Romania's travails with democracy and accession to the European Union

Abstract

The defeat of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, Partidul Social Democrat) in the 2004 elections in Romania by the liberal centre – right coalition, the Alliance of Truth and Justice (DA, Alianta Dreptate si Adevar), and the country's membership of the European Union (EU) seem to indicate the end of a troubled post-communist transition. However, the reforms mandated by the EU in the justice system have not fundamentally altered the nature of the political elite. For the past two years the political establishment has been unstable and political parties continue to hinder the development of an accountable and transparent political system. The EU's emphasis on speedy implementation of reforms has resulted in an inconsistent application of political conditionality, which has left Romania's democratisation process incomplete.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Tom Gallagher for his useful comments on an earlier version of the article as well as the two anonymous reviewers for helping me clarify some of the conceptual and empirical material.

Notes

This event was widely presented by the Romanian media at the time (see www.ziare.ro, accessed 2 April 2007).

Since 1990 the PRM promoted through its journal Great Romania (Romania Mare, the editor-in-chief of which was Tudor), an exceptionally vulgar and racialist attack on Gypsies, Hungarians and Jews and mocked former anti-communist dissidents and leaders of the historical parties. It also supported the idea of a greater state of Romania, which would coincide with the pre-World War II boundaries, including the northern part of the country, Bessarabia, which was integrated into the Soviet Union after World War II.

For a theoretical account of the ‘negotiated transition’ see Kiss (1994). The antagonism between the two revolutionary models was extensively discussed by Arato (2000) and Tismaneanu (1992).

Pasti (1997) provides a good analysis of the emphasis on personalities rather than doctrines or programmes of the political parties during 1990 – 96.

Poll taken in 2000 by the Romanian Center for Urban and Rural Sociology and presented by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi in Early Warning Report-Romania, 7/2001, available at: www.undp.ro/governance/pdf/EWR-7/2001pdf; last accessed 7 August 2007.

For an extensive analysis of the history of the Democratic Convention and Emil Constantinescu's role see Pavel and Huiu (2003) and Tismaneanu and Kligman (2001).

Adevarul, 2 October 1996, available at: www.adevarul.ro, accessed 2 April 2007.

The poll was taken for Euro Barometer by the Centre for Urban and Rural Sociology in Romania presented by the Romanian Academic Society. Available at: www.sar.org.ro, accessed 2 April 2007.

Tony Judt reproduces this flyer in the 1 November 2001 issue of the New York Review of Books.

For the concept of a ‘catch-all strategy’ see Kircheimer (1990, pp. 177 – 200).

See www.adevarul.ro, 2000 collection, available at: www.ziare.com, last accessed 7 August 2007.

Such incidents also affected members of the PNL as Ludovic Orban, one of the leaders of the party, told me in an interview I conducted with him in June 2003.

By then Basescu had already established his reputation as a skilled politician capable of spectacular and well planned political moves. A former captain of the commercial fleet Navrom before 1989, he served as minister of transportation between 1991 and 1993 and from 1996 to 2000; Basescu also won the mayoral elections in Bucharest in both 2000 and 2004 and captured the leadership of the PD in 2001.

On 9 December 2005 during the televised debate with Nastase, Basescu candidly admitted that ‘Romania's problem is that 15 years after the fall of communism, it could not find people other than two former communists like myself and yourself to run for office’.

Sartori defines an anti-system party as one that ‘affects the tactics of party competition and particularly alters the direction of the competition … of the governing-oriented party’ (Sartori 1976, p. 123).

Coalition for a Clean Parliament, 2004, available at: http://contracoruptie.ong.ro, accessed 2 April 2007.

See footnote 15.

These events were detailed by the news agency Mediafax, available at: www.mediafax.ro, accessed 2 April 2007.

October 2005 Barometer of Public Opinion, available at: www.osf.ro/en/publicatii, last accessed 7 August 2007.

Lavinia Dimancea in the 31 July 2007 issue of the Romanian daily Jurnalul National gives a full account of the PSD's drop in electoral support since the 2004 elections; available at www.ziare.ro, accessed 3 August 2007.

A detailed presentation of the event can be found in the 11 December 2006 issue of the Romanian daily Ziua (‘Geoana Reales la Ultimul Congres’[Geoana is Re-elected at the Last Congress], Ziua, 3803, 11 December 2006, available at: www.ziua.ro, accessed 2 April 2007).

See Barometrul de Opinie Publica Profiluri Electorale [Barometer of Public Opinion Electoral Profiles], October 2006, available at: www.osf.ro/ro/publicatii, accessed 2 April 2007.

The Economist, 6 November 2004, pp. 52 – 53.

Available at: http://www.transparency.org/news-room/in-focus/2005, accessed 2 April 2007.

In an interview for the Romanian journal ‘22’ Alina Mungiu-Pippidi distinguishes three major processes that are taking place within the governing centre-right government in Romania: the renewal of the political and administrative elite, europeanisation and reform.