British Arab Spring?

For several decades, British political leaders have been operating a Faustian deal – hoping that toeing the agenda of media barons like Rupert Murdoch would buy them political immortality. Within weeks of his being elected Leader of the Labour party in the early 1990s, Tony Bliar notoriously flew half way round the world to pay homage at the baron’s court; seeking and getting acceptance as someone who would not upset the applecart and subsequently glowing in positive press coverage in the baron’s newspapers. Everything radical was strippped from the programmes and speeches of politicians for fear of losing media support.
But such abuse of power always has its come-uppance. A (Canadian) media mogul (who had owned one of Britain’s famous newspapers) went to prison in 2007 – and the biggest of the lot (Murdoch who owns almost 100 newspapers globally including 4 UK papers and was hoping to take over a major TV channel) seems now to be heading for perdition. It was a Guardian journalist who for 3 years relentlessly and fearlessly pursued the malpractices of the Murdoch empire – and it is therefore fitting that a Guardian journalist should gives us the best summary -

News of the World journalists ordered the hacking of as many as 4,000 people including grieving relatives of soldiers and of terror and murder victims because they thought their paper was untouchable. The cover-up was further evidence of this arrogance and included misleading Parliament and the Press Complaints Commission, the claimed bribery of the police, the intimidation of legitimate claimants and, it is now suggested, the destruction of digital files in Wapping. Little wonder that last year I wrote here that Murdoch, his children and clannish associates were beginning to match the profile of your average crime family.
This story is about the failure of the entire political class. Journalists and politicians, advisers, PR people, writers and lawyers drank Murdoch's champagne, swooned in his company and took his calls (with the current PM acutally appointing one of his editors as his Communications Director). Over more than three decades, the perversion of politics by and for Murdoch became institutionalised, a part of the landscape that no one dared question.
Serious crimes were committed and the police covered them up. Corrupt, or at least badly compromised, relationships became the norm and all but a very few politicians looked the other way, telling themselves this was how things were and always would be.
But let's not forget that a journalist, not a politicians was responsible for exposing the scandal.

Attending (on one’s own) a workshop at a leisure hotel is, I find, a great aid to reflection – especially if your role is observation. I’ve fallen into the habit of taking with me to these workshops stuff I haven’t been able to read at home. Last workshop, I took the printed version of all of this year’s blog posts (more than 100 pages) – just to see what sort of coherence (or duplication) these is in it all. This time I took a small book with the title A Very Short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying organisations which I had criticised in the Amazon reviews when I first read it. Yesterday I romped through it again and found it an enjoyable and powerful critique of management – even justifying the flippant definition I give in Just Words – a sceptic’s glosary of the verb „to manage” – „to make a mess of”.
Here is a useful article the author wrote in 2000 about the critical management school of thinking.

Vrachanski Balkans

Up and away early to avoid the midday heat which once (actually three times) disabled the car a few years back in this part of the world at this time of the year as were driving back from the lovely Thassos island. Just outside Drama in Greece - as were were beginning the ascent for the new border crossing there – the car engine just stoppped. We were kindly treated (with an overnight stay needed for a petrol filter to be replaced) before the same happened at Plovdiv - after much meandering through gorges and round the densely wooded edges of the Rhodopes (with many minarets in the villages). After a mechanic asked for 300 euros with no guarantees, we discovered the car was working again and decided to proceed – over the Balkans. A Romanian lorry driver confirmed that it was the heat – it had happened to him. Just as we reached the top of the mountain ridge, the car stopped again – but, by then, I knew the trick – just to wait ten minutes or so.
Anyway I neednt have worried today – since, apart from my climb over the Petrohan Pass starting before 09.00, the road is heavily wooded and therefore protected from the heat. But the surface is bad (particularly on the descent) and the road twisty – so a 100 kilometres journey from Sofia to Varshets actually took 3 hours (including a trip to Pennywise in the nearby village of Berkovitsa for a bottle of Mezzek Sauvignon/Pinot Gris . I’m in the heart of Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park here – with towering mountain ranges on 2 sides. The hotel is very nicely situated - with solar panels covering the entire roof (very rare!). I was able to check in (to a large room), get organised and have a swim all before midday.

After my last post, I got thinking about Path dependency – and discovered that the phrase originated in economic not sociological studies as I had imagined. And, of course, it takes us deep into fundamental issues which thinkers have argued about for millenia - such as free-will! The opening pages of this paper are quite enlightening about this – but thereafter the paper gets typically turgid.

culture matters

I changed the title of yesterday’s post after inserting some of the argument of the 2nd article on Greece (which tried to explain what might be called the "amoral familism” of the country – and its neighbours such as Romania and Bulgaria (to a lesser extent I feel)
I also added the link to the brilliant paper about Romania written by Ionitsa in 2005 which had used that term -

Leaders are supposed to be promoters of their protégés; and clan-based loyalties take precedence over public duties for salaried public officials. Such behavior can be found not only in the central government but also in local administration, the political opposition, academia and social life in general, i.e. so it permeates most of the country’s elites. Classic studies of Mezzogiorno in Italy call this complex of attitudes “amoral familism”: when extended kin-based associations form close networks of interests and develop a particularistic ethics centered solely upon the group’s survival7. This central objective of perpetuity and enrichment of the in-group supersedes any other general value or norm the society may have, which then become non-applicable to such a group’s members. At best, they may be only used temporarily, as instruments for advancing the family’s goals − as happens sometimes with the anti-corruption measures.
Since Romanian society, like others in the Balkans, still holds onto such pre-modern traits, its members are neither very keen to compete openly nor are they accustomed to the pro-growth dynamics of modernity. Social transactions are regarded as a zero-sum game; a group’s gain must have been brought about at the expense of others. This may be a rational attitude for traditional, static societies, where resources are limited and the only questions of public interest have to do with redistribution.

And I was reminded of a recent discussion I had with an ex-Deputy Minister who was bemoaning the lack in public life here of the soft skills of communications and cooperation operating for the public good. And of my realisation of how rare was the enthusiasm of the lady from Pernik. It takes me back to the early days of my work in Romania when the Head of the European Delegation handed us summaries of Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy work; civic traditions in modern Italy which had recently appeared (I already had a copy of the book). She had quickly sussed out what Putnam called the „lack of social capital” in the country – ie the lack of trust and associations. Thanks to the World Bank, academic writing about Social capital then became a cottage industry. I’m not sure if we are any the wiser as a result!
As I’ve noticed before, "path dependency” is the phrase used by those who feel that it is impossible for a country to shake off its history. And that takes us into the murky areas of cultural studies – and of
Samuel Huntington whoe views are considered so offensive here since he suggests that the line dividing civilised from non-civilised countries puts Balkan countries on the wrong side (mainly for their Orthodoxy). But his stuff is worth reading – particularly Culture Matters which is a marvellous coverage of the proceedings of a conference on the subject which brought together in argument a lot of scholars.

I wrote recently about a new Gallery of Contemporary Art opening in Sofia’s south park – a magnificent renovation of an old mansion. Courtesy of Norway, Iceland and Leichtenstein no less. I paid my 3 levs and ventured in – and was bitterly disappointed. No Bulgarian artists – just a few small Chagall and Picasso etchings – and a large exhibition of Scandinavian ceramics. The second floor was roped off. I ceremoniously tore up my entrance ticket at the reception – and roundly chided them for false pretences. Apparently all the fault of the Prime Minister who wanted it open earlier rather than later to show what his government is capable of (the rehabilitation work only started in October). OK the building is nice – as are the large (Bulgarian) scupltures which surround it. But don’t bother going in!
And an example of the problems of moving around in this part of the world. Next week I will be up on the Bulgarian side of the the Danube just south west of the city of Craiova – as the crow flies it is little more than 90 kilometres from there to Vidin where there is a ferry from Calafin. I thought it would be a good idea if Daniela came down from Bucharest and met up at Vidin – so that we could explore the fascinating mountain area which is the north-west. In fact it will take her about 4 hours to make that 90 kms (much longer if she were to take the train) on the Romanian side. Two hours by bus; waiting time 2 hours; and 15 minutes the ferry which deposits you apparently 5 kilomtres from the town of Vidin- with no onward public transport! A bridge is half built (with European money) – but the Bulgarian side is bogged down in commercial arguments – and it could be another 18 monthe before it is ready (watch this space). I remember a woman from the cabinet Office here telling me that it took her a similar time and 3 changes of transport to move a similar distance within southern Bulgaria.
An interesting post this time last year - on government matters.

Balkan mistrust

Summer seems to have dawned at last – with 40 expected in the plains of Bucharest and 31 here in Sofia rising to 33 Monday. I should then be in the rarely explored North-Western mountain area – first of Varshets then, from Tuesday evening, in the old fortress area of Belogradchik. In the meantime, I have my spreading fig tree to protect me from the sun in the garden.
Amos Oz has been keeping me company these last few days – first with Black Box mapping ruthlessly the relations a woman has with her present (faithful and loving if rather eccentric) husband; her tight-arsed and rich ex; and their delinquent boy. Great stuff – with the powerful outporings of emotion I have now come to expect of this writer who should have got the Nobel prize a decade ago. Now I’ve started on his story of the strained relations between a 60 year old nomadic planning/engineering consultant back home and living with a younger woman with a mission – Don’t Call it Night. Oz seems to have a happy 40 year old marriage himself but he really gets into the painful crevices of relationships! Here's a long interview with him from Paris Review.
During the night I was reminded what an insightful writer Michael Lewis (of Vanity fair) is on current financial matters – the best things I have ever read on the Irish meltdown (his story reads like a modern version of The Emperor's New Clothesand the Greek crisis.In the classic journalistic (if not Detective Colombo) tradition, he approaches the issues from a common-sense point of view.
And here is an interesting article which was inspired by Lewis's exposure of Greek corruption to dig deeper and to try to explain why the Greeks have the political and ethical problems they do.
He reimnds us that, until the late 19th century, Greece was part of the Ottoman system (as were BUlgaria and Romania) - with all this means about clientilism and antipathy to authority. "Greeks are naturally distrustful of their leaders, and extremely quarrelsome among themselves" - as one can certainly say also about the Romanians. Here it's worth going back to the Ionitsa article I excerpted from on June 13. There is little doubt that officials have major difficulties talking and cooperating with one another (let alone with citizens!)in this part of the world (an ex-Deputy Minister here who is one of the trainers on our programme was talking to me recently about this). And yet this is never really picked up in the needs assessment which supposedly precedes all the training which EC programmes fund here. All the emphasis is on transferring knowledge - not altering attitudes and behaviour.
Finally an excerpt from a longer piece -

The present financial conundrum is a result and not a cause. It is the result of decades of rule by incompetent politicians, certainly in the case of Greece.( It doesn't need a Marshall plan it needs a regime change. Count on the evil undemocratic EU to take over much of the decision making behind the scenes, and a good thing too.)
The problem with present-day politicians in general is that they aspire to power and once they have it they don't know what to do with it. Consequently they're easily influenced by lobbyists and public opinion. The result is - predictably - indecision and procrastination or hysteria and panic. Being so unfocused our dear leaders get lost in petty detail, always a sign of people not getting the big picture. The founding fathers of the EU had a clear concept: no more war in Europe. The present lot just looks after the shop, and not very well

Two musical bonuses – first, from Romania (but only for the next few days), the pianist and composer Dinu Lapatti (1917-1950)
and from the English mining community The aquarelle is a Stamatov

Rating agencies are part of a criminal set-up

With all the focus on Greece, I had missed the latest news about the rating agencies cutting Portugal's rating - here's a powerful response from a Portugese journalist

The rationale for Portugal’s rating cut makes no sense. Portugal was targeted with a streak of rating cuts that put us in the verge of “junk”. But then everything changed, a stable majority in parliament, a 78 billion euro loan, a programme designed by the troika, a committed government, a prime-minister obsessed with compliance. No matter what. We weren’t even given a full week: we’re junk.
The reasons for a rate cut are now absurd: the challenge of reducing the fiscal deficit, the need for more money and the troublesome return to the financial markets in 2013 are topics being addressed by the government. By the Country. This rating cut doesn’t identify these challenges, it precipitates them. This decision carries with it severe and immediate consequences. Not only because Portugal takes one step backwards in the path back to the financial markets. But because many investors will now dispose of Portuguese assets. Because collateral on our debt will have to be reinforced. Because today all Portuguese assets lost value. Portuguese companies, Portuguese banks, everything lost value between yesterday and today. At a time when privatizations are being prepared. When stress tests are underway. There are no coincidences. Today, thousands of investors who’ve been short-selling Portuguese stocks and bonds are richer. Buying stocks in EDP and REN will now come cheaper. We’re not on sale, we’re being ransacked.
Portugal was a mad MAN, he threw himself into a cliff and now clings to a rope that was thrown in his direction. He’s trying to hold on with all its strength, lucid and humble in the way only those in ruin are lucid and humble. Then came Moody’s, spitting to the side and saying climbing the rope is tough – thus cutting the rope.
This is not about Portugal, it’s a matter of war between the US and Europe, it’s about profits for private investors in the shadow of ratings agencies. Two weeks ago, an outstanding piece by the journalist Cristina Ferreira, at newspaper “Público”, illustrated that corrosion. Another journalist, Myret Zaki, wrote the remarkable book “La fin du Dollar”, which documents the “system” on which these agencies thrive and the underlying euro-dollar tug of war.
Yesterday, Angela Merkel condemned the power of rating agencies and promised to fight back. In less than 24 hours came the response: S&P’s warning that the Greek debt roll over will be considered a selective default; and Moody’s rating cut on Portugal.
We’re in the middle of a scam and the European Union is impotent. Four years after the crisis that these agencies allowed, Europe has been unable to put out a recommendation, a threat, a European rating agency. What has China done? They created their own rating agency. What does that rating agency say? That Portugal is BBB+. That US debt is no longer triple-A. The Chinese have power and courage, Europe has hung itself in the American bargain-price shop.
The troika is worried about the lack of corporate competition in Portugal… What about competition in rating agencies? Two days ago, Stuart Holland put forward, along with Portuguese former Presidents Mario Soares and Jorge Sampaio, the proposition for a European “New Deal”. He told this newspaper “we need government governing instead of rating agencies ruling”.

We’re not asking for pity, we want fairness. Europe crosses its arms. Let us not do the same. The European Central Bank must stand up against to this despotism. In October, a report by the Financial Stability Board, led by Mario Draghi, advised private banks and the central banks to build their own models for assessing the eligibility of financial instruments, putting a stop to the mechanical evaluations made by rating agencies. Draghi will soon become chairman of the ECB’s governing council. He doesn’t need to terminate rating agencies, he needs to rise up in look into their eyes.
This rating cut is uncalled for, and it will cost us. Portugal is now Europe’s junk. Rating agencies are the undertakers, wealthy and euphoric, of a ridiculously impregnable system. The agencies assure us they don’t hold anything against Portugal. As the man said, “it’s nothing personal, it’s strictly business”. That man was a mob boss.

The rating agencies, are of course, utterly incompetent and corrupt - since they are funded by the companies they rate. This has been admitted by a senior manager. I would normally choose a georg Grosz painting or caricature for a subject like this -for a change I've used James Ensor, the Belgian painter of the early part of the 20th century since the picture captures the corrosive characters of those set in judgement over us.

Is there an alternative?

In March, I drew attention to a new sub-site on Europe established by the Guardian newspaper – and reproduced my response to its invitation for comments and suggestions on possible people who might contribute to the site
Thereafter I forgot about it – but went into the site today and found a useful piece from the historian Mark Mazower about a possible Marshall to deal with the economies of the European periphery. It has set off an interesting discussion thread – with many useful points being made – eg
• The role of the rating agencies (ineffective (they didn’t pick up the practices which led to the global crisis) unaccountable; corrupt (their resorces come from the companies they are rating!)
• The different contexts of post-war Europe and now
• The incentive banks still have for buying dud Greek bonds (they make more than the minimal rates available elsewhere)
• The basic issue about Greece being not their life-style but 2 other things - its political system (its conflicts being so great that it was felt necessary as early as the 1930s to give civil servants constitutional protection for their jobs – with the result that the system has swollen to 800,000); and the immorality of its richer middle class (who simply don’t pay taxes)
One particular post caught my eye -

The private sector caused the crash. The private sector created the conditions for the crash by ceaselessly chest-thumping for ever-greater deregulation and lower taxes (with threats to depart the country if its wishes aren't granted, an undemocratic influence which often outweighed the voices of voters). The private sector also causes the deficit (both here and in Greece) due to its persistent failure to pay the correct amount of tax.
And by relying on unreliable, undemocratic, random, greed-led and potentially catastrophic "market forces", they have created a national and international economy that makes no sense whatsoever - not for people, not for the environment, not for society.
It's time we stopped letting the private sector - in other words, the rich and powerful - hold us, our society and our children, as hostages to the fortunes of capitalism. Anything useful that the private sector makes or does, ought to be done in the public sector. It can be done there without the inefficiencies of competition or stuffing the pockets of the wealthy with profit margins and dividends. And anything useless that the private sector makes or does - and there's a lot of it, from advertising junk food to poodle-grooming parlours and conservatory-salesmen - would not be missed if it were shut down. That might reduce notional GDP, but if those figures place profit above people, then they were useless to start with. The opportunity cost of having a private sector are simply unsustainable in the 21st century: every pound or professional wasted in the private sector is one not being used to shore up the NHS, to build our green energy resources, rebuild our infrastructure, or research the cure for cancer. It's time to cut the parasitic private sector loose, and focus on our society's really valuable economy instead.

Perhaps a bit over the top. But a lot of basic truths. The rich and powerful just don’t seem to get it – that most of them are useless parasites who live in a bubble world separated from reality. It’s all too easy, however, to vent one’s energies on such emotive outbursts – rather than patiently selling an alternative. And the alternatives do exist – as is shown in The Equality Trust’s second Digest which looks at inequality trends and reveals how Sweden’s policies cut inequality there between 1960 and 2005 by 12% - whereas it rose by 32% in the UK in the same period. One June 10, I referred to an article in Social Europe about the Nordic model.
It was Thatcher who undermined our belief in political and collective action. Her mantra was TINA – There is no alternative. And the underlying agenda of the triviliality which overwhelms us in the press and television is the old “bread and circus” one. Powerful media barons want to keep the world the way it is – for their sort. They define what is feasible – and are drumming still the TINA agenda.

Finally, some useful clues on how to assess whether the money in your bank is safe.
Today I'm showing an Angela Minkova print I acquired recently. Astry Gallery had an exhibition of this talented artist's work. She also does quirky little scupltures (see May 5 for an example)

Oldies

Curious weather for July here near the Greek border. Relentless rain on Sunday and ovrecast skies and stunning claps of thunder yesterday afternoon followed by rain. This morning brings some sickly sunlight.
BBC’s Through the Night is always good listening and has currently a nice idea – 2 hours of music composed in 1876 - . Only available for a few days!
For those of you who don’t know Jason’s Godwin’s writing about the Ottoman empire and Istanbul, here is an interview which gives a sense of his knowledge on these subjects.
Travel writing is a favourite genre of mine. Here is a treatment of three famous names – although Robert Byron seems to have slipped out of public view.

Borderlands

Pernik is on the east edge of Sofia and, as befits an old coal-mining and industrial area, a sad eyesore – particularly on a cloudy and rainswept day with its grey rows of jerrybuilt flats an insult to the beauty of the surrounding rolling hills. A few kilometres on, a clutch of peeling high flats announced Radomir. But it was the more charming town of Kyustendil which was my destination – reached through a twisting 20 kilometres ascent and descent of dense wooded hills. In the puddles and rain, the town was less charming than I had remembered from my last visit in 2008 – and was showing evidence of the sort of decline (derelict shops) which can afflict border towns these days. Kyustendil is about 30 kms from both Macedonia and Serbia – and several busloads of umbrella-protected tourists from Macedonia were wandering around the desolate town centre. The old minaret looks set to fall any day – although an old hammam has been spruced up and the water from its well is still gratefully taken in bottles by the residents nearby. Apart from Monday’s workshop (on EU funded territorial cooperation projects), the main reason for my overnight stay is the chance to visit the Vladimir Dmitrov art gallery – whcih is housed in the ugliest concrete bunker I have ever seen. Dmitrov (The Master) is one of Bulgaria’s most famous painters – indeed the name of the gallery’s website actually incorporates the master into it. I’m not actually a fan of a lot of his stuff particulary not one of his trademarks – a face in front of a lot of crudely painted and brightly coloured flowers – but it was good to visit this collection and see a wider range of his paintings. I was taken with some of his earlier, smaller paintings – sunrises and sunsets; his mother; his father – and some multiple face silhouettes. And his Peasant with a hoe (above) which is in the Sofia City Gallery is very graceful.
It was good to meet up again with Belin, one of the trainers, at dinner – who’s deeply involved in the master plan for the stretch of the Danube in this part of the world. He made an interesting observation about the different attitude of the Bulgarians and Romanians to the river. For the Bulgarians, it’s their link with Europe - more psychological than logistical perhaps whereas the Romanians, apparently, have tended to turn their back on it. It’s part of the poor flatlands for them – although with the easing of border controls with Greece in 2007, he sees signs of change in that attitude. I'm reminded of an early 1990s film showing a 1930s military base in that part of the world with the lovely Kristin Scott Thomas speaking Romanian (An unforgettable summer - thanks to UTube in 8 parts - this is part 3)
The great pleasure at the workshop was to meet an official from Pernik – making a major presentation about how they had made succesful bids for EC projects – who was really enthusiastic about her work and the impact which visits to projects in Denmark and Northern Ireland had made on her. Sadly such belief in change and determination is rare in this part of the world. The 2 projects with which Pernik are involved are good examples of EC programmes – Innohubs which links towns on the edge of country capitals in a network to explore and develop good practice for places which have that particular combination of challeges and opportunities. Retina is a network after my own heart – revitalisation of traditional industrial areas (in south-east europe) – since I was one of the founder members in the early 1980s of RETI which brought old industrial European Regions together in a network of good practice and lobbying.
Another interesting chat with Belin whether there is any hope of reviving the derelict villages which are such a striking feature of Bulgaria – in all parts. True (and unlike Romania) Brits, Russians and Dutch people have moved in large numbers into some of these villages – particularly around Veliko Trnovo and the Black Sea (and even on the edges of the Danube) – but the Brits certainly are older people. And it is the young who are needed. He wondered whether the new contractual and work from home patterns which the internet now allows were part of the solution; to which I added my usual input about the increased need for frugality and self-sufficiency also supplying another perspective. We both seem to agree that it is about reframing the issue. The old solution was about location marketing and inward investment. Time to develop self-sufficient strategies!

Coming next

Just back from a trip to Kyustendil, the old town which is close to the border with Serbia and Macedonia - and only 85 kms from Sofia. Purpose was a workshop on inter-regional/transfrontier cooperation with EU funding. For more, read tomorrow's post.

Hungarian distinctiveness

Events in Hungary as relayed on a daily basis by the blog I would nominate as one of the few with a dedicated, sustained and gripping focus – Hungarian Spectrum – read like a surrealist novel. Amazingly both the Chinese and American leadership have been in Budapest in recent days – perhaps showing some of the issues at stake. Some very serious Hungarian people signed an open letter to one of the visitors (Hilary Clinton) about the growing repressiveness of the regime – and yesterday’s post told an amazing story about arrests and intrigues which bring back memories of the 1950s in that country I wouldn't be surprised to read next of action being taken against Hungarian Spectrum!
But the most detailed critique came in January of this year from a very revered source - none less than the Kornai who wrote the definitive book in the 1970s about socialist shortages.
Hungary has produced some amazing people - writers particuarly (Arthur Koestler for example - let alone some of the modern novellists like Peter Nadas) but in the photographic field it blazed the trail (Kertesz; Capa and many more). I have always treasured Andre Kertesz's small collection of photographs of people reading - "On Reading"

Fragility and frugality

The last few days have been cool, overcast and windy here in Sofia. An early morning cycle this Saturday to the old market’s arab shops for basmati rice and other cooking delicacies showed central Sofia at its best – the great low urban skyline; Vitosha mountain edged sharply against the skye; the coffee-carriers and smokers; the small shops with people happy to open the shop early for me and to chat and. Ali (from Lebanon) from the butcher’s next door wanted to know where I was from and what I was doing here. The shop with the rice seems to be Syrian - certainly the jar of fig jam and hugely chunky orange jam were from there - and the beautifully elegant but simple grey cardboard box of olive and laurel oil soap I bought was from Aleppo. The supermarket chains just don't care that they drive out such gems of experience from our lives. And we fail to appeciate the significance of such loss. Except those covered in the pages of Paul Kingsnorth's (unfortunately entitled) book Real England - the battle against the bland.
Because I’m so impractical, I’ve always had a sense of wonder about things other people seem to take for granted – electricity, running water, These days, more people perhaps are feeling a sense of fragility and beginning to rediscover the values of frugality. I don’t think this is a bad thing. What is unacceptable is that those who have saved honest money and put in what they regarded as the safest place (banks) are having to worry now where they should put it. I don’t have anything sensible to offer on the Greek crisis - but John Lanchester is one of the few journalists who offer us clear insights into the global financial crisis when it first revealed itself in 2007 and has a good piece in the current London Review of Books. Real World Economics also had a good post recently on the subject.
And somewhere in the last couple of days I read something interesting about Estonian people (I think) not being as addicted to credit cards as some other countries I might mention (France is another honourable exception I understand?)
I’ve just finished reading what I consider is one of the best novels I have ever read – A Perfect Peace by Amos Oz written some 25 years ago but one of several of his writings available at half price in a nearby bookstore. I've slightly amended the only review I could find -

it's 1965, and the children of the first settlers of an Israeli kibbutz are grown-ups. Here is the way one character sees them: "Neither Asiatics nor Europeans. Neither Gentiles nor Jews. Neither idealists nor on the make. What can their lives mean to them, raised in this whirlwind of history, this place-in-progress, this experiment-under-construction, this merest blueprint of a country..." This is a good example of some of his writing - the way he piles up expressions and descriptions. The main plot centres around a young man, Yonatan, who has a quiet wife, Rimona. His father (Yokel) is a former cabinet minister who now heads up the kibbutz. Yonatan's mother (Hava) is an energy-packed harridan. Yonatan works as a mechanic in the tractor shed, but he longs for a different life. One rainy winter night a miserable little fink (he calls himself that) shows up, talks incessantly (mostly quoting Spinoza) and gradually makes a place for himself. He becomes Yonatan's friend and (ultimately, with Yonotan’s encouragement) Rimona's lover after Yonatan fulfils his threat to flee. Oz provides brilliant portraits of a handful of characters. Oz is an interesting, original writer. Several of his characters serve as narrators of this story, taking turns, adding thoughtful layers of depth and meaning – and there are 3 of the most powerful outporings of emotions I have ever read – 2 of then in draft letters, the other in mean and savage outburst from Hava.The result is a suspenseful and moving novel that never glosses over the harsh truths about a "mob of the strangest individuals who ever pretended to be a people."

Greatness and local heroes

Lists – best 25 novels, films etc - are always enjoyable and useful exercises. They not only remind us of artists who have perhaps slipped a bit in our memory but, more importantly, they force us think about the criteria we use to judge what is useful/beautiful etc. So I was intrigued when my favourite E-journal – Scottish Review - reported at the beginning of the week that 'Who's Who in Scotland' was celebrating its 25th anniversary with an opinion poll conducted among the 4,000+ inhabitants of its pages. The Who's Who in Scotlanders were asked to nominate the greatest Scot of the quarter century of its existence. For the purposes of the poll the word 'Scot' was interpreted loosely to include anyone living partly or exclusively in Scotland, irrespective of nationality, the only qualification being that they had played some part in the life of Scotland since the book's foundation year (1986).
As my readers come from all around the planet (I kid you not!) I will not bore you with the details of the top 25 names which emerged – save to say that Sean Connery, Billy Connelly and JK Rowlinson were not amongst them and that there were a remarkably high number of writers, poets and politicians amongst the nominations from the nominated great and good. True to its philosophy, Scottish Review decided to take a lightning poll amongst its readers – and ask us to select our nominee (encouraging us to add new names). Various contributions were duly printed today (including mine I'm glad to say) and I have amended it to make more sense for a wider readership -

Greatness can be defined in two ways – first elevation to the highest accepted positions of politics, literature, business, etc. This can be measured in terms of position, awards and accolades or turnover. It's not difficult to measure. But such people (almost by definition) are rarely great in the more profound sense – of touching the human heart and influencing people and events (eg Gandhi and Luther King). I have met and talked with nine of these (Gordon Brown and Robin Cook (Labour PM and Foreign Sec respectively but, in an earlier life, both on the left of the party), Donald Dewar (who forced through the Scottish Parliament and was known as an honest politician); Winnie Ewing (a nationalist who spearheaded its breakthough), Jo Grimond (Liberal leader), Mick McGahey (Communist trade unionist), Sorley MacLean (poet), John Smith (Leader of Labour party until his death in the early 1990s) and George Younger (Conservative Minister for Scotlland in 1980s) and only Jo Grimond rates as a person who inspired me. Despite my being a Labour regional politician in a Liberal stronghold (Greenock) he chose to work with me and local people on a community project (ignoring his local political colleagues) and showed great charisma and humility. Those who fall into the second category – of touching hearts and inspiring lasting change are rare indeed. They operate at a different level – more serene and less concerned with occupying positions of business or political power. I can think of quite a lot of “local heroes” I knew in the West of Scotland (not least my father) . But two in particular spring to mind - a charismatic Minister Rev George MacLeod who established a radical voice in the Iona Community he created within the Church of Scotland. And also a social policy activist, Kay Carmichael, who helped shape Scotland’s unique social care system in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was always a quiet voice of sanity and support. But she was perhaps too early for this time schedule.

And there is probably the rub! That the generation of the last 25 years have no genes of real greatness!! What about my readers doing an exercise on the "greatest" 5 individuals of their country in the last (say) 40 years?? With reasons? And, as a bonus, what they learned from doing the exercise?
The painting is one I picked up in a lot here recently for a song - unframed, unknown (said to be Vulchev Vasil)and unfashionable these days with its socialist realist touch and memories of partisan activities. But it has real drama to it

project bids, public services in hard times; and the craft of short stories

Technical problems with blogspot prevented a post today. But my longer silence is due to my work on a bid for a project. I hate this stage when one is trying to construct convincing statement about HOW one would carry out the various required activities of a project. I don’t find writing difficult – I’ve had long practice and the results are there to see on the website and blog. But two aspects about writing proposals I find deeply frustrating and indeed alienating. First that one is generally writing in ignorance of the actual context – and actually prevented (by procurement rules) from actually talking with those for who one would be working. This not only breaches basic rules of consultancy – but creates a distance I can’t cope with. I’m a touchy, feely guy (in some senses) and can only operate in a hands-on situation when I’m getting responses. The second reason I find this stage difficult is that you are supposed to restrict text to HOW statements – not the WHAT. And I always want to jump to the content – not least to convince the evaluator that they would get a good deal if they went with my bid. As the content of bids have equal status with the original terms of reference, companies are reluctant to commit themselves to substantial things – and prefer to throw back in different language what the terms of reference are saying. And this is an EU Structural Fund project – whose administrative and financial requirements are so tough (for generally local companies) that it is not difficult to disqualify companies before their methodologies even reach the evaluation stage! What a game! So watch this space.
I’m just taking a short break (hopefully to get the creative juices working). But I have a few useful references to pass on. Amongst all the mythogising of Greece and Greeks that is going on, a rare bit of commonsense. This particular blog has looked at the various statistics to explore whether the Greeks are in fact as lazy as is being asserted (retirement ages, pension, working days etc ) and finds the myths unsubstantiated (although some people might say "fear the Greeks - particularly when tney come bearing statistics"!).
However what is true is that they don’t declare incomes in order to avoid taxation. And, of course, this is not merely true of Greece – I’ve made the same point about Romania - with the incredible time and money people spend on building their own houses - with local labour whose incomes are never declared!

Yesterday the Scottish Government released an independent report they had commissioned from an interesting collection of people last year on the future of public services in the new tough world . What was impressive was that they asked a retired trade unionist to chair it – and did not pack it with their own people (a couple of my left-wing colleagues were on the commission). And the report – despite some unpalatable messages – has been positively received in most quarters. So at least the Scottish tradition lives on – unlike the tribal politics of England.

Time for a stirring Spanish political song from the old guard

And Simon Jenkins has rediscovered the virtues of the classic civil service.

I’m becoming a fan of the short story art form. William Trevor, Carol Shields, Vladimir Nabakov always hold me in thrall. Hanif Kureishi is an impressive novellist whose acquaintance I am only now making – with his Collected Stories. Now back to the grind!

We're here to serve you

Our worship of progress and the “new” leads us to imagine that “performance management” is a modern discovery – and one that will set things aright in the world. It’s therefore marvellous to read this exasperated quotation from none less than the Duke of Wellington in 1812 -

Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French Forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests, which have been sent by H.M Ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch rider to our headquarters. We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence. Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstances since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.
This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government, so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with my best ability, but I cannot do both.
1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance
2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.

I owe the quotation to a brilliant website set up by a senior civil servant (Martin Stanley) which contains the clearest and best analysis I have ever read of British Civil Service Reform.
Most of the stuff written about this subject is by social science academics – who lack the historical perspective and seem to have bought into the rationalistic belief system. This guy first sets the political/sociological context for the breathless British changes of the past 40 years.

It is ironic that many of the problems facing today's politicians stem from the successes of their predecessors. Indeed most of them have their roots in our ever increasing wealth and ever improving health.For a start, UK society is now vastly more wealthy than 50 years ago. A typical post-war household literally had nothing worth stealing:- No car, no TV, no phone, nothing! No wonder it was safe to leave doors open along most British streets. But GDP has risen four-fold since then. Most homes nowadays have a wide range of marketable goods, and huge amounts of money to spend on non-essentials, including on drink and drugs. The crime rate has therefore soared, as drug addicts seek to get their hands on others' wealth, and drunks cause various sorts of mayhem. Our wealth causes other problems:
• We can afford to eat much more, and travel everwhere by car, and so get fat and unhealthy, with consequences for the health service.
• There are now 10 times as many cars on the roads as in the 1950s, with obvious implications for transport and environmental policies.
• Much the same applies to the growth in cheap air travel.

Other problems are caused by the fact that the distribution of the new wealth is uneven. And many of us seek to catch up by borrowing as if there is no tomorrow. Credit card debt, for instance, increased from Ł34m in 1971 to Ł54,000m in 2005.
The other big success is our health, and not least the fact that we are all living so much longer than before. Life expectancy at birth is currently increasing at an astonishing 0.25 years per year. Healthy life expectancy is also increasing - but only at around 0.1 years per year. In 1981, the expected time that a typical man would live in poor health was 6.5 years. By 2001 this had risen to 8.7 years. Just imagine what pressure this is putting on the health and social services ... ... not to mention on pension schemes. The average age of men retiring in 1950 was 67. They had by then typically worked for 53 years and would live for another 11 years. By 2004, the average of men retiring was 64. They had by then typically worked for 48 years and would live for a further 20 years. As a result, the work/retired ratio had halved from about 5 to about 2.4. These are huge (and welcome) changes, but with equally huge - and politically unwelcome - implications for tax, pensions and benefits policies.
It is also noticeable that voters nowadays want to spend more and more money on holidays, clothes, durables, etc. whilst few seriously try to promote the benefits that result from the public provision of services. Voters therefore resent paying taxes, and the Government is under constant pressure to spend less, despite the problems summarised above.
In parallel with all this, society has become more complex and less deferential:
• Voters are much more likely to have been to university, to have travelled abroad, and to complain.
• The family is less important.
• Adult children are much more likely to live some distance from their parents
• 42% of children are now born outside marriage.
• The media are much more varied and much more influential, whilst the public are much more inclined to celebrate celebrity.
• Voters expect the quality of public services to improve and refuse to accept inadequate provision.
• They also turn more readily to litigation.
• The Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act add to these pressures.
• There have been other more subtle, but perhaps more profound, changes.
• The original welfare state was a system of mutual insurance - hence "National Insurance". It has slowly changed into a system of rights and entitlements based on need. This is morally attractive - but it is also open to abuse, which breeds resentment.
• The post-war generation believed in self-help. Much post-school education was through unions or organisations such as the Workers Educational Association. We now expect the state to provide, and 50% of our children go to university.
• Our increasing wealth and improving health - let alone the absence of major conflict - means that we really do have very little to worry about compared with our predecessors. But of course we still worry, and demand that the Government "does something about" all sorts of lesser risks, from dangerous dogs through to passive smoking.
• Another interesting change has been the introduction of choice into health and education policies. This is in part because modern voters want to be able to choose between different approaches to medicine and education. But choice is also a very effective substitute for regulation in that it forces the vested interests in those sectors to take more notice of what their customers actually want. There are, however, some unwelcome consequences arising from the introduction of choice into public services:
• The availability of choice inevitably gives a relative advantage to the sharp elbows of the middle classes. They can, for instance, move into the right catchment areas, and are better at demanding access to the right doctors.
• Choice also requires there to be spare capacity, which has to be paid for. Less popular schools and hospital have to be kept open - often at significant cost - so that they can improve and offer choice when their busy competitors become complacent and less attractive.
• Ultimately, however, persistently unpopular and/or expensive schools and hospitals have to be allowed to close, or else they have no incentive to improve. But such closures always provoke various forms of protest.

What sort of people, faced with all this, would aspire to be politicians? No wonder we get "the leaders we deserve" (title of a marvellous book in the 1980s by Alaister Mant). This extended quotation from the website is just setting the scene for the wry descriptions of the numerous initiaives taken by British Governments since 1968 to get a civil service system "fit for purpose". For more read here
Last night saw torrential rain here in Sofia - and today is like a typical dreich day in Scotland. The fig tree has become enormous - and is bending in the wind. Great after the heat of the past few days. I cycled before 09.00 to the great butcher's shop (diagonally from the Art Nouveau Agriculture Ministry building) and up a short drive which supplies pork, chicken and sausages sublimely marinated in honey and spices. There is a buzz about the place - these people know they are providing heavenly products!!!

implosion and addiction

It’s difficult these days to focus – with the Greek economy imploding and apparently taking the euro and some banks with it. Der Spiegel has an incisive essay today on how the young generation feel betrayed by Europe Since my short time in proximity to the eurocrats (when I worked in Brussels in 1997 for the TAIEX team) I have been horrified by the privileges of the European Class – and ashamed of the leftists such as Neil Kinnock who have profited so much from the system. Riccardo Petrella is one of the very few to emerge from that system with any credit. And the Open Europe website seems one of the few to have the capacity to focus on what matters – and write it as it needs to be said - see, for example, their post on the Greek crisis.
My problem is on the other end of the spectrum of the new generation. Silly boy that I am, I still have many euros in banks "too big to fail”. All money hard and fairly earned from my nomadic consultancy. I had a Russian friend a decade ago who bought gold whenever she could. Very bright! But I bury my head in the sand; refuse to believe we could ever have another Weimar (hyperinflation); keep my money in the banks (which earns no interest); and indulge my addictions of wine and paintings.

Victoria Gallery had one of its quarterly auctions this evening. I had scanned the paintings and saw nothing of interest but – fatally – decided to view the offer at the Sheraton Hotel this afternoon. Fairly quickly several paintings were seducing me – a Moutafov with Rubev colouring in the waves; a large Stoyan Vasilev of Veliko Trnovo and the river - with hues which made the effect totally different from those which have become rather cliched for him. So I returned at 18.00 – just „for the experience”! About 60 people eventually assembled – but there were few bidders – 15% of the lots offered were sold. I resisted the Moutafov ( as did everyone else) – but my hand was out of control for the Vassilev (65;82) which I got for basement price. The question is where will I put it?????
I have now uploaded the final version of my NISPAcee paper which has the new title – The Long Game ;not the logframe – to challenge the rationalistic basis of the EC thinking about institutional change.
And, having momentarily worried about competitors for our new Bulgarian bid taking unfair advantage of my intellectual openness, I have now put the Discussion Paper I left behind here in 2008 back online.

My blog of the week is this long post on the death of the corporation.
And my new painting is here -

The Blind leading the blind?

Regular readers of my blog will be aware that I view specialization as a virus which has contaminated universities and the professional community and condemns us all to a constant reinvention of the wheel. Hard-won insights in one field of endeavour have to be rediscovered in another – often in a different language. I drew attention to this in the closing section of my paper to this year’ s NISPAcee Conference – quoting from the OECD’s Network on Governance’s Anti-corruption Task Team report on Integrity and State Building that

As a result of interviews with senior members of ten donor agencies, it became apparent that those engaged in anti-corruption activities and those involved in the issues of statebuilding and fragile states had little knowledge of each other’s approaches and strategies

.“Fragile states” and “Statebuilding”, for example, are two new phrases which have grown up only in the last few years – and “capacity building” has now become a more high-profile activity. Each has its own literature and experts. Those who have been in the game of organisational change for several decades draw on an eclectic range of disciplines and experience – are we to believe that these new subjects represent a crystallisation of insights and experience??
All I know is that few of those in the intellectual world I have inhabited for the past 20 years – the consultants and writers about institution-building in post-communist countries – seem aware of the development literature and the various critiques which have been developed of aid over the past few decades – and which has helped give the recent stuff about capacity development the edge it has. Those who work in my field seem to be a different breed from those who work in “aid”. I say “seem” since I have seen no study of who gets into this field – with what sort of backgrounds (let alone motivation). Whereas there are several studies of the demand side eg a 2007 report from the European Centre for Development Policy Management - Provision of Technical Assistance Personnel: What can we learn from promising experiences whose remit was to gain a better understanding of the future demand for technical assistance, to relate that to past experience and to recommend how TA personnel can best be mobilised, used and managed in the future to strengthen national capacity.
Those who work in my field seem to be more pragmatic, more confident, more “missionary” in the modernist (rather than post-modernist) approach taken to institution building – and, dare I say it - more “mercenary” in motivation than those who have traditionally taken to “development work”.

These musings were prompted by Owen Barder’s development blog (one of about three blogs about development which is always worth reading (Duncan Green, Simon Maxwell and Aid on the Edge of Chaos are three others).
Not only does Barder have a blog – but, I have discovered, a series of podcasts (Development Drumbeats) in which he talks with various characters about development issues. Such a nice initiative – some of the podcasts come with a paper and some even with a transcription!
Barder’s latest discussion was with Tony Blair. Now Bliar is hardly my favourite person. As UK PM for a decade, he not only carried on but deepened the Thatcher agenda of marketisation – concealing a lot of it in a shallow rhetoric about “modernisation”. He has always talked the good talk – and he is on good form in this discussion when he reveals some of the lessons he has learned from the work he has been doing on Governance in three African States – Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Criticism of the supply-driven approach (eg training of civil servants) is the new mantra of the TA industry - and Bliar duly echoes that mantra, suggesting that his approach is different in four respects.
• First that he personally works with the political leaders to ensure that the process of change is demand-driven (interesting that the EC’s Backbone Strategy didn’t mention such an approach);
• secondly the ruthless approach to priorities (focus on a few manageable things), working to deliver prioritised programmes – learning from doing.
• He mentions a third factor - his technical team being resident and coaching – but this for me is not all that different from a lot of TA does.
• The final factor is different - getting „quality” private sector investment (a good Bliar flourish that - it could hardly be „rubbish”!)

Coincidentally it was precisely this point about the need for political demand which I was trying to build earlier in the month to the final version of my NISPAcee paper. And the issue of ruthless prioritising – and learning from doing are close to my heart – as can be seen in the final Discussion paper I left in 2008 to my Bulgarian colleagues (entited "Learning from Experience”. But relying on a Bliar approach would involve cutting back dramatically on interventions. And, by definition, his work is not transparent – is not subject to monitoring or evaluation. The write-ups which will doubtless come will be laudatory – and not, I bet you, governed by the normal canons of analysis!

Note to myself - this entry has meandered a bit – I should return to the theme of the profile of the IB expert.
Note to reader – In January I had a short post about some reports on the use of consultants To that list should be added this interesting paper which gives a typology of external advice

water, words and.....bankers

Here in the mountains I learn to value water and electricity – which, most other places, I take for granted. And, since the leaks forced me to turn off the water for periods until all was repaired (and toilet replaced), I started to use the traditional jug and bowl on the verandah upstairs. And have discovered the joys of such ablutions after an hour’s scything - with the warm wind on my torso and drying down with a towel which smells so fresh from the mountain air. So this upstairs’ facility will remain - despite the enthronement of a new toilet downstairs!
We’re approaching the time of year when the water can get a bit scarce – some works were afoot last year to deal with this. Nous y verrons. And the electricity can go off for a few minutes (sometimes the entire day) with no warning. The shorter cuts are due to storms or tree branches – the longer ones repair work somewhere. Thursday I paid my annual taxes on the house and 2 acres of land – 50 euros!
And also stocked up with almost 3 kilos of the local Burduf cheese to take to Sofia – when it matures it is better than Parmasan!

The mountain house (I should give it a name!!) is a great place for reading and reflecting – the library keep growing. And these last days, I’ve had some real word merchants to keep me company. My first John Banville book - The Sea - is a sensitive and poetic evocation of times past and of death. I dipped into an Amos Oz Reader who ranks very highly in my ratings; and also into WG Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn (another first for me) which is at one level the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia. Glaswegian James Kelman’s You have to be careful in the Land of the Free gives a sense of the irreverent humour of the marginalized in a rotten society. On a different level, I have also at last started Robert Skidelsky’s Keynes; the return of the master. The author has given his life to the study of Keynes - so if anyone can show the relevance of the master to the present global crisis, he can. And the stand he takes is uncompromising – listing the various people who are blamed (bankers, regulators, governments, credit-rating agencies etc), he states firmly “the present crisis is the fruit of the intellectual failure of the economics profession”.
I noticed recently that a former Icelandic Prime Minister is being prosecuted for the role he played in bringing Iceland to its knees - and Hungarian Spectrum also reports an ex-PM and officials giving evidence to the Hungarian Parliament on the role they played before the crisis hit. Good to see such accountability - although parliamentarians these days are hardly in a position to claim they thought differently!
The painting above caught my eye despite its dreadful condition - just a twisted bit of hardwood, some whote spots and no frame. Valerie offered it to me as part of a lot of 7 such unframed sleeping beauties languishing in a gloomy cellar under his new Gallery - he is able to put a name to them all (few have signatures) and this was a Stamatov. I had heard of him (and knew that his stuff is pricey - 1,000 euros or so) - but I liked it anyway regardless of its provenance. When I saw a few Stamatovs in the Kazanluk gallery, I became surer of its authorship; and Yassen has lovingly restored it, helped me select a suitable frame and given his expert opinion that it is 98% certain that it is a Stamatov.

Telling it as it is

To my shame, I first heard of Eduardo Galeano only two years ago when he presented his Open Veins of Latin America – five centuries of the pillage of a Continent to President Obama – and noted that it attracted great ire from commentators. It was my well-read Romanian friend who had read this South American writer years ago (in Ceaucescu's Romania which had an extensive translation of world literature) who has exposed ruthlessly the devastation the USA has wrought on Latin America. Although I now have the book (and 2 others), it seems I am probably missing his most important - Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-glass WorldI say this from a reading of a powerful essay written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of its official English translation. Four sketches deal with different aspects of the current economic crisis, each from a different perspective of analysis, and attempts to make use of the vibrant and creative sylistic devices characterising Galeano's works, particularly Upside Down.

Historians of the future, if there shall be any and if they will be honest, are going to wonder and ponder upon how such intelligent and highly educated “knowledge economies”, capable of the finest mathematical-financial wizardry via the fanciest computer technologies, could bestow upon themselves so much avoidable pain, destroying in the process not solely further scores of planetary life support systems, but also man-made social infrastructures that have generated, depending on the country, genuine welfare for up to three or four generations. These future historians will be at pains to conceive of powerful, well-off, democratically elected representatives who listened to foreign bankers, and not to their own citizens, rushing to implement, whenever they could, multilateral agreements on investment robbing their own cabinets of much of their power.
These future historians will probably fail to empathise with and understand such bizarre people, very much like Voltaire, who could not really explain why and how our forefathers were willing to slaughter one another over the correct interpretation of the Holy Trinity. After all, they had never seen it (or them?) and Jesus himself had never said anything clear, if anything, about it (or them?). Not to mention the centuries that humankind spent warring, raping, disemboweling, burning, maiming, chaining, flogging and excommunicating one another because of errors of interpretation.
Yes, the wisdom arising from the ashes of the current crisis is astoundingly similar to the one that caused the crisis. Are you indebted? Take on another loan. The private banking sector has betrayed you? Restore it with public money and run it as before. People are suffering, jobless, and with their tax money siphoned to the creditors that inflated the bubble? Show them tough love and deprive them of further healthcare, education, culture, wages, pensions, childcare, subsidised water and power. The environment is running amok in the free-market environment? The market will fix it; in the meantime, profit will keep being extracted from increased prices in oil, gas, polluting consumer goods, and cancer treatments due to the ecological collapse of the planet.When the global crisis first hit three years ago, a lot of us thought that the scales would at last fall from people's eyes; and that the incompetences as well as injustices of neo-liberalism were now exposed. In fact such a powerful counter-narrative has been put in place by the global elites and their media to justify the intensification of the neo-liberal agenda that people are utterly confused. We therefore desperately need the style of narrative (and scope of analysis) which Baruchelli gives us in this essay.

My first scything of the long grass around the house this morning - at 07.30 before the sun became too strong. Such satisfying work! And how privileged I am that any mechanical noises I hear (which would be lawnmowers anywhere else) are power saws dealing with wood! Everyone uses the scythe here - and, slowly, I become more adept with it! The morning was spent finding a toilet to replace the 10-year old one which cracked during the winter. Visiting the various shops which cater for the do-it-yourself construction which goes on here reminded me of how utterly useless are the European statistics which don't pick up these transactions. And also draws the contrast with Bulgaria - where so many villages are almost dead. Why is it that Romanians (despite their apparent disrespect for tradition) are actually keeping their villages alive???? The Brits and Russians have been in the Bulgarian property market for the past decade (no foreigners buy here) but their money has not been able to save the Bulgarian villages.

Where the buck stops

In the 1970s and 80s, those of us struggling to reform the state (both national and local) talked about “generating understanding and commitment” and of the three basic tests for new proposals – Feasibility, legitimacy and support. “Does it work?” “Does it fall within our powers? And “will it be accepted?” The World Bank’s Governance Reforms under real world conditions (to which I have referred several times on the blog) is written around the sorts of questions we consultants in transitions country deal with on a daily basis -
1. How do we build broad coalitions of influentials in favour of change? What do we do about powerful vested interests?
2. How do we help reformers transform indifferent, or even hostile, public opinion into support for reform objectives?
3. How do we instigate citizen demand for good governance and accountability to sustain governance reform?

The paper by Matthew Andrews which starts part 2 of the book weaves an interesting theory around 3 words – „acceptance”, „authority” and „ability”. What Andrews means by these 3 terms is sketched out as follows -

Is there acceptance of the need for change and reform?
• of the specific reform idea?
• of the monetary costs for reform?
• of the social costs for reformers?
• within the incentive fabric of the organization (not just with individuals)?

Is there authority:
• does legislation allow people to challenge the status quo and initiate reform?
• do formal organizational structures and rules allow reformers to do what is needed?
• do informal organizational norms allow reformers to do what needs to be done?

Is there ability: are there enough people, with appropriate skills,
• to conceptualize and implement the reform?
• is technology sufficient?
• are there appropriate information sources to help conceptualize, plan, implement, and institutionalize the reform?

Obviously, the world of Technical Assistance tends to assume that it is the latter which is the problem – since the people there who act as experts are strong on training. In the paper I referred to on Monday, Sorin Ionita applies this framework to Romania and suggests that

constraints on improving of policy management are to be found firstly in terms of low acceptance (of the legitimacy of new, objective criteria and transparency); secondly, in terms of low authority (meaning that nobody knows who exactly is in charge of prioritization across sectors, for example) and only thirdly in terms of low technical ability in institutions

The final version of my NISPAcee paper tries to identify all the papers which have assessed the impact of all the efforts to put government processes in transition countries on a more open and effective basis. In particular I was interested to find those which actually looked critically at the various tools used by Technical Assistance eg rule of law; civil service reform; training; impact assessment etc. One of my arguments is that that it is only recently that such a critical assessment has started – eg of civil service reform.
The one common thread in those assessments which have faced honestly the crumbling of reform in the region (Cardona; Ionitsa; Manning;Verheijen) is the need to force the politicians to grow up and stop behaving like petulant schoolboys and girls. Manning and Ionitsa both emphasise the need for transparency and external pressures. Cardona and Verheijen talk of the establishment of structures bringing politicians, officials, academics etc together to develop a consensus. As Ionita puts it succinctly –

If a strong requirement is present – and the first openings must be made at the political level – the supply can be generated fairly rapidly, especially in ex-communist countries, with their well-educated manpower. But if the demand is lacking, then the supply will be irrelevant.

On Sunday, when rain washed away the tennis at Queen's, I enjoyed watching this great spontaneous performance on a similar occasion some years back.

back in the Carpathians

As I drove across the Balkans yesterday to a workshop in Pleven, the clouds trapped over Sofia slowly lifted. I realised that my blog banner-heading (Carpathian Musings) was no longer quite precise – for the last 2 months they have been Balkan Musings. But, with a brief pause last night in the Bucharest flat (for a bath and my first sight of TV for a couple of months) and breakfast in Ploiesti with Daniela), I am now back in the mountain house and already feeling so relaxed. It’s apparently been pouring here for the past 2 weeks – with very violent winds – but the house is fine (although it’s amazing how much dust comes down from the attic onto my books!). My 80 plus years old neighbours were looking healthy and pleased to see me (as was their small dog and cow who was munching my long grass). I at last remembered to text Gotche Gotchev’s old brother in Sofia to go round and feed the Siamese cat in Sofia while I am away these few days.
I used to think Vodaphone internet was a good deal here – but every time I come back I have to pay back-money (24 euros this time for the 2 months I was absent) in order to get reconnected for the few days I am here (and the reception is rubbish). So please don’t tell me about the economic benefits of Europe! And on 1 July back in Sofia I have to make further payments for the wireless connection there. Will someone tell me why I can’t subscribe to a European internet stick which is valid wherever I go??????

And, while on the subject of Europe, the hotel on the crest of the hill opposite (thanks to SAPARD funds) continues to grow to the disfigurement of the landscape and the financial disadvantage of the more traditional bed and breakfast people like my old neighbours (who need the cash). What waste this is – that some (favoured) investors are favoured to spoil villages while others survive on their own. There is absolutely no need for financial asssistance for this sacrilege. I should link up to the Bucharest editor of the ecological journal who has never retuned to her old house opposite since the first hotel (on the bottom of valley – but with ostriches) first spoiled her view more than a decade ago.

Why Romania politics is so rotten - path dependency

In our relentless celebration of the "new", we undervalue what has been written even a few years ago. Somehow we assume that it is passe - that we have built on it and used it to move to a new peak of understanding (the eternal illusion of progress - "upward and onward"!). The reality is rather amnesia and, at best, reinvention
For example, aasily the most useful paper for those trying to understand lack of governance capacity in many countries I’ve worked in during the past 20 years is one written by Sorin Ionita 5 years ago and was languishing in my library until I discovered it while revising my Varna paper- Poor policy-making and how to improve it in states with weak institutions. His focus is on Romania but the explanations he offers for the poor governance in that country has resonance for many other countries -
• The focus of the political parties in that country on winning and retaining power to the exclusion of any interest in policy – or implementation process
• The failure of political figures to recognise and build on the programmes of previous regimes
• Lack of understanding of the need for „trade-offs” in government; the (technocratic/academic) belief that perfect solutions exist; and that failure to achieve them is due to incompetence or bad intent.
• The belief that policymaking is something being centered mainly in the drafting and passing of legislation. „A policy is good or legitimate when it follows the letter of the law − and vice versa. This legalistic view leaves little room for feasibility assessments in terms of social outcomes, collecting feedback or making a study of implementation mechanisms. What little memory exists regarding past policy experiences is never made explicit (in the form of books, working papers, public lectures, university courses, etc): it survives as a tacit knowledge had by public servants who happened to be involved in the process at some point or other. And as central government agencies are notably numerous and unstable – i.e. appearing, changing their structure and falling into oblivion every few years - institutional memory is not something that can be perpetuated”
Ionita adds other „pre-modern” aspects of the civil service – such as unwillingness to share information and experiences across various organisational boundaries. And the existence of a „dual system” of poorly paid lower and middle level people in frustrating jobs headed by younger, Western-educated elite which talks the language of reform but treats its position as a temporary placement on the way to better things. He also adds a useful historical perspective -

Entrenched bureaucracies have learned from experience that they can always prevail in the long run by paying lip service to reforms while resisting them in a tacit way. They do not like coherent strategies, transparent regulations and written laws – they prefer the status quo, and daily instructions received by phone from above. This was how the communist regime worked; and after its collapse the old chain of command fell apart, though a deep contempt for law and transparency of action remained a ‘constant’ in involved persons’ daily activities. Such an institutional culture is self-perpetuating in the civil service, the political class and in society at large.
A change of generations is not going to alter the rules of the game as long as recruitment and socialization follow the same old pattern: graduates from universities with low standards are hired through clientelistic mechanisms; performance when on the job is not measured; tenure and promotion are gained via power struggles.
In general, the average Romanian minister has little understanding of the difficulty and complexity of the tasks he or she faces, or he/she simply judges them impossible to accomplish. Thus they focus less on getting things done, and more on developing supportive networks, because having collaborators one can trust with absolute loyalty is the obsession of all local politicians - and this is the reason why they avoid formal institutional cooperation or independent expertise. In other words, policymaking is reduced to nothing more than politics by other means. And when politics becomes very personalized or personality-based, fragmented and pre-modern, turf wars becomes the rule all across the public sector.”

The new, post ’89 elites, who speak the language of modernity when put in an official setting, can still be discretionary and clannish in private. Indeed, such a disconnection between official, Westernized discourse abroad and actual behavior at home in all things that really matter has a long history in Romania. 19th century boyars sent their sons to French and German universities and adopted Western customs in order to be able to preserve their power of patronage in new circumstances − anticipating the idea of the Sicilian writer di Lampedusa that “everything has to change in order to stay the same”. Social theorists have even explained along these lines why, before Communism, to be an official, a state employee or a lawyer was much more common among the national bourgeoisie than to become an industrialist or merchant: because, as a reflection of pervasive rent-seeking, political entrepreneurship was much more lucrative than economic entrepreneurship.
This also shows why foreign assistance is many times ineffective in these states, and is seldom able to alter the ways of the locals.

This series of explanations for Romania's poor governance ratings is an example of what the academics call "path dependency" - the past constraining the possibilities of the present. My Varna paper spent so much space summarising the various papers that I couldn't actually address the question of what the reformer's strategy might be in such countries. I hope to explore that in a future post.

That's how the cookies crumble....and control!

I noticed today that my friend in Brussels gets very different results from his google searches. And, coincidentally, I had found the answer a few hours earlier in an article which warned me that -

the top 50 internet sites, from CNN to Yahoo to MSN, install an average of 64 data-laden cookies and personal tracking beacons each. Search for a word like "depression" on Dictionary.com, and the site installs up to 223 tracking cookies and beacons on your computer so that other websites can target you with antidepressants. Open a page listing signs that your spouse may be cheating, and prepare to be haunted with DNA paternity-test ads.

Such is the worrying intro to this excerpt from a new book on internet search engines which continues -

The race to know as much as possible about you, has become the central battle of the era for internet giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. As Chris Palmer of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explained to me: "You're getting a free service, and the cost is information about you. And Google and Facebook translate that pretty directly into money." While Gmail and Facebook may be helpful, free tools, they are also extremely effective and voracious extraction engines into which we pour the most intimate details of our lives. In the view of the "behaviour market" vendors, every "click signal" you create is a commodity, and every move of your mouse can be auctioned off within microseconds to the highest commercial bidder. The internet giants' formula is simple: the more personally relevant their information offerings are, the more ads they can sell, and the more likely you are to buy the products they're offering. And the formula works. Amazon sells billions of dollars in merchandise by predicting what each customer is interested in and putting it in the front of the virtual store. Up to 60% of US film download and DVD-by-mail site Netflix's rentals come from the guesses it can make about each customer's preferences.
You may think you're the captain of your own destiny, but personalisation can lead you down a road to a kind of informational determinism in which what you've clicked on in the past determines what you see next – a web history you're doomed to repeat. You can get stuck in a static, ever- narrowing version of yourself – an endless you-loop.
And there are broader consequences. In Bowling Alone, his book on the decline of civic life in America, Robert Putnam looked at the problem of the major decrease in "social capital" – the bonds of trust and allegiance that encourage people to do each other favours, work together to solve common problems, and collaborate. Putnam identified two kinds of social capital: there's the in-group-oriented "bonding" capital created when you attend a meeting of your college alumni, and then there's "bridging" capital, which is created at an event like a town meeting when people from lots of different backgrounds come together to meet each other. Bridging capital is potent: build more of it, and you're more likely to be able to find that next job or an investor for your small business, because it allows you to tap into lots of different networks for help. Everybody expected the internet to be a huge source of bridging capital. Writing at the height of the dotcom bubble, Tom Friedman declared that the internet would "make us all next-door neighbours". But that's not what's happening: our virtual neighbours look more and more like our real-world neighbours, and our real-world neighbours look more and more like us. We're getting a lot of bonding but very little bridging. And this is important because it's bridging that creates our sense of the "public" – the space where we address the problems that transcend our narrow self-interests.
As a consumer, it's hard to argue with blotting out the irrelevant and unlikable. But what is good for consumers is not necessarily good for citizens. What I seem to like may not be what I actually want, let alone what I need to know to be an informed member of my community or country. "It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest," technology journalist Clive Thompson told me. Cultural critic Lee Siegel puts it a different way: "Customers are always right, but people aren't."

How to deal with this? The discussion thread had the following ideas -
• There are still other search engines, such as Dogpile, and GoodSearch, which even lets you designate a charity to get about a penny for each search you do. (It adds up if a lot of people choose that charity.)
• Simple answer, just click on everything. They want data, give 'em loads
• Deleting cookies would be a good start? A simple way to do this is to use Firefox, go to Tools / Options and choose the cookies setting 'Keep until I close Firefox'. But this poses priblems for people such as me who want o shop at Amazon and pile books into a basket for subsequent editing…