Impervious power

The good news when I went online during the night was that I had gained three more Bulgarian paintings – I’ve actually lost count of how many I have now but it must be more than 50 (scattered in 5 locations). This one claims to be 100 years old – an aquarelle by Kabakchiev (know nuttin' about him/her) – and its eastern interior decoration features (carved wooden ceilings, tiled stove and carpet) represent those I fell in love with more than a decade ago in the swathe of land which stretches from Transylvania to the Central Asia plains. I also added a Chokalov and Vasilev to those I already have. The Dobre Dobrev got away (see next week). I was too mean in the upper limit I gave the auctioneer who bid on my behalf –although I got two of them for the starting price. Given that I wasn’t physically present, three out of four old paintings for a total of 1,000 euros is a very good result.
Creativity cannot be controlled – so today I ignored the paper I had promised yesterday to update for the website (whose tentative title has now become “Living for Posterity” and focused, instead, on the Varna paper for the NISPAcee Conference whose final version has to be submitted within the week. It was time to print out what I had – and skim the physical pages in the sun at Bran as I waited for the car to be put into trim for its journey to Bulgaria. I’m able to see things more objectively as I turn the pages physically and scribble notes and arrows on them.
But, as I got home and sat at the PC to try to transfer some of the ideas on to screen, I continued to struggle with the precise nature of (and terminology for) the regimes of which, I argue in the paper, the Technical Assistance industry has neither understanding nor prescriptions. Feedback suggested that my term "Kleptocracy” was too general and emotional. “Autocracy” was also too much of a cliché. “Sultanistic” had been suggested by Linz and Stepan in their definitive overview of transitions in 1995 as one of the systems into which totalitarian regimes could transmogrify - but had never caught on as a term. “Neo-feudalism” popped up recently to describe the current Russian system – and “proliferating dynasties” was a striking phrase in a book edited by Richard Youngs to which I recently referred. Suddenly I found myself typing the phrase “impervious power” – and felt that this was a great phrase which captured the essence of all of these regimes. Impervious to the penetration of any idea or person from the hoi poloi. The imperviousness of power leads to arrogance, mistakes on a gigantic scale and systemic corruption. How does one change such systems? Can it happen incrementally Where are there examples of „impervious power” morphing into more open systems? Germany and Japan in the aftermath of war – and Greece, Portugal and Spain in the 1970s under the attraction of EU accession. But what happens when neither are present???
The great Perry Anderson continues to capture the essence of countries – his latest essay on….Brazil
And, somehow, I alighted on what must be simply the best Central European Blog (sorry Sarah!)– this one on everyday political events in Hungary as they unfold. She is a Hungarian who let the country in 1956; achieved academic distinction in America; and is probably now retired. I particularly appreciated her description of the contributions from the floor at a recent meeting in Mioskolc, the town in North-East Hungary where I lived for 2 years in the mid 1990s. Quite frightening picture she portrays!
A final comment – the 2001 paper I uploaded yesterday to the website had tried to identify the organisations I then admired. Since then, however, (as regular readers of the blog will have noticed) it is individuals who impress me – not organisations (my anarchistic streak perhaps?) It was interesting that my recent correspondent asked me about the organisations I admired. Last night it was the late lamented Tony Judt whose words reverbated in my ears as I tried to get back to sleep.

making good use of one's time here

I promised on 10 March to draft a short paper which identified the various texts which seem to me relevant to the issue of social change or betterment (covering the micro, meso and macro levels mentioned on the post and to look at the interface between them. A week later I was provoked by another blog to start the process – and the interesting feedback which I got a couple of days ago from one of my readers helped me to find the short paper I had written ten years ago which had tried to explore how one person might make a (greater) difference”; or at least feel that what (s)he is doing is improving the human condition rather than compounding its problems.
Today – apart from some cleaning workaround the house and car – I have been trying to integrate recent writing into the 2001 paper whose focus is I feel the right one. For I am at the enviable point in my life where I don’t need to work full-time and can choose what I do with my time and life (even more than I have generally done). The paper still has the form and content it had when it was originally written (in Tashkent) some 10 years after I had left political life in Scotland and started the nomadic life of a consultant in countries which were assumed to be in some sort of transition from a form of communism to capitalism. Where can my values, energies (and what skills and knowledge I have) be used to best advantage? I wrote my short note around 5 key questions -
• why I was pessimistic about the future and so unhappy with the activities of the programmes and organisations with whom I dealt – and with what the French have called La Pensee Unique, the post 1989 “Washington consensus”
• who were the organisations and people I admired
• what they were achieving - and what not
• how these gaps could be reduced
• how, with my various resources, I could help that process

I hope to put the new draft on the website tomorrow.

Only one painter today – Denjo Chokanov (1901-1982). I’m very fond of him and have a couple of paintings of his – one above. And, in an hour, I’m bidding (from a distance) for another which is priced at 350 euros. I know nothing about him.

triple Boyadjievs

Three Boyadjievs (and a Bunadjiev) will probably go into my book. The first the most famous - an entire house is devoted to his work in the marvellous old Plovdiv centre.
That is Zlatyu Boyadjiev(1903-76)who offers what I would call Folk art. In 1951 a serious illness forced him to change his painting hand Born Brezovo, Plovdiv Region. A 65x50 is expected to fetch 15,000 euros at the Vikttoria auction in the Sheraton tomorrow evening.

Boyadjiev Nikolay (1904-63) is my favourite - a figurative graphic artist. Born in Svishtov; art teacher in Shumen High School. 1951 National Acadamy of Arts teacher. Expelled in 1958 from Union of Bulgarian artists for his refusal to work on prescribed themes. Superb charcoal and pencil portrait work which, unfortunately, I can't upload. The painting above is one of his portraits (taken from the Sofia City Gallery archives - many thanks).

Boyaidjiev, Petar (1907-63) did sea and landscapes. I bought one of them on my last visit.

social innovation and social enterprise

The price of potatoes has apparently almost doubled here – so there is a particular poignancy to the efforts of my 80 year-old neighbours whom I guiltily watch in their vegetable patch in the field below.
I’ve been too busy all morning to be able to offer any help – first on my own chores now that the sun is shining brightly and then on reflecting on the questions I got in my mail this morning from a US reader of my blog who was responding to a comment I had made on the Understanding Society blog and reproduced here My correspondent is in the process of establishing an organisation based on the recognition that

well intentioned organizations are constantly reinventing the wheel due to the poor state of networking amongst them. This, in turn, is responsible for the far below optimal rate of progress being generated by these organizations

.My correspodent asked four fascinating questions -
• about my experiences in trying to create positive change.
• Are there certain organizations you are especially fond of?
• What do you think about the "social innovation" movement?
• Is there a set of principles that you follow?

This quickly took me back to a short paper I had been looking for recently – which I had written ten years ago about the state of the world and what effective action committed individuals could take - and which I was able at last to unearth. It dealt with the first two of the questions and I have just spent a couple of hours adding footnotes to it to bring it up to date – and adding it to my website
The term “Social innovation” is actually a new one for me – but some surfing quickly established that it covers what I knew as community enterprise in the 1980s; what the French have called “social economy” and what, in the 200os, was called social enterprise in the UK. This 2006 paper is a good overview of the US and European understanding of the term.
Also in 2006 an interesting book was published on the European experience of Social Enterprise
This 2005 paper is a theoretical overview from Strathclyde University
In 2007, Charles Leadbeater wrote Social enterprise and social innovation: Strategies for the next ten years for the UK Cabinet Office and, in the light of the UK Coalition Government interest in Big Society, the Guardian had a brief chat with some social entrepreneurs.
Tha painting is one of the famous Bulgarian ones - "Peasant with a hoe"by Vladimir Dmitrov (The Master)

that there is a lot of thinking (about alternatives) going on - but it is not easily shared and stored. What can be done about this?

The mask of reform

A rereading of yesterday’s questions for a Skype discussion today was quite salutary – particularly the first one – “What were the forces which helped reform the state system of the various EU member countries?” Talk about begging the question! In what sense can we actually say the British or French state system has actually reformed in the past 40 years – let alone in a “better” direction?? Of course the rhetoric of reform is in place – which it certainly wasn’t 40 years ago. I vividly remember the writing of organisational analysts such as Charles Lindblom in the 1970s who invented phrases such as “disjointed incrementalism” to demonstrate the impossibility of modern public oganisations being able to change radically. Suddenly in the late 1980s, the language changed and everything seemed possible – “Total Quality Management” was a typical phrase. Thatcher has a lot to answer for – in creating the illusion that private management (concepts and people) had the answer. And, perversely, the greater the chaos it caused, the greater the need for management.
After several waves of major public sector reforms in Britain, a lot of people would say that things have gone backward – or, more nuanced, that any improvements are down to technological and financial rather than managerial developments. And “managerial” covers elements of both macro structures (like Agencies) and management hierarchy and behaviour - which has certainly got worse as the ethic of public service has disappeared. But who is best placed to make such judgements? Using what criteria? Do we rely on public surveys? But survey work is so profoundly influenced by the sorts of questions asked – and interpretations. Politicians, managers and professionals all have their vested interest in the stance they take – although the older “coalface” professional is perhaps in the best position to judge.
We have a lot of comparative indicators these days about both individual public services (France regularly tops the league tables for health; Finland for education) and governance systems. But they don’t seem to have much link with the experiences of ordinary people. This is where the efforts of a small journal like Scottish Review are so important – in putting spotlight on the greed and incompetence of leaders of public services in Scotland. Today its indefatigable editor watched the behaviour of the 2 most senior people of Glasgow University (my alma mater) during a at a public meeting of students trying to understand the heavy-handed police raid (which included a helicopter) on students occupying a building. Last Tuesday, 15 students were occupying the Hetherington Club, the police despatched to the scene between 40 and 80 officers (the number varies from account to account), up to 18 vehicles and the Strathclyde helicopter. As Kenneth Roy writes "What was all that about? The police made themselves look more than a little foolish". A combination of education and media exposure has made the british public lose its traditional deference to those with authority. But increasingly those in public positions are exposed for lacking the basic character (let alone competence)for the job. And, increasingly, managerialism (and the salaries which go to the top echelons)seems to be at the root of the problem. I therefore return to the question I posed in my 2006 paper to the NISPAcee Conference - how can those of us who come from such culture dare to give advise to those struggling in "transition" countries? And should these countries bother anyway about transition to such systems? They were in the neo-liberal heaven (everything for sale) long before us - in the mid 1990s when their taxation systems collapsed and their elites realised what a great legitimisation for their corruption the new Western Weltanschaung gave them!

Either the University Principal knew and approved what was about to happen, in which case he showed extremely poor judgement; or he was unaware of the invitation to the police until the helicopter was buzzing overhead, in which case he had lost control of his own staff. Either way there is an issue of personal responsibility. In the meeting in Bute Hall, we saw a microcosm of the more general failings of Scottish public life: the largely meaningless incantation of a duty of care; the feebleness of non-executives even, as in this case, an elected one; the reluctance of those in power to acknowledge their own errors; the tendency in a crisis to consolidate the crumbling position of the strong while failing to protect the vulnerable; the absence of wit and forensic ability

Cartoon time!

Coincidentally, three of Bulgaria’s cartoonists have a family name starting with B - Bozhenov, Alexander 1878-1968; Behar, Marko 1914-73; and Beshkov, Ilia 1901- 1958. I have no information yet about the first two but Wikipedia gave me the sort of information about Beshkov I would like to have about all the entries in the planned book And I was able to buy two old books devoted to Beshkov's life and work in the chaotic antique shop I’ve already mentioned. Indeed I also snapped up a lot of sketches scribbled on the pages of a 1947 journal which look remarkably like Beshkov’s work – not only to me but to Bulgarian cognoscenti I’ve shown them to.
More examples are to be seen on a short link Remarkable old Bulgarian illustrators
Beshkov was born in 1901 in a small town near Pleven. In 1918–1920, he studied law at Sofia University and briefly returned home as a teacher. In 1921, he enrolled in painting at the National Academy of Arts and graduated in 1926. As a student, Beshkov published caricatures in magazines. He was twice arrested due to his leftist political views: once after participating in the uprising following the Bulgarian coup détat of 1923.
He was one of the founders of a famous newspaper "Hornet" in 1940, and published in it without signature or pseudonym. In 1945, he became a lecturer of drawing, illustration and print design at the National Academy of Fine Art; he was elected a tenured professor in 1953 and led the Department of Graphics until his death in 1958.
Beshkov's political caricatures were humanist, democratic, revolutionary and national in nature. The art gallery in Pleven is named in his honour and most of his works are exhibited there. I reproduced another of his cartoons here. And I have in my bathroom what I think is a Behar

The How and the What of Change

I need to return to the paper for the Varna Conference – a final version of which has to be posted on the NISPAcee site in a couple of weeks. I’ve known for some time that there were two separate issues – the first about how procedurally the procurement system might be improved to get a better match of needs and consultants. The second issue is the more profound one of the what – the nature of the knowledge and skill base which a consultant operating in the very specific context of Neighbourhood Countries needs to be effective. The What requires us to face up to the following sorts of questions –
• What were the forces which helped reform the state system of the various EU member countries?
• In the absence of such forces should we actually get involved in institution-building in neighbourhood countries?
• what do we actually know about the results of institution-building (IB) in kleptocratic regimes?
• Does it not simply give a new arrogant and kleptocratic elite a better vocabulary
• Does the “windows of opportunity” theory not suggest a totally different approach to IB?

I’m happy enough for the moment with my comments on the EC’s Backbone Strategy for the reform of TA. They convince me (at any rate) that the strategy is mere bureaucratic tinkering to satisfy the (highly limited) concerns of auditors. The strategy doesn’t even raise the fundamental WHAT questions.
TA based on project management and competitive tendering is fatally flawed – imagining that a series of “products” procured randomly by competitive company bidding can develop the sort of trust, networking and knowledge on which lasting change depends.
In a recent blog I referred to the rigorous analysis of fashions in institution building in Technical Assistance always to be found in the work of Tom Carrothers and Derek Brinkerhoff
His second paper points out the ambiguity of the rhetoric about “rule of law” - which finds support from a variety of ideological and professional positions and therefore leads to confused implementation if not state capture. Good overviews of this are here, here and here

I have also said how little scrutiny there is of the various tools in the consultancy toolkit. The one exception is the “democracy promotion” strand of work where Richard Youngs is particularly prolific. Indeed I discovered today an important book he edited in 2009 which matches the concern I voice in the second part of my draft paper - about the failure of the EU to understand properly the context of neighbourhood countries and to adjust TA accordingly. The book has the marvellous title of “Democracy’s Plight in the European Neighbourhood – Struggling transitions and proliferating dynasties” - with chapters on Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco.
The painting is a Napoleon Alekov which went recently for 350 euros only

A-B Bulgarian painters

I realise that those who alight on this blog may not share my passion for painting – let alone Bulgarian works. I thought of relegating the series I have started on that subject to the lower half of each post – but that would add considerably to the length of what are clearly already too verbose posts. The answer seems to be alternate posts – so, be warned, this is an exclusive painting post. If you're really into painting - particularly Realist - then check out the booklet I published in May 2012

Boris Angelushev (1902-1966) trained and worked in Berlin from the early 1920s for more than a decade (returning to Bulgaria only in 1935) and was clearly influenced by the revolutionary events taking place then - and by the powerful graphics of Kathe Kollwitz of whom I have always been very fond.
A typical agitprop sketch of his headed the recent post about Romanian DNA and more of his work can be seen here. When I was in Sofia in January I was lucky enough to come across a large book which seemed to contain every single one of his works. Even although it’s all in Bulgarian, I considered it a bargain at 22 euros. I actually have a sketchbook I also bought then in the tiny eccentric gallery I blogged about at the time. It's by an unknown artist – my knowledgeable Bulgarian friends agree that it’s quality work from the mid century and I have just realised it could be Angelushev’s since the old sketchbook carries an embossed Romanian-German title –“Album de schite-Skizzenbuch” – and he worked in both Romania and Germany.

I have the sense that Bulgarian painters are more numerous (proportionately) than British. I don’t pretend to know a great deal about British art (more about Scottish – the Glasgow Boys; the Colourists etc) – so Amazon delivered this week a book (A Crisis of Brilliance) about a group of 5 famous English painters of the early 20th century – Dora Carrington, Merk Getler, Paul Nash, Richard Nevinson and Stanley Spencer (I had only heard of the first and last). Certainly I could make a list of no more than 20 UK painters of the last 100 years – whereas my list of Bulgarian painters is almost at the 150 mark. And one of the difficulties about compiling the list is that quite a few Bulgarian painters share a family name – some are related (eg Dobre Dobrev senior and Junior) – but most are not. And this seems to be particularly true of names like Georgiev (3 in my list) and Ivanov (five!) The next two listings share an appropriate name for that part of the world -

Balkanski.
Nenko Balkanski was born in Kazanluk in 1907, lived until he was 70 and is the more prestigious of the two. He graduated from the National Art Gallery in 1930 and then went to study in Germany, France and later Italy He seems to have been a modest man and his portrayals of family life (above) were well regarded by the socialist authorities who used his work on stamps. I saw a superb small portrait of a woman by him in the Konus Gallery in Sofia for about 1,400 euros – brought especially for my edification. A large still life of his is priced at 3,000 euros in this week’s Viktoria Gallery auction.
The Gallery in Kazanluk has some of his art and others who painted there and seems to be well worth a visit. His grandson is also a painter.
Pencho Balkanski was born a year later in the Troyan area, lived until 1985 and came to painting only after he had established himself as a photographer. A 50x40 of his is going for 1,200 euros at the auction.