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Democratization
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Globalization, governance
and democracy in
post‐communist Romania
a
Jan Aart Scholte
a
Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Social
Studies , The Hague
Published online: 26 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Jan Aart Scholte (1998) Globalization, governance and
democracy in post‐communist Romania, Democratization, 5:4, 52-77, DOI:
10.1080/13510349808403584

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 Globalization, Governance and Democracy
in Post-Communist Romania

JAN AART SCHOLTE

Post-communist transition in Romania has witnessed an accelerated globalization in

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the country. Global (understood here as supraterritorial) relations have altered many
communication networks, forms of organization, production processes, markets,
monetary and financial flows, ecological conditions, and patterns of social
consciousness. Although the extent of globalization in Romania should not be
exaggerated, the recent rapid spread of supraterritoriality has pulled the country out of
the preceding era of territorialist politics. The Romanian state can no longer realize its
claims to sovereignty and has become oriented to transborder as well as territorial
constituencies. At the same time, globalization has stimulated greater involvement of
transworld and regional agencies in governance. The rise of supraterritoriality has also
encouraged some devolution and some privatization of regulatory authority in
Romania. Singly and together, these developments pose substantial challenges for
democracy. True, certain transborder initiatives have modestly promoted post-
communist democratization in Romania. On the whole, however, Romanians have
obtained insufficient participation, consultation, representation, transparency and
accountability in respect of the multi-layered and fragmented governance that is
emerging in the context of globalization.

Introduction

'Globalization' is a major - and for some analysts the principal -

watchword of social change in the late twentieth century.1 Among other
things, this process of making the world a single place has shaped
contemporary transformations in central and eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. Some commentators would argue that globalization
generated - or at least encouraged and facilitated - the end of communist-
party rule in these countries.2 Certainly globalization has had major impacts
on the shape of the post-communist order. The following article examines
in particular the consequences of the spread of global social relations for
governance and democracy in Romania after the overthrow of Nicolae
Ceausescu at the end of 1989.
In a word, it is argued below that globalization has significantly
reshaped governance during the 'transition' in Romania and in the process

Jan Aart Scholte is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.

Democratization, Vol.5, No.4, Winter 1998, pp.52-77

PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 53

has greatly complicated the realization of democracy in the country. To

elaborate this thesis, the first section of the article specifies a distinctive
conception of globalization as the spread of supraterritoriality and notes in
general terms the far-reaching implications of increased globality for
governance and democracy. The second section surveys the various
manifestations of supraterritoriality in present-day Romania in order to
measure broadly the extent and depth of globalization in the country.
The third section considers the effects of globalization on governance in
Romania since the Revolution of 1989. In this respect it is noted that,
following broad contemporary world trends:
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(a) the post-communist state in Romania has become globally as well as

territorially and nationally oriented, especially in respect of capital;
(b) global governance agencies have come to play a prominent role in
Romania, especially in respect of economic restructuring;
(c) governments in Romania have sought inclusion in regional governance
arrangements;
(d) the state in Romania has taken some initial hesitant steps towards
decentralization; and
(e) Romania has experienced some privatization of governance with
increased involvement by market institutions, foundations and
voluntary agencies.
Taking all of these developments together, the concluding section of the
article reflects on the implications of globalization for democracy in post-
communist Romania. The Ceausescu dictatorship was overthrown in the
name of democratization. It was expected that the Revolution of December
1989 should give Romanians participatory, representative, transparent, and
accountable governance. Important steps in this direction have certainly
been made, and globalization has facilitated some of them. However, in
other ways - ways that are perhaps more significant in the longer term - the
repercussions of globalization on governance have substantially undercut
democracy in Romania.

Globalization and Governance

Any discussion of globalization must indicate how that notion is being
conceived. Various definitions are of course available: for instance,
globalization as the expansion of phenomena to planetary coverage;
globalization as internationalization; globalization as liberalization. The
argument developed here adopts a fourth approach, whereby 'globalization'
 54 DEMOCRATIZATION

is taken to designate the rise of supraterritoriality. This conception is by no

means wholly unambiguous, let alone definitive; however, it lends
coherence to the present analysis and can be sustained empirically.
When globality is conceived as supraterritoriality, then globalization
involves a reorganization of social space, a move away from a situation
where geography is synonymous with territoriality. Social relations are
supraterritorial when they are substantially detached from territorial space.
Territorial location, territorial distance and territorial borders have at most a
secondary relevance in respect of global circumstances such as, say, the
market for Coca-Cola. Global conditions can extend anywhere in the world
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at the same time (for example, a rise in sea level) and can unite locations
anywhere on the planet in effectively no time (as with the Internet). Global
circumstances can and do surface simultaneously at any point on earth that
is equipped to host them (for example, credit cards such as Visa and
associations such as Amnesty International). Global phenomena can and do
move almost instantaneously across any distance (as with cable and satellite
television broadcasts).
When conceived in terms of supraterritoriality, global relations are
qualitatively different from international relations. Internationality
describes long-distance connections across borders between territorial
units. In contrast, globality involves distanceless, transborder,
supraterritorial relations in which topographical locations and country units
lack determining influence. Internationality is embedded in territorial space;
globality transcends it. Hence a recent study of The International
Dimensions of Democratization tells a substantially different story from the
present account of globalization and democratization in Romania.3
If we identify globality as supraterritoriality, then globalization - the
spread of supraterritoriality - has transpired mainly in the second half of the
twentieth century. The various commentators who affirm that globalization
is nothing new base their continuity theses on one of the other three
definitions noted above. For example, it is of course true that social relations
have unfolded in a world context throughout recorded history. However, a
'world' context is not the same as a 'global' context. Ancient times did not
experience transworld simultaneity and instantaneity of the kind now found
in telecommunications, global environmental changes, and so on. It is also
true that the decades prior to 1914 witnessed high levels of cross-border
migration, investment and trade. However, as already emphasized, 'cross-
border' transactions are not the same as 'transborder' relations. Global
production, global finance and global markets have a qualitatively different
spatial logic and were barely in evidence a hundred years ago.
Some supraterritorial relations did appear in previous times (for
example, telegraph links in the late nineteenth century and radio in the early
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 55

twentieth century); however, globalization has occurred principally during

recent decades. In terms of transworld ecology, for example, climate
change, the depletion of stratospheric ozone and the loss of biological
diversity have all reached unprecedented levels in the late twentieth century.
In relation to organizations, the numbers of transborder companies,
transborder regulatory agencies and transborder civic associations have
each multiplied more than tenfold since 1960. In respect of finance, the late
twentieth century has seen exponential growth of supraterritorial money
flows, transborder bank deposits and loans, global securities markets,
transworld dealing in financial derivatives, and so on. In regard to
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communications, only current generations (and not our nineteenth-century

forebears) have witnessed the great expansion of air travel, rocketry,
telephony, computer networks and television. Transborder production
chains (where different stages of manufacture are spread across several
countries and connected through intra-firm trade) did not exist before the
1950s. Global markets (where products such as Nissan vehicles and Reebok
sportwear are distributed and sold on a transworld basis) have likewise
undergone most of their growth in the late twentieth century. Global
consciousness, too, has but recently become a feature of everyday life. In
earlier times only a narrow circle of intellectuals and business people
conceived of the world as a single place; yet today globality is firmly
embedded in the popular imagination.
Before proceeding further, it is important to stress half a dozen
qualifications concerning global relations. First, globality is not
universality: to say that a circumstance is supraterritorial is not to say that it
is everywhere. Second, globality is not homogeneity: phenomena that
transcend territorial space do not necessarily erase diversity in the world.
Third, globality is not uniformity: transborder conditions do not affect
everyone to the same extent and in the same ways. Fourth, globality does
not eliminate territoriality: the two types of space coexist and interrelate.
Fifth, globality does not spread in a predetermined and irreversible way:
globalization is neither foreordained nor unstoppable. Sixth, globality is not
inherently a good or a bad thing: supraterritorial spaces have been sites of
both violence and emancipation.
While it is important not to draw false corollaries of the kind just
mentioned, globalization does in other ways have far-reaching implications
for social structure. In a word, the contemporary accelerated growth of
global networks and flows has broken the territorialist world order.
Globalization has in no way brought an end to territorial geography, but the
large-scale spread of supraterritoriality has meant that social relations today
cannot be mapped in territorial terms alone.
In the territorialist politics of old, governance was for all intents and
 56 DEMOCRATIZATION

purposes reducible to sovereign states. The world was divided into discrete
territorial units, each of which had a more or less centralized state apparatus
whose rule was singular (that is, exercised alone), supreme (that is,
recognising no higher authority), absolute (that is, unqualified) and
comprehensive (that is, covering all matters of social life). Yet states can
only exercise sovereign power so long as territorial borders sharply separate
the 'inside' from the 'outside' of their respective jurisdictions. By
transcending territorial geography, global interchanges can substantially
evade unilateral state regulation. Territorial governments cannot maintain
sovereign control over transworld monies, global social movements,
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transborder companies, telecommunications, global ecological changes and

so on. Globalization has thus rendered the old structure of politics
impracticable.
Indeed, the rise of supraterritoriality has prompted a fragmentation of
governance. For one thing, globalization has fostered a proliferation of
regional and transworld regimes. In addition, local and provincial
authorities have tended to gain increased autonomy and indeed to establish
their own transborder relationships that bypass the state. Governance has
also undergone a certain amount of privatization in the contemporary
globalising world, as business associations, foundations, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), and other nonstate actors have taken on a variety of
regulatory tasks.
Of course, the end of sovereignty is not equivalent to the end of the state.
On the contrary, states persist as vital agents of governance in the late
twentieth century. Globalization has ended the monopoly of states on the
authoritative regulation of social affairs. The trend has also - as we will see
below - altered the orientations and patterns of activity of states. However,
the demise of the state is nowhere in sight. Indeed, state policies have
underpinned much globalization, and the technologies of globalization have
given many states important new capacities for surveillance, armed violence
and so on.4
The developments in post-sovereign governance just described raise
major difficulties for the practice of democracy. The territorialist formula
for democracy prescribed that rule by and for the people should be pursued
through the sovereign nation-state. According to this approach, democracy
obtains when: (a) the borders of territorial governance (the state) match the
borders of territorial community (the nation); (b) the state exercises
complete and exclusive authority over its territorial jurisdiction
(sovereignty); and (c) the state represents, consults and is accountable to the
nation. In practice, of course, territorial states have all too often fallen short
of these criteria. However, in a territorialist world the formula was in
principle realizable.
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 57

Today, following several decades of greatly expanded and accelerated

globalization, the territorialist model of democracy has become untenable in
principle as well as in practice. None of its three core prerequisites remains
attainable. In regard to the first, contemporary globalization has encouraged
a proliferation of alternatives to the state-nation as the basis for social
solidarity (ethno-nations, region-nations, non-territorial identities and so
on). These developments have made it well-nigh impossible - and in the
eyes of many people undesirable - to achieve a tight fit between state and
nation.5 As for the second condition, large transborder flows have - as
already noted - made aspirations to sovereign statehood pipe-dreams.
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Regarding the third premise, recent unprecedented growth of globality has

(as will be elaborated later) induced states to become oriented to
supraterritorial as well as territorial constituents.
These developments have created major challenges for democracy. For
example, how can rule by and for the people be assured when states are
significantly oriented towards and dependent on global flows? How, if at all,
can global authorities such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) be made
adequately accountable to territorial governments and territorial
populations, particularly in the case of weak states? How can regulation
through the private sector be made transparent and accountable to citizens?
In these ways and more, contemporary globalization has created the urgent
need to rethink both concepts and institutional mechanisms of democracy.
Assuring democracy in a globalizing world is one of the foremost
challenges for the next century.

Globalization in Romania
The general trends just described - the rise of supraterritoriality, the changes
that it brings to governance, and the challenges that it poses for democracy
- have unfolded in the particular Romanian context as well. Although
globalization has proceeded furthest in East Asia, North America and
western Europe, it has not left other countries such as Romania untouched.
On the contrary, present-day Romania shows ample evidence of transborder
connections, particularly in urban areas, among the middle classes and
among the youth. The following paragraphs review briefly the ways and
extents that supraterritoriality has entered social relations in Romania,
before subsequent sections consider the implications of these developments
for governance and democracy in the country.
New communications technologies provide some of the most visible
signs of globalization in contemporary Romania. Jet travel,
telecommunications, and electronic mass media have forged near-
 58 DEMOCRATIZATION

instantaneous contacts between residents of Romania and persons scattered

anywhere on earth. Indeed, the Revolution of 1989 has often been
characterized as a media revolution. The street protesters of Romania took
inspiration from radio and television reports of anti-communist uprisings in
other countries, and broadcasts from Romania to the wider world gave the
activists of Timisoara, Bucharest and elsewhere immeasurable extra
confidence and moral support. Now, in the late 1990s, residents of Romania
may watch several dozen transborder television channels via cable and
satellite links for the modest fee of some US$3-4 per month.6 Worldwide
direct dialling is available from most telephone connection points, including
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many public call boxes in the major urban centres. Two consortia have since
1997 supplied Romania with GSM mobile telephone services. Various
offices, libraries and households are connected to global computer
networks. Bucharest hosts several Internet cafes, and 'Virtual Romania',
launched in 1994, encompasses scores of sites on the world wide web.7
In terms of organizations, inhabitants of Romania today interact with
numerous transborder companies, global regulatory agencies, and other
associations whose operations are conducted with limited regard for
territorial distance or borders. By August 1997, over 55,000 ventures had
placed a total of some $2.6 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in
Romania, up from 21,000 projects and $0.5 billion in 1992, and less than
$0.1 billion in 1990.8 The investors, drawn from 145 countries,9 cover most
sectors of production and include some of the larger global companies such
as Microsoft, Siemens, Royal Dutch Shell, Saatchi & Saatchi, Daewoo,
Merrill Lynch, Procter & Gamble, France Telecom, Citibank, and Deloitte
Touche Tohmatsu. The influence of global governance bodies in Romania
will be detailed later in this article. For the moment it will suffice to mention
the greatly enlarged involvement in Romania since 1989 of United Nations
organs, the Bretton Woods institutions, and various supra-state regional
organizations. In addition to influxes of supraterritorial companies and
transborder regulatory bodies, Romanians have had considerably increased
contact with various global civic associations: inter alia welfare agencies
such as World Vision and human rights lobbies like Amnesty International.
Global production is the aforementioned innovation in contemporary
capitalism whereby various parts of an industrial process - design,
fabrication, assembly, marketing and so on - are located at different places
anywhere in the world, depending on locally prevailing resources, costs,
taxes and regulations. Particularly as Romania has obtained greater market
access to the European Union (EU), a number of transborder companies
have moved the manufacturing stages of production to the Balkan country.
With the removal of tariffs, quotas and the like vis-a-vis the EU, relatively
low labour costs and attractive tax arrangements have prompted a number
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 59

of externally based firms to use factories in Romania. In this vein, for

example, exports of textiles and clothing from Romania to the EU rose from
$280 million in 1992 to $980 million in 1994, while the value of footwear
exports multiplied more than sixfold to $282 million.10 In these and other
instances, manufacturing facilities in Romania have become links in global
production chains.
Romania has also become increasingly absorbed into global markets.
Over recent decades - and especially since 1989 - more and more of the
articles sold in the country have taken the form of global consumer goods.
Transborder brands now figure prominently in Romania among foods,
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beverages, tobacco products, clothes, motor vehicles, household articles,

office equipment, Pharmaceuticals, the entertainment sector and much
more. Some of these global products are, moreover, sold through the
Romanian outlets of transborder retail chains such as Benetton, Pizza Hut
and McDonald's. Romanian business people today regularly attend global
commercial fairs abroad, while in Romania the World Trade Center in
Bucharest (opened in 1994) constantly hosts exhibitions of global products.
Television advertising spots, billboards, and neon signs on the skyline of
Bucharest are often integrated into global marketing strategies.
In Romania, as elsewhere, some of the most pronounced globalization
has occurred in the field of money and finance. Countless individuals and
institutions in Romania have used globally circulating currencies such as
the US dollar and the German Mark as their money in addition to - or even
instead of- the leu. Since 1991 commercial bureaux have been permitted to
conduct unrestricted foreign exchange transactions in Romania. Indeed, a
futures market for leu-dollar contracts has taken the Bucharest Monetary-
Financial and Commodities Exchange into the derivatives business. Global
credit cards such as Visa and American Express have also gained a foothold
in the country. A few automated teller machines in the principal cities of
Romania are connected to computerized global networks such as Cirrus.
The largest commercial financial institution in the country, Bancorex, has a
worldwide network of over 2000 correspondence banks. Rumour has it that
some mafia money from Russia has been electronically laundered through
banks in Romania en route to offshore accounts. Since 1996, the National
Bank of Romania has participated in global securities markets with the
issuance of several eurobonds. Meanwhile RASDAQ, a computerized over-
the-counter stock market, opened in Bucharest in September 1996. With its
state-of-the-art technology, this electronic market can be instantly
connected to buyers and sellers worldwide. By the end of 1997 the total
value of shares on RASDAQ reached $2 billion."
The involvement of Romania in transborder ecology is often less precisely
identifiable than the country's integration into other aspects of globalization.
 60 DEMOCRATIZATION

Clearly, though, developments such as climate change, ozone depletion, and

declining biological diversity have not halted at Romania's territorial
frontiers. As elsewhere in the world, environmental associations have been a
principal growth area of civic organizing in Romania in the 1990s.12
Finally in this review of manifestations of globalization in contemporary
Romania, the rise of supraterritoriality has affected the way that people in
the country conceptualize social relations. Phenomena such as transworld
ecological problems, television images, and transborder products have
fostered a growth of global consciousness in Romania. In the Balkans, as
elsewhere, people have increasingly been thinking globally: the world has
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more and more become a single place in part because it is conceived to be

a single place. To take one illustration of a global mindset, on a recent visit
to Bucharest a nine-year old child who has never left Romania related to me
- in impeccable English - her dream in which she rode a roller-coaster
between the continents: rushing now past the skyscrapers of New York,
rushing then past the Eiffel Tower. Probably her parents - and certainly not
her grandparents - would as children never have experienced such a 'global
dream'. Needless to say, global consciousness does not automatically
produce worldwide cultural homogeneity. Indeed, increased possibilities of
transborder communication have helped to sustain national sentiment
within the Romanian diaspora of eight million people, creating a 'global
nationality', such as through the World Union of Free Romanians.
In sum, then, globalization has in one way or another and to one degree or
another touched all major aspects of social life in contemporary Romania. Of
course, the spread of supraterritoriality has had limits. To this day, relatively
few Romanians board aeroplanes or make transborder telephone calls. FDI in
Romania accounts for a mere tenth of one per cent of the world total.
Similarly, Romania is directly involved in only a tiny fraction of global
financial flows. Carbon emissions from Romania have made a much smaller
per capita contribution to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect than the cars
and smokestacks of Singapore, Norway and the USA."
Yet, to note the limits of supraterritoriality in Romania - in both absolute
and relative terms - is not to say that globalization has been insignificant in
the country. Even small transborder flows can have far-reaching
consequences. Moreover, most indications today point towards substantial
further increases of transborder relations in Romania in the decades to
come.
These increases will likely continue to be concentrated in urban areas,
the middle classes and the youth of Romania. Globalization has not affected
all Romanians with the same intensity or in the same ways. Only cities in
Romania (six of them) have airports that receive transborder flights. Most
of the rural population lack cable television and have no awareness of the
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 61

World Bank or the IMF. As of 1996, over half of all FDI in Romania was
placed in Bucharest alone.14 Largely owing to the expense of many
transborder connections, globalization has gone furthest in Romania among
the middle classes. A cellular phone and KFC fast food are too costly (and
answer little need) for a farmer in Transylvania or a shopkeeper in Targu
Frumos. Finally, globalization in Romania has followed the general
worldwide pattern in so far as the trend has disproportionately affected
younger relative to older generations. It is chiefly the youth of Romania
who gain computer literacy, join environmentalist associations, and
celebrate global consumerism.
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Nothing in the preceding discussion should be taken to suggest that

globalization is universally and unconditionally welcomed in Romania. The
overall response has sooner been one of ambivalence.15 True, for many
Romanians the increased availability of instant contacts within a 'global
village' has epitomized their liberation from authoritarian national
communism. They have welcomed globalization in bringing Romania more
information, different ideas, greater diversity of consumer goods, increased
possibilities of travel, and a purportedly richer 'lifestyle'. Liberals, in
particular, have looked expectantly to global capitalism to supply the
material prosperity that state socialism had failed previously to provide.
Some Romanians have also pinned cosmopolitan hopes on globalization,
regarding the growth of transborder relations as a means to greater
worldwide understanding, co-operation and peace.
At the same time, some Romanians have also - rightly or wrongly -
come to blame global flows for destabilizing the economy, raising
unemployment, undermining agriculture, increasing burdens on women,
and lowering material welfare since 1989. Some critical observers have
concluded that globalization further enriches already wealthy countries and
classes at the expense of the average struggling Romanian.
Such perceptions of'foreign' causes of their hardships have encouraged
xenophobic tendencies in a substantial minority of Romanians.16 In this way
globalization has contributed to a perpetuation in the 1990s of a long
tradition of chauvinism in some quarters. The ultranationalist parties
Partidul Romania Mare (Greater Romania Party) and Partidul Unitatie
Nationale Romania (Romania National Unity Party) between them obtained
11.6 per cent of the vote in the parliamentary elections of 1992. Although
their share dipped to less than five per cent in the poll of 1996, opinion
surveys in the second half of 1997 suggested that their support had risen
again to as much as 16 per cent.17
In cultural terms, too, many Romanians have - rightly or wrongly -
regarded globalization as a threat to national distinctiveness and cherished
traditional values. In Romania, as elsewhere, many people have felt uneasy
 62 DEMOCRATIZATION

about the destabilization and fragmentation of identities that has often

accompanied intensified globalization.18 The rise of supraterritoriality has
thereby contributed to a current resurgence in some circles in Romania of
Orthodox Christianity.
Finally, many in Romania have felt uneasy about globalization in so far
as the trend has often seemed to them irreversible and largely beyond their
control. To this extent politics has become a task of accommodating
inevitabilities rather than debating alternative possible destinies. In this
respect - as well as in other ways to be elaborated later - contemporary
globalization has posed far-reaching challenges to democracy in post-
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communist Romania.

Shifting Contours of Governance

Before elaborating the thesis that globalization has in certain respects
hampered democracy in Romania, it is necessary to examine how the
proliferation of transborder relations detailed above has affected the general
organization of governance in the country. As indicated in the introduction,
five broad trends can be distinguished in this respect. First, the Romanian
state has become oriented to global as well as territorial-national
constituents. Second, global governance agencies have come to play a
significantly increased regulatory role in Romania. Third, government and
the population at large in Romania have put great energy into advancing
their country's integration into European regional frameworks. Fourth,
government in Romania has taken some initial steps towards
decentralization of public authority. Fifth, Romania has witnessed a growth
of private agencies that undertake governance activities of one kind or
another. In line with the general analysis sketched in section one of this
article, each of these five developments in contemporary governance in
Romania can be attributed in good part to globalization.

A Globally Oriented State

As stressed earlier, contemporary globalization has by no means signalled
the end of the state. On the contrary, transborder relations and the state have
in practice tended to be mutually reinforcing. For their part, governments
have constructed many regulatory frameworks that have facilitated
globalization, for example, liberalization of foreign exchange, cross-border
trade, and transworld capital movements. Conversely, supraterritorial flows
have provided contemporary states with substantial tax revenues, credits,
advanced technologies and so on. Thus states have not - as is commonly
asserted - been threatened by globalization; they have ranked among its
primary sponsors and beneficiaries.
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 63

Given this considerable dependence of contemporary states on

transborder flows, governments in the late twentieth century have tended
increasingly to formulate policy with the interests of global constituencies
in mind. The sovereign state of old almost exclusively represented and
promoted so-called 'domestic' or 'national' - read territorial - interests. In
contrast, today's post-sovereign states tend to be meeting points of
territorial andsupraterritorial interests. Governments therefore spend much
time forging collaborations and mediating conflicts between their territorial
and global audiences.
The general dynamics just outlined can be seen in many activities of the
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Romanian state since 1989. Indeed, Ceausescu's refusal to accommodate

global flows (in respect of, for example, supraterritorial broadcasts,
transborder investment, and global consumer goods) helped to make his
regime ripe for collapse. Subsequent governments led by Petre Roman,
Theodor Stolojan, Nicolae Vacaroiu, Victor Ciorbea and Radu Vasile have
tended to become progressively more sympathetic to transborder
constituencies. (Stolojan in fact left the Romanian government to join the
staff of the World Bank.) Likewise, the current president, Emil
Constantinescu, has done more to cultivate Romania's global audiences
than his predecessor, Ion Iliescu.
This growing attention to supraterritorial interests has been especially
apparent in relation to transborder investment. Since the end of communist-
party rule, successive governments of Romania have been convinced that
global capital is both central and indispensable to economic recovery and
long-term development in the country. In the hope of attracting and
retaining supraterritorial capital, government has rewritten investment
codes, altered taxation structures, adopted new accounting standards,
reconstructed banking and insurance systems, liberalized foreign exchange
transactions, privatized several thousand enterprises, changed land laws,
and so on. To take a specific example, transborder investors now enjoy tariff
exemptions on imported equipment and tax holidays for projects of over
$50 million." Other legislation in Romania has reduced profit taxes relative
to both wage taxes and indirect charges such as value-added tax (VAT,
introduced in 1993 and subsequently raised to 22 per cent).20 In 1991 the
government created a Romanian Development Agency specifically to
encourage and facilitate FDI. Today almost every trip abroad by an official
Romanian delegation aims inter alia to attract investments from the country
visited. In 1992 the government of Romania further reassured global capital
by joining the Bank for International Settlements and the World Bank's
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Three years later Romania
joined the World Trade Organization, a body wholly dedicated to
facilitating global flows of trade and investment.
 64 DEMOCRATIZATION

The government of Romania has also followed a worldwide trend by

creating offshore centres in the hope of attracting transborder investment.
Parliament adopted a legal framework for free trade zones in 1992. The
main offshore areas have subsequently developed around the towns of
Sulina, Constanta, Galati, Braila and Giurgiu. Here global companies enjoy
exemption from customs duties and VAT, unrestricted import and re-export
of goods, zero profit tax on activities performed in the zones and so on.21
As intimated already, the turn of the Romanian state towards global
constituents has not occurred without resistance. Ceausescu wished to rid
the country of all transborder debts, and post-communist governments have
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been at best reluctant to implement structural adjustment programmes

designed for them by global financial institutions. Organized labour in
particular has pressed government to slow down, attenuate or abandon
schemes of liberalization and privatization. It took five years of long and
often acrimonious debate before Parliament in 1997 approved a law that
permits foreign investors to purchase land in Romania.
In short, the Romanian state has not ignored its territorial clientele while
cultivating global connections. Global constituents have not replaced
territorial constituents, but lobby alongside them. When supraterritorial and
territorial aims have largely coincided, for instance, in regard to the
expansion of electronic mass media in Romania, the job of government has
been easy. However, when global and local interests have clashed, as in
respect of some privatizations, the government has faced delicate tasks of
conflict management.

Transworld Governance
Globalization has provoked a second major change in patterns of
governance through the proliferation and growth of governance agencies
with transworld coverage. Officials and citizens have increasingly
recognized that the territorial state cannot by itself manage certain
supraterritorial flows. Weaker states such as Romania are particularly ill-
equipped to regulate global communications, transborder companies,
supraterritorial ecological developments and so on. In addition,
governments emerging from state socialism have faced the further difficulty
of lacking a suitably trained professional cadre to administer their countries'
engagement with globalizing capitalism.
The expanded activity of transworld governance agencies in Romania is
immediately evident through their increased physical presence in the
country. Several United Nations bodies (UNESCO, UNDP, UNIDO)
opened permanent offices in Romania during the 1970s, but overall UN
operations remained modest until the 1990s. Many more agencies and
programmes have during the past decade established bureaux in Romania:
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 65

UNHCR in 1989; WHO in 1990; the IMF, UNICEF and the ILO in 1991;
the World Bank and the IOM in 1992; UNAIDS and UNFPA in 1996.22
In terms of policy impacts, transworld institutions have played a major
part in formulating macroeconomic strategies in Romania after the
Revolution of 1989. Supra-state agencies have exercised substantial
influence in determining both the steps and the speed of the transition from
central planning to market mechanisms in Romania. Although the formal
policy decisions in this process have always lain with the government in
Bucharest, the proposals and supporting financial and technical assistance
have largely come from transborder bodies. Thus, for example, the IMF has
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several times provided credits under stand-by arrangements for stabilization

and structural adjustment packages. The Fund has also trained a number of
Romanian officials to apply its preferred statistical methodologies and
neoclassical economic models. Likewise, the European Union's PHARE
(Poland and Hungary: Aid for the Restructuring of Economies) programme
of grants-in-aid extended to many of the countries in transition has since
1991 provided technical assistance for various aspects of economic
restructuring in Romania, including privatization and fiscal reform.23 For its
part, the World Bank has extended structural adjustment loans with both
general and sector-specific coverage.24 UNIDO has aided the National
Privatization Agency and the Romanian Development Agency. UNDP has,
through the Foundation for the Support of Entrepreneurs in Romania,
assisted newly privatized enterprises with corporate reorganization and
management training. Loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (EBRD) have also supported development of the private
sector in post-communist Romania. The World Bank, the EBRD, PHARE,
and the European Investment Bank have in addition extended loans to
Romania for infrastructural projects. Without these inputs from supra-state
governance agencies, the systemic transformation of the economy in
Romania would almost certainly not have proceeded in the same direction
or on the same schedule that it has.
Indeed, transworld governance bodies have actively pushed Romanian
governments to adopt neo-liberal market reforms. They decried the
reluctance of the first post-communist regimes to charge into systemic
transformation. When the elections of November 1996 yielded a new
leadership, the Managing Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, paid a
flying visit to Bucharest in order to encourage this government to follow the
Fund's recommendations. Ciorbea's subsequent commitment to 'shock
therapy' was rewarded. The IMF resumed financial assistance to Romania
in April 1997, and the World Bank increased its loans to the government by
$550 million during a May 1997 visit by its President, James Wolfensohn.25
The US Treasury and the global financial press added to the applause.26 The
 66 DEMOCRATIZATION

government's subsequent failures to meet IMF policy targets brought a new

round of public scoldings from global institutions in early 1998.
Transworld governance agencies have also become involved in shaping
long-term development strategies in Romania. For example, delegations
from the country have participated in the various UN-sponsored global
conferences held in the 1990s, for example, regarding the environment,
population and social development. On each occasion the representatives
have returned to Romania with policy declarations and action plans as well
as a heightened awareness of globally prevailing norms and rules. Locally,
an annual Romania Development Report has appeared since 1995 under the
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aegis of UNDP. The government of Romania and UN representatives in the

country have recently worked on a Common Strategy Note for the year
2000 which identifies priority areas and seeks to increase collaboration
between the state and global agencies. A further Consultative Council
concerning Romania was convened in September 1997 with participation
from the EBRD, the EU, the IMF, the World Bank, and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Ecological sustainability is a more specific issue of long-term development
where global governance has played a prominent role in Romania. Indeed,
transborder inputs have arguably provided the chief impetus to the introduction
of environmental protection measures in the country. For example, Romania
has become a party to most of the principal multilateral environmental
agreements.27 UNDP's Programme for Promoting Environmental and Natural
Resources Sustainability seeks inter alia to promote energy efficiency and
relief from environmental disasters. A Center for Sustainable Development in
Romania was set up in Bucharest under UNDP sponsorship in May 1997.
Meanwhile the Global Environment Facility (a joint effort of UNDP, the World
Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme) has supported projects
of ecological sustainability for the Danube River Basin and the Black Sea.28
Romania's National Environmental Action Plan was prepared with support
from the World Bank, the EU, the EBRD, and the OECD.
In sum, then, transworld governance organizations have worked at the
heart of each of the main areas of 'transition' in post-communist Romania:
stabilization, liberalization, privatization, and (to be elaborated later)
democratization. These supra-state institutions have also been instrumental
in inserting environmental policies into the country in the 1990s. Of course
the state remains a crucial actor of governance in Romania; however, it
clearly does not act alone.

Turns to Regionalism
A third general way that globalization has affected the contours of
governance in post-communist Romania is through the growth of a regional
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 67

dimension of regulation in the country. Indeed, European institutions have

already been mentioned at several points above. Since the overthrow of
Ceausescu, Romania has joined the Council of Europe in 1993, Black Sea
Economic Co-operation in 1993, and the Central European Free Trade
Agreement (CEFTA) in 1997. In January 1994, Romania was the first state
in Eastern Europe to sign the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO)
'Partnership for Peace' scheme, although an application for full
membership of NATO was deferred in 1997. The government has also
become an associate partner of the Western European Union. Romania
furthermore concluded an agreement with the European Free Trade
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Association (EFTA) in 1993 and became an associate member of the

European Union in 1995.
In this way post-communist Romania has participated in a worldwide
trend that has witnessed the creation during the past 50 years of over a
hundred regional regulatory schemes, including more than 30 in the early
1990s alone. Some commentators have speculated that governance in the
twenty-first century will involve a new multilateralism of regions in place
of the old multilateralism of states.29
To be sure, globalization has not been the only force propelling supra-
state regional projects, but increased transborder relations have encouraged
the trend in several general ways. Globalization and regionalization are thus
more complementary than (as it might prima facie seem) contradictory. For
one thing, technologies of global transportation and communication have
made possible a tight co-ordination of activities across large regional
spaces. Second, regional common markets have provided convenience and
economies of scale for the distribution and sale of global products. Third,
regional customs unions have facilitated the development of transborder
production processes (as was noted above in relation to textiles exports from
Romania). Fourth, regional governance arrangements have often proved to
be an effective mechanism for the administration of global norms: for
example, in such areas as human rights, technical standardization,
environmental protection and so on. Fifth, the growth of transborder
consciousness has prepared people intellectually for the construction of
supra-state regional frameworks. Finally, and in a more reactive sense,
regionalism can be a macro-nationalist, neo-protectionist defence against
the turbulence associated with globalizing capitalism and the imposition of
global cultures. Some EU controls on external trade and ever-tightening
restrictions on immigration into the member states well illustrate the latter
dynamic.
No regional integration scheme in the world has developed as far as the
European Union, and most Romanians regard full membership of the EU -
for which the government officially applied in June 1995 - as one of the
 68 DEMOCRATIZATION

country's highest policy priorities. Public opinion polls have suggested that
some 98 per cent of the population favour Romania's accession to the EU.30
In the June 1995 Declaration of Snagov, all of the leading politicians in
Romania - the President, the Prime Minister, and the heads of all political
parties represented in the Parliament - declared themselves united in favour
of closer relations with the EU.31 In the words of former President Iliescu,
'there are few, if any, other political topics in Romania, today, with a greater
potential to galvanize ... the political scene consensus than European
integration'.32
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Indeed, successive Romanian governments have put concerted pressure

on Brussels for accession to the EU. Already within weeks of deposing
Ceaujescu, the new government opened a diplomatic mission to the
European Community in Brussels. Intensive lobbying has continued ever
since. An ambitious National Strategy Preparing Romania's Accession to
the European Union was adopted in June 1995.33 A National Programme for
the Approximation of Law followed six months later. Since then Romanian
regulations have been adjusted to conform with EU norms in areas such as
industrial policy, agricultural policy, environmental protection, education
programmes, regional policy, banking, and more.34 Major disappointment
greeted the decision in 1998 not to include Romania in the first group of
prospective new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe.
Why have Romanian governments and citizens been so anxious to
participate in regional integration, especially through the EU and NATO?
Some of the reasons relate specifically to the history of Romania, such as
fears of renewed domination by Russia and a cultural yearning to be
recognized as part of 'European civilization'. The growth of transborder
relations has heightened the urgency. Romanian decision-takers perceive
that regional affiliations provide the only way to secure prosperity and a
degree of self-determination in the contemporary globalizing world.
According to this diagnosis, if Romania is excluded from the EU, then its
future is bleak: either isolation or relegation to some form of Balkan and/or
Black Sea union that has no effective influence over global forces.

Decentralization
The fragmentation of governance in the contemporary globalizing world
has involved not only some transfer of regulatory competences 'upwards' to
regional and transworld bodies, but also shifts 'downwards' with increased
autonomy for local and provincial authorities in many countries. Moreover,
many provincial, municipal and district governments have in the late
twentieth century exploited the possibilities of global connections to
develop direct transborder relationships with each other, bypassing the state.
Thus, for example, some provinces of China and Canada have developed
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 69

substantially autonomous 'foreign policies' of their own, and various sub-

state entities in Europe have their own schemes to attract global capital, as
in Catalonia, Flanders and Scotland.
This trend towards a growing role for sub-state governance has thus far
made relatively little headway in Romania. The slower process is perhaps
not surprisingly, given the highly centralized institutions inherited from the
communist period and before. However, important decentralization is
intended with a civil service reform programme that comes into force in
January 1999. Among other things this law prescribes a transfer often per
cent of the national budget to local level. In May 1998 the Romanian
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government passed a regional development programme for disadvantaged

areas with finance from the EU.
As for direct links between sub-state authorities, President
Constantinescu has argued at a forum on 'Regional Development in
Romania' that 'co-operation between regions should give democracy new
dimensions'.35 More concretely, promotion of grassroots anti-pollution
campaigns through the International Council for Local Environmental
Initiatives helped to inspire 'The Month of Cleaning' in Bucharest during
March-April 1997.

Privatized Governance
The fifth way highlighted here that globalization has affected patterns of
governance in contemporary Romania involves the growth of private
regulatory activities next to official regimes. Such privatization of
governance has occurred through business associations, so-called NGOs,
foundations, think-tanks and more. By undercutting sovereignty and
stimulating general flux in governance arrangements, the spread of
supraterritoriality has increased the scope for private-sector agents to
become involved in regulatory activities.
Under state socialism Romania knew almost no civic organizations
outside the communist party structure. The country was host to only one
transborder NGO, the International Federation of Beekeepers' Associations.
Yet between the fall of Ceausescu and 1996, nearly 12,000 civic groups
registered with the Ministry of Justice.36 Even if - as informed observers
suggest - only half of this number is actually active, the proliferation
remains remarkable. Moreover, since 1994 groups from across the country
have met in an annual Romanian Non-Governmental Organizations
Forum.37
Globalization has furthered this spread of civil society organizations in
several ways. For one thing, many of the civic bodies in Romania address
issues that are substantially global in character: such as the promotion of
private business; the protection of human rights; and the pursuit of
 70 DEMOCRATIZATION

environmental sustainability. Second, some of the civic associations active

in Romania are transborder organizations: for example, World Vision since
1990; the Soros Foundations Network since 1990; and Medecins sans
Frontieres since 1991. Although the global associations form only a small
minority of the total, their prominence and influence is disproportionately
great. Third, as will be elaborated later, transborder sponsors have provided
significant financial and technical assistance for civic organizing in
Romania.
Private agencies have had a number of important impacts on governance
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in Romania during the 1990s. For example, NGOs have often provided
social services such as the care of orphans which the state and supra-state
agencies have not adequately supplied. The Stockholm-based International
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and
others have ranked among the major proponents of decentralization in
Romania. The country's previously mentioned participation in the eurobond
market was contingent upon gaining a credit rating in 1996 from Standard
& Poor's (S&P) and Moody's Investor Services. The Bucharest Stock
Exchange, set up in 1994, complies with recommendations concerning
clearing and settlement mechanisms devised by the Group of Thirty. The
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles have made their way into
Romania largely through the 'Big Five' global accounting firms.
The influence of civic associations on governance in Romania should
not be exaggerated, of course. Most NGOs in the country are institutionally
quite weak. They often lack sufficient office space, communications
equipment, up to date information, management skills, funds and (in many
cases) credibility with the public. From among over 1,000 associations in
Romania who responded to a questionnaire circulated in 1994, 83 per cent
were operating entirely with unpaid staff.38 On top of all these problems,
NGOs operate in Romania within an outmoded legal framework that has not
been updated since 1924, although progress in this respect is on the horizon.
In spite of these limitations, however, the emergence in Romania of
privatized governance has brought a change in the contours of regulation.
Even if the trend has not advanced in Romania as far as in many other
countries, it remains significant that policy formulation, implementation
and monitoring is no longer a monopoly of official agencies. It is also telling
that, in the current time of globalizing capitalism, some provision of
important social services has been transferred from the public sector to
charities.

Summary
The preceding pages have traced many links between globalization and a
reordering of governance in contemporary Romania. The spread of global
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 71

communications, organizations, production, markets, finance, ecology and

consciousness has - when taken as a whole - had several far-reaching
impacts on the way that social rules are formulated and implemented in
Romania. The state has become globally as well as territorially oriented,
especially in respect of transborder investment. Global governance agencies
have become substantially involved in Romanian domestic legislation,
particularly in relation to post-communist restructuring. Globalization has
also been a major force behind Romania's turn to regional governance
arrangements, especially its quest for EU membership. And the rise of
supraterritoriality has in various ways encouraged a growth of private
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governance activities.
All in all, then, the 1990s have witnessed a major reorganization of
governance in Romania. To be sure, the immediate impetus to these changes
came from the overthrow of the Ceausescu dictatorship in December 1989.
However, in deeper structural terms, much of the force propelling the
transformation in Romania from autarkic, centralized state socialism has
come from globalization. Moreover, most current indications are that, with
additional expansion of transborder relations in the years to come, the shifts
in governance described above will develop further.

A Democratic Revolution?
Having elaborated the various changes in governance that have unfolded -
and will in all likelihood continue to unfold - in Romania in the context of
globalization, we can turn to the overarching normative question, namely,
what are the implications of these developments for democracy? In 1989
Romanians rejected state socialism under communist party rule in the name
of democracy, but has globalization been a democratizing revolution in the
1990s?
In some respects democracy has indeed flourished in post-communist
Romania. Political parties have proliferated, with 144 participating in the
elections of September 1992.39 The numbers of print and broadcast media
have likewise burgeoned since 1989. As noted above, civic associations
have multiplied and become more assertive. The Constitution of 1991 was
passed by a Constituent Assembly and gained ratification by a popular
referendum with a 70 per cent voter turnout. Since 1992 national and local
elections in Romania have qualified as 'free and fair' - on liberal criteria, at
least. In a sure sign that competitive multi-party democracy is operating in
the country, the elections of November 1996 brought a non-violent change
of both the government and the presidency.
Supraterritorial relations have played some part in promoting these
advances of democracy. For example, the United Nations and other
 72 DEMOCRATIZATION

transborder organizations monitored the 1990, 1992 and 1996 elections in

Romania. The United States Agency for International Development has
helped to draft electoral laws, to strengthen electoral commissions, and to
train poll workers in Romania as well as to support judicial reform, to
sponsor new mass media and more.40 UNDP has since 1994 pursued
programmes to support 'democracy, governance and participation' in
Romania. The UN Commission on Human Rights, the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe kept a
watchful eye on the human rights situation in Romania during the early
1990s.41 The European Union has through its PHARE Programme for
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Democracy supported dozens of projects in Romania since 1994.42

Christian-democratic, social-democratic and liberal parties in Western
Europe have provided assistance to their counterparts in Romania. Funds
from transborder foundations have figured importantly in the development
of civic associations in post-communist Romania. Prominent donors in this
respect have been the Soros Foundation for an Open Society Romania, the
German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. In
1997 International IDEA produced an extensive report on prospects for a
stable working democracy in Romania.43
Yet the scale and democratizing impact of these transborder initiatives
should not be exaggerated. For one thing, the major players in this area have
done very little to co-ordinate their activities: Soros, PHARE, USAID and
UNDP never talk to each other. Among the foundations only Soros, with an
annual budget of $10 million, has had a democracy programme of any
noteworthy dimensions in Romania. Most of the major global foundations
with an interest in democratization (such as Ford, MacArthur, Pew, and
Rockefeller) have bypassed Romania altogether. Levels of official
transborder democracy assistance have likewise been miniscule when
compared with allocations to support economic restructuring in Romania.
For example, the Programme for Democracy has received less than one per
cent of total PHARE funds for Romania.44 The World Bank has in Romania
- in contrast to its programmes in some other member states - targeted none
of its monies specifically at encouraging participatory development. (That
said, certain incidental side-effects in this direction have occurred in the
expenditure of the Bank's modest Social Development Fund for Romania.45)
US aid to democratization in Romania has run at an average of only around
$3 million per year, most of which has been channelled through American
rather than Romanian organizations.46 An expert evaluator has moreover
concluded that the US programmes have had 'only modest or even
negligible positive effects'."
Indeed, post-communist democratization in Romania has in important
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 73

respects remained limited. The persistence of inflammatory ultra-

nationalism and the general weakness of civil society were noted earlier.
Civic education has developed only slowly, entering Romanian school
curricula but recently. The small governing elite has been overwhelmingly
urban, Bucharest-centred, middle class and male. For example, the various
governments since the Revolution of 1989 have included not a single
woman minister.
In addition - and of particular pertinence in the present analysis - post-
communist democratization in Romania has failed to address issues of
globalization. The pursuit of democracy has invariably been framed in
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terms of territorial politics. However, as noted earlier, democracy in the

contemporary globalizing world needs more than territorial mechanisms.
Regrettably, in Romania - as elsewhere - innovations in democratic
practices have so far straggled well behind the other rapid changes in
contemporary governance.
To begin with, civic education in Romania (limited in any case) has done
little to address new trends in governance. School curricula, university
programmes and press reporting are underdeveloped in regard to regional
institutions, transworld agencies and (global) civil society. Thus a straw poll
of 50 third-year students of Political Science at the University of Bucharest
in 1997 revealed that only two had even heard of the World Trade
Organization.48 Similarly, even leading figures in NGOs in Romania have
often confused the IMF and the World Bank.49 Parliamentarians in
Bucharest, too, have generally been insufficiently informed about
conditions of globalization to exercise effective democratic monitoring of
these trends. Although almost all Romanians have enthusiastically
supported accession to the EU, very few have had more than the most
superficial awareness of the implications of membership. Clearly if citizens
- in Romania or wherever - are to develop veritable democracy in our
globalizing world, then a basic understanding of prevailing realities of
governance is required. At present such knowledge is sorely lacking.
Turning to institutional mechanisms, adequate democratic controls are
absent in respect of the Romanian state's relations with global interests.
Citizens barely participate in decisions regarding government policy
towards global capital, and the detailed arrangements concluded with
transborder investors are often unavailable for public scrutiny. How can
supraterritorial capital be made effectively accountable to the Romanian
people through their state when that state is so weak and dependent on these
investments? Arguably supra-state regulatory frameworks are necessary to
establish adequate public controls on transborder capital, but so far only a
few loose, incomplete and voluntary codes of conduct exist.50 Even
supposing that comprehensive binding schemes were devised, how could
 74 DEMOCRATIZATION

they be given adequate democratic content with respect to citizens of

Romania?
Insufficient democracy already marks existing supra-state governance
arrangements in Romania. No constitutional mechanisms are in place to
ensure that the global institutions in question: (a) adequately consult
Romanian citizens; (b) make their operations in Romania transparent; and
(c) formally and publicly account for their activities. For example, structural
adjustment programmes for Romania are negotiated behind closed doors,
and the government has not published the resultant agreements. Camdessus
and Wolfensohn have met a handful of citizens during their whistlestop
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visits to Romania, and the IMF and World Bank offices in Bucharest have
made some modest efforts at public relations, but these initiatives hardly
count as democratic policy-making. Nor have the Bretton Woods
institutions and other UN agencies ever subjected their activities in
Romania to detailed, independent, published external evaluation. Ironically,
then, organizations that administer programmes to advance post-communist
transformation in Romania have given little attention to democratizing their
own conduct.
On the regional front, the European Union has openly acknowledged the
existence of a 'democratic deficit' in many of its operations. The EU has
also made some limited attempts to rectify the situation. For example, a
directly elected Parliament has met since 1979, and the Maastricht Treaty of
1992 enshrined the principle of subsidiarity. However, most of the
Romanian government's dealings with regional institutions (principally the
EU, EFTA and CEFTA) have taken place at great distance from Romanian
citizens. Moreover, given the urgency with which Romanians are seeking to
enter the EU, and their relatively weak bargaining position vis-a-vis
Brussels, it seems unlikely that they will demand adequate democratic
guarantees as a condition of membership.
The foregoing critique of shortcomings in democracy can also be
extended to privatized governance in Romania. For instance, where is the
democratic participation, representation, transparency and accountability in
the operations of the credit-ratings agencies Moody's and S&P? Among the
transborder foundations that are active in Romania, Soros is the exception
in providing a high degree of transparency, for example, through the
publication of a detailed annual report in Romanian and the maintenance of
a home page on the world wide web. Likewise, no adequate mechanisms
exist in Romania to ensure that NGOs serve public interests. No doubt many
of the new civic associations of the 1990s have given voice to previously
silenced popular opinion and provided services to otherwise marginalized
groups. However, even civil society organizations with the noblest of aims
have often been wanting when it comes to open recruitment of staff,
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 75

consultation of and accountability to clients, and transparency of decision-

making and budgets.
Taking the preceding discussion as a whole, what are we to make of
democracy in Romania at the present time of globalization? Neo-liberals
have celebrated a wave of democratization with the collapse of communist
and other one-party regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The analysis
above suggests that this applause has been premature. Post-communist
governance mechanisms in Romania show severe democratic deficits,
particularly when considered in the light of globalization. Yes, a system of
competitive multi-party elections has developed, and civic activism has
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shown modest growth. However, in respect of supraterritorial relations -

networks that have become highly significant in shaping the course of
contemporary history - most Romanian citizens enjoy little in the way of
participation and access, consultation and debate, constitutionality and
transparency, representation and accountability.
Yet globalization and democratization are only inherently contradictory
if we attempt to impose territorial models of popular sovereignty on
supraterritorial space. This is to hammer square pegs in round holes: they do
not and will not fit. A fundamental change in social space demands also
fundamental rethinking of the meaning and mechanisms of democracy. To
date political theorists have barely begun to recognize these problems.51 It is
hoped that this article will help in some small way to bring the issues into
discussion — in Romania and elsewhere - and to stimulate concerted
explorations of alternative roads to democracy in the present globalizing
world.

NOTES

1. Much of the thinking in this essay has developed through the author's contacts with Romania
during 1995-98 in the context of European Union Tempus Project 9572. I have benefited
greatly from conversations with: partners in this programme, especially Daniel Barbu,
Cristian Bocancea, Radu Carp, Anton Carpinschi, Andre Miroir, and Dan Petre; students at
the 'Al.I. Cuza' University of Iasi and the University of Bucharest; staff of the Assistance
Center for NGOs (CENTRAS); representatives in Bucharest of the EU, IMF, USAID, UNDP
and the World Bank; the Serbanescu family; Liliana Pop; and others. I am thankful also for
comments on an earlier version of this essay by referees for Democratization. Of course I
alone bear responsibility for any nonsense that follows.
2. See, for example, K. Verdery, What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1996), pp.31-3.
3. L. Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the
Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
4. For further elaboration of these points, see J.A. Scholte, 'The Globalization of World
Polities', in J. Baylis and S. Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics: An
Introduction to International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 13-30;
and J.A. Scholte, 'Globalization and Governance', in P. Hanafin (ed.), Identity, Rights and
Constitutional Transformation (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishers, 1998).
 76 DEMOCRATIZATION

5. See J.A. Scholte, 'The Geography of Collective Identities in a Globalizing World', Review
of International Political Economy, Vol.3, No.4 (Winter 1996), pp.565-607.
6. All $ figures in this article refer to US dollars.
7. http://www.info.polymtl.ca/zuse/tavi/www/rom_eng.html.
8. http://www.info.polymtl.ca/zuse/tavi/www/rom_eng.html; A. Radocea, 'Economic Revival
— Prerequisite of Romania's Integration into European Structures', Romanian Journal of
International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), p.66; http://www.rda.ro/web/busine2.htm.
9. http://www.guv.ro/english/news/30apr97.html.
10. M. Berinde, 'The European Agreement — An Important Stage in the Development of Mutual
Trade Relations', Romanian Journal of International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), p.169. See
also http://bucharest.com/confex/.
11. http://www.investromania.ro/magazine/lastissue/7rasdaq.html.
12. The Romanian Ecological NGO Directory (Târgu Mures: Rhododendron, November 1993)
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lists 49 associations, 18 of them in Bucharest.

13. World Bank, World Development Report 1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),
pp.228-9.
14. http://www.rda.ro/web/rap96woe.htm.
15. Remarks made in the following paragraphs are perforce somewhat impressionistic. With
hardly any relevant polling data available, I have had to rely on (extensive) conversations and
observations in the course of seven visits to Romania between 1995 and 1998. The sample
of persons contacted admittedly runs to little more than 100 people and is hardly
representative of the population of Romania at large.
16. See T. Gallagher, Romania after Ceausescu: The Politics of Intolerance (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1995); K. Verdery, 'Nationalism and National Sentiment in
Postsocialist Romania', in What Was Socialism?, pp.83-103.
17. http://www.sfos.ro/pob/15.htm.
18. See 'Geography of Collective Identities', op. cit.
19. 'Romania: Encyclopedic Survey' (Bucharest: Ministry of Commerce, Promotion &
Cooperation Directorate, 1996), p.3.
20. F. Georgescu, 'Economic and Financial Reform — Premise for Romania's Partenerial
Integration in the European Union', Romanian Journal of International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4
(1996), p.87.
21. http://www.rda.ro/rdacd/ard6.htm.
22. http://www.undp.ro/un-system.html. The acronyms refer to the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNID0),
the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the
International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Organization for Migration
(IOM), the United Nations AIDS Programme (UNAIDS), and the United Nations Fund for
Population Activities (UNFPA).
23. 'Programul Phare al Uniunii Europene in Romania' (European Commission Delegation in
Romania, Bucharest, Aug. 1996).
24. 'Europe and Central Asia Brief: Romania' (Washington: World Bank, Sept. 1997); 'World
Bank Resident Mission Romania Projects Portfolio' (Bucharest, Nov. 1997).
25. Bucarest Matin (13 May 1997), p.2; http://www.guv.ro/english/news/13mai97.html.
26. http://www/guv.ro/english/news/a8mai97.html.
27. I. Jelev, 'Environmental Issues in Romania and Its European Integration', Romanian Journal
of International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), p.191.
28. http://www.undp.ro/new-progr.html.
29. See B. Hettne, 'The Double Movement: Global Market versus Regionalism', in R.W. Cox
(ed.), The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order (Tokyo: United
Nations University Press, 1997), pp.223-42.
30. A. Năstase, 'The Parliamentary Dimension of the European Integration', Romanian Journal
of International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), p.24.
31. Ibid, pp.24-5.
32. I. Iliescu, 'Romania and the European Integration', Romanian Journal of International
 GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: ROMANIA 77

Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), p.4.

33. G. Prisăcaru, 'The National Strategy Preparing Romania's Accession to the European
Union', Romanian Journal of International Affairs, Vol.2, No.4 (1996), pp.31-55.
34. Ibid.
35. Democracy in Romania: Assessment Mission Report (Stockholm: International IDEA,
1997), pp.xxxiv-xxxvi; http://www.guv.ro/english/news/13mai97.html.
36. C. Merkel, 'The Development of Civil Society', in Democracy in Romania, p.88.
37. NGO Forum: Developing the Civil Society in Romania (Bucharest: International Foundation
for Electoral Systems, 1994).
38. Non-Governmental Organizations Directory Romania 1994 (Bucharest: Soros Foundation
for an Open Society - Romania, 1994).
39. Verdery, op. cit., pp.91, 252.
40. T. Carothers, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania (Washington, DC:
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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996); 'Asistena Acordată României 1998'
[USAID Romania programme brochure].
41. Gallagher, op. cit., pp.131, 133.
42. Interview with Dana Diaconu, consultant to Phare-Romania on NGOs, March 1998;
'Programul Phare', p. 14; project listings for 1995-97 provided to the author by the Bucharest
PHARE office.
43. Democracy in Romania, op. cit
44. 'Programul Phare', op. cit., p.17.
45. 'World Bank Romania Projects Portfolio', p.27; author's interview with Roberto Figueredo,
USAID Romania, March 1998.
46. Carothers, op. cit., p.23; Figueredo interview.
47. Carothers, op. cit, p.91.
48. Author's lecture, May 1997.
49. Author's interviews.
50. For example, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (adopted in 1976 and
subsequently reviewed three times); the UN Restrictive Practices Code of 1980; and the
moribund draft code of conduct produced by the United Nations Centre on Transnational
Corporations.
51. For rare exceptions, see W.E. Connolly, 'Democracy and Territoriality', Millennium, Vol.20
(1991), pp.463-84; R.J.B. Walker, 'On the Spatiotemporal Conditions of Democratic
Practice', Alternatives, Vol.16 (1991), pp.243-62; D. Held, Democracy and the Global
Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1995).