Why we need to be suspicious of the idea of “political culture”

We like to think that we are “masters of our fate” and it irks us when foreigners, for example, make us realise that our behaviour is often the result of specific cultural factors which can be questioned.

The last post has made me return to a question which has haunted me since I started to work in Europe more than 30 years ago…….”to what extent can we actually change national characteristics” – let alone state institutions ???

NB – this may look a long post (and it has certainly taken a full day to compose) but it actually divides fairly easily into three separate sections – which I felt still needed to be part of a single post

1. An ignored 1990 warning

Ralf Dahrendorf was a famous German sociologist/UK statesman who wrote in 1990 an extended public letter first published under the title “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe” and then expanded as Reflections on the Revolution of our Time. In it he made the comment that it would take one or two years to create new institutions of political democracy in the recently liberated countries of central Europe; maybe five to 10 years to reform the economy and make a market economy; and 15 to 20 years to create the rule of law. But it would take maybe two generations to create a functioning civil society there.

A former adviser to Vaslev Havel, Jiri Pehe, referred 7 years ago to that prediction and suggested that  

“what we see now is that we have completed the first two stages, the transformation of the institutions, of the framework of political democracy on the institutional level, there is a functioning market economy, which of course has certain problems, but when you take a look at the third area, the rule of the law, there is still a long way to go, and civil society is still weak and in many ways not very efficient.”

He then went on to make the useful distinction between “democracy understood as institutions and democracy understood as culture”  

“It’s been much easier to create a democratic regime, a democratic system as a set of institutions and procedures and mechanism, than to create democracy as a kind of culture – that is, an environment in which people are actually democrats”.

2. Where did talk about “political cultures” first start?

The idea of “political culture” is – as the academics have taken to put it – a “contested field”…Not that this has stopped wild assertions being made about national characteristics. Indeed it has spawned one of the most enjoyable of book genres - who, for example, can resist We, Europeans – with its amusing vignettes of our various mutual neighbours? And, although the Xenophobe series does rather take this to extremes, some of this stuff can actually be quite insightful – for example, this good expose of the phrases Brits use – with columns distinguishing what our European partners generally understand by various common phrases from what Brits really mean by them 

And, since we all first noticed globalisation in the 1980s, another new field has been spawned – that of “comparative management” whose foremost writers have been Geert Hofstede, Ronnie Lessem and Frans Trompenaars ….Richard D Lewis’s When Cultures Collide – leading across Cultures  (1996) is perhaps the most readable treatment.

There used indeed to be an area called “path dependency” which argued that our behaviour was much more influenced by historical cultural patterns than we imagined. It focused initially on technical examples such as the layout of the typewriter - but found new life after the fall of communism. Indeed it gave rise to a sub-field of political science called “transitology” (which I try to explain in chapter 2 of my 1999 book In Transit – notes on good governance) 
Political culture versus rational choice – the example of the Czech-Slovak transition is one of the better examples of the genre and The political culture of unified Germany (written by a German academic) puts the field in the wider context of “political culture”

Culture Matters – how values shape human progress; ed Lawrence Harrison and SP Huntington is not an easy book to find these days. It came out in 2000 but attracted the entirely appropriate comment that a more appropriate title would have been Western Culture Matters  

And that indeed is the problem - that commentary about other cultures is imbued with notions not only of “the other” but with those of superiority and inferiority….

This raises the obvious question of what sort of person might be best placed to do an insightful (if not objective) analysis of a political culture. The answer, I would suggest, comes from using 2 axes – one to denote the “status” one (insider/outsider); the other to denote something like “the generalist/specialist” spectrum.

Robert Kaplan would be an example of a generalist outsider in Romania’s case – Mungiu-Pippidi an example of a specialist insider, although perhaps not the best example in view of her Berlin location and international profile…The historian Lucian Boia might be a better example…..

3. How 2 American political scientists tarred the Italian Image

Edward Banfield’s study in the early 1950s of a small town in southern Italy whose inhabitants displayed loyalty only to the members of their nuclear family and who had absolutely no sense of social responsibility for wider circles. The book (published in 1955) was called “The Moral Basis of a Backward Society” 

Banfield concluded that the town's plight was rooted in the distrust, envy and suspicion displayed by its inhabitants' relations with each other. Fellow citizens would refuse to help one another, except where one's own personal material gain was at stake. Many attempted to hinder their neighbours from attaining success, believing that others' good fortune would inevitably harm their own interests. "Montegrano"'s citizens viewed their village life as little more than a battleground. Consequently, there prevailed social isolation and poverty—and an inability to work together to solve common social problems, or even to pool common resources and talents to build infrastructure or common economic concerns.

"Montegrano"'s inhabitants were not unique nor inherently more impious than other people. But for quite a few reasons: historical and cultural, they did not have what he termed "social capital"—the habits, norms, attitudes and networks that motivate folk to work for the common good.

This stress on the nuclear family over the interest of the citizenry, he called the ethos of ‘amoral familism’. This he argued was probably created by the combination of certain land-tenure conditions, a high mortality rate, and the absence of other community building institutions.

Fast forward sixty years to an article in “City Compass Guide Romania” in which an expat (and, full disclosure) friend of mine wrote….

If you are fortunate enough to drive in Bucharest you will witness what is probably the clearest evidence of mass individualism in global human society. Romanian people, of all shapes, sizes, social and educational backgrounds and income brackets will do things in their cars that display a total disregard for sanity and other drivers.

Manoeuvres such as parking in the middle of the street, u-turning on highways without any warning and weaving between lanes in heavy traffic at 150 kilometres per hour are commonplace and point to an extreme lack of concern for the safety or even the simple existence of others.

The next time you are waiting to get on a plane at Henri Coandă airport, take a little time to observe how queuing in an orderly and effective manner is clearly regarded as an af­front to the sovereignty of the Romanian individual. Enjoy the spectacle of the pushing, shoving and general intimida­tion that follows the arrival of the airport staff to supervise boarding. Even while watching an international rugby test match you will only occasionally see the same intense level of barely controlled aggression.

Outside of their core social networks Romanians closely follow the rule stating that it is every man, woman and child for themselves. ……There is an opinion poll, published in early 2012, show­ing that around 90 percent of the Romanian population regards almost all of their compatriots as utterly untrust­worthy and incompetent. At the same time 90 percent, possibly the same 90 percent, see themselves as being abso­lutely beyond reproach. This is clearly an extreme response no matter how you view it and provides evidence of an ex­traordinary and troubling imbalance within the generality of Romania’s social relationships.

There is a well-known prayer in Romania, which roughly goes: “Dear God, if my goat is so ill that it will die, please make sure that my neighbour’s goat dies too.”

So what does this commonality suggest? The EU’s first Ambassador here was Karen Fogg who gave every consultant who came here in the early 1990s (like me) a summary of what can be seen as the follow-up to Banfield’s book – Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work – civic traditions in Italy (1993) which suggested that the laggardly nature of southern Italian Regions was due entirely to this “amoral familism”.  Putnam made an even greater play of missing “social capital” – indeed spawned an incredible technocratic literature on the concept and ideas on how it could be “engineered” to deal with the new alienation of modern capitalism..

Romanian communism, of course, had almost 50 years to inculcate more cooperative attitudes and behaviour – but the forced nature of “collective farms”; the forced migration of villagers to urban areas to drive industrialisation; and the scale of Securitate spying created a society where, paradoxically, even fewer could trusted anyone.      

From 1990 the market became God; Reagan and Thatcher had glorified greed; the state was “bad"; and television – which had been limited by Ceausescu to 2 hours a day - the great “good”……As the commercial stations and journals spread, the values of instant gratification became dominant (one of the points Dorel Sandor makes)……

To be continued…..

Whatever happened to good governance and anti-corruption?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further Reading on Romania and institutional inertia

Academic articles/booklets on political culture and Romania

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

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

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

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

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

books

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

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

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

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

In Transit

One of the books of which I’m most proud is In Transit – notes on good governance which I drafted in 1998 - after almost a decade of experience of working and living in Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Latvia on projects building, we hoped, more open institutions of local government and regional development. I had come to that work in 1990 after 20 years of trying to get our Scottish system operating in a more citizen-friendly way – so I felt I knew what people in central Europe were up against.

The book was, unusually, written very much for the younger generation in those parts of central Europe and central Asia I was working with; picking out the key features of the new systems they were being asked to run; and tried to identify some pointers for how to effect change in local and central government state bodies. I remain pretty satisfied with the book – although I might have made a better link between the case study of strategy work in Scotland and the rest of the book

In the early days of what used to be called “transition”, people sometimes asked me what, as a western consultant, I could bring to the task of crafting state bodies in the countries of the old soviet bloc. They didn’t realise that, in many respects, Scotland was, until the 80s and 90s, culturally and institutionally, more socialist than countries such as Hungary. The scale of municipal power was particularly comprehensive in Scotland where the local council still owned three quarters of the housing stock, 90% of education and most of the local services - including buses. Only health and social security escaped its control: these were handled by Central Government.

Local government simply could not cope with such massive responsibilities (although such a view was rejected at the time). This was particularly evident in the larger housing estates in the West of Scotland which had been built for low-income "slum" dwellers in the immediate post-war period -

·       there were few services in these areas

·       employment was insecure

·       schools in such areas had poor educational achievement and were not attractive to teachers/headmasters

·       local government officials treated their staff in a dictatorial way

·       who in turn treated the public with disdain

The contemptuous treatment given by local council services seemed to squash whatever initiative people from such areas had. They learned to accept second-class services. Behind this lay working and other conditions so familiar to people in Central Europe

·       the culture was one of waiting for orders from above. There were few small businesses since the Scots middle class have tended to go into the professions rather than setting up one's own business

·       work was in large industrial plants

·       for whose products there was declining demand

·       rising or insecure unemployment         

·       monopolistic provision of local public services

·       and hence underfunding of services - queues and insensitive provision

·       hostility to initiatives, particularly those from outside the official system.

·       elements of a "one-party state" (the Labour party has controlled most of local government in Scotland for several decades).

I’m thinking now of updating the “In Transit” book but thought it would be useful first to plot how western and eastern European authors have deal generally with developments in their respective parts of Europe.

How english-speaking authors from Eastern and Western Europe have tried to make sense of each other’s societies developments since 1990

	Western Europe authors	Eastern Europe authors
On Western Europe changes	A lot of Western European writers have covered developments in West Europe since 1990 eg Empire of Democracy – the remaking of the West since the Cold War 1971-2017 by Simon Reid-Hendry (2019)	Ivan Krastev – “After Europe” (2017) Bulgaria’s best-known intellectual argues that the democratic ideals that were promoted beyond Europe’s borders have now been undercut within the European polity itself. Ryszgard Legutko – a right-wing Polish philosopher argues in The Demon in Democracy – totalitarian temptations in free societies (2016) that the more the cause of liberal-democratic equality progresses, the more indignantly the remaining instances of inequality are felt. Thus “equality resembles a monster with an insatiable appetite: regardless of how much it has eaten, the more it devours, the hungrier it becomes.”  I would be interested to hear about other publications
On Eastern Europe changes	The Great Rebirth – lessons from the victory of capitalism over communism ; Anders Aslud and Simeon Djankov (2015) which is one of the very few books which tells the story from the view point of some of the key actors in most of the eastern countries at the time – with all the strengths and weaknesses that genre involves Although most historians find it easier to focus on individual countries, From peoples into nations – a history of Eastern Europe; by John Connelly (2020) reviewed here and with an interview here.  Aftershock – a journey into Eastern Europe’s Forgotten Dreams 2017) is based on interviews with people the author, young American journalist John Feffer, met in the early 90s and then, 25 years later, went back to interview. The interviews can actually be accessed here   SO NOT MANY covering the Region as a whole. Most westerners concentrate on a particular country. As Romania is the country I know best, I have selected a few texts which throw light on that country’s development - Romania Redivivus; Alex Clapp (NLR 2017) - Robert Kaplan  - In Europe’s Shadow – two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond; (2016) a fascinating book by an American journalist who has had a soft spot for Romania since the beginning of his career. Great breadth of reading - Tom Gallagher - Romania and the European Union – how the weak vanquished the strong; (2009) great narrative by a Scottish historian; and Theft of a Nation – Romania since Communism (2005) powerful critique	Ivan Krastev and S Holmes – “The Light that Failed – a reckoning” (2019) which is one of the few books to assess how Eastern Europe has fared after 30 years. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi - Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across. borders" (2019) which looks at the nature and impact of European technical assistance on the development of institutional capacity in central europe and "Neighbourhood" countries SO NOT MANY covering the Region as a whole. East European social scientists and journalists cover their own countries eg Vladimir Tismaneanu and Marius Stan's Romania Confronts Its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice (2018) – both Romanians. The first who left Romania in the 1980s and returned briefly in the early 2000s to chair a Presidential commission into the impact of communism on the country, the second who still works in Romania. The book is a very personal take on how that Presidential Commission fared.  Cornel Ban - Ruling Ideas – how global neoliberalism goes local (2016) a left-wing Romanian critique of how neoliberalism got its grip on countries such as Romania and Spain Romania – borderland of Europe; Lucian Boia (2001) Very readable and well translated study by a Romanian historian