaines: Timisoara (Roumanie)’.

Opris¸, Timis¸oara, Mica˘ monografie urbanistica˘; Pascu, Zahiu & T¸inta, Timis¸oara. Pagini din trecut.

Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, pp. 223–226.

Opris¸, Timis¸oara. Mica˘ monografie urbanistica˘; Pascu, Zahiu & T¸inta, Timis¸oara. Pagini din trecut.

Homeowners on Bulevardul C.D Loga, interview with author, Timis¸oara, 2001.

Homeowners on Piat¸a Victoriei, interview with author, Timis¸oara, 2002.

Ciuhandu, interview.

Jaffe et al., Property Rights and Privatisation in the Baltic Countries.

Munteanu, Timis¸oara Monografie, p. 163.

Ibid.

Ibid., pp. 158, 163.

Liviu Chelcea, ‘Marginal Groups in Central Places; Gentrification, Property Rights and Post-socialist Primitive Accumulation (Bucharest)’, SOCO Project Paper 93, Vienna, 2000.

Ibid.

Homeowners on Bulevardul C.D Loga, interview.

Junie, Municipiul Timis¸oara, p. 2.

Homeowners on Bulevardul C.D Loga, interview.

Ibid.