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

 

What’s Transitional Justice – when it’s at home?

I continue to think about the increasing divisiveness in our societies – and the apparently minimal efforts being made to repair the divisions. Or is this just a mirage – something created by a 24-hour media system which exults in scandals and bad news? Perhaps, under the surface, all is much better than we think. Perhaps the optimists like Stephen Pinker are right after all?

It is, of course, impossible to generalise – the world looks very different from a Chinese point of view. Each country needs its own assessment – ideally from a combination of internal and external sources. The UK, for example, perhaps suffers from a surfeit of such appraisals – of both sorts - starting with the prescient Suicide of a Nation edited by Arthur Koestler in 1963 which attracted Olympian disdain from none less than Philip Hobsbawm

After the Obama years, the USA has had, over the past 5 years, only its negative side portrayed - but two recent books offer the country some ideas for how it might rebuild. They are

- The Upswing – how American came together a century ago and how we can do it again by Robert Putnam (2020) – the country’s best-known sociologist and

       -  A Time to build – how recommitting to our institutions can revive the American dream; Yuval Levin (2020) which builds explicitly on an important but neglected book written in 2009.

For the moment, my interest is focused on Bulgaria and Romania – and how such countries might extricate themselves from the vicious circle of hopelessness into which their citizens seem to be locked.

Political leaders of these countries, of course, would not agree with that description – but any reading of the annual Eurobarometer poll of EU citizens is inevitably drawn to the conclusion that the political institutions of central and south-eastern Europe lack legitimacy and public trust. One of Romania’s foremost political analysts – Dorel Sandor – wrote in 2018 a powerful article in which he confessed that he had given up any hope for the country - with this reliable source giving evidence for the loss of trust in the country.

A recent book - Romania Confronts Its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice; by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Marius Stan (2018) – reminds us of what lies behind this. Just over a decade ago – after some 15 years of the country being in denial about its past - a maverick President set up a Commission to investigate the communist era. This is the book in which its chairman recounts the experience and impact of the Commission.

I asked a young Bulgarian friend who is a journalist with an interest in Romanian affairs about what efforts either country had made toward “conciliation” in their divided societies – and was, of course, then made immediately aware of the fragility of the words we use when he asked for an explanation of what I meant by the term. I was aware that it is normally used to reference family and minor commercial disputes but I had forgotten that a new field has arisen – of Transitional Justice – into which academics (both Eastern and Western) have been crowding in the past decade. This includes the field of property restitution, lustrace and memory

And I have the feeling that few Bulgarians or Romanians have been let loose with what I would call “mediating skills” of the sort practised by Adam Kahane of the last post

A Short Reading List on Romania

Key Articles on Romania

2020 Freedom House report on Romania; written by reputable Romanian experts

Romania Redivivus (2017) an excellent summary of the social and economic changes since 1989 

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

Hijacked modernisation - Romanian political culture in the 20th century; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2007) The country's finest analyst

Poor Policy-making and how to improve it in states with weak institutions; Sorin Ionitsa (CEU 2006) pity this hasn't been updated

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

Books

Europe's Burden - promoting good governance across. borders" Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2019) which looks at the nature and impact of European technical assistance on the development of institutional capacity in central europe and "Neighbourhood" countries

Romania Confronts Its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice; by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Marius Stan (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.  

In Europe’s Shadow – two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond; Robert Kaplan (2016) - a fascinating book by an American journalist who has had a soft spot for Romania since the beginning of his career. It has an element of the “Common Book” tradition about it with its breadth of reading

The Great Rebirth – lessons from the victory of capitalism over communism ; Anders Aslud and Simeon Djankov (2015) which tells the story from the view point of some of the key actors at the time – with all the strengths and weaknesses that genre involves

Ruling Ideas – how global neoliberalism goes local Cornel Ban (2016) which is a left-wing Romanian critique of how neoliberalism got its grip on countries such as Romania and Spain

A Concise History of Romania; Keith Hitchins (2014) Very readable analysis by the American historian who knows the country’s history best.

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

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

Theft of a Nation – Romania since Communism; Tom Gallagher (2005) powerful critique

Romania – borderland of Europe; Lucian Boia (2001) Very readable and well translated study by a Romanian historian

RGY posts

Crowds and Power

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/11/plus-ca-changeplus-cest-la-meme-chose.html

When will it ever change? (July 2017)

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

Impervious Power (Jan 2017)

A Divided Country – dangerous times (Feb 2017)

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

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

The geography of thinking

Most of the time we imagine we are unique individuals – very occasionally we have a sense that we are but a grain of sand in an endless desert.

An archetypal figure in these most modern of modern times is the character who flits between continents, universities, policy institutes, government and business consultancies and on whom it is difficult to pin any label except that of “technocrat”.

I have, these past 2 days, been absorbed by a book whose title The Dawn of Euroasia – on the trail of the new world order (2018) intrigued me sufficiently to persuade me to fork out 10 euros without too rigorously subjecting its content to the tests I recommend for non-fiction books. Its author Bruno Macaes was unknown to me but seems to be one of the slippery new breed of geographical, linguistic and functional commuters.

A self-styled “adventurer”, Maçães was a Professor 2006/07 at the University of Yonsei in the Republic of Korea, where he taught International Political Economy; then worked at the American Enterprise Institute in 2008. From 2008 to 2011, Maçães helped launch a new international university in Europe, the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin.

Between 2011-2013 he was a policy adviser in the Portuguese PM office whose political connections allowed him, for a couple of years, to be Secretary of State for European Affairs which he left in late 2015. He has held positions at the Carnegie and right-wing Hudson Institutes; and is currently a hedge-fund adviser with Flint Global

I could see that the text covered aspects of China and the Central Asian countries in which I had spent almost a decade of my life - and that acknowledgements were duly made to the geopolitics writer par excellence  Robert Kaplan – although there was no reading list.

I am now on the final chapter and have to say that this is an extremely well-read 45 year old (with the breadth including a range of Russian novels he’s able to build seamlessly into the text)- even if this interview does reveal a certain slickness

Particularly resonant at this time was a section covering the 2015 immigration crisis which was resolved by a formula based on algorithms which weighed for population size, GNP (40% apiece), average number of asylum applicants per million inhabitants in 2010-2014; and the unemployment rate (10% apiece). As he was reading the account of the relevant meeting in his office, he suddenly had the realization that 

“the EU isn’t meant to take political decisions. What it tries to do is develop a system of rules to be applied more or less autonomously to a highly complex political and social reality” (p228)

I am surprised, however, that Macaes does not make more of the cultural insights which occur particularly in his “Chinese Dreams” chapter (pages 137-147). His spell in South Korea will have allowed him to become familiar with the literature on the culture of geography - whose principal exponents are de Hofstede, Trompenaars and Inglehart

Richard Lewis’s When Cultures Clash (1996) is my favourite go-to reference whenever the discussion turns to questions of cultural difference – as is Richard Nisbett’s Geography of Thought (2003) who argues that-

East Asians and Westerners perceive the world and think about it in very different ways. Westerners are inclined to attend to some focal object, analyzing its attributes and categorizing it in an effort to find out what rules govern its behavior. Rules used include formal logic. Causal attributions tend to focus exclusively on the object and are therefore often mistaken.

East Asians are more likely to attend to a broad perceptual and conceptual field, noticing relationships and changes and grouping objects based on family resemblance rather than category membership. Causal attributions emphasize the context. Social factors are likely to be important in directing attention. East Asians live in complex social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is important to effective functioning.
More independent Westerners live in less constraining social worlds and have the luxury of attending to the object and their goals with respect to it. The physical ‘‘affordances’’ of the environment may also influence perception.

Most of the writing on the geography of thought hesitates at this stage and seems unwilling to explore the implications of such a startling discovery. The niceties of cultural behaviour on display at global interactions are a safer topic – forming an integral part of most Business School courses. 

But the reviews of The Geography of Thought clearly suggest that all of us need to be thinking much more about the way we all take decisions – whether as individuals, organisations or countries – in full recognition that there are, legitimately, various styles appropriate to particular contexts….…

Further Reading

This is a more eclectic list than usual not just because Macaes is well-read but also for the thoughts his text gives rise to….

Beyond Liberal Democracy – political thinking in an east Asian context; Daniel Bell (2006) is a powerful early apologia for the system of party control in China written by a Canadian political scientist who has chosen since 2000 or so to live in China

The Art of Thinking; Allen Harrison and Robert Bramson (1984) The book which introduced me to the idea that there are, legitimately, different styles of thinking

Decisive – how to make better choices in life and work; C and D Heath (2013). An example of the huge literature now available on decision-making…

Cultures and organization – software of the mind; G de Hofstede (1991) One of the first to explore the cultural aspects of organisations and societies

When Cultures Collide – Richard Lewis (1996) – the full text of the easiest book on the subject

Riding the Waves of Culture; Frans Trompenaars (1996). Another Dutchman rides the waves…

The geography of thought; Richard Nesbitt (2003) – which pushed the ideas further
The Spirit of Russia; Thomas Masyrk (1913 German; 1919 English). An amazing book written before the First World War by the guy who subsequently became President of Czechoslovakia

Hacks? Critics? Writers?What's in a Name?

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time these past few weeks going over the year’s posts (60) to try to give them a little bit more “shape” ie coherence. It was probably this post back in June which planted the idea of the need for some editing of my posts. For whatever reason, there does seem to have been more of a pattern to my writing this year..  The interest in organisational reform didn’t entirely peter out – but morphed into a larger concern about systems of power and the State..

I will, in a few days, be uploading this year’s collection of posts which also shows that an important thread running through the year has been the need for writing which – as one post put it - 

jolts me – not for its own sake but to help first identify minds which look at the world in original ways but which also understand that clear language is an essential tool for such originality…Recently deceased essayist Tom Wolfe was a favourite of mine ever since I first read his Mau Mauing the flak catchers in 1970 but the “creative writing” courses which have contaminated journalism in the past few decades have made me suspicious of even good journalists these days. James Meek remains an exception for his ability to reduce economic complexities to 5 or 10 thousand word essays – ditto Jonathan Meades for his forensic analyses of cultural issues.

But it was Arthur Koestler who first stunned me (in my late teens) with memorable writing – hardly surprising given his amazing background. Only Victor Serge could rival the enormity of the events which shaped him. How can those who have known only a quiet bourgeois English life possibly give us insights into other worlds? And yet a few writers manage to do it.

But somehow, academic specialists are rarely able to produce prose which grips…Is it the unrealistic restriction of the scope of their inquiries vision which causes the deadness of their prose – or perhaps the ultra security of their institutional base??

It’s this question which led me to offer this matrix of good journalistic writers – dividing them according to their focus on people, ideas, events and places. This made me realise, in turn, the fine line there is between such categories as journalist, novelist and travel writer. Or perhaps the distinction is, more properly, that between generalists and specialists – with the latter including not only travel writers but those who focus on books, films, drama and art (designated "critics") and sports (of each variety – including politics).  And the former covering essentially those we refer to, derogatively, as “hacks” – since what they do is to hack out “news” from the public relations handouts they receive

I accept that the focus of my table on the former type of writer is as a result somewhat elitist....

I wanted to include examples from countries beyond the UK and managed 20 – whose nationalities are clearly designated in the table. I’ve tried googling (in French and in German) to try to get a sense of who might be the equivalent European journalists but the google curse of neophilia means that only references to younger names are given….

Good “Journalistic” writers – by focus, base and nationality

Source of income	People	Ideas	Events	Places	Mixed genres
freelance	Masha Gessen (RU) Biographers	Peter Watson Naomi Klein (Can)	Victor Serge (Be) Kenneth Roy	John Ardagh Dervla Murphy Jan Morris Neal Ascherson Philip Marsden Giles Milton	George Orwell Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Ger) Francis Wheen Arundati Roy (India) Joan Didion  US Tariq Ali (Pak/UK)
Academia	Biographers	Mark Greif USA Mark Lilla USA Perry Anderson USA	Historians Political scientists Economists	Geographers Anthropologists Sociologists	Raymond Aron (France) Michael Pollan USA
Journal newspaper television	Oriana Fallaci (It) Clive James	Francois Bondy (Sw) Claude Roy (Fr) Chris Hitchens Martin Jacques Paul Mason George Monbiot Duncan Campbell Owen Jones Adam Curtis	Arthur Koestler Vasily Grossman (Ru) Seb Haffner (Ger) Joseph Roth (Ger) Rudolf Augstein (Ger) Paul Foot Patrick Cockburn Simon Jenkins	Luigi Barzini (It) Andrew Sampson Svetlana Alexievich (Belarussia) Robert Kaplan (US) John Hooper John Pilger Robert Fisk Tobias Jones	Anthony Lane James Meek Andrew O Hagen
Think Tank		David Goodhart Susan George (US)