For a book that symbolically marks twenty-five years from the Romanian Revolution, the reader might expect a systematic and comprehensive summary of the country’s political, social, and cultural transformation in its path from communism to democracy. However, this collection of essays ably brought together by Lavinia Stan and Diane Vancea follows a different logic: bringing together reputed scholars in the field of Romanian studies, it advances a selective evaluation of the most important factors that shaped the transition. The result is both an interesting resource for scholarly analysis and a testimony of the relationship between academic elites (and their expectations, many of them being involved in various forms in the political and civic transformations) and the Romanian society at this particular anniversary moment.
The first part of the book sets the framework of the volume by providing an account of what post-communism actually meant and how it was instrumentalized in the political and institutional processes after 1989. Katherine Verdery’s first chapter is an impressive first-hand collection of testimonials from friends and collaborators. From the fear and anger of the early days of the Revolution, to the enthusiasm following Ceauseascu's trial and execution and the incredible mobilization in the early months of 1990 (“people follow political life as it were a police thriller” p. 14), Verdery’s collection of letters gives the reader an emotional account of the first few months of democracy. The disappointment and the sense of betrayal felt after the first elections in May 1990, when the transitional government (the National Salvation Front) transformed itself in a political party and crushed the opposition, is a warning of the long battles ahead between the old second-echelon elites and the pro-western, pro-democratic groups. Stan and Vladimir Tismăneanu’s essay summarizes the rationale and the main findings of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Regime (PCACDR), the symbolic Condemnation by the presidency in 2006 and some of the political and legal consequences of the Report (or lack thereof). In the same historical vein, Light and Young’s research follows the transformation of the urban landscape in Bucharest. Their analysis points to a very complex and protracted process of transformation of the capital city, from the early days of enthusiastic cleansing of communist symbols and toponyms, to a period of neglect and unregulated proliferation of capitalist urban marking after the mid-nineties and the renewed official attention to the symbolism of public places preceding the country’s accession to the EU in 2007.
The second part looks at the political processes from below, and the three areas under scrutiny are gender, ethnicity and the media. Levente Salat and Csaba Zoltán Novák discuss the evolution of ethnic relations after 1989 starting with the legacy of assimilation of the last years of national-communism. Despite this disastrous legacy and the initial deadlock in majority-minority relations in the early 1990s, after 1995 a combination of diplomatic efforts, increased power-sharing with the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and NATO-EU membership conditionalities prompted spectacular developments in ethnic relations. An impressive array of legislation and policies, new state agencies, special political representation for minority groups, and state subsidies improved the minority regime. However, the authors argue, this spectacular institutional progress has had a limited effectiveness: without a common civic project of state-building, the unequal representation of different minority groups, the social exclusion of Roma and the risk of ethnic mobilization remain real threats for the minority-majority relations. Mihaela Miroiu retraces the slow process of the creation of a feminist movement in a society in which traditional patriarchy was doubled by communist state patriarchy. After the phase of know-how acquisition and voluntary intellectual “colonization” in the 1990s, and the emancipation from above under the pressure of the EU accession process, it is only after 2007 (or, more accurately, after the 2012 anti-austerity protests) that one can speak of a full spectrum of grassroots feminist movements, in all its varieties. Radu Cinpoeş, in his analysis on political culture, points to three factors that could explain the decreasing political participation and voter mistrust in institutions: the fragmentation of the party system (increased by the constant party switching by elected officials), the strong polarization in public discourse, and a high level of discursive violence. His observations on the absence of independent media and a culture of political spectatorship are taken forward by Peter Gross’ bleak verdict on the media institutions, plagued by clientelism, instrumentalisation by political parties or interest groups, and the complete alignment of every media outlet with political actors.
Part three focuses on “politics from above,” on the way main political institutions work. Ronald King and Cosmin Gabriel Marian’ s analysis of the relation between incumbency and representation shows that, although there is a strong presumption towards the assumption that incumbent MPs should encourage personal vote through channeling resources to their districts, empirical findings do not confirm any such effect (and this lack of responsiveness of legislators to their own constituencies remained after the switch to single-member districts). Thomas Gallagher’s chapter offers a short but ruthless history of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) as the direct descendant of the Communist Party. Although showing great versatility, it still is a pre-modern (!) party and the single most toxic obstacle to the political system’s progress towards pluralism, accountability, and rule of law. Lavinia Stan and Diane Vancea, in their analysis of the presidential institution until 2014, argue that the president is the most significant political actor, although less powerful than the opposing sides claimed during the fierce political battles in Iliescu or Basescu’ s mandates.
The influence of the EU and the accession process is a constant theme throughout the book; the fourth part narrows the discussion of this influence on the particular issues of rule of law and environmental policies. Dennis Deletant retraces the long evolution from the legal confusion, massive economic frauds and uncertainty in the 1990s to the anti-corruption institutions and the spectacular sentencing of high-profile politicians in the last five years. His textbook example is the fateful year 2012, when civil society sided with president Băsescu against what was perceived as the strongest assault on rule of law and anticorruption from the social-democrats, liberals, and media tycoons. Cristina Parau discusses the diffusion of new modes of environmental governance in Romania, and she describes this process (just like in any other East-European country) as a protracted conflict between national government and a transnational network of NGOs, local civil society, and supranational institutions.
For all the diverse approaches and issues discussed in the twelve studies, the common thread running through the book is the unresolved tension between the communist legacy—still manifest in low trust, clientelism, personalization of public office, weak and uncohesive civil society—and new attitudes and democratic values formally acquired through legislative import and external pressure, but lacking deep support apart from a small fraction of an active, pro-democratic civil society. Ironically, the complicated issue of memory and relationship with the past has not only philosophical, political, or social implications, but methodological ones too; as Stan and Vancea noted (p. 194) in their analysis of the presidency, in the absence of institutional memory and unwillingness to disclose information, they had to devise a particular framework for the evaluation of the mandates.
But even the uninformed reader can feel the difference between the rather neutral tone of Parau or Cinpoeş, as opposed to the passionate and battle-hardened voices of active public intellectuals such as Tismăneanu (chair of the Presidential Comission), Gallagher (a longtime political commentator in independent media outlets), or Miroiu (one of the few pathbreakers in both academic and activist feminism). The authors diverge not only in their approach, but also in their interpretation of main events: while Gallagher sees the 2012 protests as highly politicized and “choreographed by Voiculescu’s media outlets” (p. 180), Miroiu sees in the same turbulent year a moment of radicalization but also the moment that prompted the (much welcomed) emergence of new, Occupy-type movements (p. 99).
In their evaluation, the authors manifest different degrees of optimism towards the future, but most of them seem to argue that a stronger civil society is the only identifiable agent that could pressure into change an unprofessional, unaccountable civil service and a weak and corrupt party system. Some of the voices are distinctly from the right: Tismăneanu denounces the voices from the left that criticized the Final Report of the PCACDR as purely ideological, not scholarly (p. 35). Others, such as Gallagher, although staunch opponents of the social-democrats, would welcome the “refreshing occurrence” of a genuine left-wing party, as an alternative to the pro-capitalist right (p. 187). Unfortunately there are few instances of critical comments on the right (broadly conceived, beyond party affiliation). Cinpoeş, in his discussion of the economic cleavages, intensified by the austerity measures adopted by Băsescu’s liberal democrats, stands out in this respect when he notes that “the way in which center-right voters, opinion-leaders, and trendsetters embraced this economic approach exposed an anti-welfarist discourse of social exclusion that starkly rejected all notions of social equality and justice” (p. 111).
A more detailed discussion of the structural economic conditions, especially in the early years of transition and after 2010, would have been a much welcomed addition to the whole project, but I do not think this to be a critical fault for a sympathetic reader. Scholars in transition and Europeanization will find plenty of useful data, and the book is highly informative, yet accessible enough for a wider readership. At the same time, for all its ambition of a symbolic (self-)assessment and critical reflection, I cannot imagine a potentially more interested audience than the Romanian public itself—for this book raises fundamental questions of interest to anyone who cares about democracy.
