Rule of Law?

If the relevance of research in ….political science is understood as how it may improve human well-being and/or political legitimacy, research has to a large extent been focusing on the least important part of the political system, namely, how ‘access to power’ is organized (i.e. electoral and representative democracy and processes of democratization).

This focus on elections, democratization processes and party systems ignores what we consider to be the more important part of the state machinery for increasing human well-being, namely, how power is exercised or, in other words, the quality of how the state manages to govern society

(Bo Rothstein 2011).

In the autumn of 1990, I made a fateful trip across the North Sea to take up a short-term assignment in Copenhagen with the World Health Organisation to help its Head of Public Health map out strategic options for what were then regarded as “the newly independent states” of central and eastern Europe. The difficulties these countries faced in their “transition” to a “better” state were soon reflected in the literature of “transitology”, “democratization” and of “capacity development”.

One of the many fields into which my new line of work took me was that of “corruption” – which the academics made typically complex by designating it, variously, “particularism”, clientilism or “patrimonialism”. Bo Rothstein is one of the best analysts in the field and explains in the linked article that the very word wasn’t acceptable until the early 1990s – after which it became essentially a stick with which to beat nations judged to be inferior.

The European Union and Commission bear a particular responsibility for first pushing privatization on the countries seeking membership of the Union; and then corrupting their new institutions with tens of billions of European Regional Funding.

This may initially have had the elites licking their lips – but the scale of the bureaucracy required to access the goodies and the subsequent monitoring and fraud investigations has now made this a much less attractive proposition. The use of these funds were recently analysed in painstaking detail in "Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across. borders" by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2019)

Of course, “it takes two to tango” – and I’m not disputing the need for effective anti-corruption strategies - but there is too much rhetoric and lip-service evident in the way this work is carried out. The sources of the wealth which seduces and corrupts are Western – those who are presented with the opportunities are Bulgarian, Czechs, Greeks, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Slovaks. 

And the corruption is not just systemic but moral and, thanks to the European Union, has seeped into the very bloodstream of society. The average monthly pension and wage in Bulgaria and Romania is just over 300 euros but their judges, generals and MEPs earn 10,000 euros with a cascading effect on senior salaries.

Is it any wonder that the result is totally alienated societies???

Crowds and Power in Sofia and Bucharest - III

 How, 30 years on, is post-communism doing?

I’ve been living in Bulgaria and Romania since 2007 – for a decade I enjoyed crossing the Danube, with the last 100 km stretch of the drive on the highway through the Balkans and the sight of the Vitosha mountain which dominates Sofia always bringing a particular thrill.  

The last post focused mainly on the Sofia street protests of the past 3 months – with a brief reference to the fact that only in Romania has the Crowd succeeded in toppling governments – three times in 30 years…and twice in the past five years.

This post looks at what two recent books by well-known authors born in these countries have to say about the “progress” the two countries have made since 1989 and considers the prospects for effective change

 

In the 1990s there was an interesting body of literature known as “transitology” which was effectively a retraining scheme for those in redundant Soviet and Eastern European studies University Departments as they tried to adjust to the new reality of “liberal democracy” and “free-market capitalism”.

The integration of many of these countries into the European Union seemed to leave the others in a state of suspended animation – still “transiting”.

Except that the “integration” had not gone as planned – some countries (such as Hungary and Poland) had clearly reneged on their commitments and were challenging the “rule of law” canons; and others (such as Bulgaria and Romania) had been unable to satisfy the monitors that they had even got to the required judicial standards. Indeed Philippe Schmitter, one of the doyens of the field, went so far in 2012 as to talk of “ambidextrous democratisation”

 

Bulgaria's world-renowned political scientist Ivan Krastev has (with US Stephen Holmes) written one of the surprisingly few books which attempt to assess the fortunes since 1989 of the eastern countries – although it’s primary concern seems more that of “the crisis of modern liberalism”. It’s entitled "The Light that Failed – a Reckoning” - published last year, with the Bulgarian translation appearing next month.

The book starts with a chapter on the psychological effects on central European countries of the “imitation game” they were forced to play and the demographic shock as millions left the country for a better future elsewhere; followed by one on how Putin’s Russia moved on in 2007 from imitation to “mirroring” Western hypocrisy; a chapter on Trump’s America; and a final one which takes in China.

 

The authors argue that part of the nationalist reaction in Hungary and Poland was the shock of realising that the European "normality" they had hoped for had been transformed into an agenda which included homosexuality, gay weddings and rights for Romas. But their emphasis on the “psychology of imitation” totally ignores the brazen way west European countries and companies exploited the opening which the collapse of communism gave them to extend their markets in both goods and people - with the consequences touched on in the first post and brilliantly dissected by Alexander Clapp in a 2017 New Left Review article “Romania Redivivus”.

 

Talk of “transitology” disappeared more than a decade ago and was absorbed into the Anti-Corruption (or governance integrity) field which grew into a "name and shame" industry - complete with league tables and Manuals. But the world seems to have perhaps grown weary even of its talk…  

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is a Romanian social psychologist - appointed, in 2007, as Professor of Democracy studies of the prestigious Hertie School of Governance in Berlin - with a unique understanding and knowledge of the issue. This was her blunt assessment in 2009 of the situation in Romania

 

Unfortunately, corruption in Romania is not only related to parties and businesses, but cuts across the most important institutions of society. Romanian media has gradually been captured, after having been largely free and fair at the end of the 1990s. After 2006, concentration in media ownership continued to increase in Romania. Three owners enjoy more than two-thirds of the TV political news market.

 As long as Romania was a supplicant for entry to the EU, it had to jump through the hoops of “conditionality” to satisfy Brussels it was behaving itself. When Poland, Hungary et al were let in in 2004, the pressures started to relax - but The European Union’s Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) replaced that conditionality in 2007 and Bulgaria and Romania are still subject of an annual check of their legal and judicial health. Mungi-Pippidi therefore concluded her 2009 assessment with a simple observation - 

At the end of day, “democracy promotion” succeeds by helping the domestic drivers of change, not by doing their job for them. Only Romanians themselves can do this.

 Her latest book  "Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across. borders" (2020) is a must-read for anyone who wants to know why a quarter of a century of trying to build systems of government that people can trust has had so little effect in ex-communist countries. It starts with a sketch of Switzerland’s political development which reminds us that Napoleon was the catalyst for a 50-year period during which the Swiss embedded the basic structures we associate with that country.

It is, however, Denmark to which most countries (according to Fukuyama) aspire to – although a study of its history suggests that, contrary to Dahrendorf’s optimism, that was more like a 100 year journey.

 

Her description of her own country, Romania, is quite damning –

·         From 2010-17 there were 600 convictions for corruption EACH YEAR – including 18 Ministers and one Prime Minister, Generals, half of the Presidents of County Councils and the Presidents of all the parliamentary parties

·         The Prosecution system became thoroughly politicised through its connection with the powerful intelligence system – the infamous Securitate which was never disbanded

·         The level of wiretapping used is 16 times the level of that used by the FBI

·         Romania heads the league table of cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights dismissed for breaching the right to a fair trial – with a half of its cases so failing

·         The annual CVM reports on the country are always positive and make no mention of any of this – on the basis that “questions about the intelligence services are outside our remit”!!

·         TV stations run by those convicted of corruption have provided damning evidence of the prosecution service threatening judges and fixing evidence

 

One of Romania's most famous political analysts gave an extensive interview a couple of years ago which was important enough for me to summarise as follows –

·         the so-called “revolution” of 1989 was nothing of the sort – just a takeover by the old-guard masquerading in the costumes of the market economy and democracy

·         which, after 30 years, has incubated a new anomie – with the “social” media dominating people’s minds

·         “European integration” has destroyed Romanian agriculture and industry - and drained the country of 4 million talented young Romanians

·         After 30 years, there is not a single part of the system – economic, political, religious, cultural, voluntary – which offers any real prospect of positive change

·         Even Brussels seems to have written the country off

·         The country is locked into a paralysis of suspicion, distrust, consumerism, apathy, anomie

·         No one is calling for a new start – let alone demonstrating the potential for realistic alliances

 

Dorel Sandor has clearly given up on the politicians and confessed to a hopelessness for the prospect of any sort of change in his country

 

“The stark reality is now that we do not have political parties any more. The Romanian political environment is in fact an ensemble of ordinary gangs that try to survive the process and jail and eventually save their wealth in the country or abroad. That's all! Romania has no rulers. It has mobsters in buildings with signs that say "The Ministry of Fish that Blooms".

One of the reasons why the EU is not too concerned about us is that it is that they reckon that you can only reform a driver with a car that works. We are a two-wheeled wagon and two horses, a chaotic space, broken into pieces. What's to reform? So it's a big difference.”

 

But he was least convincing when he tried to offer a way forward

 

I have a list of what to do – starting with the need for an exploration of what sort of Romania we should be aiming for in the next few decades. Such a process would be moderated by professionals using proper diagnostics, scenario thinking and milestones.

It would be managed by a group with a vision emancipated from the toxic present.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for such approaches – embodied, for example, in the "Future Search" method. But effective social change rarely comes from such an elitist approach; any such effort would have to demonstrate exactly how it would propose to deal with the astonishing level of distrust of others in the country.

In 2014, only 7% of the Romanian population could say that “most people can be trusted” (compared with about 20% in Italy and 40% in Germany).

 

The revelation of the collusion between the infamous Securitate and the Anti-Corruption Agency (DNA) has understandably fanned the flames of paranoia for which the Romanians can be forgiven - given the scale of the surveillance of the population the Securitate enjoyed under Ceausescu. Little wonder half of the population are Covid sceptics

 

Conclusion

In the 1980s it was Solidarity in Poland; Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia; and reformers in Hungary who were challenging the power structure – I remember taking the opportunity of being in the country to visit the Party’s “White House” in Budapest in 1987 to talk with a spokesman for the latter.

Bulgaria and Romania, on the other hand, were monolithic and frozen societies – with the only sign of discord being the odd Romanian poet – and on the Danube where protestors against a chemical plant included a few establishment figures such as Svetlin Rusev.

 

But the street has become much more active in the past decade – even if it is the more educated and “entitled” who are prominent there. And it is “the Crowd” that the power elite has always feared – particularly in the last century eg the infamous “Revolt of the Masses” (1930). And who can ever forget the moment when the massed crowd turned against Ceausescu in December 1989 – within minutes, he had been hoisted from his balcony by helicopter and, within days, summarily tried and shot.

 

It’s noticeable that the figures whose words I’ve quoted – Dahrendorf, Canetti, Krastev, Mungiu-Pippidi and Sandor – all represent the intelligentsia. I was brought up to take their words seriously - but they are not activists!  

The sadly-missed David Graeber was one of the very few such people prepared to get his hands dirty… to work across the barriers that normally divide people and to try to forge new coalitions…

 

The Crowd needs people like Graeber who understand how to bridge such barriers…………..particularly between the “downtrodden masses” and the “entitled”

Where is Bulgaria’s Graeber? There are, actually, several eg Vanya Grigorova – the economic adviser of the labour union “Podkrepa” (Support) and leading left-wing public figure – who has been travelling the country to present her latest book on labour rights and how to claim them. A year ago she gave this interview to Jacobin, which positioned her on the side of social change in Bulgaria and the region.

 

Both Covid19 and the greater concern about global warming - as embodied, for example in the recent Extinction Rebellion – suggest that the “normality” being sought by the entitled is a will o’ the wisp.

The Sofia protestors would therefore be well advised to widen the scope of their agenda. After all, smaller countries generally seem better able to “do” change viz Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Singapore, Estonia, Slovenia – particularly when they have women at their helm who have a combination of trustworthiness and strategic vision!!

 

Especially for them I updated my list of essential reading for activists – adding my own “opportunistic” theory of change which emphasises the element of individual responsibility as well as the dynamic of the crowd viz

 

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity – through proper analysis, mobilisation and integrity. It involves– 

·         speaking out about the need for change

·         learning the lessons of previous change efforts

·         creating and running networks of change

·         which mobilise social forces

·         understanding crowd dynamics

·         reaching out to forge coalitions

·         building credibility

 

I grant you that the time for preparation is over in Sofia; and appreciate that some of this may come across as rather elitist but the process it describes is still a crucial one – prepare, analyse, network, speak out, build coalitions, mobilise, no hidden games…..It’s a tough combination……

Fiddling while Rome is Burning

Bear with me while I try to get to the heart of my unease with the quality of the non-fiction writing with which we are flooded every day - week in and week out.
I've previously suggested that a common fault of the books which should be helping us understand the nature of the problems which confront us - be it globalisation, corruption, unemployment, migration, populism or identity - is partiality, bad-writing or over-specialisation.

The discipline of Economics has rightly taken a drubbing since 2008 - with the world waking up at last to the inanity of the assumptions it brings to to the task of anticipating future events.
But, despite this, economists remain, after epidimiologists, the first "go-to experts" for the media.  So their poisonous message continues to seep into our minds

We expect political scientists, by virtue simply of the first word in their title, to be different. But they have, in the past half-century, allowed the second word to dominate their thinking. They have "penis-envy"; and have tended as a result to produce boring quantitative stuff - with a few honourable exceptions noted below

Intellectuals of the mid-century - such as JK Galbraith, Raymond Aron and Tony Crosland - could communicate about Big Issues. Three features in particular stood out in their writing -
- They had read widely - not just in the narrow sub-disciplines of today's academia;
- had broad experience of life - beyond the ivory tower
- they were not afraid to demonstrate their moral principles

We are, these days in desperate need of their ilk. I'm hard pressed to find books which contain these qualities. Too many EITHER set up simplified goodies and baddies OR confuse us with the over-complexity of their analyses
Two authors who have the necessary breadth are Romania's Alina Mungiu-Pippidi who, since 2007, has been Professor of Democratic Studies at the prestigious Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and an activist in her home country....Graduating originally in medicine, she has a doctorate in social psychology and has even written plays. Not surprisingly corruption has been a central focus of her work;  and her latest book is a great read - Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across borders (2020) which I hope to be studying next week....The excerpts which Amazon offers demonstrate a strong sense of country histories which are generally missing in most technocratic works.

Graham P Maxton was, until 2018, Secretary of The Club of Rome and I came across his superbly-written little book Change - why we need a radical turnaround (2018) earlier in the year. This is one of the best statements I know of about global warming and why we need urgent change
In 2011 he produced the equally readable "The End of Progress - how modern economics has failed us" . There is an interview here; and a presentation here

Some Critiques of social and political science relevance
- Bent Flyvbjerg’s Making Social Science Matter (2001),
- Stephen Toulmin’s Return to Reason (2003),
- Sanford Schram and Brian Caterino’s Making Political Science Matter (2006) and
- Gerry Stoker and B, Guy Peters The Relevance of Political Science (2013)  

Whatever happened to good governance and anti-corruption?

Romania’s Presidency of the Council of the EU has come – and almost gone…It has not been the disaster many people predicted not least the President of the country, one Klaus Johannis who takes himself very seriously but has great difficulties conveying much sense and has done the country no favours with his all too predictable carping from the sidelines of a so-called socialist government.

The Romanian Presidential system is modelled on the French and found an effective (if rather eccentric) performer in Traian Basescu who managed to ride out some serious challenges to his legitimacy between 2004-2014 and to embed a prosecution system which has, however, become a bit of a Frankenstein. Indeed, its anti-corruption Agency (DNA) was exposed a couple of years ago as being in cahoots with the security system; being politically-motivated in its selection of those to prosecute; and using massive and illegal wiretaps.

Its Head Laura Kovesi was duly removed from office in July 2018 by the Justice Minister (an act duly approved by the Constitutional Court) and is now the subject of criminal charges.

Half-way through Romania’s 6-month term of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, the country therefore found itself in the invidious situation of its ex- Prosecutor Kovesi (who had received the support of the European Parliament for the new post of European Prosecutor) being banned for 60 days from travelling abroad.  

But President Klaus Johannis, sadly, seems as much a criminal as the leader of the Social Democratic party Liviu Dragnea (barred from holding office due to a prior conviction for “electoral fraud”) who has just been jailed for 3 years – on an Al Capone type charge…. Johannis and his wife gained hundreds of thousands of euros from renting property which, a court judged in 2015, had been gained by them fraudulently. The full details are here

Things are never simple in Romania and the sad reality, as the country approaches the 30^th anniversary of its release from communism is that very little has changed for the better and – as I explained in a series of posts last year – most serious people have now given up hope of any possibility of positive change.

I know that pessimism hangs heavily in the air these days throughout Europe ….most societies are suffering from one malaise or another……but it is the countries who broke free 30 years ago who are most at risk these days since few of their institutions are yet working in an equitable manner     

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is one of the few people who has been trying to raise the profile of this issue - a prolific and high profile Romanian academic/social activist (with a base for the past few years in the Hertie School of Government in Berlin) who has been exploring Romanian political culture and the wider issue of corruption for the past 2 decades. In 2006 she contributed a chapter on “Fatalistic political cultures” to a book on Democracy and Political Culture in East Europe. In this she argued (a) that it was too easy for people (not least the political elite themselves!) to use the writings of Samuel Huntington to write Balkan countries off; and (b) that we really did need to look more closely at what various surveys (such as The World Values Survey) showed before jumping to conclusions….In 2007 she gave us even more insights into the Romanian culture with a fascinating and learned article - Hijacked modernisation - Romanian political culture in the 20th century 

Chasing Moby Dick across every sea and ocean – contextual choices in fighting corruption (NORAD 2011) is not the best of her writing – a bit scrappy to put it mildly - but it asks the right questions. In particular – how many countries have actually managed to shake off a corrupt system and build a credible system of rule of law? And how did they manage that feat? 
That the answer is remarkably few - and that it took many generations - should make us all pause 

A decade ago the issues of “good governance” and “anti-corruption” were all the rage for bodies such as the OECD and the World Bank - and academics. Now they look a bit sheepish if people use the phrases….Silver bullets have turned out to be duds…..But it is time to resurrect that debate...

Further Reading on Romania and institutional inertia

Academic articles/booklets on political culture and Romania

Romania Redivivus ;Alex Clapp (NLR 2017). One of the most incisive diagnoses

A Guide to Change and change management for Rule of Law practitioners (INPROL 2015) a well-written guide which assumes that a "rule of law" system can be crated within a generation!

The Quest for Good Governance – how societies develop control of corruption; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2015). One of the most up-to-date analyses which demonstrates the weakness of data-driven analysis. Difficult to see the wood for the trees....But some very sharp insights...

Hijacked modernisation - Romanian political culture in the 20^th century; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2007) marvellous case-study

Poor Policy-making and how to improve it in states with weak institutions; Sorin Ionitsa (CEU 2006) One of the most acute assessments

books

In Europe’s Shadow – two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond; Robert Kaplan (2016) - a fascinating book by a geopoliticist which has an element of the “Common Book” tradition about it with its breadth of reading

A Concise History of Romania; Keith Hitchins (2014) Very readable..

Mapping Romania - notes on an unfinished journey; Ronald Young (2019) just updated with posts from the last couple of years which get more and more fatalistic

Romania and the European Union – how the weak vanquished the strong; Tom Gallagher (2009) great narrative
Theft of a Nation – Romania since Communism; Tom Gallagher (2005) powerful critique
Romania – borderland of Europe; Lucian Boia (2001) Very readable and well translated

Plus Ca Change,,,,plus c’est la meme chose???

European countries have experienced massive changes since the end of the war – and yet, I keep on wondering, .”to what extent do national characteristics actually change”. The interview with Dorel Sandor does not seem to have attracted much notice in the country but, for me, has crystallised the various impressions about Romania I’ve conveyed in the blog in recent years

Let me summarise his key points -

- the so-called “revolution” of 1989 was nothing of the sort – just a takeover by the old-guard masquerading in the costumes of the market economy and democracy

- which, after 30 years, has incubated a new anomie – with the “mass” and “social” media dominating people’s minds

- So-called “European integration” has destroyed Romanian agriculture and industry - and drained the country of 4 million talented young Romanians

- After 30 years, there is not a single part of the system – economic, political, religious, cultural, voluntary – which offers any real prospect of positive change

- Even Brussels seems to have written the country off

- The country is locked into a paralysis of suspicion, distrust, consumerism, apathy, anomie

- No one is calling for a new start – let alone demonstrating the potential for realistic alliances

My last 2 posts have argued that -

- in the early 90s everyone (particularly outside Romania) expected too much – although remember that Ralf Dahrendorf - unique in his experience as both a German and British politician and one of the first academics in the 50s to explore the nature of the social changes which took place in Germany in the first half of the 20^th century (Society and Democracy in Germany) - had warned in 1990 that real cultural change would take “two generations”. For middle class academics, this meant 50 years!

- Absolutely no preparations existed in 1989 for the possibility that communism might collapse and for the choices this would present for political, economic and legal systems …..Everyone had assumed that the change would be in the opposite direction. The only writings which could be drawn were those about the south American, Portugese and Spanish transition ….

- The EC stopped treating Romania as in need of “developmental assistance” in 1998/99. The PHARE programme was phased out - the focus shifted to training for EU membership and the implementation of the Acquis (using the TAIEX programme). Talk of differences in political culture was seen as politically incorrect – eastern countries simply had to learn the language and habits of the European social market and, hey-presto, things would magically change……

- 30 years on, the names of Bulgarian and Romanian institutions and processes may have changed but not the fundamental reality – with a corruption which is nothing less than systemic.

- The billions of Euros allocated to Romania since 2007 under the EC’s Structural Funds programmes have compounded the systemic and moral corruption which affects all sectors.

- The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism is, after 11 years, deeply resented – despite the increasingly clear evidence of the collusion between the Prosecution and the Secret services…..

The Italian and German examples

In 1958 Ed Banfield coined the phrase “amoral familism” to characterize southern Italy and its resistance to change. In 1993 Robert Putnam extended this critique with his Making Democracy Work – civic traditions in modern Italy – pointing out that, centuries later, cultural patterns in the south still profoundly affected modern institutions …. The Italian system since then has demonstrated little capacity for change. What appeared to be a new opening in the 1990s disappointed….the old systems simply resurfaced

Germany’s traditional power structure, on the other hand, was able to change after 1945… The Weimar Republic failed to break it – but simply gave a Nazi regime the opportunity to let loose a blood-letting from which the world has not yet recovered. Three forces were required to transform German society in 1945-50 - the trauma of defeat on all fronts; the imposition by the victors of completely new institutional, legal, social and economic systems; and the Realpolitik calculations of the Cold War

Romania, however, has been able to brush off the institutional challenge which had been posed by membership of both the EC and NATO (see). The occasional scandal can and does cause the downfall of a government - but nothing now seems able to disturb its systemic inertia.

Conclusion

It has given me no pleasure to draft this post. But I feel that too many people for too long have not spoken out….In 2 months Romania will take over the Presidency of the EU which will see the full panoply(a)y of mutual sycophancy at full throttle……making it even more difficult for dissenting voices to be heard…

Dorel Sandor was least convincing when he tried to offer a way forward 

I have a list of what to do – starting with the need for an exploration of what sort of Romania we should be aiming for in the next few decades. Such a process would be moderated by professionals using proper diagnostics, scenario thinking and milestones.
It would be managed by a group with a vision emancipated from the toxic present.  

I have a lot of sympathy for such approaches – embodied, for example, in the Future Search method. It’s how I started my own political journey in 1971 – with an annual conference in a shipbuilding town facing the decline of the trade on which it had depended for so long….But any venture would have to demonstrate that it can deal with the astonishing level of distrust of others shown by the fact that, in 2014, only 7% of the Romanian population could say that “most people can be trusted” (compared with about 20% in Italy and 40% in Germany)

For my money Social Trust is one of the fundamental elements of the soil in which democracy grows. From the start of the transition Romania was caught up in a global neo-liberalism tsunami which has been corroding that soil….

A Short Reading List on Romanian political culture

Articles

RGY posts

When will it ever change? (July 2017)

Can Outsiders ever understand what’s going on in Romania? (Jan 2017)

Impervious Power (Jan 2017)

A Divided Country – dangerous times (Feb 2017)

Are Nations really masters of their fates? (April 2017)
Is it people who change systems - or systems which change people? (July 2017)

Academic articles on political culture - and Romania

Romania Redivivus (2017)

A Guide to Change and change management for Rule of Law practitioners (2015)

Hijacked modernisation - Romanian political culture in the 20^th century; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2007)

Poor Policy-making and how to improve it in states with weak institutions; Sorin Ionitsa (CEU 2006)

“Fatalistic political cultures” Alina Mungiu-Pippidi 2006 (chapter in Democracy and Political Culture in East Europe in which she argued (a) that it was too easy for people (not least the political elite themselves!) to use the writings of Samuel Huntington to write off countries such as Romania; and (b) that we really did need to look more closely at what various surveys (such as The World Values Survey) showed before jumping to conclusions

books

In Europe’s Shadow – two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond; Robert Kaplan (2016) - a fascinating book which has an element of the “Common Book” tradition about it with its breadth of reading

A Concise History of Romania; Keith Hitchins (2014) Very readable..

Mapping Romania - notes on an unfinished journey; Ronald Young (2014) See section 7.2 at page 31 and all the annexes for the political culture references

Romania and the European Union – how the weak vanquished the strong; Tom Gallagher (2009) great narrative

Romania – borderland of Europe; Lucian Boia (2001) Very readable and well translated