After the fall of Communism, many political analysts have expressed skepticism toward the prospects for real democratization in Romania. The protracted liberalization and initially chaotic transition to a parliamentary system, the violent episodes that marked the first post-communist decade, the poor quality of Romania's new and old political elites, the weakness of civil society, the deep economic imbalances, as well as the flawed institutional design have led to what some analysts called a perverse institutionalization that delayed the progress of democratic reforms. Yet, Romania has avoided the economic crisis similar to that of Bulgaria in 1996, experienced three peaceful rotations in power, opened up negotiations with EU and was finally admitted as a member of both NATO and EU.
In light of these developments, I should like to invite the panelists to reflect on the following questions:
Were scholars working on Romania too pessimistic in addressing its problems?
Have they neglected to analyze some important aspects of the transition and if, what elements were missing from their analyses?
On a more general level, what are the strengths and the weaknesses of the scholarship on transition and democratization over the past half century?
What avenues for research on Romania do you see opening up in the social sciences take from now on?
What new connections and directions do you suggest considering?
Response: Dr. Mihaela Miroiu
One may distinguish two periods in Romania’s transition: 1. the post-communist one: ended in December, 1999, 2 the pre-adhesion (EU accession process), ended in December, 2006. Pessimism in these two periods seemed to have different sources, reasons and depths. The pessimism in first decade after the fall of communism concerned the state of art of the Romanian society, as well as the meaning and direction of the changes. The pessimism in the second period mainly concerned the capacity of the Romanian society to deal with the immense challenge of joining the EU and NATO.
I think that in the first period one of the main sources of pessimism derived from the type of theoretical approach of the scholars to the Romanian society as well as to the specific of their research field. The most of them were historian, philosophers, political theorists. The level of the professional social research was very low in Romania, due to the prohibition of the empirical research and sociological education for about 12 years (1977-1989), not to mention the censorship before these 12 years. Also, one cannot speak about a proper beginning of the development of the Political Science until 1995-1997. Missing adequate quantitative and qualitative data’s, many of the approaches were merely speculative. The changes the scholars expected, and the pessimism they expressed, were largely dependent upon the way in which they defined it. Usually the focus was on the distortion of the society’s structures and institutions during the communism regime, and therefore upon the lack of mechanisms to ensure a real democratization and a move to a market economy. However, one may question this type of approach, which saw the Romanian society as deeply perverted and mutilated, and which tended to treat the political sphere as the only pivotal one. But the society did not follow this approach: as some authors argued (Vladimir Pasti, The Challenges of Transition, 1995, Dumitru Sandu, Social Sphere of the Transition, 1999, as well as in the books I co-authored or authored in that period Romania: The state of Art, 1997 and The Backward-Looking Society, 1999), the society undergone huge transformations, and people managed to change it and their lives in ways that were not taken into account in the design of many public policies, and which were much less understood.
As a matter of fact, these social changes at the micro level provided the basis for the quite different evolution of Romania in the second period. In 1999 Romania started negotiations with the EU, and the policy drift consisted in the implementation of the acquis communitaire. One may, of course, wonder if Romania was really prepared to join the EU on January 1st 2007; but it seems reasonable to agree that what is still missing is not essential, and in principle can be surpassed.
On a more general level, I believe that these circumstances show that we shouldn’t look for exceptional characteristics of the Romanian society or transition: once proper institutions are implemented, transition affects deep aspects of the individuals’ interests, and they react in a proper way to ensure a better life.
Now we are in a quite different period. Romania faces new challenges, and I am not sure it is prepared to provide a proper reaction. As a scholar, I think first of all at the fact that we still lack essential research on various issues and we still have a huge deficit in devising and implementing good public policy. Just one example: we do not yet know much about the one or two million Romanians (even the right number) who emigrated in the EU in the past 10-15 years; we do not know how many immigrants (maybe more than half of a million) live and work in Romania, and we do not know how to deal with these issues.
