Institutional Renewal and Creating Effective Mechanisms
Delivered to the Moldovan Parliament on September 19, 2007
(Presented in Romanian – check against delivery)

Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of Parliament, dear colleagues: good morning and
thank you very much for the opportunity, once again, to participate in the Center for
European Security Studies’ important Moldova Parliamentary Program. The OSCE
Mission to Moldova has been a proud and active sponsor during this series of though-
provoking events in Parliament and I am delighted to join you for this first session of the
day. It’s good to see our friends from the Netherlands – Erik Sportel, Sami Faltas and
others – back in Moldova to help continue the discussion on Democratic Oversight of the
Security Sector.

We last gathered together in February and I spoke then in some depth about institutional
controls over government action. We discussed how important checks and balances are to
prevent any one branch, group or individual leader from becoming too strong or too
unaccountable, particularly in new democracies without a history and tradition of restraint
among their leaders. Today’s topic – Institutional Renewal and Creating Effective
Mechanisms – continues this discussion, but from a different angle, a somewhat more
philosophical one. But at the same time perhaps even a more fundamental angle. Indeed,
the most powerful approach to checking-and-balancing a political system is likely to be
found in its constant improvement, upgrading, renewal, and perfection. It is to be found in
the renewal of the very personnel that comprise leadership by the peaceful and timely
transfer of power.

In fact, the topic brings to mind some unusual words from the preamble to the United
States Constitution, which say that the document has been created, among other things, “in
order to form a more perfect union.” At first glance, it seems like a contradiction or a
mistake – how can something perfect be made “more perfect.” That’s kind of like being
“a little bit pregnant.” But upon reflection, I think that the Founders of the new American

nation were building into their charter-document the very notion of institutional renewal
that we are discussing today. The idea was that any democratic government must
constantly review, renew and perfect itself in order to function fairly and effectively in the
service of its people. They meant that the work of perfecting the political system – any
political system – is never complete.

At the same time, we must acknowledge it takes great courage and strength of character to
continuously reevaluate a process, method or procedure – to look at a system as it is,
objectively, and make changes where you see problems – particularly if those changes
happen to be against your own interests. Although it may be difficult, the alternative is
unacceptable. Not doing so leads to stagnation, corruption and – even more dangerously
in the long term – an erosion of faith in the entire system of governance. Once that
happens – once the system loses its credibility – it is very difficult to regain it. I would
hurry to add that the United States and countries of Western Europe have not always lived
up to their fine words and promises. There remains much room for serious improvement
and reform. But in essence, the institutional protections and structures in those countries
make them self-regulating, balancing in the middle between the extremes of governmental
tyranny and impotence.

We can find a good example of this self-regulation recently in the United States, where
from 2001 to 2006 both Houses of Congress along with the Executive Branch were under
the control of the Republican Party. Americans historically prefer to have the Legislature
under one party and the Executive under another – again providing checks and balances
and forcing debate and discussion before any action is taken. That very thing happened in
the mid-term elections in November 2006 when the Democratic Party swept both Houses
of Congress, many Governorships and much of local government too. It was an example
of institutional renewal in action (and the same thing had happened in 1994 in with a
Republican “renewal” in the face of a Democratic White House) and it forced the current
leadership to negotiate with the opposition, taking into account a broader spectrum of
views in society.

Now, before turning to the needs and options for Moldova in connection with institutional
renewal, I’d like to take a quick tour through this topic in other areas of human
experience. These will include the private sector, the natural world and of course reform.
My interest in doing this is to show that renewal per se is a fundamental and unavoidable
part of the human condition, and that resisting it will only lead to distortions and problems
in the proper functioning of institutions and in the well-being of people.

Let us first turn to the private sector, which at bottom is driven by competition,
measurements and -- at the end of the day -- the need to actually make a profit. Because
of these parameters, the private sector is exceptionally good at driving institutional
renewal. Survival of businesses depends on their ability to adapt to new circumstances, to
make use of new ideas and to provide benefits for their customers. Businesses are
constantly being created and run where they did not exist before. Often they fail, but this
process is part of what is called the “creative destruction” of the marketplace: one idea or
approach may fail but may lead down the road to a completely different way of doing
things. Someone may lose his job at Company A doing X but will soon find himself
employed at Company B doing Y. When companies go bankrupt, their assets all the same
will be bought and put to work in a different capacity somewhere else. The company
Google – an Internet search company – which did not exist six years ago, is now an
internationally known name and multi-billion dollar corporation. When someone in
California or India or Estonia, or – hopefully – Moldova invents a better search engine, we
will see that company grab the market in yet another process of institutional renewal.

In discussing the political system, we can draw an important lesson from this reality of
business. That is the idea that consumers of governmental services (including the services
of Parliament, those consumers being the citizens represented by Parliament) are actually
customers. These customers need to be treated with interest and respect, not as objects for
political manipulation or personal benefit. This is a new idea for the post-Soviet world
and a very important one. Sometimes, one has the impression that many post-Soviet
bureaucrats feel that people exist for government and not that government exists to serve,